Thanks to reading, the kanji/vocab questions (N2) were a cakewalk.
Yet, the reading passages might as well have been another language. It’s just plastered with those comparison, ‘not X, but y’, ‘not only, but’, etc. style grammar. You might see that now and then in an LN, but in the JLPT texts it’s like every sentences contains one of those points.
The texts this year were again like: why you should/should not use keigo in a letter; etc. Not the sort of thing you’ll see in an LN! Likewise, I find myself glossing over the vocab in the articles as it’s often words I haven’t/rarely see (but can now infer a meaning from the kanji).
I have ベスト・エッセイ, but would like to read something similar digitally first.
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I hate the listening, but have always struggled with it. I now actually think 名探偵コナン is a good choice for practice, so I’ll be watching/listening to that more often. Often you get similar scenarios of (multiple) people going back and forth: it’s X because they were the only person at the location between these times; no it can’t be because Y; but Z evidence; and so on.
I would say my friend’s fiancee is like the most expert person I know for Japanese, she got 60/60, 60/,60 and 56/60 on N1 without really studying for it a few years back. She does translations and has worked at Japanese companies for a while.
I took N1 the same time as her and got 57/60 on the listening, haha. My other scores were not so impressive. I was pretty so-so at N2 listening, but I really got good at listening from working at Japanese company. So I do think the JLPT listening favors people who work at Japanese companies, because you essentially are being tested on your listening ability every day.
My reading score was actually lower the second time I took N1, lol. But… using this website and reading a lot at my level, I have really boosted my reading speed and speed to recognize words and kanji.
Lots of good things to think about here, because normally I just grade it depending on how many hard kanji/vocabulary there are. I also think about what JLPT level I previously though the book would be (which might be biasing things a bit). I will take some of these other criteria into as much consideration as possible when I’m grading books from here on out.
I base the difficulty on the amount of JLPT vocabulary/kanji. So if I’m reading a book and it has a little N2 vocab and grammar, I’ll recommend it to N3-N2 learners. But if a book has a lot of N2 grammar/vocab and a little N1, I’ll recommend it to N2-N3 level learners.
I also post book reviews on my website and in each I explain why I’d recommend a book to Japanese learners so they have an idea of the type of Japanese (business, fantasy etc) going in.
How do you know what “N2 vocab” is? Maybe it’s because I self-studied my entire time learning Japanese, but I have no idea what “level” most vocabulary is. To me it’s either “vocab I know” or “vocab I don’t know”.
Basically this. I find writing style can make a huge difference. DanMach vs SAO - almost same level, but I found DM way harder bc of the style. Similarly 不登校の幼馴染が学校に行く条件は、毎日俺とキスすることだった Lvl was easier for me than a Lvl 23 rom com with a very dense and uneventful writing style. (I dropped the latter).
Also I try to account for my improved reading skills. Like 暁のヨナ is relatively easy for me now, but I remember when it wasn’t, and I remember what specifically was hard about it (grammar structures and some specific vocab, plus not always totally clear who’s speaking). Similarly, it feels easier to read ツバサ Reservoir Chronicle now than how やがて君になる felt when I read it. But ツバサ is obviously way harder.
Kansai-ben, and whether it’s “Kansai lite” (ex Yun in NEW GAME!) vs heavy Kansai-ben (like the MC in 雨でも晴れでも. The former is sort of sprinkled for affect, but still mostly reads like Tokyo-ben. The latter you really need some charts/explanations. So even though NEW GAME! is harder overall, I might grade them similarly, since a newer reader would struggle a lot with the Kansai-ben.
Same for 役割語 (やくわりご role language). If it’s super heavy/slangy to a point where it would not be easy for readers to intuit unfamiliar vocab, I’m gonna grade it as harder.
All-furigana often means easier, but some series are deceptively hard like 暁のヨナ (grammar) or ロード・エルメロイII世の事件簿 1 「case.剥離城アドラ」 (very esoteric vocab, concepts, and grammar - often in walls of text - much more than other Fate series).
https://crystalhuntersmanga.com/ was designed for learners & has free vocab/grammar guides. There’s a natural Japanese version and a simplified JP version for each volume, plus an English translation for each. I actually found the natural JP version easier to read, when I first tried it.
Flying Witch and はなにあらし are both great as well. ルリドラゴン is on the easier side, tho maybe not as a very first read.
No specific characters in mind. It’s just that in addition to common words like あかん and ほんま and using や instead of だ and using へん instead of ない, Yun used other phrases I’ve seen less, like しもうた and ねん.
Honestly I don’t really think dialectal speech is as difficult as a lot of learners make it out to be. The only reason people find it difficult is because they only do rigid textbook study that obviously only teaches standard proper Japanese. Once you get into your first book with a certain dialect you will be used to it by a couple chapters in, at least that’s how it’s been for me so far. For that reason I don’t even consider it when making a grading, I just consider vocab and such.
I dunno, I think people tend to find it difficult especially early on because if you’re not pretty solid on standard grammar then the dialect variants can be unrecognizable. Once you’ve got more experience with the language it’s easier to be confident about variations on it. And mostly it’s just more effective not to be dealing with multiple unknowns at once – it’s much easier to look up an unknown grammar structure if you start from its form in the standard language than if you’re starting with how it looks in Kyoto dialect, or Kansai-ben, or whatever.
(For instance I found the Kyoto dialect in 古都 (by 川端康成) definitely contributed a bit to its difficulty level, though a lot was just Kawabata’s usual love of being oblique and indirect.)
I’ve never done textbook study, and have generally focused more on casual rather than formal JP, so I don’t think that’s the only reason.
I think this is where the initial difficulty was for me. I learned grammar through a hodgepodge of good sources and via immersion. So at the same time I was trying to reverse engineer grammar in general, I was trying to decipher unfamiliar patterns in a new dialect.
As @pm215 said, it’s easier to understand something when you’re not dealing with multiple unknowns. So if something is already a bit above your level, dialect will make it that much harder.
It’s totally fair not to include that in your gradings tho, if it doesn’t make a big difference for you.
Yes, I agree. At least with 関西弁 you often just have to substitute the dialect version for the standard version, and if there are any dialect-specific phrases or words I just treat it like new vocab. I still consider dialect when grading, but I consider the grammar difficulty itself more. Like if it’s simple grammar but it’s just replacing ない with へん etc., then that’s easy, but not as easy as standard dialect.
But of course my perspective on this likely comes from the fact that I’ve read so much in 関西弁 so maybe I’m just used to it
so maybe I’m just used to it