vonPeterhof Tetraglot Senior Member Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4764 days ago 715 posts - 1527 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Japanese, German Studies: Kazakh, Korean, Norwegian, Turkish
| Message 1273 of 1702 03 February 2014 at 9:50am | IP Logged |
Congratulations!
kraemder wrote:
Evita wrote:
Congrats on passing the N3! Do I understand it correctly that if you had
gotten a 29 on
reading or listening, you wouldn't have passed? If so, that's quite lucky then :) |
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Thanks. Yes it was very close but I don't think you needed a 30 on any of the sections. They'll send a little
more detailed report in the mail and I could probably hunt it down online but I'll wait and just be happy it was a
pass. |
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The section pass mark is 19 in N3 (just like in N2 and N1), but the total pass mark is 95. All
else being equal a 29 in listening would have still meant a pass, but a 30 in reading would have resulted in a
fail, so yeah, quite lucky! That's not to diminish your progress over last year though. Do your best to study for
N2 now!
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kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5176 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 1274 of 1702 03 February 2014 at 10:56am | IP Logged |
As vonPeterhof pointed out I had a whole 2 points to spare in passing. In my favor I am sure I got some stuff wrong that I could have just as easily gotten right heh. So it's a pass. And I'll be taking the N2 this year along with the other 'grown up' Japanese students.. beginner is officially a thing of the past now. Which I've felt for a while but now I have the proof =).
As was recommended, I just placed a couple orders for New Kanzen Master Reading and Grammar (two volumes). I didn't have to get them through WhiteRabbit which saves on the shipping. You can get them via Amazon.com and they charge the same shipping even though they're shipping from Japan. Pretty nice. It'll probably take a month to get here but I can wait.
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PamelaJoy Diglot Newbie United States Joined 3952 days ago 3 posts - 7 votes Speaks: English*, Korean Studies: Japanese
| Message 1275 of 1702 03 February 2014 at 11:01am | IP Logged |
I'm adding my congratulations on passing the N3. From what I understand it is a fair jump from the N4.
Good luck on studying for the N2. If you are studying for that you are making incredible progress.
I'm scared to get my results on the N4. For several reasons I did not get to study as much as I wanted last
fall. I guess I won't get my results until I go home. I'm on the other side of town visiting my parents for a
month or so.
Where did you take the test? I took it in LA. My husband's family lives in Orange County so we combined a
Thanksgiving visit with the test. For me the highlight of the trip was going to BookOff. A used Japanese
bookstore, I was in heaven. My father-in-law took me. He was really sweet and let me spend all the time
there I wanted. Fortunately there was also an English section for him to browse in. I spent almost 3 hours
there and sent home 3 boxes of books! Then we went down the road to Kunakumiya. Because of the prices I
bought a lot less there. But the Japanese food court was great. (The bookstore is inside a Japanese
market). Then a few days later we returned to the strip mall BookOff is in and spent several hours browsing
in the Japanese market there. I was encouraged by how much of the packaging I could read. Of course I
had to zip over to BookOff again. Having all the manga sets on sale for half off was a huge temptation.
I would love to live in Orange County. All of the Asian cultures there is exciting. Between restaurants and
bookstores I would be ecstatic.
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kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5176 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 1276 of 1702 03 February 2014 at 4:06pm | IP Logged |
Thanks Pamela. I took the test in San Francisco but I took it in Los Angeles when I did the JLPT 4 a year ago.
The test is just more grammar, kanji, and vocabulary and apparently requires a slightly higher score to pass.
It's not too bad of a jump. I'm curious to see how well it bridges the gap to N2. If it's comparable to B2 for
European languages then the regular method of just reading a lot to increase your knowledge is going to be
troublesome thanks to kanji. Grr. But I've got the old fallback of studying textbooks to help. And I'm going to
try to read too. I love reading so... Oh you remind me of when I was in Portland. My sister had a Japanese
book store within walking distance. I still can't believe how I felt like a little kid when I walked in there.
Awesome.
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g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5974 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German
| Message 1277 of 1702 03 February 2014 at 8:30pm | IP Logged |
Reading and listening are just as important for reaching B2 Japanese as any European
language. It's just that there are some unique difficulties for reading Japanese. It doesn't
make it less important, just more troublesome.
I certainly felt the jump between N3 and N2. I got a comfortable pass on N3 but my score for
N2 6 months later was giri giri. Having said that, one year is plenty of time to make the
leap.
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Hasi Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 6108 days ago 120 posts - 133 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Japanese
| Message 1278 of 1702 03 February 2014 at 8:37pm | IP Logged |
Congrats on passing N3 :)
I think as far as reading is concerned it just depends on what you read. I think even if you read something less diffcult, like me, you can still use it to increase your reading speed because I have heard a few people have trouble with that for N2.
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4657 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 1279 of 1702 04 February 2014 at 7:45pm | IP Logged |
Hasi wrote:
I think as far as reading is concerned it just depends on what you read.
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@kraemder is going to be reading lots of Japanese. I've just brought home the KZM
books to show my tutor tomorrow and, apart from the copyright page at the beginning,
there doesn't seem to be a word of English in any of the three N2 books I've just looked
at :-)
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Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4789 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian
| Message 1280 of 1702 06 February 2014 at 3:16pm | IP Logged |
Congratulations on passing the N3! I've been following your progress, and so I'm so
glad you did it.
Reading helps a lo. Lots of reading. Even if you read below your level, your reading
speed and overall understanding will definitely improve. I spent a significant amount
of time reading picture books and I remember thinking, "everyone is doing adult stuff
and here I am fooling around," and then I read a twitter post in Japanese that I fully
comprehended and glided over easily without a glitch. I read pretty fast, too, compared
to my reading skill previously. But I guess the improvement came because I read TONS
while building up my vocabulary gradually. So I went right back to reading kids' stuff
:)
Listening is just as important. As for kanji, I feel your pain. There's no way around
it. You just have to drill the darn thing through (insert preferred method here). Even
though I love kanji, it does get to be a chore sometimes. I guess we'll all eventually
get there!
I love walking into Japanese bookstores. I'm like a little kid surrounded with shiny
new toys.....:D
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