I Passed JLPT3…..
I learnt the other day that I passed JLPT3 with an OK score of 355/400 (88.75%) which is what I guess I deserve for:
a) never having bought a single Japanese textbook in my life.
b) having revised a grand total of 123 minutes for the exam (by doing one past paper from last century).
c) not having a clue what the new format of the exam was before I took it.
I was really hoping for at least 370, but I’m satisfied that I got near 90% given the amount of work I put in (i.e. none).
So yeah, I’m self-taught. I hesitate to call it ’self-taught’ though cos I’ve never really attempted to learn the language per se, I just picked it up somewhere along the way ;P
Listening is still my strongest suit - watching dorama & listening to Japanese indie bands with garbage lyrics helped build up my vocab over the last few years, but my woeful knowledge of everything else showed up clearly. I didn’t even have a head start on the kanji like a lot of the people who took the exam with me - although I’m ethnic Chinese & can speak three dialects, I can neither read nor write the language.
Anyhow, my results are still proof that you can pass the exam with no knowledge of grammar rules & the such and with almost no revision - not that I would recommend it. Different methods work for different people, and I know that proper classes would be useless for someone like me as I possess the attention span of a goldfish on ecstacy.
So all you ppl who learn Japanese by watching anime, keep at it and with a bit of Konata-style cramming you can too pass JLPTx. But don’t just study it for the sake of getting that piece of qualification paper, make sure you enjoy learning it at the same time 
Nevertheless, I hope to put in a little bit more effort to learn stuff properly so that I can do well on 2-kyu this year. And probably work towards 1-kyu next year too, but as the other bloggers who took JLPT last year said, the journey never ends~~
March 16th, 2008 at 4:23 pm
Congratulations! You now are in possession of what I like to call “otaku street cred”, in addition to being a person I can take seriously when it comes to the language. (:
March 16th, 2008 at 6:24 pm
Congratulations! With all your talk on seiyuu and listening to radio shows I thought you already passed JLPT1. Now you have to turn into a manga/eroge nerd to bulk up on kanji.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
congratulations~~ nice, I just started learning Japanese few months ago.. should study harder~~ >_<
March 17th, 2008 at 12:58 am
Congratulations! This brings to mind how I should have taken JLPT when still studying Japanese as a school subject. orz
From what some people I know said, JLPT2 is a lot more difficult. Here’s wishing you all the best in advance~
March 17th, 2008 at 3:18 am
Congratulations! Native intelligence wins out. I love your study habits, since they resemble my own. But you have the skill I lack: listening comprehension. Kanji are the part of the language I find easiest, lol.
March 17th, 2008 at 7:59 am
Thanks all! Off to read some manga/play some Japanese DS games to brush up on my kanji & grammar >_<
March 19th, 2008 at 9:18 pm
I was meaning to congratulate you on this j1m0ne, but I somehow got sidetracked. Oh well, better late than never.
Congratulations! You should be more proud of your score! 88.75% is quite a high score, especially considering that you studied the language by yourself. Up until JLPT3, I’d consider myself as “self taught”, though I did rely on the help of some books, especially Genki. But now that you’re aiming for level 2, than Genki textbook will no longer be necessary xD
My listening skillz suck however, hence I want to expose myself to more jdoramas, Drama CDs, etc, the same way you did ^^
May 7th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
hi ,i clear jlpt3 this year.i want to preaper for level3.i need some previous year question papers of level3. can u help me.if u know any site then olease u give me