Good Japanese, Bad Japanese

So I got my JLPT results today:

Vocabulary/Kanji: 73 out of 100
Listening: 81 out of 100
Reading/Grammar: 133 out of 200

Final result is that I passed lv 2. The above results are a bit surprising, I was pretty sure that I would go better in Vocabulary/Kanji than the other two parts of the test. Also, the result for the reading grammar test is strange, given that I didn’t answer about 25% of the test due to the time. Unless they normalize for unanswered questions, which is unlikely, it means that I got about 90% right in it, which I do not believe.

Anyway, according to the certificate I recieved, I now “Know about 1000 kanji and 6000 words, and has the ability of converse, read and write about matters of a general nature”. I seriously doubt that, specially the 1000 kanji and 6000 word part, but such is the nature of proficience tests. It is good to know that I passed it without studying at all, though (for the test, I mean).

I should be proud about my japanese, but I really ain’t. Yesterday I had an “examination” which was much more real and much more accurate of my current level. I had to write about half a page about my research activities in the last year for a semi-official report to the international office in Tokyo university.

Now I realize I’ve been really slacking off in my regular japanese study schedule, for I couldn’t get coherent words to form in those 4 paragraphs, and i could only cringe at the final result. While I get plenty of chances to practice japanese dialogue with the folks in the lab, and write/read quite my share of short e-mails in japanese, I see that I’m missing on the practice of writing anything longer than a paragraph. Time to catch up.

After I finish my 16 item long todo list -_-…

Cheers, and I promise pictures for next post!

8 Responses to “Good Japanese, Bad Japanese”

  1. Chaminda Says:

    Congrats! Level 2 is considered pretty tough. And your Japanese is much better than that of many others.

    For me, I dream of writing a one-page paper in Japanese to the IEICE 2006 confernce (this is the only one I know that allows a 1-page paper. Anything longer than that will be too ambitious.

  2. Chaminda Says:

    Congrats! Level 2 is considered pretty tough. And your Japanese is much better than that of many others.

    For me, I dream of writing a one-page paper in Japanese to the IEICE 2007 confernce (this is the only one I know that allows a 1-page paper. Anything longer than that will be too ambitious.

  3. eri Says:

    meus parabéns, tchongo :) sabia que passaria :)
    deveria me ouvir mais e duvidar menos de minhas palavras :) lembre-se que sou eu que tenho a bola de cristal e não vc…
    bjs

  4. mom Says:

    parabens lalo! e nao seja tao exigente consigo mesmo!!! :)

  5. Igor Sanada Says:

    Eh… eu tambem acho que esses testes nao necessariamente mostram o nivel real de japones de uma pessoa. Exemplos faceis sao pessoas que estudam intensivamente pro JPLT e passam, mas nao conseguem desenvolver nada com a lingua (eu antes de vir pro Japao) ou pessoas que se desesperam em testes, apesar de ter certa fluencia na lingua.

    Por essas e outras eu nao concordo muito com uma certa fixacao que vejo aqui com os testes de ingles (eiken e toeic geralmente)… Prefiro ver a proficiencia como o nivel em que a pessoa eh capaz de se comunicar naquela lingua… Mas eh como a vestibular, medicoes sao necessarias, apesar de nem sempre justas.

    De qualquer forma, parabens por ter passado no nivel 2… e ainda sem estudar! Em ultimo caso, se vc preferir nao atribuir isso ao seu nivel de japones (embora eu ache que ele tem um papel importante na historia), atribua a sua capacidade de “chutometro”…

  6. Neo Says:

    Urayamashii~~~

    Haah I hope I can pass my ikkyu…

  7. Shizuka Says:

    Omedetou !!
    Caramba,… sem estudar foi muuuito bem !!
    Bjos
    Shi

  8. silviayt Says:

    おめでとう、
    頑張った。お疲れ様でした。
    Parabens!!!
    Ta podendo, hein mestre… Sem estudar?!?! Genio eh assim mesmo ;-). E deixa de ser modesto que o seu nivel de japones eh muito bom… Voce tem o nivel e pronto!! Talvez seja falta de pratica de escrever, coisa que eu tambem sinto falta. E com essa historia de celular que prediz o que vc vai escrever e o computador que advinha o kanji, a gente acaba aprendendo e praticando menos!!!

    Beijos, ate o ikkyu deste ano!!

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"Muad'Dib learned rapidly because his first training was in how to learn. And the first lesson of all was the basic trust that he could learn. It's shocking to find how many people do not believe they can learn, and how many more believe learning to be difficult. Muad'Dib knew that every experience carries its lesson."
from The Humanity of Muad'Dib by the Princess Irulan