So I wrote the Japanese Proficiency Test today

My first time taking one. Aside from flipping through a few kanji flashcards the night before, I didn't study for it at all, just kind of walked in and wrote it. I'll almost certainly pass it, too. But it's almost as much an embarrassment as it is victory: I only did the 3rd level.

There are 4 levels, 4 being counterintuitively the easiest and 1 being hardest. 4 is beginner level grade school stuff; hiragana and katakana alphabets, 100 chinese characters, count to 100, know the days of the week and months of the year, be able to say "this is a pen, that is not an eraser", that kind of thing. 3 is intermediate level and a good deal harder. 2 is a good deal harder still. 1 requires you to spend literally around 1,000 hours studying obtuse chinese characters that even a lot of educated Japanese people don't know. Taking one Japanese class a week? At that rate, it'll take you 20 years just to get to the point where you can reasonably attempt Level 1. Even if you study 4 hours a week, it'll take you about 5 years.

I "speak Japanese" (I stress the scare quotes), so I always wondered about the tests. On one hand, they're all grammar, reflect the obtuse, uncommunicative nature of language education and testing in Japan, yeah, yeah, I know. But even so, just based on Osmosis of living here and my own haphazard study habits, I should be able to pass them...shouldn't I? What would my level be if I tried? Where would I peak out?

Back in Niigata, where foreigner turnover was high and the bar for being a westerner that spoke Japanese was a lot lower (at least at the time), nobody save for a few aspiring professional translators really took any of the proficiency tests. Robert, the local bartender who used Japanese at work for 9 years straight and whose wife didn't speak a word of English, wouldn't even attempt the level 3, citing the heavy stress on grammar and all the kanji. Greg, a successful restaurateur who dealt with all his staff in Japanese, had tried it and bombed. Chad, a JET who actually studied , had suffered a similar fate.

Flash forward to Temple University here in Fukuoka, and it's a different game. At least three of my classmates had the level 1, or at least probably could have if they had been bothered. One had studied to be a translator, another had a master's degree in Japanese Literature from Cambridge University. Level 3 was what you studied for even if you didn't particularly claim to speak Japanese. Meanwhile, at the International School, the Japanese manager complimented my Japanese and told me I had the best Japanese of any of the ESL teachers on staff. Of that staff, two had passed the Level 3, and one had laughed it off as easy.

So I didn't really know what to think when I finally decided to go for it this year. I talked to the pros and it became apparent that level 1 wasn't a serious option for me yet. It came down to 3 and 2, but the jump in knowledge between them is very steep. I estimated that I was somewhere between the two, leaning towards level 2. So I had two options- I could commit to a serious study regimen of several hours a week, learn several new kanji, study the honorifics with a level of detail I never have before, and try the Level 2, or just breeze through the Level 3. I, um, chose to breeze through the 3 (Don't peg me as a total slacker- I don't talk about work much on this blog, but I'm busy, man).

So anyway, yeah, it was easy, easier than getting my driver's license here by a wide margin. The listening section was very easy (Very simple conversations using a basic vocabulary, and t-h-e-y s-p-o-k-e v-e-r-y, v-e-r-y c-l-e-a-r-l-y). The dreaded grammar section turned out to be stuff I learned to do during my second year in Niigata, so aside from some vocab I probably could have passed it even back then.

Still, it whetted my appetite to do the Level 2 and start taking studying seriously again. Looking at the criteria, and the study regimen for it would really be what my Japanese needs to progress anyway. My Japanese plateaued after living in Niigata. It would be nice to have a clear goal to study seriously for over the next year.

BONUS- Check out this very funny tirade about how hard the test is here at the Japan Times

Bonus bloggy type stuff- At lunch, I left the test site at Kyushu University only to find a crowd of people lined up on the other side of the road, holding "rising sun" flags, the one Japan used before they lost World War II. While it isn't a racist sign per se, it has gradually become something of a symbol of conservative patriotism, and is often painted on the sides of the vehicles of members of the radical right, who drive around blaring through their loudspeakers about how Japan should rid itself of foreigner influence.

"Uh, why are Japanese people rallying and holding the Asian equivalent of the confederate flag outside of a testing center for foreigners learning Japanese?" I wondered. Then I noticed that many of them were holding pamphlets with what looked to be mug shots of various foreigners. As I posted about earlier, every now and then a foreigner commits a crime here, and the media stirs everyone in a frenzy. So it looked even creepier.

Know what it was? It was a qualifier marathon for the Olympic games in Beijing next year, and as the crowd was happy to tell me, they were coming out to cheer on the foreigner runners. Why the rising sun flag? Because this was going on chiefly in the morning. God Bless Fukuoka.