Peter's Japan blog

Yeay, I passed the Japanese Language Proficiency Test level 4!! (Level 4 is the lowest level, but still ;p) I got my official certificate in the mail today. I wasn't expecting it so early, because they said it would probably be around the beginning of March.

My scores:
Part 1: Kanji & Vocabulary: 85 / 100
Part 2: Listening: 71 / 100
Part 3: Reading & Grammar: 130 / 200

Total: 286 / 400 = 71.5% (and you need 60% to pass the test)

The statistics for the last test are not yet on the JLPT website.

But I'm so happy that I got it, because I wasn't sure about whether I would pass or not, but I even made it with 11.5% above it ;p Now, on to level 3. I now know a bit more what I must focus on, which is for example, to quickly recognize from what verb a conjugated form comes. Because I know how to form that conjugation, but to do the reverse quickly is very important, especially for the listening test and the grammar, as you don't have heaps of time to think. I had already started on my kanji for level 3 last month, the rest is during the course of the year, and hopefully I will pass again for the exam on December 7th.

Last time we talked about the basic sentence structure in Japanese. Two important things about the Japanese sentence structure is that the subject comes first, and the verb comes last. Now we will talk a bit more about a few particles which have a direct impact on our sentence structure.

1. '-wa': the subject particle: は　(note that -wa is written with the hiragana of 'ha', not 'wa')
- used to indicate the subject of a sentence. It is used to put emphasis on the thing we are talking about when it might not be clear or there is a change in subject.

2. '-ga': the subject particle: が
- subject being talked about without putting special emphasis.
- also a weak condition between two sentences.

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The basic sentence structure of the Japanese language is of the form: SOV. Meaning, Subject Object Verb.
(note that I will use spaces between words for readability, spaces are normally omitted)
Example:
私は　ペテル　です。
Watashi-wa Peter desu.
I am Peter.
Litt: I Peter be.

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Origin
The Japanese language (nihon-go '日本語' in japanese) is an isolated language, meaning that it has no relation to any other language whatsoever. There are only a few possible relations which are unsure. It is spoken almost exclusively in Japan with some small communities in other countries, and is spoken by 130 million people.

Writing
The Japanese language is written using 3 different scripts: hiragana, katakana and kanji.
Hiragana and katakana are syllabic alphabets and are used to spell words in full.
Hiragana is a more rounded script which is used for grammatical elements, small words or for spelling words.
Katakana is more angular and looks simple and is therefore used to write non-japanese words like English (using the available Japanese syllables).
Kanji characters originate from Chinese characters but their pronunciation has changed. There are about 2000+ kanji characters. Kanji usually do not have a meaning like Chinese characters, kanji mostly are sounds for making words when combined with other kanji or hiragana.
Furigana are kanji characters that are accompanied by hiragana above them, so people that do not know what the kanji character means, they can read the sound, and know the word by sound. Other uses are with names, because kanji might be pronounced in more than one way, furigana are used to be able to read the correct name. Another use it for puns or double meaning, when they want to give a different meaning to a word, they write a different word in hiragana above the kanji characters.
Romaji is the romanization of the Japanese language. There are several systems. The earliest was used by the Portuguese but this lead to some wrong transliterations that are still used today (e.g. Nippon in stead of Nihon). The most important system is the Hepburn (or Revised Hepburn) System. It is the closest to the sounds that the latin alphabet represents. Another system in use and that has been approved by the Japanese government is Kunrei-shiki. There are still exceptions when used in Japan, for example, station names are romanized slightly different from regular Hepburn. Because of the need to be able to type Japanese on a computer, another style of romanization is used which is called Wapuro (Wado Purosessa / word processor). It is also close to Hepburn, but uses some special combinations (e.g. to write the small vowel hiragana, an 'x' is typed in front of the vowel).

Original post: May 28th 2007
Updates: June 24th 2007

Bought three new books for helping studying japanese:

1. Kodansha's Furigana Japanese-Engish/English-Japanese Dictionary
A good dictionary which has all words written in hiragana, followed by their kanji-representation with furigana added. It's quite an extensive but still basic vocabulary, so you're not gonna find every word in it.

2. The New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary
This book is truly amazing and VERY easy and quick to look up kanji. You have two ways to look up a kanji: the traditional way and a new one.
The traditional way is to find the radical of a kanji character, count the strokes, find the radical and then find the kanji from that point. But the New Nelson goes even further in the traditional approach as well, if you found the radical, count the remaining strokes, and find that number under the radical, and then all the combinations with other kanji are listed below that, also sorted on stroke count. So it's very easy and quick to find.
But there is one problem, it is not always easy to find a correct radical in a difficult kanji, so here comes the new method in handy. Since a kanji can be made up of several different radicals, the New Nelson now contains a lookup table called the Universal Radical Index, that you can lookup any kanji using any radical that it has, so not just the main radical. Based on the position of the radical in the original kanji, you look it up in the URI, and it will have a reference to the kanji in the book. I find it quicker (and more fun) to look up a word in this book than in Kodansha's Furigana dictionary.

3. A Guide To Remembering Japanese Characters by K.G. Henshall
Since it is a hell to learn kanji, even for Japanese, the traditional way is to just learn them by heart. But Henshall tries to explain the kanji, where it comes from, what it means, how it can be spoken, how it can be derived to other kanji and how to remember it using an easy mnemonic.

For now, the New Nelson is my favorite one (and also the biggest, it has 7700(!) kanji characters listed)

Buy them at Amazon.com:
The New Nelson Japanese-English Character Dictionary: Based on the Classic Edition by Andrew N. Nelson (1600 pages)
Kodansha's Furigana Japanese Dictionary: Japanese-English English-Japanese (717 pages)
Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters (Tuttle Language Library) (675 pages)

I'm learning Japanese and I want to try to go for the JLPT Level 4 test in December. JLPT stands for Japanese Language Proficiency Test.
I've already progressed to the point where I can read hiragana and katakana and a few kanji. This combined with some vocabulary as well. But I still have a long way to go for JLPT Level 4 (which is the lowest level). Level 4 requires you to know hiragana, katakana, about 100 kanji, about 700 words and basic grammar.

So while I'm learning, I might as well post some of it on my blog about the Japanese language, which has its simple and complex sides.