{"id":1172,"date":"2012-06-17T19:14:26","date_gmt":"2012-06-17T10:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/life-in-japan\/?p=1172"},"modified":"2012-06-17T19:14:26","modified_gmt":"2012-06-17T10:14:26","slug":"are-you-smarter-than-a-sixth-grader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/?p=1172","title":{"rendered":"Are you smarter than a sixth grader?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m not sure if I’ve talked about it much in the past, but ever since coming to Japan, I’ve been taking the\u00a0JLPT<\/a>, which is the government-sponsored Japanese Language Proficiency Test at every chance. It’s offered twice a year and has five levels, 5 being to lowest and 1 being the highest \u00a0(don’t ask; that’s how most Japanese tests work). It tests grammar, vocabulary, listening, and kanji ability. There are no speaking or writing components, so that makes it a little easier, but it’s also a ~3 hour endeavor, so.. yeah. I’m sure you can imagine how much fun that is. The passing rate for level 1 is 30.5%. Did I mention it’s hard?<\/p>\n

Anyway, I was busy with job-hunting last year, so I don’t know if I mentioned it, but I finally passed level 1 last summer. In fact, I got my passing notification the same day I got my contract for signing. Not a bad day, I have to say!<\/p>\n

Needless to say, it was a pretty awesome feeling to finally finish the proficiency test I had devoted two and a half years to (I started at level 2, finally got that, then the test was revamped to be more difficult. I passed level 1 on my.. third try?), but it was also a little disappointing to have that goal no longer there to reach for. What went from an impossible task that I literally spent 2 hours studying for every single day<\/em>\u00a0for 9 months (the people at the coffee shop knew me by name) was now nothing but one sentence on my resume. It’s kinda like graduating from university: you spend 4 years on this, graduate, and then…?<\/p>\n

So anyway!\u00a0With the start of the new year, that brought up the interesting question of what I should do now to keep studying Japanese. Obviously, I read novels in Japanese and watch tv and movies in my free time, but there really is something to be said for motivation if you’ve got a test you’ve paid for and have pass\/fail hanging over your head.<\/p>\n

Enter KanKen<\/strong>! Or, the kanji kentei<\/a><\/em>. This is a test for native Japanese to test their knowledge of kanji. There are 12 levels, from 10 to 1 (yes, I can count. There’s also a Pre-2<\/em>\u00a0and Pre-1<\/em>, which makes 12) with 1 being highest again. This requires not only knowing the kanji (to pass the other test, you have to read at a high school graduate level), but how to write them, what components they’re made up of, the names of the components, and all sorts of stuff that probably isn’t useful in day to day life. Today, I just got back from taking my test, level 5, which covers all the characters that one would learn through elementary school. Yes, I got to play out a real-life “Are You Smarter than a Sixth Grader?”<\/p>\n

This may seem a bit odd, as I just mentioned that previous tests required knowing all high school kanji, I’m sure it seems a bit odd to have to take on elementary school characters. But again, there’s a big difference between reading and writing, and all the pointless other stuff you need to know. It’s kinda like reading and spelling in English. How’d I do? I won’t get the results for another week or so, but I feel good about it and think I passed. If I did, I’ll try level 4 next time or redo 5 if I didn’t.<\/p>\n

Alas, since I am one of those weird people who likes taking tests, I don’t have much time to worry about the next Japanese test. I’ve recently learned that there are proficiency tests for the Microsoft Office programs (Word, Excel, Access, etc.) which I use a lot in my day to day life at work. I’m pretty decently versed in the programs and tasks I do daily, but it can’t hurt to be better. So! I’ve got about a month or two of studying Microsoft Excel. Who’s having fun??<\/p>\n

In other news? Not much has changed recently; things have lightened up a bit and I’m not quite<\/em>\u00a0as busy, though free time is still kinda limited. I’ll be going to Kyoto next weekend to visit an ex-student of mine (she’s a senior in university now and will be an English teacher next year. Things have come full circle!) and visit some temples. I’ll be sure to take pictures!<\/p>\n

Well, it’s about time for me to finish up my weekend. I’m sure I’ll have some exciting shortly. Mmm.. spreadsheets and kanji!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m not sure if I’ve talked about it much in the past, but ever since coming to Japan, I’ve been taking the\u00a0JLPT, which is the government-sponsored Japanese Language Proficiency Test at every chance. It’s offered twice a year and has five levels, 5 being to lowest and 1 being the highest \u00a0(don’t ask; that’s how most Japanese tests work). It tests grammar, vocabulary, listening, and kanji ability. There are no speaking or writing components, so that makes it a little easier, but it’s also a ~3 hour endeavor, so.. yeah. I’m sure you can imagine how much fun that . . . → Read More: Are you smarter than a sixth grader?<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1173,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions\/1173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.jrem.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}