The Old School Otaku Lounge

Yeah, you can't even think about taking the N5 without being able to read simple sentences in hiragana and know at least 50 kanji. I have a coworker who has been tearing it up studying all sorts of kanji, but as of last summer, he didn't even know that the hiragana "ha" （は）is pronounced "wa" when used as a particle.

There is a website made as a study guid for the JLPT test (tanos.co.uk/jlpt), but I have found so many errors that it is unreliable. I sent the guy an e-mail illustrating several of the errors. If you put out a resource for people to use, they trust that you know what you are doing and that it won't be full of mistakes.

davemerrill wrote:Well, the US is a big place; some places are safer than others. You can get assaulted in Canada (& Japan) sometimes, too. I think every city and country has its own mix of the good and the bad.

Here and other places the past week has been full of people talking about taking their JLPT tests. I wish my language skills were good enough to even approach the idea of even starting to think about taking the JLPT. Approaching any degree of facility in the Japanese language is something I will be working on for the rest of my life, I think.

I have a strong desire for the language. I will try to study Haragana and Katakana first. I heard Hiragana is a phonetic writing system; it will be the best starting point.

Both hiragana and katakana are the phonetics. Katakana is used for foreign words and names. This is a good way to start, because if you just try learning Japanese by reading romaji (our Roman alphabet), it'll be the training wheels that will prevent you from truly learning how to ride a bicycle.

Word. My first classes way back when weened us off romaji after the first semester. There's a magical moment when you don't need teh furigana anymore either.

I have been wanting to take it but I am still hesitant. The test for the most part is very receptive. As far as I know, you are not required to write the kanji and there is no speaking portion. At least in the Eiken test, there is an interview (which also covers reading aloud) portion which I think would be beneficial. As for kanji, I have no problem reading kanji, but writing is a whole different animal. And with a world of PCs, tablets, and cell phones, I very rarely hand write these days. If I do, I have to reference the kanji to make sure I am writing it correctly.

I have seen translation jobs on gaijinpot that requires you have JLPT certification but I say you just take it to make your resume look fancy. Up until now, I have managed to submit applications and participate in job interviews in Japanese no problem.