erlog: I reached the same conclusion as an advanced-intermediate. I just didn't have enough vocabulary and enough reading practice so that I could look at one of the kakitori exercises -- even for the middle levels -- and have no idea what the word I was meant to convert to kanji meant, let alone what kanji were involved. I'm now just starting to study for 5級 and I think that was the right decision.

Yes, my kanji writing ability is awful as compared to where I'm at with reading. On the other hand, I'd much rather have the reading ability, so I count it as a decent tradeoff.

When I started with kanken, I tried to start with 4-kyuu but found that even there, my writing ability was so far behind that I couldn't hack it. So I bought one of those "questions from past tests" books for 8, 7, and 6 and went through them, and then 5 was the first actual test I took. When I returned to 4 after that it was much more manageable.

I had intended to do jun-2 this time but I don't know if I'll actually do it; I have much more on my plate this time than I did last time I was here, and I'm just more interested in working on my research than messing around with the kanken. But I may try it anyway.

An ALT in my prefecture has passed 準一級. I think he just ankied it like crazy for hours a day for around a year. But now he can write words like 薔薇 in a flash from memory.

A 薔薇 in any other script...

薔薇 is such a stereotypical "hard word" that it's one of the first things anyone who likes kanji remembers. I memorized it when I was still like JLPT4 level

KK1.5 is pretty impressive though. He should get out of ALTing.

I think he's applying for a master's in technical translation at 東大.

Well, it's one thing if you can just write 薔薇 but another if you can write pretty much all obscure trees, fruits and flowers, etc. for which kanji are rarely used anyhow.

This isnt paricularly important, but for anyone that uses Kanken DS 3: how do you view that screen with the tree and total time spent? It used to appear when I booted the game up, but now I dont see it anymore.

On the main stats screen there's a pink sakura flower on the lower left side. It's really dumb that they hid it away like that, but tapping that flower gets you there. Do note that the number of problems solved does count you seeing the same problem twice. So you can't really use it to figure a percentage completed based on the total number of problems in the software. The number of hours though, for those of us trying to track our efficiency, is pretty useful.

Well, I'll be damned. Thanks!

caivano Wrote:Currently at:
９級 134
８級 124
７級 105

９級 (pass 120) 134 -> 130
８級 (pass 120) 124 -> 131
７級 (pass 140) 105 -> 145



gonna concentrate on reviewing for a while before taking on 6.

So after reading this thread I tried my luck with KanKen 3 Deluxe and found it pretty entertaining.
I passed 10級, 9級, 8級 pretty easily, but I failed hard at the 7級 writing section.
I'm just wondering, where can I look up how many % I've covered for every level?
I don't wanna start studying for 7級 if I'm not able to write all kanjis from the first three levels.
And can I do some specific training for the ones I suck at? I find it REALLY boring to go through tons of questions having me write 木 and 水 all the time, when I really just want to practice one or two kanjis that I suck at.
Thanks

I don't think there's anywhere to look up the % kanji covered. There are some graphs but I think they're for the % of questions seen.

When you do the test you wanna check the box on the bottom right of the questions you want to practice, this will add them to your MY漢検 then go to that section later and choose the writing parts of the test.

[Katsuo]

Some info from the KanKen organization on recent changes:
General information download pdf.
Kanji split into groups for levels 10 to 2 download pdf

If you want the levels in list form, I've just updated this Google docs spreadsheet with the new data.

erlog Wrote:Study for this kind of stuff as a foreigner is tough because there's not a lot of material to go from. The drill books are all kind of predicated on the idea that you're reviewing stuff you already learned through normal schooling. The school books are all targeted at the glacial pace the Japanese school system moves at.

So I really worry about the idea of being able to learn by studying for these tests, and that's why I'm not prioritizing this as heavily as I am my reading practice.

