Here is a post I made about the JLPT on Facebook I've heard people talk… - Feed Post by wigglysquire
Here is a post I made about the JLPT on Facebook
I've heard people talk about the JLPT having many useless things to study for, like grammar points and vocab that will rarely be encountered in daily conversation. Some people down play the exam as unnecessary because it only tests the ability to understand the language, not to produce it. And I've heard other negative things. While all of it may be true to some extent, there are way more useful things that are learned on the path to N1 than there are useless things.
I'm learning aspects of casual conversation from my N1 textbooks that I would never pick up otherwise. I'm noticing N1 grammar points in people's conversations, when watching anime, and when reading real material that isn't out of a textbook. The gaps are starting to fill in where before I would only know the vocab of a spoken sentence but I couldn't get all the nuances of the meaning because of the grammar. If someone can pass N1 then they have all the tools and foundations necessary to reach full fluency in speaking and reading. If someone can't pass N1 then they are lacking somewhere and need to hit the textbooks again. That's all there is to it, all excuses aside.
I still have a ways to go and some days are really disheartening and make me want to just give up, pack my bags, and go home. But what keeps me going are the successful days when the effects of my hard work are realized. And I know that with more progress comes more frequent occurrences and higher levels of success.
Passing N1 is just the beginning and merely a benchmark, not an end goal. After that learners of the Japanese language can try taking the kanji kentei exams that Japanese people use to test their kanji proficiency. They can work through material used in the Japanese education system and try to reach "fluency" in writing kanji. They can take the exam that Japanese people take to become certified Japanese-English interpreters. The list is pretty much endless. While the JLPT isn't necessary for any of those examples, if someone can't pass N1 they aren't going to be very successful with things that are even more difficult. It just makes sense to use the JLPT as sort of launch pad to jump off into the realm of Japanese fluency.
I've heard people talk about the JLPT having many useless things to study for, like grammar points and vocab that will rarely be encountered in daily conversation. Some people down play the exam as unnecessary because it only tests the ability to understand the language, not to produce it. And I've heard other negative things. While all of it may be true to some extent, there are way more useful things that are learned on the path to N1 than there are useless things.
I'm learning aspects of casual conversation from my N1 textbooks that I would never pick up otherwise. I'm noticing N1 grammar points in people's conversations, when watching anime, and when reading real material that isn't out of a textbook. The gaps are starting to fill in where before I would only know the vocab of a spoken sentence but I couldn't get all the nuances of the meaning because of the grammar. If someone can pass N1 then they have all the tools and foundations necessary to reach full fluency in speaking and reading. If someone can't pass N1 then they are lacking somewhere and need to hit the textbooks again. That's all there is to it, all excuses aside.
I still have a ways to go and some days are really disheartening and make me want to just give up, pack my bags, and go home. But what keeps me going are the successful days when the effects of my hard work are realized. And I know that with more progress comes more frequent occurrences and higher levels of success.
Passing N1 is just the beginning and merely a benchmark, not an end goal. After that learners of the Japanese language can try taking the kanji kentei exams that Japanese people use to test their kanji proficiency. They can work through material used in the Japanese education system and try to reach "fluency" in writing kanji. They can take the exam that Japanese people take to become certified Japanese-English interpreters. The list is pretty much endless. While the JLPT isn't necessary for any of those examples, if someone can't pass N1 they aren't going to be very successful with things that are even more difficult. It just makes sense to use the JLPT as sort of launch pad to jump off into the realm of Japanese fluency.
posted by wigglysquire
Comments 5
Thanks for sharing this, wiggly. I fully agree with what you said. I actually haven't heard of negative comments about JLPT, so this was quite an eye-opener.
Nice reading about someone that is this far away in the learning of 日本語!
I'm taking N5 this year, so really a long way to go, but I'm looking forward to discover more and more about the japanese language.
がんばりましょう! ೕ(•̀ᴗ•́)
- Do your best, Yoshipon! Fight-o! 💪
You write it so easy like it is how it normally works. But it is not that simple and many people give up pretty fast. This language is crazy, so it’s nearly impossible to do it. Even JLPT N5 is not easy. I know people that live in Japan for 5-6 year can’t get N2. According to your article it is the same like to tell a high school student, that you know to be a professor at the University or a professional football player or basketball and so on is pretty simple and you can do this. Of course, there are many of them, but compare them to the whole population and you will see that you can simply write their names to the red book. Same is here. To get a really high level, it needs nearly 10 years of hard study. And no result, because crazy Japanese will decline every level, unless it will be N1. For the rest of normal people, that I think are most of the people who study japenese that is simply impossible. I mean people that are not like Einstein, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates ... and many other scientists. And they don’t have time, money, patience to study Japanese fo a 10 years and only then, wait ... study Japanese again!!!
@DragonR33DE, I didn't intend to make it sound easy. I have given up several times myself, a mistake I will never repeat again. One main point of my post was that if you keep studying hard enough and long enough, eventually things will start to get easier and the hard work will pay off.
If someone lived in Japan for 5-6 years and can't pass N2 they must have spent only 2-4 hours a week studying. I've met people who pass N1 in 2 years or less of living in Japan with little prior experience in the language. It's all up to how much you are willing to work for your goals.
