My studies having progressed as far as they could until now, I went to the library today and did a practice JLPT test in preparation for Sunday. I’m glad it was not the real test – I would have failed miserably…
The part with the Kanji turned out quite well, surprisingly. The daily practice I’ve been doing for months now obviously paid off. The reading part was less successful, but it was clearly a question of time. My reading comprehension is not yet automated, I still have to do a lot of translating, which takes extra time that you don’t have.
The biggest problem still: vocabulary. I know a sufficient amount of words – but obviously the wrong ones… A very mean part of the test is the one where a sentence is given, but part of it – four words to be precise – is scrambled, and you have to put the words in the right order; and the question asks only for the word on a certain spot. This is very difficult to begin with, as word order can depend on the speaker’s emphasis (just like in English), so you really have to know the grammar inside out. If you know the vocabulary, you may be able to educatedly guess your way around that, but if you don’t…
I did not do a listening comprehension this afternoon as the one spot where you could do that was taken. Oh well, tomorrow again…