Passed N1 on my 5th Attempt!!! やったぞ！
Vocab/Grammar: 40/60
Reading : 38/60
Listening : 43/60
Total 121/180
Same as erlog
Vocab/Grammar: 40/60
Reading : 38/60
Listening : 43/60
Total 121/180
Same as erlog
2012-09-03, 1:09 am
atreya Wrote:Passed N1 on my 5th Attempt!!! やったぞ！Awesome job. All that matters is that you finally got it. Failure is the reason why we succeed. I'm planning on taking it this December (first attempt). Got any tips for a first-timer?
Vocab/Grammar: 40/60
Reading : 38/60
Listening : 43/60
Total 121/180
Same as erlog
2012-09-03, 5:12 am
Be sure to BRING.A.WATCH
I was stupid enough to mark the answers I thought were correct before passing them to the answer sheet, but ran out of time xD
This year I'll take the N1 for the second time.
I was stupid enough to mark the answers I thought were correct before passing them to the answer sheet, but ran out of time xD
This year I'll take the N1 for the second time.
Edited: 2012-09-03, 5:16 am
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2012-09-03, 5:36 am
We have a big clock on the wall+the nice organizer ladies draw a circle and announce us whenever a quarter of the time has passed. I guess it depends on the exam location.
2012-09-03, 7:00 am
Zgarbas Wrote:We have a big clock on the wall+the nice organizer ladies draw a circle and announce us whenever a quarter of the time has passed. I guess it depends on the exam location.I see, in my case the one in charge of our class (who was japanese) only announced the last 5 minutes.
2012-09-03, 8:24 am
ta12121 Wrote:I really feel like a huge burden has been taken off my shoulders. Now I can work more on improving my business Japanese skills and learn finance/economics related Japanese to improve my interpretation skills during board meetings.atreya Wrote:Passed N1 on my 5th Attempt!!! やったぞ！Awesome job. All that matters is that you finally got it. Failure is the reason why we succeed. I'm planning on taking it this December (first attempt). Got any tips for a first-timer?
Vocab/Grammar: 40/60
Reading : 38/60
Listening : 43/60
Total 121/180
Same as erlog
I don't have any tips per se. But I can share about how I prepared for the Exam.
I work as a professional translator and interpreter, so the Listening section wasn't a big problem to begin with as I was doing a lot of that at work and listening to podcasts and online radio apart from that. All I did was practice a few mock tests on the listening section before the exam. As for Kanji, Vocab, I never really memorized any word lists, I just made sure to memorize whatever new vocab that I came across while reading online newspapers, while doing translation of company e-mails etc. Reading comprehension was where I really sucked, so I made sure to practice a lot of mock tests to improve my reading speed and of course I took some online classes as well. Yea I guess that's about it. Hope that helped.
Hint666 Wrote:Didn't fill the password form :/. What to do?Then you just have to wait till the host institution in your country gets the official mark sheet and certificates from Japan Foundation which would be around 2nd week of September I think.
Edited: 2012-09-03, 8:26 am
2012-09-03, 9:12 am
atreya Wrote:I'm kinda ignorant about JLPT questions, but you work as a professional translator and interpreter and you got about two third of the listening? I don't get it, please explain.atreya Wrote:Passed N1 on my 5th Attempt!!! やったぞ！I don't have any tips per se. But I can share about how I prepared for the Exam.
Vocab/Grammar: 40/60
Reading : 38/60
Listening : 43/60
Total 121/180
Same as erlog
I work as a professional translator and interpreter, so the Listening section wasn't a big problem to begin with as I was doing a lot of that at work and listening to podcasts and online radio apart from that. All I did was practice a few mock tests on the listening section before the exam. As for Kanji, Vocab, I never really memorized any word lists, I just made sure to memorize whatever new vocab that I came across while reading online newspapers, while doing translation of company e-mails etc. Reading comprehension was where I really sucked, so I made sure to practice a lot of mock tests to improve my reading speed and of course I took some online classes as well. Yea I guess that's about it. Hope that helped.
2012-09-03, 10:08 am
@undead_saif
What do you want me to explain about exactly? You do know how the marking system has changed for the new pattern right? You may get 60/60 even after making a mistake or get 45/60 for just making 2 mistakes. You should read up about Item Response Theory.
For the record, I got 60/60 in the listening section N1 test I took in July 2011, 40/60 in vocab/grammar, but just 6/60 in reading and failed the test even though I got 106/180.
