As many of you don't know, I wanted to assess where I was with my now independent study of the Japanese language. If there was anything that my trip to Japan back in March revitalized, it was a renewed desire to become more fluent and functional in my usage of Japanese. #pageWell, what better way to assess things than a standardized test! In this case, the 2010 Japanese Language Proficiency Test, otherwise known as JLPT. I'm not allowed to discuss any of the specifics of the test obviously, but it was a lot of fun preparing and taking the test. 
Going into the test, I already knew that I've spent most of my time, and most of my studies listening to or speaking whatever basic Japanese I know, either through podcast form (the ever so excellent, and highly recommendable JapanesePod101.com) or through my consumption of media through television shows and movies. I spend the least amount of time reading, and even less time reading fast and memorizing or recognizing Kanji. So how did I do? Well, sure enough I'm likely to have failed the Vocabulary section, but I think I did pretty strongly in the Grammar and Listening sections. It's probably a bit odd, since it would seem that Vocabulary would be the precursor to anything else, but oh well! I won't know how I did until February / March 2011. Normally, the results would have been available online, but it looks like a recent security breach has caused them to rescind that ability. My next chance to retake the test will be in December 2011, so I think I have more time to review! Now, the other portion of my learning process is really putting myself into situations where I'm at least forced into speaking or remembering Japanese where I can. Now, there is only so many places that you can go to, and return to that will easily allow you to, and will respond in kind. (As the nice folks at Cocoro and Santouka can easily attest to, dealing with my broken Japanese.) I used to take Japanese language classes at the Japan America Society of Chicago, and so I'm still on their mailing lists. I've been to a couple of their cultural events here and there, and finally took the opportunity to volunteer for the Bōnenkai: their holiday fundraiser and party. For those of your that are curious, here's the more traditional definition of a Bōnenkai, according to Wikipedia. I don't foresee myself as an attendee anytime soon (a single seat cost $150!), so it was great to be able to see what it was like, without having to pay! There was a silent auction that preceded the dinner, and we given the opportunity to browse the bids. More on this in a bit. The volunteer work for my shift was pretty straightforward. Gather the silent auction bid sheets. Create invoices, and gather the winning items.Check out what this one person bought!
(Komatsu is a construction equipment company like Catepillar is here. The detail on those toys were quite exquisite!)The real fun for me was handing out the auction items to the dinner attendees. Now the volunteers were a mix of people from different backgrounds: either interns working for the Society, or people from the Young Professionals group, in addition to a mix of folks that were non-Japanese (like myself) or native Japanese that lived in the area. Some non-Japanese folk that I talked to, had the chance to live, work or study in Japan, either for school or as part of JET. One fellow currently works for a Japanese company, and energetically spoke fluent Japanese. He bid and won a gift certificate for Beard Papa, so I proceeded to refer to him as Beard-o-san for the rest of the night. I'm not going to lie though, I was quite envious of his fluency, but just something to shoot for, right? As another amusing note, I took the chance of practicing some Japanese while we handing out items. Now, after people paid, they could have walked up to the pick up area on their own. As a bonus service, I decided that it would be helpful if I just intercepted them right away, and communicated directly to the pickup area for them. This created an artificial scenario where I could use Japanese while talking to some of the native Japanese people that were working in that spot. I did miss using proper honorifics and copulas at time, but for the most part, it was a lot of fun. In leaving for the night, I did mess up in my parting greeting. Normally if you leave ahead of people that are still working, you would say: "Osakini" or "Osakini shitsurei shimasu". Osakini basically means "I'm going ahead, or before you do." The second version , is a more formal or apologetic way of saying that you are leaving ahead of everyone that's still there. It's a nuance, for sure, but for a nuanced fellow like me, a fun nuance to learn and remember. What I had remembered, is the basic phrase that you say after completion of a task, rehearsal, or at the end of the work day or shift: "Otsukare", "Otsukaresama", "Otsukaresame desu" or "Ostukaresama deshita". Basically, this is a thank you for all the hard work, or alternatively a "whew, you must be tired from all that work, thanks!" type of phrase. This is the phrase I said at the end, which I got used to saying after rehearsal back in March. Whoops! Not a terrible faux paus, but still! As alluded to earlier, I did browse around to see if I could find something that I liked that did not have a bid on it. (I wasn't particularly going to try to outbid an attendee on something that they wanted.) Thus, it looks like I will learn the art of Mugai-ryū - a Japanese Koryū sword discipline. I won a month of classes for half the value. (Feels like I bought a Groupon in a way!) Once I start taking the classes, I'll let you all how that's going!