How is this going for you? Have you started using an SRS to help you with your studying? Any specific resources that you find helpful (other than the DS game)?

edit: moved this post as per jimmyseal's suggestion

If you use the DS game along with the official Step book and past test book for the level you're taking, and drill them till you know the questions like the back of your hand (either with or without SRS), that will ensure you a [virtually] perfect score on levels 3-10. Pre-2 and 2 might require a bit more additional materials if you're shooting for an awesome score. And of course anything above that is a whole different ballgame.

JimmySeal Wrote:If you use the DS game along with the official Step book and past test book for the level you're taking, and drill them till you know the questions like the back of your hand (either with or without SRS), that will ensure you a [virtually] perfect score on levels 3-10. Pre-2 and 2 might require a bit more additional materials if you're shooting for an awesome score. And of course anything above that is a whole different ballgame.

Is it possible without the DS game? Could you just go an all-Anki route?

I haven't actually taken a kanji kentei test, but for 5kyuu, I just went through the official Step book and put every question on it into Anki, and by the time I was done I was getting (self-graded) comfortable passes on mock tests, so I think it's definitely possible.

partner55083777 Wrote:

erlog Wrote:Study for this kind of stuff as a foreigner is tough because there's not a lot of material to go from. The drill books are all kind of predicated on the idea that you're reviewing stuff you already learned through normal schooling. The school books are all targeted at the glacial pace the Japanese school system moves at.

So I really worry about the idea of being able to learn by studying for these tests, and that's why I'm not prioritizing this as heavily as I am my reading practice.

How is this going for you? Have you started using an SRS to help you with your studying? Any specific resources that you find helpful (other than the DS game)?

edit: moved this post as per jimmyseal's suggestion

I worked my way up from 10級 using just the DS game until 5級. At around 6級 the trial and error approach of attempting to learn from the game starts to become really inefficient. There's just too much material, and so at that point I started to SRS with the official KanKen Step Books. Other people may need to start SRS'ing material earlier depending on their overall Japanese level. My reading level was quite high before I started caring about KanKen.

I think it's a lot easier to pass if you do both the Step Books and the DS game. This is because the Step Books exist as a review, and aren't really designed to teach you this stuff comprehensively. The DS game, on the other hand, uses the Step Book content, but has more questions for some of the fundamental stuff they don't have space for in the books. So the two balance each other out really well. One is to teach you the majority of things, and the other is to help polish your knowledge of the edge cases.

A good example of this is radicals in the Step Book questions. It won't make sure you know the radicals of every kanji. It will assume that you know, and the Step Book questions just want to remind you of tricky ones. They also like to play silly games with different types of questions when really all you need is a question saying, "HEY! DO YOU KNOW THE RADICAL HERE?"

It's possible to do an Anki-only method, but you need to be more diligent about how you're constructing that Anki deck. You can't just put all the questions from the Step Book into Anki. If you do that then you're going to know the majority of the material, but you won't know it solidly enough to feel comfortable when it comes to taking the actual test.

That was my experience when I took 準2級, 3級, and 4級 recently. I studied for 4級 by Anki'ing all the Step Book questions, and then I covered about 35% of the 4級 material in Kanken DS3. I think that if I passed 4級 then it will be with a very very close score, and not by a wide margin at all.

Based on my experience taking the test on Sunday I've come up with a new more comprehensive study method that shouldn't really end up taking that much more time. There's a lot of questions in the Step Books that are really kind of worthless once you start approaching things more comprehensively. So the number of questions will probably balance out to be the same, but the actual content of those questions will be better.

Here's my new process for entering information into Anki from the Step Books.

1. Make an Anki card asking for the radical and radical name of every kanji in that step.
2. Input the reading cards, but reverse them so that they're 書き取り cards instead of reading cards.
3. Input the rest of step questions, but ignore the 部首 questions, 訂正 questions, and questions that ask for the production of a word out of context.
4. Make sure all the example words from the step overview are represented as 書き取り flashcards, and if they're not then pull a sentence in from somewhere like ALC, Core6k, or Kanji in Context to make into a 書き取り question.

