Posts Tagged ‘Kanji Kentei’

Sad Kanji Kentei news – failed level 4

Monday, July 11th, 2022

Some rare sad news…. I failed the Kanji Kentei level 4 exam (漢字検定試験4級) by enough points to actually say “ok, this was not just bad luck”)

Level 4 is 315 kanji, significantly more than level 5 which has 220 or so kanji. Subsequently I spent much more time studying for level 4 than I spent on level 5. What’s a bit vexing is that although I spent all that time, I think I mainly failed the exam because of kanji from earlier levels (such as 5, 6 etc.) for the following reasons:

  • I just can’t remember all of them since I’m not actively using them
  • There is a lot more vocabulary derived from kanji combinations than in previous levels

What’s not so vexing is that the exam is “only” 3500 yen per taking. Could have been much more expensive.

So, this happened after I dumped memrise…

Sunday, May 15th, 2022

I’m not blaming anyone if they don’t follow my blog…. it’s not exactly moving quickly with lots of updates.

One of the things I posted about often was memrise and how many points I got etc. It was nice while it lasted but the horrible ads in between exercises made me delete that app faster than Hazel can say booze (see “Girls with Slingshots”)

So I ended up with a lot free time after dumping memrise. Or not really. I rather ended up with time that was not blocked by memrise anymore. Not the same thing.

Anyway, what’s a man got to do with a brain the size of the earth, an ego the size of Jupiter and a language-curiosity as big as the sun?

One word: Kanken.

Although that’s actually 5 words:
Japan Kanji Aptitude Test (日本漢字能力検定, Nihon Kanji Nōryoku Kentei)

It’s just that nobody calls it the full name. Mostly it’s Kanji Kentei or Kanken.

Anyway, it’s about Kanji (surprise, suprise) and here you can find all of them, by level:
https://www.nihongo-pro.com/kanji-pal/list/kanken

As usual in Japan, it’s start at the highest number with the simplest level (still not sure why they do this… it’s limiting) and I quickly rushed through 10 and 9, then decided to officially take level 8 (paper version), then proceeded to use the computer-based test to take (and pass) 7, 6 and 5.

Which means I’m currently studying for level 4. I just need to keep working at it, I guess. It’s doable. and it gives me brain something to do apart from all the other stuff I do.

Keep your fingers crossed for me.