Well, I’m happy to announce that I passed my N5 exam, making me the proud holder of a Japanese Language Proficiency N5 certificate! Yay!

My local testing centre has announced that they will now be holding tests twice a year, so that’s also good. A semester away from Japanese has left me a little rusty, but I’m hoping to get myself up to speed in time to write (and pass!) the N4 exam in December. 11 months ago

Visit the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) website. You can take their tests in-person only, but it’s generally recognized as a good benchmarking program. There are five different levels now, from N5 at the easiest, to N1 at the most fluent. 14 months ago

I’m pleased to report that I’m making steady progress with this one! I’m nowhere near fluent just yet, but I’m working on it.

A few weeks ago, I wrote the JLPT N5 (an official assessment that will certify my mastery of beginner’s Japanese), as well as the final exam for Japanese 201 (my university’s 2nd year intermediate Japanese course). I haven’t gotten the results back from either test yet, but I’m very hopeful that things went well.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to fit Japanese 202 (the next course I need to take) into my timetable for Winter semester, but I’m hoping I will be able to take in in the Spring or Summer, or even next fall, so I can be ready to take the JLPT N4 (or repeat the N5, if need be) next December. 16 months ago

Well, I just got my grade back from my first University Japanese course, and it’s a “B”... which is well above the “C+” I needed to advance to the next level of Japanese. Right now, I can write a basic essay in Japanese, I know just over 100 kanji, and I can read hiragana without getting stuck. Although I can’t watch Japanese shows without subtitles just yet, if I turn off the subtitles I can get the gist of what they’re saying.

Huge progress? I think so. 2 years ago