JLPT level 1 2008

So 2 days ago was finally the day of the JLPT (Japanese language proficiency test), the test that's been the goal of my studies pretty much since passing level 3 of the test 1 year earlier.

I decided quite quickly to skip the level 2 and go straight for the most difficult level 1 test. It's been a really good way of motivating myself. Knowledgewise, the step from where I were by december last year until where I am right now is, if I may say it myself, freaking huge. But to achieve that I've practically been living a strictly disciplined Buddhist monk life the last 6 months. Waking up at 5 every morning, strict discipline, no blog updates, no alcohol and no sex.
....Ehm okay well that's not completely true, but I can say without exaggerating that I've been studying for about 8-10 hours per day for the last 6 months and about 10-12 hours per day pretty much 7 days per week the last 2-3 months. I guess it's because I'm that kind of person. Give me a challenge and I will do almost anything it takes to manage it.

I can honestly say that I've actually been enjoying it most of the time though. It's a nice feeling to notice how your brain quickly adopts to learning tons of new stuff every day. The problem now when the test is over is that I've fallen into some kind of weird anticlimax.
What am I supposed to do now with all my time when I don't have to study like a mad man? My brain's not used to not getting an overdose of information each day. I certainly do have tons of other stuff to do that I've put aside for many months because of my studies that I can take care of now, but it's quite simply more fun to have a goal to aim for and challenge yourself with. So in some strange way feeling kind of lost now the days after the test. It's also been a satisfying feeling over the last months how quickly I can catch up to the same level and even pass many of the Chinese and Korean students in my class, who not only comes from countries with similar languages (Korea) or already knows the kanji characters (China), but also have they been studying Japanese at university for 3-5 years, while I started studying from first beginner level slightly more than 1 and a half year.


About the test, I feel quite sure I managed to pass it, unless I messed up the columns on the answer sheets or something, who knows. The results are not made public until the middle of February and you're not allowed to bring the questions with you after the test, so it's a long wait. However the entire test and the correct answers were leaked on the Internet only a few hours after the test was finished, so had a look at it yesterday and tried to recall my answers to check up if I was correct or not.

I found the listening part of the test quite difficult, other than that the test was quite manageable I think. No part of the test was extraordinary difficult, it was pretty much in line with what I had expected. I'd say it was slightly easier than last year's test, which I did for practise about 3-4 months ago and failed with only a few points, which led me to make my monk lifestyle training even more strict.

Now it's just a long wait until the middle of February when I get the result, let's hold our thumbs that everything goes well!

Spring holiday

Alright, now I'm having spring vacation for a few weeks, so by public request (erh well not really), I'm back with a new post!

If my English (and Swedish) seems to be getting worse, then that's probably correct. Seems to be forgetting alot of words lately. Studied the Japanese word for 'kitchen sink' a couple of days ago. I had the word in English and in Japanese in my book and in my electronic dictionary, but I ended up walking around a whole day trying to figure out what a kitchen sink (流し, nagashi in Japanese) is called in Swedish. Finally the word 'diskho' popped up in my head, should be correct, right?

Anyway, this starts to occur more often recently, I also notice that I've learnt the Japanese names of many vegetables and food products, but I have actually no idea what they're called in Swedish or English or if they can even be bought in Sweden. I've also become able to cook more Japanese dishes than Swedish. In other words, I lived with mommy before moving to Japan.

I was invited to a party last week and was asked to cook some Swedish food and bring. I couldn't think of any other Swedish food than pasta and meat sauce, pasta and tomato sauce and pasta and cheese sauce, which is not really Swedish food anyway, so I ended up cooking some Japanese food instead.

That's something else always occurring lately, I'll end up talking about food constantly. Possibly if I'd have a tv at home I've become brainwashed enough to start watching the 'food porn' that's always on Japanese tv. Ehm well not really.
If anybody's coming over to Sapporo, be sure to not miss out the soup curry, a local specialty here and possibly the most tasty stuff you can find on the planet. Spicy curry soup with vegetables and usually pork or chicken.




So what's been up the last months?
I've:

• Been to Sweden for Christmas holidays and back. The most striking thing I noticed back in Sweden was the non-existing service. In Japan, as a paying customer, you're a God and will be treated that way. In Sweden, a customer is practically someone who comes in to the store and causes trouble by wanting to buy products, demand service and possibly even rude enough to ask different questions. Kind of hard to get adjusted to the Swedish service after living in Japan I think.

