I FINALLY received my JLPT results...

こんばんわ！

Well, I have FINALLY received my JLPT results, the exam that I took in December, on Friday so at least I know how well my studies have been going. And after much anticipation I can reveal to you....

JLPT N5 done

Hello All,

Just thought I would update my blog whilst waiting for my train (just missed one by about 30seconds and now have to wait 30mins for the next one due to Sunday service...). As the title of this blog suggests, I have just come out from my JLPT N5 examination and I feel slightly positive about it.

For those that don't know, the JLPT is an examination on your understanding of the Japanese language. There are 3 sections to this test, vocabulary, grammar, and listening.
The first section I found really easy, as it was effectively just a test of your kanji knowledge, which I have gotten really good at.
The second section tested your knowledge of Japanese sentence structure and particles. This onee I found a bit more difficult than the first section and by the end I was almost guessing the ones I weren't sure on (it's a multiple choice examination with generally 4 choices per question, had a good chance of getting it right lol).
The last section was a whole lot harder than I had anticipated. The language used seemed higher than JLPT N5 to me, but I may be wrong. There were a few easy questions there, and then I just tried my hardest to have an educated guess at the rest lol.

Unfortunately I won't find out until March 2012 if I passed, and I'm hoping the questions I was confident on are enough to get me through. Either way I'm going to take a few well deserved days off from studying and then prepare for JLPT N4 next year.

JLPT5 booked!!

おひさしぶりですね！

I can't believe I haven't posted in so long, I really should get better at that.

If any of you don't know what the phrase at the top means it is "it's been a while" (ohisashiburi desu ne). And obviously it has been too long!

I have now booked my JLPT5 examination. This will take place in December in the London SOAS university. I am already really nervous, and am slightly expecting to fail, but I am going to try my hardest and I will be happy no matter what.

The reason I am expecting to fail is that, although I know the majority of the JLPT5 vocabulary and kanji, I have never really tested my Japanese with anyone else as there is only one other person I know who is studying Japanese but she is at a LOT higher level than me, so I cannot understand the majority of it yet.

Another reason I feel like I may fail are that recently I seem to be forgetting some of the easier words, so am having to revise twice as hard as I used to. Maybe the adrenaline will kick in when I get in the exam and I will remember everything, but its really not helping my nerves at the moment.

As negative as I sound, I am sure I will do well, and I am normally a positive person so hopefully I will get that back before the exam.

My study routine has been taken up a notch aswell. Previously I would study the vocabulary and kanji maybe once a day, but now I am trying to do both of these multiple times a day so that I cram everything in by the exam. Actually, as I type this blog post, I am listening to a japanesepod101 lesson (it may be about culture, but there a few words in the lesson that I thought I had forgotten but I recognised them and knew what they meant!)

I will be posting a large, photo based, blog post hopefully later today or in the next few days of some of the studying I have been doing.

Thanks for reading!