Writing the JLPT 3

This past weekend was the first weekend in December. Every year, that's a huge weekend for wannabe Nihongo speakers because that first weekend in December is always reserved for for test takers of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.

It was a cold-ish day ... I started from my apartment with the temperature at 5 degrees C and the apparent high of the day was still only 8 degrees C. While slightly warmer than the average daily temperature in the land of my upbringing, Canada, it still felt chilly compared to the heat and humidity of the summer months. However, the day was sunny, which I took to be a good sign.

Apparently, there are many JLPT test sites scattered throughout Japan. Silly me... I had thought I could meet up with my other friends who were also taking the test on the same day and at the same time. All of them end up writing the exam in another location. I was lucky enough to get a test site that was in my home ward. Albeit, the site was in the polar opposite corner of where I was in the ward, but total travel time in transite was only about 7 or 9 minutes. With all the walking and waiting included, it was probably a good 25 minutes to get to the site and into my room and my appointed chair.

I have to say... it seemed a bit easier than I expected. Not that I'm super-good at Nihongo(or English for that matter), but I think my expectations were slightly skewed by taking the practise (mock) test 2 weeks earlier. I signed up to take the mock test about 2.5 months ago, but apparently we weren't to be notified until the week before the exam. So I signed up ... and promptly forgot about it. In the week before the mock test, I opened up my mailbox to find a letter instructing me of the time and place, and other miscellaneous things, for the mock test. So I followed all the instructions and showed up on the day.

I guess the thing with the mock test is that they were using all of use test-takers as guinea pigs for changing the levels in the JLPT levelling. Currently there are 4 levels, 1 through 4, with level 4 being the easiest level. There are only about 100 kanji required to know for level 4 and the easiest and most basic forms of speech and grammar points. Level 3 requires about 250-300 kanji (depending on what guidebooks you read) and the start of more complex parts of speech and higher politeness levels. Level 2 is where the huge jump comes in. To pass you are required to know 1000-1200 kanji and very complex written and spoken grammar points. When taking the test, apparently, the kanji recognition section gives you 4 entirely plausible choices for the optional reading of the given kanji. Whereas in Level 3, there might be 2 close answers, but in most cases, there is only 1 truly correct answer and no other choice even coming close.

You may be able to see where I am leading up to with all this background. Basically, the mock test was given such that the questions and answers were at a level somewhere between the current levels 3 and 2. So, I panicked after the mock test, and probably overstudied for the actual Level 3.

I don't think I passed with flying colours. I don't think that's a possibility for me since I seem to have a lot of trouble distinguising between all the sounds and phrases when they are spoken at native speed. However, I wrote the exam comfortably. I had no idea what the answers to some of the questions were, and I accidentally flipped two pages at a time during the listening section, which flustered me and I'm sure caused me a few points.

Having said all that, I am definitely glad I did not sit to write for JLPT 2 as I'm sure that all my vacationing in the last month and a half would have been a lot more stressful if I had known that I was going to come back to write for JLPT 2.

The test itself was long. The first of the 3 timed tests starts at 9:45 am and the final test ends about 2:30 pm. There is a 30 minute break after the first test and a 1 hour break after the 2nd test for lunch. At the start of each of the 3 timed sections, there is an automated, recorded message. They even have the people up front doing a demonstration with yellow cards and red cards. I almost laughed out loud when I saw that. It's a language test for crying out !!! It's not a soccer match ... but it seems that in the past thicker skulls have prevailed and hence these rules.

Next year, there will also be a sitting in June or July for Levels 1 and 2, but I'm not sure about levels 3 or 4. It seems that there's a lot more grammar to be learnt for Level 2, but I'm game... I may not be ready, but game I am!!!

Editting an Essay written by a non-native English speaker

This past weekend, I was asked, to edit somebody's English composition. This document started off at around 900 words in length. The writer is not a native English speaker. After reading the entire document, it is obvious to me that the writer has a pretty decent grasp of the English language and is able to form complex sentences to some degree. However, another thing that is glaringly obvious, is that the writer does not know how to connect sub clauses in English. The writer is probably Japanese. I don’t know that for a fact, but based on some word order inconsistencies and incorrect word usages, and of course the fact that I’m currently in Japan where 130 million Japanese people live, I would be willing to place a wager on it.

