Japanese Placement Test Results

This is quite old by now (March 31), and I didn't put down many (any) details in the draft, but I figure that for the sake of memory I should go ahead and post what I can.





On this morning, the results of the Japanese Placement Test were announced. That is to say, they posted a list organized by student ID number at the campuses. Emil and Joanna had KIP (Keio International Program) guidance (or something) at Mita Campus, so they went there for that, but since I'm JLP (Japanese Language Program), I stayed behind. Since I was still riding the jet lag wave and waking up without an alarm at around 7 or 8 AM, I decided to walk over to Hiyoshi Campus and check out my score. It seems like I did some exploring as well, but, since I didn't write down any details, I can't quite remember.

Anyway, I found the student services center and found my score -- I placed at level 7. For reference, there are four categories: beginner, intermediate, advanced, and higher advanced, with 12 levels distributed among them. 1-3 are beginner, 4-7 are intermediate, 8-10 are advanced, and 11 and 12 are higher advanced (I believe). So, I'm just shy of being "advanced." I was a little disappointed, but it wasn't entirely unexpected-- my knowledge of kanji (The characters borrowed from Chinese) is extremely weak.

With JLP, we have 9 hours per week of "core" courses, and can pick any number of extra "courses with a specific focus," which are also divided by level. However, we're not limited to the level we placed in for these courses. Since I have prescient vision (as I'm writing this in the future, as it were) I can say that I'm planning to take several advanced level courses to really push myself along-- especially in Aural Comprehension, which I think I'm pretty good at.

Anyway, Nick the Kanji Fiend placed at level 9 (I believe he's taking some extra classes in Higher Advanced, actually), Emil at level 1 (He took a second placement test that let him get into level 2 just today) and Joanna at level 3. Joanna in particular was disappointed by this, since she can speak and understand Japanese quite well, having lived here for several years. While Nick and Emil took naps (I think? One or the other might have been working on something else), I volunteered to wander around Hiyoshi with Joanna to help clear her mind. We discovered a bunch of restaurants-- some more expensive than others-- including a Kaitenzushi place that we've all gone to several times now. (If you've been following my Twitter/Facebook, you've heard me mention it. It's not the one from the last post, though!)

I think we also discovered the Takoyaki place that we've now been to many (countless?) times. They do takoyaki (of course; it's octopus wrapped in batter, fried and covered with sauce and some other stuff), yakisoba (I think it's usually called pan fried noodles, though they do it on a large, flat grill-thing), and okonomiyaki (usually called a Japanese pancake, but it's not very similar at all. Try wikipedia). Also excellent is the Omusoba, which is basically yakisoba put into an omelet. It's better than you think (even if you think it sounds amazing).

I don't remember what we did for dinner, but I think afterwards, the four of us opened a bottle of plum wine and drank it while we watched Japanese dramas. That's about all I can remember.