Going into the test, I already knew that I've spent most of my time, and most of my studies listening to or speaking whatever basic Japanese I know, either through podcast form (the ever so excellent, and highly recommendable JapanesePod101.com) or through my consumption of media through television shows and movies. I spend the least amount of time reading, and even less time reading fast and memorizing or recognizing Kanji. So how did I do? Well, sure enough I'm likely to have failed the Vocabulary section, but I think I did pretty strongly in the Grammar and Listening sections. It's probably a bit odd, since it would seem that Vocabulary would be the precursor to anything else, but oh well! I won't know how I did until February / March 2011. Normally, the results would have been available online, but it looks like a recent security breach has caused them to rescind that ability. My next chance to retake the test will be in December 2011, so I think I have more time to review! Now, the other portion of my learning process is really putting myself into situations where I'm at least forced into speaking or remembering Japanese where I can. Now, there is only so many places that you can go to, and return to that will easily allow you to, and will respond in kind. (As the nice folks at Cocoro and Santouka can easily attest to, dealing with my broken Japanese.) I used to take Japanese language classes at the Japan America Society of Chicago, and so I'm still on their mailing lists. I've been to a couple of their cultural events here and there, and finally took the opportunity to volunteer for the Bōnenkai: their holiday fundraiser and party. For those of your that are curious, here's the more traditional definition of a Bōnenkai, according to Wikipedia. I don't foresee myself as an attendee anytime soon (a single seat cost $150!), so it was great to be able to see what it was like, without having to pay! There was a silent auction that preceded the dinner, and we given the opportunity to browse the bids. More on this in a bit. The volunteer work for my shift was pretty straightforward. Gather the silent auction bid sheets. Create invoices, and gather the winning items.Check out what this one person bought! (Komatsu is a construction equipment company like Catepillar is here. The detail on those toys were quite exquisite!)The real fun for me was handing out the auction items to the dinner attendees. Now the volunteers were a mix of people from different backgrounds: either interns working for the Society, or people from the Young Professionals group, in addition to a mix of folks that were non-Japanese (like myself) or native Japanese that lived in the area. Some non-Japanese folk that I talked to, had the chance to live, work or study in Japan, either for school or as part of JET. One fellow currently works for a Japanese company, and energetically spoke fluent Japanese. He bid and won a gift certificate for Beard Papa, so I proceeded to refer to him as Beard-o-san for the rest of the night. I'm not going to lie though, I was quite envious of his fluency, but just something to shoot for, right? As another amusing note, I took the chance of practicing some Japanese while we handing out items. Now, after people paid, they could have walked up to the pick up area on their own. As a bonus service, I decided that it would be helpful if I just intercepted them right away, and communicated directly to the pickup area for them. This created an artificial scenario where I could use Japanese while talking to some of the native Japanese people that were working in that spot. I did miss using proper honorifics and copulas at time, but for the most part, it was a lot of fun. In leaving for the night, I did mess up in my parting greeting. Normally if you leave ahead of people that are still working, you would say: "Osakini" or "Osakini shitsurei shimasu". Osakini basically means "I'm going ahead, or before you do." The second version , is a more formal or apologetic way of saying that you are leaving ahead of everyone that's still there. It's a nuance, for sure, but for a nuanced fellow like me, a fun nuance to learn and remember. What I had remembered, is the basic phrase that you say after completion of a task, rehearsal, or at the end of the work day or shift: "Otsukare", "Otsukaresama", "Otsukaresame desu" or "Ostukaresama deshita". Basically, this is a thank you for all the hard work, or alternatively a "whew, you must be tired from all that work, thanks!" type of phrase. This is the phrase I said at the end, which I got used to saying after rehearsal back in March. Whoops! Not a terrible faux paus, but still! As alluded to earlier, I did browse around to see if I could find something that I liked that did not have a bid on it. (I wasn't particularly going to try to outbid an attendee on something that they wanted.) Thus, it looks like I will learn the art of Mugai-ryū - a Japanese Koryū sword discipline. I won a month of classes for half the value. (Feels like I bought a Groupon in a way!) Once I start taking the classes, I'll let you all how that's going!