I should be typing Japanese with this post (or maybe not, for my fellow int. readers), but I just had enough of Kanji's (chinese characters)this week.
It's been approx.7 years since I left Japan and set foot in Hong Kong, and I just noticed I'm not "Japanese" anymore, like, half a year ago. Felt a slight plunge with my Japanese when I was talking to a client one day so I thought it was time to slap a cert on my record right now before it gets any worse. JLPT will do.
HK Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT)
香港日本語能力試験
Simply a test to evaluate and certify non-native speakers. JLPT has 4 levels, with Level 4 being the easiest and Level 1 most difficult. 150 hours of study are necessary for Level 4, and 900 hours for Level 1.
Pssh. I lived 20 years in Japan. So I decided to go with Level 1. Didn't study at all, just a bit the night before the test. It can't be
that hard. So I slept a bit early and took off the next morning.
DAYUM THAT SHIT WAS HARDI knew it wouldn't be THAT easy but this was way beyond my assumption. I basically learned my Japanese the 'street way' so I don't really know the concepts behind what I blabber proudly all the time. That's why grammar and all was pretty
easy because you choose a correct word or phrase that fits in a sentence, and street
smarts people will be able to detect the correct one naturally. What's hard is the damn Kanji's. Since the world's gone digital, people don't write anymore. Or they don't need you to write, so you don't write. The necessity of writing is vanishing and we all rely on typing. It may be ok in other countries but asians here have to deal with
50,000 characters. The kids in the new age probably can't even write their own name in chinese.
The point is, there are Kanjis that look very similar. The fuckers behind creating these questions decided to stick 2 similar kanji's together and take away 1 stroke from one of them. Both of them look very natural. But you just can't remember which character is correct and these are the type of questions that piss you off even more if you get them wrong. I think you need to write down what you want to remember, to really remember it. Writing is like scanning what you write to your brain. The physical movement of your hand is recorded to your brain so it's easier to memorize stuff. But since writing is becoming a minority now, I don't know how kids are going to memorize Kanji.
Anyways, the test wasn't too bad though. Still a chance of failing. I need to pass the 70% mark (for Level 1) and I think I'm at around 80%. 84 tops. But maybe not. I might of been wrong with some questions I thought was 100% right. That'll take me down to 75% and hopefully not any lower.
Results in March (why??). Wish me luck.
If you're interested check it out
here.