• Been slightly shocked by the amount of snow that's just been pouring in Sapporo constantly from November until the beginning of March. Finally most of it has melted now. The amount of snow that falls during one year in Stockholm was practically falling every week in Sapporo. Also slightly shocking to see (old) people's devotion to clear the sidewalks and entrance to their houses of snow every day. The Sapporo snow festival in February was very cool, I'll upload some photos from it next time. Also went skiing at Niseko, the most famous ski resort in Japan, last weekend and had a nice stay at an Onsen (温泉), hot spring bath, I'll post some photos from that as well, I promise. Well sorry I don't have any photos from the naked hot spring bath, but from the skiing.
  

• Managed to update my visa! Quite surprised they actually decided to allow me to stay in the country for another year, I thought I'd disappear somewhere in the bureaucracy or miss filling out one of all the piles of papers and get kicked out from the country.

• Been busy with studying kanji characters and word. Seems like that that's the big challenge now. What we study at school now is mostly reading texts. Carefully going through all the grammar and special expressions in the text in the book until hopefully at least the students that has been listening understands everything in the text. The actual reading and grammar feels like it's just getting easier and easier lately. Since we've studied all the essential basic grammar quite long ago already, it's just about adding similar expressions and different types of special expressions. Not that difficult actually. The challenge is the kanji and words that's increasing in a high tempo. Lately each chapter contains about 50-70 new words which we have 3-4 days to learn before we proceed to the next chapter with about the same amount of new words again. I certainly can't say that I manage to remember how to correctly use all the words right away and especially not how to write all the kanji characters. However, usually I can remember at least how to correctly read most of the kanji and words and understand the meaning of the words when seeing them in the text. I hope then they'll be stored somewhere in the back of my head and after hearing/seeing them in other contexts a bunch of times, I kind of get the correct usage of the words confirmed and become able to use them myself. At least that how I feel like it's working. I have kind of stopped thinking about how many kanji I've studied, the amount is not that relevant really. Because the kanji characters has tons of special readings and differing meanings from case to case, it's alot better to just try to see it as learning words, no matter if the word you're studying consists of kanji characters you've already studied or if it consists of kanji characters that are new for you, what's important is to remember how to read it correctly, the meaning and finally which kanji characters it consists of. I've found it to be an easier approach than trying to categorize the kanji 'one by one' in my head. This might have been a change in my head while getting more used to seeing and remembering the kanji characters though, I'm not sure. What's for sure though is that both me and Japanese people in general tends to forget how to write alot of kanji by hand, it's kind of quite enough to remember how to read them and the meaning of the word in a society where everyone writes on computers and mobile phones anyway.

That's it for now. I'll be back with uploading some photos from the last months sometime this week! On Saturday I'm off to Osaka.

Studying, studying

I've finished the 'beginner level' of Japanese a while ago and am an intermediate student now, which means I should know enough survive daily life, feels very good.
The new book we've started studying a month and a half ago or so actually has real texts, compared to the beginner level studies which are just basic sentences and exercises presenting the new grammar. Feels nice when you notice you can actually begin to understand real texts written in 'normal written Japanese'. Of course, the kanji characters used in the texts are only those we've studied so far, about 650 or so.

Also the listening exercise have become normal daily spoken Japanese between Japanese people. Not exactly about space science, but Japanese people speaking to friends (normal, non-polite langauge that is) is fast as hell and quite tricky since they leave out half of the words and the remaining words gets cut off halfway cause it's faster that way. The polite language and conversation between people who are not close friends is alot easier to pick up.

Took the JLPT, the Japanese language proficiency test (日本語能力試験) last week. It's the one big test for non-Japanese people used to measure Japanese language proficiency, practically necessary to take if you want to get any job where more or less advanced knowledge of the Japanese language is requred. The JLPT comes in 4 levels, where 4 is the easiest one and level 1 is the most difficult. Level 3 & 4 are quite useless, since they only cover basic Japanese. Often level 1 is required, sometimes level 2 is alright.

I took the level 3 test, which is for people who have learned all the basic Japanese required. Had previously bought the last years test and taken at home, which was very easy, I could practically nail every question on that one, with a few exceptions. This year's test was kind of in another division of trickiness though. However reaching the passing rate of 60% correct answers shouldn't be any problem though.

The JLPT is known for having quite big differences of difficulty from year to year and is said to be more difficult every other year, which seems to be quite right. Kind of like they look at the statistics for the test and notice the average score was a bit high/low this year and decide to make it more tricky/easy for the next year.