Besides just because I work as an interpreter/translator doesn't mean I should get a perfect 60/60 in listening. It's a exam, and people make mistakes no matter how good they are!
What do you want me to explain about exactly? You do know how the marking system has changed for the new pattern right? You may get 60/60 even after making a mistake or get 45/60 for just making 2 mistakes. You should read up about Item Response Theory.
For the record, I got 60/60 in the listening section N1 test I took in July 2011, 40/60 in vocab/grammar, but just 6/60 in reading and failed the test even though I got 106/180.
Besides just because I work as an interpreter/translator doesn't mean I should get a perfect 60/60 in listening. It's a exam, and people make mistakes no matter how good they are!
Edited: 2012-09-03, 10:09 am
2012-09-04, 1:20 am
atreya Wrote:@undead_saifThat's why I wrote "I'm kinda ignorant about JLPT questions". Thanks for the reply!
What do you want me to explain about exactly? You do know how the marking system has changed for the new pattern right? You may get 60/60 even after making a mistake or get 45/60 for just making 2 mistakes. You should read up about Item Response Theory.
For the record, I got 60/60 in the listening section N1 test I took in July 2011, 40/60 in vocab/grammar, but just 6/60 in reading and failed the test even though I got 106/180.
Besides just because I work as an interpreter/translator doesn't mean I should get a perfect 60/60 in listening. It's a exam, and people make mistakes no matter how good they are!
2012-09-04, 2:43 am
The other thing is that the JLPT questions are lacking in context and extremely artificial. That entire listening section is drill-book fodder and meaningless. In real life you can ask someone to clarify what they mean. You don't come in during the middle of conversations. Usually the conversations apply to you directly, and so your knowledge of your situation helps out a lot. You can see people's facial expressions and hand movements in real life. If someone is talking to you about a document you can look at the document to get visual written context for what they're talking about. All of these things are just nonexistent on the test.
The other issue is that the listening questions are nowhere near native speed, and are all polite business-related, school-related, or written like radio programs. Even though they're not native speed, though, they still feel the need to try to make them challenging by stating things in really confusing ways sometimes.
They should stop pretending they actually test listening, and axe that section from the test.
My Japanese isn't anywhere near perfect, but the kind of troubles I have on the test are really specific to the test itself. I almost never have any trouble with anything in real life. Like for serious. I've talked to doctors about medical shit, interpreted for friends at doctor's offices, negotiated my cell phone contract, enjoyed tons of TV, tons of music, tons of movies, gone on dates with girls, talked about politics with elderly people, and done all manner of other nonsense in Japanese without thinking twice. That listening test on the other hand...sometimes it's just BS.
On top of all those things that are actual problems. It's really boring to take, and I end up spacing entire questions or answers. Concentrating on it is really difficult sometimes while you're just staring at your blank test book. It's so mind-numbing.
Nobody should sweat their listening score on the JLPT. You should be able to pass it if your Japanese is good enough, but the score doesn't mean anything beyond pass/fail.
The other issue is that the listening questions are nowhere near native speed, and are all polite business-related, school-related, or written like radio programs. Even though they're not native speed, though, they still feel the need to try to make them challenging by stating things in really confusing ways sometimes.
They should stop pretending they actually test listening, and axe that section from the test.
My Japanese isn't anywhere near perfect, but the kind of troubles I have on the test are really specific to the test itself. I almost never have any trouble with anything in real life. Like for serious. I've talked to doctors about medical shit, interpreted for friends at doctor's offices, negotiated my cell phone contract, enjoyed tons of TV, tons of music, tons of movies, gone on dates with girls, talked about politics with elderly people, and done all manner of other nonsense in Japanese without thinking twice. That listening test on the other hand...sometimes it's just BS.
On top of all those things that are actual problems. It's really boring to take, and I end up spacing entire questions or answers. Concentrating on it is really difficult sometimes while you're just staring at your blank test book. It's so mind-numbing.
Nobody should sweat their listening score on the JLPT. You should be able to pass it if your Japanese is good enough, but the score doesn't mean anything beyond pass/fail.
Edited: 2012-09-04, 2:49 am
2012-09-04, 2:47 am
Random question: Are they all using 標準語 with standard accents in the N1 listening? Or do they get special accents and speech types to test you out on that?