This document should have taken me about 5 minutes to read. However, the grammar was so bad that it took me 15 minutes to read the first paragraph, which contained about four or five sentences crammed into two. The remaining eight paragraphs were no easier to read, understand, and edit. After reading the entire document, I felt for the writer and all his or her effort in attempting to put sentences together coherently in a language that is not his or her native language. They had some knowledge that they were trying to put into practical use, but it was so difficult to read, and in so many places, it was so difficult to comprehend what thoughts or concepts they were trying to convey.

I feel awful for thinking it. And now I feel worse for writing it. As a current student of the Japanese language, I know how frustrating it is to try to convey your actual thoughts and feelings in another language. However, I try to stick to the golden rule and use words and grammar that I have already learnt. If I can’t express it that way, then I start substituting English words or near Japanese words or parts of speech, even though I know it won’t make grammatical sense. I don’t think this person had a choice when they wrote the document; it had to be in English.

I am almost positive that this document took the writer of very long time to write. I am sure that the writer took a lot of pride in completing the document. I am sure that in his or her mind, this document was at least good enough for consideration because they have passed it on for proofreading. I'm also sure that the writer of this document has scored a very high mark in the English language TOEIC exam. Most Japanese people, who have to write English correspondence, must score above 80% in the TOEIC exam. So, presumably the author of this document, would have had to meet those requirements. However, as I am finding out while living here, a high mark does not guarantee total fluency. In fact, it does not even guarantee coherency. I have met a few people whose spoken English is actually quite good – good pace, correct grammar, correct choice of words, correct context – but it seems that the norm here is the people can read better in English than speak it.

Having said all this, I guess I was surprised that the English was really that bad. After all, the writer’s job is to write in the English language. Most of the document was understandable, but there’s no way that composition would get a passing mark in a high school back in Canada. I won’t post the original document or the topic of the composition or the source that asked me to proofread it as a favour. But, back in the day when I was in the final years of high school, a 1000 word essay proofread might take 20 minutes total. I use this as the benchmark because most Japanese people have to take English class until the end of high school. It took a total of 6 hours to proofread and re-write the entire essay. If it was just a quick proofread with marked up comments on how to write it better, it still would have taken at least an hour to do since there was just that much wrong with the essay.

I am blogging about this incident because I have freely proofread things for friends before. A lot of them actually trust me to do that sort of thing for them. I’ve also written quite a few letters of recommendation with successful outcomes. I’ve never averaged a 1.5 hour per page proofread before. But this time, after each iteration (and in total there were 8), I just kept finding sentences that did not read easily or were too repetitive or too long. Amid the pain of reading the first time, it was not immediately obvious to me that the surrounding sentences were redundant or not presented in a flowing manner. If I were to be completely honest, it wasn’t a proofreading exercise at all so much as a massive overhaul and re-write. It’s like taking second hand information and producing a magical, enticing script that someone will want to read. An interesting topic isn’t good enough, readability matters. If the audience is mainly English speaking foreigners, then it has to read easily for them. If the audience were Japanese people who like to keep up their English language skills and dabble in the odd interesting article now and again, then probably my 2^nd or 3^rd iteration would have sufficed.

The next time I get asked to proofread, I am going to make sure up front that it’s just a proofread. I’ll give them my thoughts and comments on how to improve the writing, but not make the corrections myself. Actually making the improvements to someone else’s ideas when you aren’t entirely sure you understood the meaning or the context is difficult to do. It makes for hard and painful reading of the entire document in search of hidden and not-so-hidden clues that may be included elsewhere in the essay.

So, further proofreading: willing to do with limitations.

Actual copy editing: not as willing.

The current exercise: useful experience and insight, but not all that enjoyable.

Why I wrote this blog: to share the pain, to let you know that sometimes the adventure is not all it's cracked up to be.

Having written all this, I, as a current learner of Nihongo, actually like to send text messages in Kana and Kanji. I also like to send emails in Japanese. My topics are easier to write about, but I stick to the golden rule: write about what you know and in the case of using another language, write using the vocabulary and grammar that you know, even if it is simpler than your requirements.