しあわせ

I found some more information about the new JLPT exams starting in 2010.

Firstly it seems not every exam centre will have twice yearly exams. It looks as if only centres in Japan,China and Korea will definitely offer it twice a year. SOAS in London seems to be keeping to December only. It’ll be worth checking with your nearest centre. It may also help them gauge interest and encourage them to offer it biannually. Hopefully the Japan Foundation will update its listings soon.

More interestingly, although official workbooks won’t appear until 2012 according to the official JLPT site, Bonjinsha already has a few textbooks available for the new JLPT specifications. They aren’t part of the full listing on Bonjinsha’s site. However I did find them under their (unweildy) Japanese title 新しい「日本語能力試験」ガイドブック概要版と問題例集 (New Japanese-Language Proficiency Test Guidebook: An Executive Summary, and Sample Questions).

Finally, although this isn’t exactly new, Ireland now has it’s own JLPT exam centre at DCU. Although they have the typically rubbish websites common to a lot of universities.

I read an interesting document about the new JLPT specifications for the test starting in 2010 from the Japan Foundation.

Considering the search terms people use in Google these points are a big departure from the old test:

There are no plans to publish collections of complete copies of tests administered in past years.

and

The goal of learning Japanese is not to memorize vocabulary, kanji, and grammar, but to become capable of using them as a means of communication. The new test is to measure both “Japanese language knowledge, including vocabulary and grammar,” and “the competence required to perform communicative tasks using language knowledge.” Therefore, we determined that it is not appropriate to publish “Test Content Specifications” which includes the lists of vocabulary, kanji, and grammar.

and

Failure to exceed the minimum acceptable score in any scoring sections will result in a fail for the entire test, even if your total score is above the minimum acceptable score.

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I saw an announcement about the changes over on JLPTStudy.com.
From 2010 the JLPT is going to be held twice a year. A new level is going to be inserted between present level 3 and 2, making 5 levels in all, and Level 1 is going to get even harder somehow.

I quite welcome that the test can be sat at 2 different times. The July date puts it more in line with European academic cycles. The best part is the new level 3. I was feeling lacklustre about starting towards Level 2 because the jump was so high. I was looking at at least 2 maybe 3 years work I think. I’m still looking at that amount of work it seems for a test in 2010 but now it seems more achievable if I work towards the new level 3. I wonder how long it will take to find out the exam syllabus in terms of kanji, vocabulary lists and grammar points.
So it looks like I’ll stit JLPT3 again in 2010, except now it’s N3
The pdf annoucing the changes is linked on JEES’s home page.
–update 13Sep08–
Here’s a direct link to a pdf in English of the June Progress Report on the changes.