I think using the Step Books as more of a content and sentence resource is going to be more efficient. Using this method it should be possible to clear each Step Book in 6-8 weeks.

I'm going to take 2級, 準2級, 3級, and 4級 in October, and by that time I should be able to work my way up to passes on all of them except for 2級 which I just want to take as a trial run.

I'm going to remake my Anki decks for the Step Books that I've already put in, but that's going to have to wait another week or two. Right now I'm knee deep in drilling reading for the JLPT N1 coming up on July 1st.

So...I think I might quit doing the DS game at all. The content in it is mostly a duplicate of the Step Books, and I can replicate the stuff that isn't a lot more efficiently in Anki. It was a good time waster while I was doing it, but it seems like it outstrips it's usefulness at around 4級. That could be different depending on what kind of level you come into the game with, though.

I know a bunch of people in this thread hit their wall at 6級. They didn't say they were going to stop using it, but that they needed to start relying on Anki more to make it through the material.

In the end, I know Anki works really well. I have enough example problems and material to make flashcards from already. I also would rather spend my extra free time on trains and at restaurants reading novels/manga instead of doing what are essentially extra untracked flashcard reviews.

I'd still recommend the software to people. I realize it's a lot easier for people who don't live in Japan to import a 2500円 DS game than thousands of yen worth of books.

erlog Wrote:So...I think I might quit doing the DS game at all. The content in it is mostly a duplicate of the Step Books, and I can replicate the stuff that isn't a lot more efficiently in Anki.

I passed ５級 in winter and I`m aiming for 4級 (215 days left to the exam, I might as well seriously go for the 3級 If I work hard）. Are you serious about the game? I think I`ll keep using the game for 2 reasons: studying on the book isn't that fun (it reminds me school or pre-rtk study sessions) and not having to look up answers all the answers and everything on the answer booklet is a big advantage, in terms of time and energy. Moreover I find the process of making card very time consuming. I make card only from those compounds, readings, radicals, etc. I keep getting wrong.
If you don't mind I'd like to contact you in private, as I'm curious to see how the deck you have been using looks like. I quit using anki for the KanKen when I was still preparing for the 8級 as I found the review process boring and I felt like I was getting much more from playing ひたすらにthe DS game.
Nevertheless, how you wrote, there is too much material to study. I think that I have to overcome somehow my rejection of using anki for this kind of things ;p

Shakunatz Wrote:

erlog Wrote:So...I think I might quit doing the DS game at all. The content in it is mostly a duplicate of the Step Books, and I can replicate the stuff that isn't a lot more efficiently in Anki.

I passed ５級 in winter and I`m aiming for 4級 (215 days left to the exam, I might as well seriously go for the 3級 If I work hard）.

Why don't you do 4級 for the October test, and then 3級 for the February test? They give it 3 times a year, and that would put you on the schedule you want to be on.

Shakunatz Wrote:Are you serious about the game? I think I`ll keep using the game for 2 reasons: studying on the book isn't that fun (it reminds me school or pre-rtk study sessions) and not having to look up answers all the answers and everything on the answer booklet is a big advantage, in terms of time and energy. Moreover I find the process of making card very time consuming. I make card only from those compounds, readings, radicals, etc. I keep getting wrong.

It takes a bit of time to make cards, about 40 minutes per step in the book. On weekends where I don't really have plans I'll set up at a coffee shop for like 4 hours, and make tons of cards in advance.

Shakunatz Wrote:If you don't mind I'd like to contact you in private, as I'm curious to see how the deck you have been using looks like.

The deck structure is pretty simple. My cards only really have 3 basic fields. There's question, answer, and then question type. The question types are stuff like 書き取り、類義語、対義語, 部首名と画数, etc. It just tells me what to do with the card. What comes up on the front of the card is the question type and the question. Then on the back is the question with furigana and also the answer.

I have some other fields for metadata like Level and Step. There's also the standard field for "reading" which just adds furigana to whatever's on the front of the card.

