Yesterday ( I'm writing this at 1AM in the morning I took the JLPT N2, the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. It was the culmination of a long endeavor, as I have studied Japanese for approximately 6 years now extensively (not like passively studying like going for a run an hour a day or lifting some weights 3 times a week or something) but actually devoting a lot of time and energy into it, and I believe at this point that I'm pretty fluent, not totally fluent, but able to do the main things in any language: read, write, listen, and speak. So I thought I'd be in pretty good shape for the N2, the second hardest exam offered to non-native Japanese speakers. And my study time kind of reflected that, not devoting all my energy towards the exams, not even getting the urgency the day before the exam (the exam is on a Sunday, kinda weird but theoretically gives testtakers all of Saturday to study) to go all-out, or "EXTREME" as MJ puts it. I also walked into the exam like I owned the place and they should just give me the pass certification now just based on me being there. I even entertained thoughts that N2 was kinda beneath me, that I was an N1 level (highest level proficiency) just taking the N2 test, like a major league player playing a minor league game.
Guess what? The JLPT doesn't care how much you THINK you know, it tests you based on what is needed. I was able to get through the vocab and kanji sections pretty easily, and I thought with plenty of time leftover, but the reading passages are rather difficult even for someone who reads Japanese as part of his job, they're like LSAT passages where you have to summarize essays and sense the author's tone, etc., except it's all in a foreign language, even the question and the answer choices. It takes a while. I admit I let my mind wander a bit because I thought I was doing pretty well, had 30 minutes to do like 12 questions, but each passage only has 3 questions, so that's really like having to read 4 whole essays, and then all of a sudden I was rushing, and time management became an issue, and then I was guessing for the last part. It was just like the SAT and LSAT again: rushing for every last second, something I didn't think I needed to know.
But AFTER the break was the hard part. The listening portion of the JLPT, in my opinion, is way disproportionate to the level of say, vocabulary. There are long passages which you have to digest all the information, then get it all sorted out in time to answer a question about them that wasn't given before the passage began. Miss a few words, and you miss parts of the meaning. And no repeating the passage! No matter how good one's Japanese is, it's about catching all portions of whats said and then digesting that information. Some of the questions, even if they told me them in Chinese or English, I'd have problems answering the question just because I didn't memorize all of that information, like East City is 5 miles away by car and has a nice sports facility with tennis court, but West City is just 1 mile away with no tennis court, and South City is 10 miles away by train but with a dog park, and then all of a sudden at the end they ask which city Ms. Risa wants to go to for leisure. I need a chart or something! It's hard to process all that information just listening to it once! So if I do fail the JLPT N2, it's because of the listening. Apparently they do scale the scores based on how everyone did, but a testtaker must at least get the minimum score for each section (reading, vocabulary, listening) to pass the whole test, no matter how well they did on the other sections. So who knows.
If that was the N2, what will the N1 (which I one day hope to pass) be like? Shudder!
The lesson, of course, is the title of this post, a Japanese idiom meaning "The River God can drown in the river!" The River God was a demon who was great in the river, but because he thought he was so good he went into the river dangerously and drowned! Same thing applies for human swimmers, it's not the people who can't swim that drown (they still out of the deep end) but the ones who think they're really good who drown. BE HUMBLE! Don't be cocky! Don't be arrogant! Take every challenge seriously and not like a walk in the park. I learned that painful lesson for what feels like the umpteenth time today. Other examples: losing at chess to someone I thought I could beat, going to law school thinking I would do really well, losing money in stocks thinking I was the smartest investor ever and would never lose money, etc., etc.
Also, quick note: Cal State LA has always been just another exit on the way to Chinatown where MJ and I go eat our authentic Chinese food, but it's got a pretty nice campus! In fact, most SoCal college campuses I've been to are pretty nice: Cal State Channel Islands (like an oasis in the desert), Pomona and Clairemont McKenna, UC-Santa Barbara, even Santa Monica College, where MJ attends now: they all got a nice touch to it. Only Loyola and Southwestern Law Schools kind of gave me a vibe of being enclosed, trapped in an urban atmosphere.
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