pass the JLPT 1 test

The break down;

I didn’t know enough kanji, I could listen OK but I didn’t score enough in the the first two tests. I did really well at reading, go figure?

From now on I’m going to take the slow burn approach and just do kanji, from the beginning again, grade school style, mai nichi!

I passed the level two test last year, with around 70% for both writing/vocabulary and reading/grammar, and 85% for listening. This was with about 10-12 hours of study for 6 months.

I need to be more consistent with my Kanji reading and writing practice to learn the 2006 characters required for the test. To this end I plan to take at least two Kanji Kentei tests in preparation for the JLPT. I am using KankenDS on a daily basis, and doing 30-45mins of writing practice every other day.

Last year I think my vocabulary also let me down, even though I carried my flash cards with me every where I went, I probably didn`t activate this vocabulary by using it as often as I could. I am currently blogging and video blogging in Japanese to put more words and grammatical constructions into regular use.

I figure that I will need to do roughly the same amount of “sit down” study from the textbooks I have, but moe importantly I will need to do more communicating and reading in Japanese to have any chance of passing.