Henrik Falck's blog

I didn’t really write anything about my progress with studying for this year’s JLPT1 (Japanese Language Proficiency Test, Level 1) since after I took the first mock test in August. As I mentioned before, my goal was to pass with a good score, meaning at least 80% (passing score is 70%).

So how did the studying go? Well, decently good but not as good as I had hoped. For a while during fall I slowed down a bit (but never stopped) due to external issues. I kept reading books and listening to the radio, of course, to get continuous Japanese language input.

The weekend two weeks before the test, which was a three day weekend in Japan, I spent almost all days studying grammar. I was going through the Kanzen Master grammar book, reading every grammar item, the example sentences, and did all the exercises, in order basically.

Then I took the week before the test off, using my precious remaining paid holidays, in order to cram the last bits and pieces. Actually that was mostly vocabulary, but I also reviewed grammar, reading (the Unicom reading comprehension book), and listening (Unicom listening comprehension book).

I also entered the word lists I had gathered over the last year into Anki, and slashed the default intervals by at least a factor of 10 in order to cram the 755 words I knew I should but didn’t know. I had tried Anki before but was too appalled by the UI (I still am, and the fact that it’s slower than Java at starting up even on a dual core 2 gig machine), and a bit sceptical to using a computer for learning (yeah, feel free to not consider me Generation Y), but in the end I overcame this and it turned out pretty well, although I’d really recommend using Anki the way it’s intended to be used – which is as spaced repetition for long periods of time, not cramming. (It’s actually got a “cram mode” but I found that pretty useless – slashing the intervals proved to be better.)

Anyway, about a month before the test I did the writing/vocabulary part of a mock test and got pretty much the same result as before – even slightly lower – with 80% on kanji and 60% on vocabulary compared to 82% and 64% before. I don’t know why it was lower, maybe just random disturbance. However, when I did the rest of the mock test about a week before the real test, I had 82% on the listening (up from 72%), 74% on the reading (up from 68%), and a whopping 89% on the grammar (up from 78%). So the intense grammar studies had clearly paid off. Remember that the grammar section takes 20 minutes – 11% – of the test time, but still account for 25% of the score, and is the easiest section to cram.

So in total I had 78% on the second mock test – even though I did the vocabulary part before cramming vocabulary – so in the end, the forecast is looking good. When I took level 2 I had 65% on the mock test a week before, and ended up getting 81% on the real one, so I think I pull myself together when it’s for real too…

But I also think I was a little bit unlucky with some of the content that the real test covered. There were some topics appearing especially on the first part where my vocabulary is lacking. But even allowing for a 5% lower score due to that, it’s likely to be a pass, but may be closer to 70% than 80%, which I consider to be the lowest acceptable score. If I don’t reach that, I’ll probably do the test again soon.

Anyway, from this peroid of intensive study, I can at least draw these conclusions:

• Exercise books are good for self study. For some reason I had a lot of books, some of which I even read frequently, that included exercises, but I never did the exercises. The Kanzen Master books for instance are good, and the Unicom listening comprehension book. I guess if you follow their recipe of doing one chapter per day then you’ll be in good shape for the JLPT.

  Maybe it was because I was introduced to them as part of classes that I got off on a bad start. Doing exercises is good for your memory. I’ll definitely finish the kanji part of the Kanzen Master book too – I didn’t do that because my kanji skills are already good enough for the test.

• Use a computer program for vocabulary training! I have to admit I was being foolish not to do this from the start. After having used Anki for a few weeks now I realize how much simpler studying vocabulary has become. Especially using the synchronization feature I can keep my vocabulary synced between home and work (I often add work-related words). Also the fact that the software keeps track of which items need attention is very convenient.

So now we just have to wait for the score? No, now we keep on studying. All this studying has reminded me of how fun it is both to study and to learn, and not to mention the greatness of being able to communicate and read books in Japanese. Fortunately, there is still more to learn.