My goal right now is skipping the level 2 and going straight for the level 1 in one year from now. The level 1 is however absolutely in a class of it's own when it comes to difficulty. The level 2 is supposed to be a quite manageable test if you know Japanese quite well and the passing rate on the test is 60%. The level 1, however, is even tricky for Japanese people and requires 70% correct answers. Most people who manage it are Chinese people who already know the kanji characters, or Koreans who have a language with very similar grammar.

But on the other hand, I love challenges and I've managed to learn a big part of the necessary Japanese in 8 months and one third of the necessary kanji. Also, I'm can match any of the Asian students in my class when it comes to using grammar, so why shouldn't I be able to reach the level 1 in 12 months from now? About 1200 kanji to go... And after all, the JLPT is supposed to be easier next year. 頑張れ！

In the meantime, it's becoming increasingly difficult to remember all those not-so-often-used Swedish and English words and sometimes even in which order the words are supposed to come. I guess I'll be coming back to Sweden with mad skills in the Japanese language, but having to take a Swedish for immigrants course.

My school and some advice on studying in Japan

On request, here's a post about the school I am attending and my thoughts about it.

The name of the school is Japanese Language Institute of Sapporo, in Japanese 札幌国際日本語学院　（Sapporo kokusai nihongo gakuin), it's located close to the Maruyama park in the west of Sapporo, a few subway stops from the most central parts.
The school fee is 646,800 yen per year, which is about the same for all Japanese language schools in Japan, some are slightly cheaper and some are slightly more expensive.

There are 4 classes per day (Mon-Friday), 45 minutes each with short breaks in between. I start school at 1 o'clock in the afternoon and finish at 4.25, there are also morning classes for those who have studied a bit longer.

The pros:

The teachers are good. Of course, some are worse and some are better, but in general, they hold a good standard.

The books we use are good, a bit too much of the polite language and too little of how you actually communicate usually with friends and others of your same age, but that's the way it is at all language schools in Japan I've heard. After all, it also is very important to be polite in Japan, and you will start learning how to speak to friends as well after a couple of months. It will be a bit frustrating in the beginning though.

The cons:

When you sign the contract and accept the school's rules, it says everything you need for the course is included in the school fee, no extra purchases will be necessary. It's not entirely true. While the text/exercise book and kanji book is included, the grammar book is not, you'll have to buy it. In the first 10-15 chapters or so, the grammar is not that complicated, so you can manage with just the explanation that the teacher gives during the lessons. After that, the tempo gets a bit higher and the grammar a bit more tricky, and for me it's impossible to see how to follow without a book giving grammatical explanations in English.
The book's not that expensive though (around 2000 yen if i remember correctly), just I don't like signing a contract where it says everything's included in the school fee, but it's not.

When I started the course, the class consisted of 12-14 students, now as more people have joined, there's 20-22 students and the classroom is packed. Quite many in a small class room, a little bit tiring, but quite alright.

Finally, no soap or hand towels at the toilet at school. Sure, they want to save money, but at least soap? Even the public toilets here usually have soap.

These are no big issues to me however. I came here to learn Japanese and it's going well so far and I'm having a good time. That's what matters.

If you're from Sweden and thinking of attending the same school, one thing worth mentioning is that it really is becoming a lot of Swedes here now. When I started, we were 8 Swedes, now there's about 10-12 Swedes. Might even be the second biggest group after the Chinese students. While I don't mind Swedish people, it will be negative for your learning if you only hang out with other Swedish people after school and speak Swedish everyday.
But all that is completely up to you of course. The school provides you with good conditions for learning Japanese properly, but if you don't use the language regularly outside of school, it will take a lot longer time to learn and will be easier to forget. Your brain will not start thinking in the Japanese language.

So my advice is, go out to the bar, have a few beers and forget that you can hardly speak Japanese. Meet some Japanese people, make friends and use those few words that you have learned. Another good idea is to meet a Japanese girl/boyfriend.

If you're a shy person that feels very worried about trying to speak in a language you just started learning and tends to take the safe alternatives, like speaking those languages you already know, I would say the best thing is to specifically search for a school where there's no one who speaks your language. The smaller towns in Japan probably have less western students and the Asian students usually don't speak English well, and certainly not Swedish..

Useful links for searching language schools in Japan.
http://www.aikgroup.co.jp/j-school/index.htm
http://www.nisshinkyo.org/ (Click top left corner for English language).