I maintain separate decks for the different step levels. It's easier to manage the reviews and track progress every day that way.

Shakunatz Wrote:I quit using anki for the KanKen when I was still preparing for the 8級 as I found the review process boring and I felt like I was getting much more from playing ひたすらにthe DS game.

Nevertheless, how you wrote, there is too much material to study. I think that I have to overcome somehow my rejection of using anki for this kind of things ;p

Anki can be boring, but the way I've structured my deck makes it fun. The variety in the different types of questions makes it feel like less of a slog. I like doing my KanKen decks way more than my sentence reading decks.

At lower levels of the test a lot of things are obvious or things you've learned before. Anki for stuff you already know IS really boring. It's better to learn stuff and make sure you've memorized things.

At higher levels it definitely becomes more efficient to just use Anki. This is because it's really hard to track progress in the game, and the number of "reviews" don't go down over time as you know the material better. If you've mastered a step, the game is still going to toss cards at you that you already know among the handful you don't know in order to fill out the rest of the practice tests. So you're going to waste a bunch of time reviewing material you're in no danger of forgetting.

If you use Anki you can feel confident you've mastered the material, and that it's okay to move on to the next step. It's really hard to have that confidence using just the game.

June KanKen Results:

4級 - Pass
3級 - 96/200
準2級 - 82/200

Passing is 140/200 for these. I did a lot better than I thought on the harder tests. Like my scores are double and triple what I'd expected. I'll have to wait until I see the score breakdown for 4級 before I make the decision of whether or not I'm going to retake it.

I'm definitely going to try out 2級 in October, though.

Congratulations!!!!!! Thanks to you, I got used to anki and (I guess) I'm making progress fast enough to try the 3級 in February, thank you very much !!!

Shakunatz Wrote:Congratulations!!!!!! Thanks to you, I got used to anki and (I guess) I'm making progress fast enough to try the 3級 in February, thank you very much !!!

I'm really glad to hear that. I was going to amend some of my advice about Anki and Kanken DS 3. There's one type of problem that the game can help you with a lot better than Anki, and that's 誤字訂正.

You're not really supposed to memorize the answers to those types of problems so practicing them in the game is probably better than practicing them in Anki. When I'm entering material from the step books I just skip those problems entirely.

I also skip all the 部首 questions because I make 部首 cards for all kanji in the level anyway.

erlog and everyone, thanks for all the advice. I've been thinking about it for a while, and I think I'm finally ready to take the plunge and buy a DS and the Kanken game. But first I have a couple questions.

1. It looks like there are two main popular 漢検 games:

漢検DS3デラックス (I think this is the game that everyone in this thread is talking about.)
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%83%AD%E3%82%...715&sr=8-1

漢検DSトレーニング
http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E3%82%A2%E3%82%...pd_cp_vg_1

Has anyone tried the second game? Should I just stick with 漢検DS3デラックス? I will be starting out at 10級 with an eventual goal of passing 準２級 or ２級.

2. I need to buy a DS, but I'm not sure which one to get. Let me start of by saying I don't really know that much about Nintendo's portable systems, so I am not sure which one to buy.

I don't want to do anything with my DS other than use this 漢検 game, so I was thinking I probably don't need a 3DS. I guess this leaves me with the choices of a normal DS, DS Lite, DSi, or DSi LL. Originally I wanted a DSi LL because it has a big screen, which it would make it easy to study the Kanji. But I've heard it is heavy. It might be difficult to hold with one hand and write with the other hand.

I'd like something that 1) has a big screen, 2) is light, and 3) is cheap. I imagine there isn't a system that fits all of these things, so I'm wondering what is everyone's suggestion between the 4 systems?

3. I'm wondering whether to buy the DS second-hand or new. I'd like something cheap (so probably second-hand), but I worry that it would have scratches on the screen which might make it harder to study. Does anyone have any suggestions/comments about this? Or possibly a recommendation for a super-cheap 中古 shop in Tokyo? Maybe I should just go with a new DS from amazon.co.jp?