Aguro

Well, I tried doing the test using the written allocated time. I finished the 1st (character & vocabulary) and 2nd (listening) section on time, but got short of 10 numbers for the last (reading & grammar) section. The result was pretty bad:

• Character & vocabulary: 76.7/100 (76.7%)
• Listening: 72.4/100 (72.4%)
• Reading & grammar: 120.8/200 (60.4%)
• Combined: 269.9/400 (67.5%)

It is said that the passing grade for JLPT level 1 is around 75%. Does it mean that I need to have 75% score for each section, or only for the combined score? Well, whatever the criteria may be, I still need to work hard if I want to pass.

Some notes:

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Thanks to my JLPT study, today I’ve finished studying the last level 8 Jouyou kanji. With this, I’ve actually completed all the Jouyou kanji! The amount of Jouyou kanji is 1945, which is the year which Indonesia declared its independence! Yay!

The last kanji is 髄 which is used in words such as 骨髄 (kotsuzui, bone marrow) and 真髄 (shinzui, essence). It’s interesting that there is a Japanese cosmetics sold in Indonesia named しんずい (shinzui). If you can stand some gross images click here to see what a marrow looks like.

This is just only the beginning. There is so much in mastering a kanji: its multitude meanings and readings, and most importantly proficiency in using words containing the kanji. I’m still far from that. Well, but still each small milestone must be celebrated :).

I still have 100+ kanji to study for the JLPT, but perhaps I should try a mock test soon and see how well (or nasty) it would turn out…

I hate studying from a kanji list. I believe one’s study should be as personal as possible, and that’s why I advocate reading real materials and studying any kanji you find there.

However for the JLPT there is no choice but to study all kanji that will appear in the test. I have compiled the list of JLPT kanji, so the next task is to study them. But how?

Even among those kanji, I still make a simple prioritization. I will first learn all grade 8 Jouyou kanji. Next will be jinmeiyou kanji, or kanji authorized to be used in names (aka grade 9). The last will be the leftovers.

I have to learn 5 more grade 8 kanji, 109 new jinmeiyou kanji, and 4 leftovers, totaling 118 more kanji. With my special boosted JLPT rate of learning 6 new kanji per day, I should finish them in 20 days…

In taking the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, one thing you must master becomes evident: kanji. It is no use if you can speak and listen fluently but not able to read what’s written on the test paper. Moreover, the first section (character/vocabulary) go so far as to be a kanji quiz. Witness these first 3 questions from a level-4 test:

問1・来週　金曜日に　電話を　ください。
（1）．来週 １．らいしゅう ２．らんしゅう ３．こいしゅう ４．こんしゅう
（2）．金曜日 １．かようび ２．どようび ３．きんようび ４．もくようび
（3）．電話 １．でんご ２．でんわ ３．かいご ４． かいわ

The test essentially asks you, “how do you read this and this?” When you know the characters and the words, the answer is absurdly easy. All is not lost when you don’t have all the knowledge required since intelligent guessing can be attempted, but that’s for another topic.

The point is, if you have kanji mastery many questions will be reduced to a trivial recall. Normally I don’t recommend studying from artificial lists and instead encourage people to just read real materials and learn the kanji they find along the way. However for test takers, a kanji list would be beneficial, if not necessary.

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Today marks a quite significant day on my kanji study. With the kanji 班, I have finally encountered all elementary school kanji!

Why is it so significant? Well, that’s because I don’t study from the jouyou kanji list but by reading real materials. The kanji that I study are kanji that I found in novels, magazines, blogs, encyclopedias, newspapers, computer games, and other such sources. By studying that way, I have a context by which each character is used, and that increases retention and understanding. So, this small accomplishment is actually just a side effect of my reading activities, not a deliberate consequence of exhausting some artificial list.

There are actually only 1,006 elementary school kanji compared to more than 2,800 characters which I have recorded. It’s interesting that I needed to know almost three times as much to complete this set that is supposed to be elementary. Well, I can proclaim for one thing that 誰 (dare, who) which isn’t on the government’s list is actually more elementary than the last kanji 班 which I encountered.

