Japan – Language – Page 3

April 16, 2003

It’s not as easy as ichi, ni, san

Anyone who’s studied Japanese for some time eventually comes up against the fact that when counting things, it’s not enough to be able to count to a hundred (or more). This will only get you so far. Fo you see, for different objects, one must also attach a unique “counter,” which varies depending on the object you’re counting. Even beginning students will soon encounter this, as they learn how to count days, or bottles of beer, or sheets of paper, etc. But there are a lot more where this came from. In fact, this page lists 509 counters, for everything from flower petals to poems to rosary beads! Chances are there even more out there that native Japanese speakers aren’t even aware of.

The image above was clipped from a sales insert distributed by the home-delivery grocery service we use, Co-op, and illustrates just some of the counters involved with food items. It’s for parents to use to review with their children (osarai means “review”). As it says, one can always get by using the catch-all hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu… counter, but wouldn’t it be better to learn the actual counters. Click on the image above for a larger one (it is large, 205K).

March 18, 2003

Kaika’s naming antecedents

An partial explanation of our son's name Kaika

Some of the thoughts that went into the name:

kai (umi) — both Naoko and I grew up on islands, surrounded by the sea. Naoko crossed an ocean once to meet me, and kept crossing it to pursue me. We fell in love, and crossed the same ocean together to start our life and family in Japan.

ka (uta) — given in the hope that our son will be a creator, a performer, a builder, an expresser. The names of Japanese artists Utamaro and Utagawa Hiroshige were the inspiration.

When I was young, on the beaches of Hawaii my brother Kimo and I would look for seashells with my mother. When we found the big ones, my mother would tell us to cup it around our ear. She told us that no matter where you were, if you listened to the seashell, you would be able to hear the song of the ocean. kai (using a different Chinese character) is Japanese for shellfish. kaigara is seashell.

Other considerations: Kaika is derived from the Hawaiian name Ikaika, meaning strong. kai in Hawaiian also means the sea. Naoko and I had decided early on that if it was a boy, we would give it a Hawaiian name (or close to it).

And lastly, the idea for the name first came to me while I was creating some Kanji flashcards. While learning the kanji for akeru (to open), I came upon the kanji combination word kaika, a pairing of the kanji for akeru and hana (flower). Written with these kanji, kaika means “flowering” or “blooming,” in both the literal and figurative senses of those words. I liked the idea of that, as Kaika would be born at the time of Spring that cherry blossoms are making their blooming march across the Japan archipelago from south to north (called sakurazensen).

February 6, 2003

The slow, slow climb towards Japanese proficiency

I haven’t commented much on the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (or Nihongo nouryouku shiken) I took last December, which is ironic, considering that my preparation for it caused me to temporarily put this site on hiatus last Fall. And truth be told, although it was only a scant two months ago that I was one of over 100,000 Japanese learners worldwide that took the test across its 4 levels, it already seems like a distant memory.

But the distant memory popped its head up today, when I received (finally!) via the post notification from the AIEJ (Association of International Education, Japan) about how I did. In short, I PASSED! (Sorry for screaming). Now, mind you, I only took the Level 3 test, which depending on how you look at it is either third level down from the top, or second level up for the bottom (there are only 4 levels in all). So no great shakes. But it’s a start, and considering that in actuality the test was quite a bit above the Japanese proficiency level I was at when I applied to take it 3 months prior, I’m proud of how I did.

I also passed by a respectable margin, which makes me happy. For Level 3, one need only get 60% or higher to pass, and I felt that just squeaking by with a low-60’s percentage would be a bit disappointing, so I was pleased to score 81% overall. As I expected, the Listening section was my poorest section, although even there I managed to pass. (Not surprisingly, I did best in the Kanji and Vocabulary section — 90%).

As with most tests of this type, how well one can speak Japanese in real-life situations is not tested, so I’m not kidding myself that I’m in any way, shape, or form proficient in this all-important regard. But I do feel that putting in the work I needed to in order to get to this level has given me a great foundation from which to build myself up conversationally, and for this reason I would recommend the test to any Japanese learner, even at Levels 3 and 4.

Where to from here? Well, Level 2 looms large and intimidatingly on the horizon, though I’m beginning to accept the fact that it’s highly unlikely I’ll be ready for this year’s test in 10 short months time (it’s quite a jump from 3 to 2 — for example, one needs to know roughly 1,000 kanji characters for Level 2, as opposed to only 300 or so for Level 3). 10 years time is probably a more reasonable expectation. Either way, I will get there however, someday.

ADDENDUM: Here are some useful links for anyone interested in taking the test in the future:

Association of International Education, Japan JLPT page
Japan Foundation site for the JLPT
The JapanesePage.com’s “About the JLPT” page
Ed Jacob’s Japanese Language Proficiency Test First and Second Grade Study Guide
Joe’s JLPT Page
Meguro Language Center’s JLPT free downloadables page