JLPT (but a long post ensues...)
I finally did it!
I had my JLPT today. ^_^ It was... interesting. Not the bad kind of interesting though. XD;;
I got there pretty early (like an hour and a half early), but I actually met someone at the test site who was doing the test as well. Her name was Sum, I think, and she was Korean. Anyway, she was taking the L1 exam (!) and her Japanese was actually better than her English! XD So every time she didn't know how to say something in English, she would try and tell me in Japanese but I could only respond with "すみません、私の日本語はあまりいいじゃない！ (I'm sorry, my Japanese isn't very good)." XD I couldn't really understand her; her Japanese was amazing. But we still had fun talking. ^_^ And she actually said to me:
"I'm happy! I'm happy I met you." And I was really taken aback by that. No one has ever told me they had been happy to meet me before. That made me happy and really made my day. But I had to go eat and so I left her to study at the exam site while I did. Unfortunately though, she had left by the time I got back. I have no idea where she went, but she was gone. o.O
By this time though, the exam was starting and I had to go in the buildings. I was actually feeling pretty bad about myself for doing Level 4 (the lowest level) and wondered if anyone else could possibly be doing it as it seemed so childish, but when I entered the room, there were at least 15 other people there and I was the youngest! A lot of the people were middle-aged, I was really surprised.
I was feeling a bit better about myself then and when the exam finally started and I got the first paper (文字・語彙 (Writing-Vocabulary)), I found it so easy that I finished it in around 10 mins! And there are around 30 questions. It was really easy though! I was so happy!
The listening was hard though... I zoned out on a few of the conversations and just guessed some of the answers. o.O I didn't mean to stop listening, but there were around 15 conversations to get through and once you've heard the first 5, they all sound the same. So I had to really concentrate to try and figure out what they were saying. The funny thing was though, I understood all the pre-test stuff like "We will begin the Level 4 Examination Listening questions now" and all the examples they did (all spoken in Japanese), but I didn't get the questions. XD Some of them were alright, but I really didn't have enough vocabulary to understand them completely. So I ended up guessing at least 3 of them. ^_^;;
As for the last part, the 読解・文法 (Reading-Grammar), I don't think I did do too bad on that one. The difficulty was sort of a combination of the Writing-Vocabulary and Listening papers. XD Some of the grammar was confusing, but I quite liked the reading. That was actually easy. But I sort of know that my reading is good as I do translate interviews and have the ability, depending on the text, to start reading something and understand most of what is going on, even without a dictionary. Like last night, I was reading a SHOXX mag and stumbled across a Modern Suite interview and starting reading it and understood around 85% of it without any dictionary. They are so freaking adorable, I'm so translating that interview. XD;;
Anyway, it was a really good experience. I have a good feeling I passed. (Well, if I don't pass, I'll get really angry and feel even worse about myself than I did at the start of the test. >_>;;) And the good thing about it is that I realise my Japanese is terrible again. You see, when I was studying for the exam (which I didn't need to, apparently >_>;;), I was actually starting to feel that my Japanese was good; for the first time in my life, I was actually proud of my Japanese. But after being shown how little I know through the test and talking to Sum, I've gone back to realising that my Japanese is actually really bad and I hardly know anything. But that's good! I have a really strong desire to learn more and I will better myself. Not just for next year's exam, but for myself too. Speaking Japanese well is one of my major goals in life (right up there with seeing Gazette) and I have wanted it for ages. But I know I can get there if I try. I just have to study to the best of my ability and put in as much as I can. I know it won't be easy, but I'm ready for it.
I will get there.
頑張るぞ!!
…じゃあ、多分「ぞ」を使用するべきではないね…（笑）
In other news, I listened to Dollis Marry's album Doli Mari Party yesterday.