The kanji itself 班 is read han and means group. Of course the word “group” seems to be elementary, but there is already other kanji which is used often for it, 団 (dan). I found 班 in the word 首班 (shuhan) which means “leader”. Head (首, shu) of the group (班, han) means leader. Makes sense…

The word comes from the Japanese Wikipedia article on WW2:

There are still more kanji to learn, especially with JLPT on the way… Stay tuned for JLPT study tips…

When I was in Jakarta some time ago, I took the chance to register for this year’s JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) level 1. The test will be held early December.

You pay Rp. 10,000 for the test guide (pictured above) and application form, plus Rp. 80,000 for the level 1 test.

The person asked me whether this was my first JLPT. When I said yes, he proceeded to ask which level I would like to take. When I said level 1, he needed to confirm me that level 1 was the hardest and I wasn’t trying to take the wrong one.

There are still 2 more months to the test. Let’s study!

In a jpod101 teacher’s conversation, I found a new and very useful expression: ある意味. It means “in a sense”. (literally it means “a certain meaning”)

Here’s the relevant conversation from episode 331 (Second Honeymoon):

And here are more examples from around the web:

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In a Japanesepod101 episode, I was reminded again about the use of に vs を for causatives.

If we have an intransitive verb, like 働く and 泳ぐ, the causative like 働かせる and 泳がせる can mean either “to let someone do something” or “to make someone do something” depending on the particle used. に will make it “to let”, while を will make it “to make”.

Handy reminder.

Taboo Chinese character?

When I read articles on the online Mainichi Shinbun, I found a very interesting phenomenon. Often, when the article talks about a person or place’s name from China, a kanji not used in Japan appears. I don’t know what the criteria is, but for some Chinese characters they just put a ※ placeholder and then describes the character somewhere in the article.

Take for example an excerpt from this news article:

北京五輪第４日の１１日、バドミントンの女子ダブルス準々決勝で、小椋久美子、潮田玲子組（三洋電機）は第２シードの杜※、于洋組（中国）にストレート負けした。

　（※は女ヘンに、「青」の月が円）

You can see a Chinese player’s name written as 杜※, and below it is described that ※ stands for a character with “女 on the left, and 青 on the right but the 月 part of 青 replaced by 円). Phew, what a great way to describe a character :).

(strangely, on this Chinese Wikipedia page, you can see that the name is written 杜靖 which doesn’t match the description. Simplified characters in action?)

The reason for this which I could think of is that the publisher fears that Japanese people won’t have the installed fonts. However, I think it’s pretty silly anyway. In Windows XP, when we install CJK support, won’t Chinese fonts also get installed? The mainichi site uses UTF-8 anyway, so it’s not an encoding issue.

Anyway, for describing kanji they use radical terminology like へん (hen) etc. I suggest you visit Eve’s writing about radical terminologies to learn more.

(as a bonus, the article’s title has the word オグシオ in it. It stands for the オグ in 小椋久美子 (Ogura Kumiko) and シオ in 潮田玲子 (Shiota Reiko). What a cute way to name a badminton pair…)

Senryu (川柳, senryuu) is somewhat similar in structure to Haiku (俳句), which is Japanese poetry with 5-7-5 (go-shichi-go) syllables. However, Senryu is lighter in its content and is made primarily to have some fun. It can be funny or even outright ridiculous. Here’s a website containing children Senryu that I found.

Let’s translate some!

I particularly like the one below:

My first encounter with senryu is on Morning Musume DVD Magazine vol. 14 where the topic is “eco” (e.g., environment). Morning Musume, v-u-den, Berryz Koubou, and C-ute members all have to make an eco senryu. It’s quite interesting.

Here’s Berryz Koubou’s captain Shimizu Saki’s senryu:

And now it’s my turn making a senryu:

It’s all in kana!

Try writing some