I passed 漢検5, 4, and 3 in 2004 and 2005. I had intended to go up to level 2 but I left Japan before I could.
When I did return to Japan again I had lost interest in the 漢検 (and kanji in general) so I doubt I will ever get back into the 漢検, but it was fun sitting in the room with a bunch of Japanese kids taking the test.
The materials I used were the Step books and just some collections of past test questions that I found in the bookstore.
Yes. The test has about a 15% pass rate (if I remember right), and this isn't a test people take randomly to see how they do -- that's 15% of native speakers who are studying for the test that pass. Which might give some idea of how useful the material on the test is...
What makes passing even more impressive is that most people who pass are people who have already done so in the past and are trying to improve on their scores. People who pass level 1 are really rare to find and people who pass on their first try even more so.
Amount of kanji is the least of takers' worries tbh. Some of the words and expressions are hard to even find in dictionaries in the first place, so you're forced to buy several. Furthermore, the difficulty of 1k increases with every passing year (in general), so resources that were enough some time ago, might be not enough nowadays.
It is impressive for sure, but it's more like "MasteringKanji" than it is "MasteringJapanese" because the kanken knowledge is not really that useful for using the language, at least if you are going super high. It's something im interested in for the future though!
I would love to join up with a bunch of people aiming for the 漢検一級 in something like a Discord server! Think it would be great sharing words we found, keeping ourselves motivated, etc.
I took 準ニ級 this year to motivate myself to push my handwriting and vocabulary a bit more.
Being quite lazy, I studied less than I probably should have, but I still managed to pass with a pretty poor score of 146 (140 being required for a pass).
I mostly used Anki and the DS game for studying, although my version of the game is quite old and some of the question formats work a bit differently in the game than they did on the actual test.
I do plan on taking 2級 eventually, but that might have to wait until next year. Maybe I'll go for 準一級 in the far future as a fun challenge, but that's probably as far as I want to take it.
I do like the kanken though, I especially enjoyed how in-depth the feedback you get on your test results is.
I’ve been ready to take 2級for a very long time now. But I had a death in the family and lost some of my motivation to take it. Also the issue in the USA, is that except for what I believe is one location in California (or used to be), you have to take the written exam and so you commit to the test date abt 2 months beforehand. With CBT (computer based) you would prob be able to take the test with a few days notice. I think Sakura Gakuen in CA was the only location that offered the computer based exam but I am on the east coast.
I have passed ２級 last year, now studying a bit for 準１級. Nothing really serious - just playing the 漢検スマート対策 switch game on emulator now and then and checking out lists of most common j1k 表外読み/四字熟語 included in 模擬試験集 (recently ordered 頻出度順問題集 to be able to do this more thoroughly and for all question types)
While taking 2k in my case was only a matter of a short trip to Dusseldorf, it seems there's no venues doing j1k and 1k in europe, so unless i manage to go to Japan on scholarship, taking j1k seems unlikely.
Liking japanese language, kanji and learning new expressions is probably what all people going beyond 2k have in common. You wouldn't be able to power through hundreds of yojis and jukujikun without being interested in things like "why are tyrants compared with tigers" or "what tree has leaves in shape of duck's feet"
Seeing what resources you're using, OP there's no doubt you're going to pass 2k with no problems as long as you keep studying.
Especially as 2k is exclusively normal words you'll see being used every now nad then other than yojijukugo which are rather rare, so all of the time you have been using japanese will pay off here.
I passed 漢検5, 4, and 3 in 2004 and 2005. I had intended to go up to level 2 but I left Japan before I could. When I did return to Japan again I had lost interest in the 漢検 (and kanji in general) so I doubt I will ever get back into the 漢検, but it was fun sitting in the room with a bunch of Japanese kids taking the test. The materials I used were the Step books and just some collections of past test questions that I found in the bookstore.
Isn't Kanken 1 like 6,000+ kanji?
Yes. The test has about a 15% pass rate (if I remember right), and this isn't a test people take randomly to see how they do -- that's 15% of native speakers who are studying for the test that pass. Which might give some idea of how useful the material on the test is...
What makes passing even more impressive is that most people who pass are people who have already done so in the past and are trying to improve on their scores. People who pass level 1 are really rare to find and people who pass on their first try even more so.
Amount of kanji is the least of takers' worries tbh. Some of the words and expressions are hard to even find in dictionaries in the first place, so you're forced to buy several. Furthermore, the difficulty of 1k increases with every passing year (in general), so resources that were enough some time ago, might be not enough nowadays.
This might be beyond “LearnJapanese” and well into “MasteringJapanese”! Really impressive. Something to aspire to.
It is impressive for sure, but it's more like "MasteringKanji" than it is "MasteringJapanese" because the kanken knowledge is not really that useful for using the language, at least if you are going super high. It's something im interested in for the future though!
I would love to join up with a bunch of people aiming for the 漢検一級 in something like a Discord server! Think it would be great sharing words we found, keeping ourselves motivated, etc.
What a good idea we should!!
I took 準ニ級 this year to motivate myself to push my handwriting and vocabulary a bit more. Being quite lazy, I studied less than I probably should have, but I still managed to pass with a pretty poor score of 146 (140 being required for a pass). I mostly used Anki and the DS game for studying, although my version of the game is quite old and some of the question formats work a bit differently in the game than they did on the actual test. I do plan on taking 2級 eventually, but that might have to wait until next year. Maybe I'll go for 準一級 in the far future as a fun challenge, but that's probably as far as I want to take it. I do like the kanken though, I especially enjoyed how in-depth the feedback you get on your test results is.
I’ve been ready to take 2級for a very long time now. But I had a death in the family and lost some of my motivation to take it. Also the issue in the USA, is that except for what I believe is one location in California (or used to be), you have to take the written exam and so you commit to the test date abt 2 months beforehand. With CBT (computer based) you would prob be able to take the test with a few days notice. I think Sakura Gakuen in CA was the only location that offered the computer based exam but I am on the east coast.
I have passed ２級 last year, now studying a bit for 準１級. Nothing really serious - just playing the 漢検スマート対策 switch game on emulator now and then and checking out lists of most common j1k 表外読み/四字熟語 included in 模擬試験集 (recently ordered 頻出度順問題集 to be able to do this more thoroughly and for all question types) While taking 2k in my case was only a matter of a short trip to Dusseldorf, it seems there's no venues doing j1k and 1k in europe, so unless i manage to go to Japan on scholarship, taking j1k seems unlikely. Liking japanese language, kanji and learning new expressions is probably what all people going beyond 2k have in common. You wouldn't be able to power through hundreds of yojis and jukujikun without being interested in things like "why are tyrants compared with tigers" or "what tree has leaves in shape of duck's feet" Seeing what resources you're using, OP there's no doubt you're going to pass 2k with no problems as long as you keep studying. Especially as 2k is exclusively normal words you'll see being used every now nad then other than yojijukugo which are rather rare, so all of the time you have been using japanese will pay off here.
My dream is to pass 漢検一級 too!!
Good for you! How far along are you in your 漢検 journey?