Back in 2007, I sat for and passed the 三級「さんきゅう」( translation: level 3 ) exam for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. It was a big moment for me. It meant a lot, personally. It stood to show that I could study on my own and make serious headway into Japanese fluency. I had managed to pass the same test my brother passed while living in and immersing himself in Japan! I even managed to almost beat his score. Next stop: being paid to be awesome!
It was pretty much a complete lie. Not that I passed, mind you. I passed with, I think, an 80%. And I achieved that success through a lot of study. Many nights would find me at the kitchen table for 4 to 6 hours of study. So, that part is true. What I thought it connoted was the lie. I had not made any significant headway and here is why: I studied to pass a test and not to communicate.
Short and sweet, isn't it? A lot of work completely invalidated! You know what part of the test that I scored the lowest on was? Listening comprehension! I bombed it. Might as well have been deaf. I had some fantastic resources as well. I worked through Japanese for Busy People, Pimsleur Japanese, Master Series for JLPT3 Grammar. I think the biggest problem with the method I was using was that I was doing my damndest to use English.
The only thing I had to tie my studies to was my understanding of their concepts as translated to English. The first page of the Master's Series goes over how to use 「かた」to conjugate a verb into "how the verb is done." Three years ago, I would read that, go over the samples, and memorize "「かた」 means VERB+how to". Then, onto the next one. No sentence mining, no constant deck reviews and culling. No i+1 input. No materials that were chosen simply because the subject interested me! When it came time to take the exam, I could read the sentences well enough having developed a good vocabulary( that's right, folks, I used Anki back when it was an EMACS module! Pedigree! ) and I could tell which was the correct conjugation to put in the blank. Should some harried teacher have rushed up to me with some ungraded grammar quizzes for her class of 2 year olds( okay two year olds with massive head injuries ), I could have been her hero! Unfortunately, I wasn't exactly a hero when it came to the various in-person language exchanges I was part of, though.
I'm a moderately shy person. I don't like looking like an idiot and like a lot of human beings I don't like being wrong. I had two language exchange partners, both with native Japanese speakers who were living in the DC area. Both spoke fantastic English and both were more than willing to help me with Japanese. However, I almost never spoke in Japanese or asked them to speak in Japanese for a set period of time. I didn't want to be wrong, I didn't want to look like I couldn't communicate and, in the end, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I couldn't communicate. Not taking advantage of the perfect opportunity presented to me in the form of truly enjoyable language exchange partners is probably the biggest regret I have when it comes to Japanese. I spent way too much time asking JLPT grammar questions( in English ), asking the difference between vague JLPT vocabulary( in English ), and wrapping my head around various Japanese idioms( IN ENGLISH! ).
There is fundamental flaw in the idea of setting an exam as your goal. The goal should be, has to be, fluency in communication. Being able to communicate fluently is the mountaintop and exams like the JLPT should be your base-camp. They should be your first step up the mountain - That place where the wizened old mountaineer pours over your gear with a critical eye and decides whether or not you're going to kill yourself going up the mountain. Passing tests like the JLPT 3&4 are valuable intermediate launching points, I think. The test is able to dilute the massive swirling soup of Japanese into some very concise points that you're going to need to know. How you get to the base-camp is just as important as how you're going to climb that mountain. I know that, in my case, I took the exam and having seen it as the mountain-top for so long, all I had to look forward to was the long walk back down. It was so easy to quit. To say, "well, we're having a baby, I don't have time or the mental capacity for this at the moment," because I had reached my goal. There is an urge to make excuses for my behavior: "Well, I'm an American student trying to learn Japanese outside of Japan." "Japanese is hard to learn even IN Japan." "It wasn't the right time to learn." To which there are a couple of rebukes. I did the exact same thing when I trained for my Cisco Certification. My goal was to pass the CCNA exam, I passed with flying colors and I stopped learning. That information has effectively atrophied. So it's not that Japanese is hard because Cisco products aren't difficult to use and I let the same thing happen. As for learning outside of Japan? Go check out Khatzumoto at All Japanese All the Time, he did it as have many others. The material isn't cripplingly difficult, but the same can't be said for the mindset! To be honest, I don't know where the mindset comes from! I don't know if we pick this up in school ( "Will this be on the exam?" ) or if we're hardwired to be lazy learners. Path of least resistance?
Another post coming down the pipes about the changes I've made this time around!
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