It is awesome. XDD I thought it was a great album at track 3! Haha. It really is something though. The boys really showcase their musical knowledge, which is apparently quite vast(!), through the songs and the album is so much fun to listen to. There are styles on there that I haven't heard in years and I really enjoyed it. The flow of the album isn't very good, but the songs by themselves are good. I do wish they hadn't put a live track on a full album though. That always sounds bad. -_-;; Anyway, you can download it at
silly_god_disc0's playlist. =D And because I feel like talking and talking until I run out of things to say, I just want to talk about two of the songs.
The lyrics of 始まりの別れ (Beginning's Farewell) are so sad they made my heart jolt when I listened to it. I must admit, songs I can understand on first listen always effect me more, and I understood what he was singing on first listen with this song, but I found the lyrics are really sad. This is part of what I understood: (and I did this from what I heard as I have no printed lyrics)
Good bye
Good bye
Please become happy
Even though I still love you so
Okay, so you probably don't think that's very sad, but really, who sings "Please become happy"? Seriously, that's some heart-breaking stuff right there. What if she is happy? You don't leave someone and tell them to "be happy". And the tenderness of the "please"; like "Please be happy" "...because I know you're not and I want more than anything to see you smile"... IT'S SAD. ;__;
And I could not stop laughing when I first heard their song Mr. Romantic. It is the funniest shit EVER. XDD It's just so adorable!! You might want to listen to it to get what I'm on about, but there's this little adorable part where they sing "L. O. V. E. Love!" although it's a lot cuter than it looks because he sings "Rabu!" Hahaha. And there's this one part where he goes "I cannot speak English!" and that cracked me up even more because IT'S SO TRUE. XDDDD I love this song too much. Haha.
Oh! Gazette helped me in the JLPT exam today! There was a part of the listening thing with a calendar and they were talking about the days and someone said "youka" and I could not remember what day that was at all, but then I remembered Gazette's song "Shichigatsu Youka" and I remembered it was the 8th day of the month! I was so happy to be a Gazette fan right at that moment. I probably got the answer right because of them. <3
Okay, I've run out of things to say so I'll finish this here~!
I had my JLPT today. ^_^ It was... interesting. Not the bad kind of interesting though. XD;;
I got there pretty early (like an hour and a half early), but I actually met someone at the test site who was doing the test as well. Her name was Sum, I think, and she was Korean. Anyway, she was taking the L1 exam (!) and her Japanese was actually better than her English! XD So every time she didn't know how to say something in English, she would try and tell me in Japanese but I could only respond with "すみません、私の日本語はあまりいいじゃない！ (I'm sorry, my Japanese isn't very good)." XD I couldn't really understand her; her Japanese was amazing. But we still had fun talking. ^_^ And she actually said to me:
"I'm happy! I'm happy I met you." And I was really taken aback by that. No one has ever told me they had been happy to meet me before. That made me happy and really made my day. But I had to go eat and so I left her to study at the exam site while I did. Unfortunately though, she had left by the time I got back. I have no idea where she went, but she was gone. o.O
By this time though, the exam was starting and I had to go in the buildings. I was actually feeling pretty bad about myself for doing Level 4 (the lowest level) and wondered if anyone else could possibly be doing it as it seemed so childish, but when I entered the room, there were at least 15 other people there and I was the youngest! A lot of the people were middle-aged, I was really surprised.
I was feeling a bit better about myself then and when the exam finally started and I got the first paper (文字・語彙 (Writing-Vocabulary)), I found it so easy that I finished it in around 10 mins! And there are around 30 questions. It was really easy though! I was so happy!
