How Not to Study for the JLPT

JLPT: Japanese Language Proficiency Test.
Consists of levels 5 through 1, with level 1 being fluent, and level 5 meaning you have approximately the communicative competency of a 5-year-old.

Someone I know (*ahem*) happens to have decided to take the level 4 test the first weekend in December. She has adopted some really effective study strategies, and thought it prudent to share them.

(1) Assess your current level of Japanese proficiency. You think you're somewhere around level 5? Good. Sign up for the test that is a level ABOVE...to *challenge* yourself.

(2) Before you can begin to "properly" study, invest in some good coloured pens so you can write impressive colour-coded study notes. This not only feels more productive, it looks more productive!

(3) Order study materials that are designed to take you three solid months to get through. But be sure to order them with just over two months until the test. Wait two weeks before cracking open these books, and once you've done so, only open them a few times for the first week or two.

(4) In the time you have left, try to learn about 150 new kanji. At least they aren't all entirely "new"; you're already "familiar" with a lot of them, but definitely don't have all of the various readings memorized. Ganbatte ne!

(5) Feel awesome about the amount of Japanese you are learning - listen to the teachers in the staff room when they express how impressed they are with your studies. Because they are most definitely genuinely impressed! Way to go you!! You can pat yourself on the back. Immediately after, feel deflated when they flip through your textbooks and comment that, Wow, you are learning the kanji of a fourth grader!


She may be feeling overwhelmed at the sheer volume of material to go through and study and review and review again, but at least the looming test date is giving her ample motivation to study Japanese, and studying Japanese more intensely gives her a feeling of satisfaction. All good things, even if the outcome is a "Fail".

Here.

Made it through the 13-hour flight, made it (jetlagged) through the 3-day Tokyo orientation (JET put us in quite the swanky hotel, I might add), made it north to Akita prefecture, made it through a self-introduction to the Yokote board of education, and I am making it through the ridiculous heat and humidity. So far so good!

(View from my hotel room on the 26th floor of the Keio Plaza Hotel, Shinjuku (the sky wasn't really that bright, camera exposure was just playing tricks; it was actually quite dark. The city does go on and on as far as the horizon, though)


Oh...and Akita is absolutely beautiful...



(...and these photos don't even do the landscape justice).

The first few days in Tokyo were a bit of a blur and, more than I expected, it was a relief to arrive in Akita and find a serene, rural area full of mountains, rice paddies, and trees. LOTS of trees. Our prefectural mascot is even a tree. His name is Sugichi (exact English spelling unknown to me). I got a picture taken with him along with my fellow Yokote ALTs after being lovingly bombarded/welcomed by them all, along with my supervisor, at the Akita airport. Which really was the best possible greeting I could have imagined - a happy tree and some friendly people.

The pace of life here is much more relaxed, even though Yokote is one of the more "urban" centres in Akita. It feels more like a large town, spread out over lots of space and interspersed with rice fields. I now have a bike, and one of my favourite things to do is cruise around the streets of Yokote at night, when the temperature`s actually cool enough to move outside. It`s so dark here at night (probably because of energy saving efforts?), and it`s so quiet it feels like I`m the only person around. It`s a good time to sort out my way around my neighbourhood, though I have gotten slightly lost when trying to find my way back to my apartment in the dark. That`s always fun. As is remembering that the cars are on the LEFT side of the narrow roads, not the right. Sometimes I find cool things too; the other day it was a horde of straw boats that people built for the Yokote festival this coming week.

The next month or so will be busy - getting our cars, getting sorted for the internet, meeting staff at our schools, planning self-introduction lessons, and trying to attend as many summer festivals as possible. Gotta fit in some more Japanese studying too.