Japanese Test

Posted by: yearofthedog on: December 18, 2008

• In: Japan | japanese | learning | Life | study | test
• 2 Comments

     On December 7th, 2008 I took level one of the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test).  I tried to study a little bit the day before, but I wasn’t really into it. I figured no sense trying to cram a years worth of studying into 1 day. I read over a few things, just hoping it might help me the next day and then I played video games and watched movies until one or two in the morning. My neighbor was also up late practicing his hyena impersonation. He didn’t stop until sometime after 4:30. I wanted to go over there and kick his door down and make him shut up, but I didn’t. I managed to wake up at 8:30. I didn’t feel too tired so I got out of bed and got ready to go to KyuSanDai to take the test. I road my bike to the station, but the train I need to catch would get me there too late. So I took a take. The taxi cost me 1,050 yen. The train would have cost me 180 yen. It’s a five minute taxi ride at most.

     This time I knew what to expect. The university was full of Chinese and Korean students. In my exam room there were only two other non-asian guys. A white guy of about thirty-five or forty and a young black guy with a nose ring that looked like it belonged to a bull. In front of me and behind me were Koreans. To my left and right were Chinese. My test proctors were Japanese of course. The head lady in the room spoke in very deliberate Japanese. Making clear pauses inbetween the words which kind of made me angry a little. I mean we are taking level one, the most difficult level of all. Why should she dumb down her Japanese so much. Don’t—open—-test—until—we—say—start. I can understand talking like that for the low levels, but not for level one.

     I took the test. The kanji and vocabulary section was stupid hard for me. Next was listening. It wasn’t as hard as I would have expected. The reading and grammar was hard, but not near as hard as the kanji section. I answered every question and did my best.  During the listening section the CD skipped several times and everyone thought they would go back and replay those parts. Nope. They told us, “If you have a problem with the way we do things, write a letter to headquarters. Those are the rules.” Nobody wrote a letter or at leastI didn’t write them a letter. I just sent them a change of address. I’m going back to America.

Tags: chinese, japanese test, JLPT, koreans, test proctors