2012-09-04, 2:48 am
Zgarbas Wrote:Random question: Are they all using 標準語 with standard accents in the N1 listening? Or do they get special accents and speech types to test you out on that?標準語 all day every day 4 lyfe on JLPT because you'll never ever encounter someone speaking kansai-ben socially, on TV, or on radio or anything. Ya know, except for the part where every TV program basically has one token person with a kansai accent.
Edited: 2012-09-04, 2:49 am
2012-09-04, 2:58 am
Well then that's cool 
. Try having to do listening comprehension on a convo with a Birmingham accent like they do on the English listening exams.
Seriously. I'm always grateful that the JLPT is nothing like the language exams we have for European languages, otherwise I'd never, ever pass it.
. Try having to do listening comprehension on a convo with a Birmingham accent like they do on the English listening exams.Seriously. I'm always grateful that the JLPT is nothing like the language exams we have for European languages, otherwise I'd never, ever pass it.
2012-09-04, 7:46 am
US JLPT registration starts today. N1, take 2. Not too sure I have a chance, but I'm going to try anyway.
I'm not a huge fan of the listening section, but it's generally the easiest section for me. (But I don't have those odd kinds of conversations, either.)
I wish they'd give the whole test a good long rethink, scrap it, and come up with something fit for the 21st century. It's so outdated in format and administration, it makes me cringe.
I'm not a huge fan of the listening section, but it's generally the easiest section for me. (But I don't have those odd kinds of conversations, either.)
I wish they'd give the whole test a good long rethink, scrap it, and come up with something fit for the 21st century. It's so outdated in format and administration, it makes me cringe.
2012-09-04, 1:39 pm
I think it's 2700 words for N3 (and 6000 for N2 and 10 000 for N1), so probably not (or it would be by an extremely tight margin).
Edited: 2012-09-04, 1:50 pm
2012-09-04, 4:48 pm
I'm stumped as to whether I should take the N2 or N3. Yes I went to the sites and took the mock test and I feel like I can more or less pass N3 confidently. The N2 mock didn't go all that well but I feel I got the gist of it. Unfortunately I have school starting this week and a part-time job so I'm not sure if I could study as much as I'd want to. The difficulty of this choice is that in Chicago it's only administered in December so if I take N3 and pass it this year then I can't take N2 until next December. To me this is the biggest factor in not wanting to just be satisfied with N3.
Any advice?
Any advice?
2012-09-04, 6:59 pm
Wow you guys exaggerate.
I haven't even finished the core2k because it's boring as shit, let alone core6k and I passed N3.
I haven't even finished the core2k because it's boring as shit, let alone core6k and I passed N3.
2012-09-04, 7:04 pm
Well if a ginger passed N3 I can't very well let myself settle on N3, can I!? N2 it is.
2012-09-04, 7:14 pm
TheVinster Wrote:I'm stumped as to whether I should take the N2 or N3. Yes I went to the sites and took the mock test and I feel like I can more or less pass N3 confidently. The N2 mock didn't go all that well but I feel I got the gist of it. Unfortunately I have school starting this week and a part-time job so I'm not sure if I could study as much as I'd want to. The difficulty of this choice is that in Chicago it's only administered in December so if I take N3 and pass it this year then I can't take N2 until next December. To me this is the biggest factor in not wanting to just be satisfied with N3.No. :-( I'm in the same quandary. I think N3 is probably too easy, but I'm wondering whether N2 will be too hard. And if I don't take it this year, it's another year of waiting. I have the kanji + pronunciations (and then some), but am mainly worried about listening and the more obscure grammar points. I should give the practice test a go and see how I fair. I have a few weeks (eek!) left to decide.
Any advice?
2012-09-04, 9:20 pm
Passed N2
Total score: 130/180
Language Knowledge: 39/60
- Vocabulary: A
- Grammar: B
Reading: 31/60
Listening 60/60(!)
Total score: 130/180
Language Knowledge: 39/60
- Vocabulary: A
- Grammar: B
Reading: 31/60
Listening 60/60(!)
2012-09-04, 10:12 pm
Congrats vileru. I've decided to just suck it up and go for N2 because why settle for less? And gaiaslastlaugh if you want to make it a competition maybe we'll both succeed better, haha.
2012-09-05, 12:25 am
I am more or less in the same N2 vs. N3 boat. But since passing at least N2 is my ultimate goal, I see no reason not to take it this year. Still, I almost wish they hadn't introduced N3 since it forces me to have to make this decision.