JLPT Level 1

Hi everyone, Jack here!

I'm going to tell you a little bit about my experience with the JLPT. (That's the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, or 日本語能力試験 for people who don't know.) I took level two back in 2008, and I thought it was about time I took the plunge and tried to take level one. Level two uses mostly everyday words, but sometimes with a few difficult words thrown in. I remember "妥当" ("appropriate" or "fitting") was the most difficult word in level two when I took it, and I had no idea what it meant. For level two, you also need to be able to read 1000 kanji.

Anyway, I took the level one exam on Sunday. Even though I had two years between level two and level one, level one was much more difficult. There were lots of specialized words, and lots of kanji - they say you need to know about 2000. There were lots of words in there that I didn't know and I don't remember now, so I don't know if I passed or not. But I think I gave it a good try, at least, and I could understand enough to answer the questions well. The funny thing is that I never really revised for it.

So how did I get good enough to take level one without studying very much? I think the answer is my reading. I've always been an enthusiastic reader. I read "Mathilda" nine times when I was a child. Now that I'm older I can't read the same book over and over again, but I'm always reading books and news on the internet, and since I came to Japan I've been reading books in Japanese as well. I started off by reading manga, and even that wasn't so easy to understand - and I knew quite a lot of Japanese already. But slowly, I got used to it, and reading in Japanese became a habit. In fact, almost the only revision I did for the JLPT level two in 2008 was reading manga. I was reading manga for the entire year of 2008 on the train to work. People often make light of manga and say that it's not really reading, but I learned a lot of useful words from it. For example, back in 2007 I learned the word "疑う" (suspect) from reading Death Note, and more recently I learned "錯覚" ("optical illusion" or "delusion") from reading Bleach - and those are only the ones that I can remember. (And yes, 錯覚 came up in the exam on Sunday.)

But also, since last year, I've started to read slightly more difficult things. I started by reading trashy Japanese novels - the kind you can look at on your mobile phone (although I bought the book version). I then moved on to Star Wars novels translated into Japanese, and now I'm reading a detective novel - Tokyo Eki Satsujin Jiken by Kyotaro Nishimura. I've also been reading manga at the same time as reading these novels. For example, last April I read all 60 books of One Piece. Apart from all this reading, all I've been doing to study Japanese is talking with the other teachers at the school where I work and talking with my Japanese friends. But there's no way I could learn words like "錯覚" by doing that. I'm sure it's my reading that has been the most benefit for me on the JLPT.

However, whether I passed the test or not is another question. I think I have a 50-50 chance. But whatever the chance, I'll have to wait until the middle of February to find out. Fingers crossed!

Jack (UK)