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I can't wait for the JLPT to be over.
I'm going to fail. I can't decide whether this bothers me because I think the JLPT in itself is not the actual goal for me, or because I probably could have studied a lot harder for it this year?
I have, however, been cramming quite a bit the last few weeks, and today the only thing I did all day, for the most part, was take two practice exams for it. They weren't actual past exams, they were from that Unicom "Find out your strengths and weaknesses" book. (I'm out of past exams, having done 2004-2006, and didn't feel like spending money on any more, plus the nearby bookstore only has the July 2009 one anyway.) And well, I did TERRIBLE. REALLY bad. I'd been getting around 50-55% on the past exams from the 2004-2006 period, but WTF, with this one I seriously got scores more like 35-40%. You need 65% to pass. So either the test has changed in the past 3 years enough so that I'm truly unprepared, or this book is designed to be really tough and make you think you suck at Japanese so you buy their other books, or... I don't know. Maybe I do just suck. One of the annoying things is that only being able to listen to the listening test parts one time is REALLY killing me. I know that even in English class at school, I sometimes can't pick up all of the necessary details on the first listen with the passages they play, and I'm a freaking native speaker!
But yeah, so I spent the afternoon doing one test. Went to McDonald's and sat there for a while (the reason I went there was infact BECAUSE I knew I could sit there for a while) eating something for dinner and grading the test and reading their explanations of why I suck and looking up some grammar stuff. Ugh. Then went to Ito Yokado for a brief grocery grab, and then came home, relaxed for a little while, and then started in on another practice test. This one sucked even worse.
I'm not sure what the right thing to do is. I almost don't even want to go take the test tomorrow, but that is a bad idea.
I think what I need to do is actually find a Japanese school and enroll in actual classes next year (somewhere preferably not ridiculously expensive), or at least find some way to make sure I learn this stuff. I am obviously not picking up on a lot of these random grammar points by listening to normal conversation (infact, I am fairly sure a lot of the shit on this test doesn't get USED in normal conversation) so it seems that yeah, maybe I either need to study specifically for the freaking test the way Japanese people study English only for the purpose of taking the TOEIC/Eiken/TOEFL/whatever, or I need to give up on the JLPT and find some other way to achieve my language goal, which is really just, I want to really be able to talk to people, without always being like "wait, I didn't understand that word" or "wait, I have no fucking clue what you're saying". I hate the idea that I might not be smart enough to achieve that, or not have the innate language ability. If anything, it might just be my plateau problem that I encounter with, well, EVERYTHING I do.
Alternate plan is, of course, to take the pre-2 exam next year, since they're finally adding a step between 3 and 2. 3-kyu is ridiculously easy for me now, 2-kyu is still impossible, so maybe that means the pre-2 will be just right? Who knows.
Anyway, tomorrow afternoon I will be finished sitting for this stupid test and then I can go back to ordinary life, whatever that means. At least I can write some about this week and go back to things I need to do like planning to take a trip to the US this winter, and searching for a new job and all that stuff.
Oh, and even better, I definitely have some kind of cold. Bit of a sore throat, been sniffly all day, etc. This bites since I swear I just got over another cold a few days ago.
I have, however, been cramming quite a bit the last few weeks, and today the only thing I did all day, for the most part, was take two practice exams for it. They weren't actual past exams, they were from that Unicom "Find out your strengths and weaknesses" book. (I'm out of past exams, having done 2004-2006, and didn't feel like spending money on any more, plus the nearby bookstore only has the July 2009 one anyway.) And well, I did TERRIBLE. REALLY bad. I'd been getting around 50-55% on the past exams from the 2004-2006 period, but WTF, with this one I seriously got scores more like 35-40%. You need 65% to pass. So either the test has changed in the past 3 years enough so that I'm truly unprepared, or this book is designed to be really tough and make you think you suck at Japanese so you buy their other books, or... I don't know. Maybe I do just suck. One of the annoying things is that only being able to listen to the listening test parts one time is REALLY killing me. I know that even in English class at school, I sometimes can't pick up all of the necessary details on the first listen with the passages they play, and I'm a freaking native speaker!
But yeah, so I spent the afternoon doing one test. Went to McDonald's and sat there for a while (the reason I went there was infact BECAUSE I knew I could sit there for a while) eating something for dinner and grading the test and reading their explanations of why I suck and looking up some grammar stuff. Ugh. Then went to Ito Yokado for a brief grocery grab, and then came home, relaxed for a little while, and then started in on another practice test. This one sucked even worse.
I'm not sure what the right thing to do is. I almost don't even want to go take the test tomorrow, but that is a bad idea.
I think what I need to do is actually find a Japanese school and enroll in actual classes next year (somewhere preferably not ridiculously expensive), or at least find some way to make sure I learn this stuff. I am obviously not picking up on a lot of these random grammar points by listening to normal conversation (infact, I am fairly sure a lot of the shit on this test doesn't get USED in normal conversation) so it seems that yeah, maybe I either need to study specifically for the freaking test the way Japanese people study English only for the purpose of taking the TOEIC/Eiken/TOEFL/whatever, or I need to give up on the JLPT and find some other way to achieve my language goal, which is really just, I want to really be able to talk to people, without always being like "wait, I didn't understand that word" or "wait, I have no fucking clue what you're saying". I hate the idea that I might not be smart enough to achieve that, or not have the innate language ability. If anything, it might just be my plateau problem that I encounter with, well, EVERYTHING I do.
Alternate plan is, of course, to take the pre-2 exam next year, since they're finally adding a step between 3 and 2. 3-kyu is ridiculously easy for me now, 2-kyu is still impossible, so maybe that means the pre-2 will be just right? Who knows.
Anyway, tomorrow afternoon I will be finished sitting for this stupid test and then I can go back to ordinary life, whatever that means. At least I can write some about this week and go back to things I need to do like planning to take a trip to the US this winter, and searching for a new job and all that stuff.
Oh, and even better, I definitely have some kind of cold. Bit of a sore throat, been sniffly all day, etc. This bites since I swear I just got over another cold a few days ago.
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Ding!
Half of it does get used in literature, though.
When I was studying for the JLPT2 I also did rather worse on the fake exams than the real ones. I suspect they include a lot more problem points in them, on the idea that if you get them then you'll probably get the arbitrary subset that also shows up on the real test.
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Pre-2 (they're going to call it 3, and rename 3 -> 4 and 4 ->5) is where I probably would be if I wanted to take the test with a minimal amount of studying. I actually am waiting for the JLPT test to be re-done and new study books to come out.