Q/A and advice for 2012/Future VCE Japanese Students

[Hiea]

Hi! 

I was just wondering: are the JLPT levels a good measure of how well you'll do in VCE? If so, what would each level more or less translate to as a study score? And what would be a good level to reach before taking the 3/4 exam?

And if they're not, why is that? 

[jibba]

Hi! 

I was just wondering: are the JLPT levels a good measure of how well you'll do in VCE? If so, what would each level more or less translate to as a study score? And what would be a good level to reach before taking the 3/4 exam?

And if they're not, why is that? 

Hi Hiea

VCE Japanese has writing and speaking components which the JLPT doesn't, so it probably won't be the most accurate indicator of your VCE study score. JLPT has reading comprehension, listening and kanji/grammar components and all answers are multiple choice. I think its main advantage would be that you can improve your skills in those sections for VCE, but you'll still need to do other preparation for writing and speaking.

I think students who get a 40+ study score would be able to pass JLPT N4 (I think N4 is slightly beyond the VCE course however). Although, as kanji/listening/reading is the focus of JLPT, people lower and higher that the 40 mark could pass or fail. It's still good practice nonetheless, especially for listening and vocab building, if you're motivated enough, get stuck into the N4 practice problems.

[jibba]

Thought I’d share a useful grammar resource that was brought to my attention recently.

http://www.guidetojapanese.org/grammar_guide.pdf

Seems to contain all the VCE grammars plus a few more advanced ones beyond VCE (mainly in section 6 and the keigo in section 5.2)

Passive/Causative section at 5.1 and the はず/べき pattern at 6.2 worth learning for VCE purposes though.

[anj_n]

This might be a bit late but any people who recently finished 3 & 4 Japanese and did their orals? Mines in 3 days and the topic is bukatsu (clubs) so any help/tips are appreciated (e.g what kind of questions did they ask) even if they're not the same topic. Thank you!