The listening was hard though... I zoned out on a few of the conversations and just guessed some of the answers. o.O I didn't mean to stop listening, but there were around 15 conversations to get through and once you've heard the first 5, they all sound the same. So I had to really concentrate to try and figure out what they were saying. The funny thing was though, I understood all the pre-test stuff like "We will begin the Level 4 Examination Listening questions now" and all the examples they did (all spoken in Japanese), but I didn't get the questions. XD Some of them were alright, but I really didn't have enough vocabulary to understand them completely. So I ended up guessing at least 3 of them. ^_^;;
As for the last part, the 読解・文法 (Reading-Grammar), I don't think I did do too bad on that one. The difficulty was sort of a combination of the Writing-Vocabulary and Listening papers. XD Some of the grammar was confusing, but I quite liked the reading. That was actually easy. But I sort of know that my reading is good as I do translate interviews and have the ability, depending on the text, to start reading something and understand most of what is going on, even without a dictionary. Like last night, I was reading a SHOXX mag and stumbled across a Modern Suite interview and starting reading it and understood around 85% of it without any dictionary. They are so freaking adorable, I'm so translating that interview. XD;;
Anyway, it was a really good experience. I have a good feeling I passed. (Well, if I don't pass, I'll get really angry and feel even worse about myself than I did at the start of the test. >_>;;) And the good thing about it is that I realise my Japanese is terrible again. You see, when I was studying for the exam (which I didn't need to, apparently >_>;;), I was actually starting to feel that my Japanese was good; for the first time in my life, I was actually proud of my Japanese. But after being shown how little I know through the test and talking to Sum, I've gone back to realising that my Japanese is actually really bad and I hardly know anything. But that's good! I have a really strong desire to learn more and I will better myself. Not just for next year's exam, but for myself too. Speaking Japanese well is one of my major goals in life (right up there with seeing Gazette) and I have wanted it for ages. But I know I can get there if I try. I just have to study to the best of my ability and put in as much as I can. I know it won't be easy, but I'm ready for it.
I will get there.
頑張るぞ!!
…じゃあ、多分「ぞ」を使用するべきではないね…（笑）
In other news, I listened to Dollis Marry's album Doli Mari Party yesterday.
It is awesome. XDD I thought it was a great album at track 3! Haha. It really is something though. The boys really showcase their musical knowledge, which is apparently quite vast(!), through the songs and the album is so much fun to listen to. There are styles on there that I haven't heard in years and I really enjoyed it. The flow of the album isn't very good, but the songs by themselves are good. I do wish they hadn't put a live track on a full album though. That always sounds bad. -_-;; Anyway, you can download it at
silly_god_disc0's playlist. =D And because I feel like talking and talking until I run out of things to say, I just want to talk about two of the songs.
The lyrics of 始まりの別れ (Beginning's Farewell) are so sad they made my heart jolt when I listened to it. I must admit, songs I can understand on first listen always effect me more, and I understood what he was singing on first listen with this song, but I found the lyrics are really sad. This is part of what I understood: (and I did this from what I heard as I have no printed lyrics)
Good bye
Good bye
Please become happy
Even though I still love you so
Okay, so you probably don't think that's very sad, but really, who sings "Please become happy"? Seriously, that's some heart-breaking stuff right there. What if she is happy? You don't leave someone and tell them to "be happy". And the tenderness of the "please"; like "Please be happy" "...because I know you're not and I want more than anything to see you smile"... IT'S SAD. ;__;
And I could not stop laughing when I first heard their song Mr. Romantic. It is the funniest shit EVER. XDD It's just so adorable!! You might want to listen to it to get what I'm on about, but there's this little adorable part where they sing "L. O. V. E. Love!" although it's a lot cuter than it looks because he sings "Rabu!" Hahaha. And there's this one part where he goes "I cannot speak English!" and that cracked me up even more because IT'S SO TRUE. XDDDD I love this song too much. Haha.
Oh! Gazette helped me in the JLPT exam today! There was a part of the listening thing with a calendar and they were talking about the days and someone said "youka" and I could not remember what day that was at all, but then I remembered Gazette's song "Shichigatsu Youka" and I remembered it was the 8th day of the month! I was so happy to be a Gazette fan right at that moment. I probably got the answer right because of them. <3
Okay, I've run out of things to say so I'll finish this here~!