So I was wondering if I'd be able to do some JLPT 5 reading comprehension after one month and a half just reading authentic material and Tae Kim's book. Let's see how well I fare.
JLPT 5 Reading Comprehension
I found the first two questions pretty easy.
1. Japan's Ramen are delicious.
2. I have two siblings in my family, a brother and a sister.
Comments (1) & (2):
I couldn't remember whether 「弟」meant younger or older brother but I knew it was a brother so it didn't really cause too much problem when it came to understanding the sentence. Same thing for 「妹」so I looked it up after (younger brother and younger sister).
Comments (3):
I found this one a bit harder.
Yamashita: "Did you go out somewhere yesterday?"
Tanaka: "No, I stayed home."
I'm pretty sure about the translation. I was hesitating between 「に」&「は」. For some reason 「に」seemed tempting because there was an adverbial there but wouldn't fit right there in that context. Since the sentence is about 田中さん I figured that was the right answer.
Comments (4):
This one takes place in a taxi with person giving direction.
A: Next, turn on the right please.
B: Understood.
All of the other three answers didn't make sense so I opted for the one I was pretty certain of from the get-go. I think 「に」here refers to: after a noun, indicates the direction or the destination of an action.
Comments (5)
Yesterday, I went to see a movie with two people.
I wasn't sure if えいが meant a movie or the cinema in this context. I looked it up and
えいが／映画 does mean movie while えいがかん/映画館 would mean the movie theater.
As for the particle, I chose 「で」because I thought it was the manner of doing something: indicates the manner of an action, or the condition/intention at the time of occurrence/action.
Comments (6):
Yamashita: -Since there's a party today, would you like to come?
Tanaka: -Thank you.
I wasn't too sure about this one. On second thought, it's probably 「や」: Placed after a noun, loosely refers to it and other things that are also present or similar.
Comments (7):
Tanaka: -Does this hat belong to you?
Yamada: -Yes, it does.
This one is easy enough. Nothing to comment really. Out of curiosity, I looked up the kanji form of ぼうし (hat): 帽子.
Comments (8):
The taxi fare to the train station is about 1000 yen.
I picked the first one because he didn't recognize 2 & 3. I knew it wasn't 「も」. From memory, I recalled that 「ぐらい」was an expression for approximation.
So after picking my answer, I looked up 「など」and 「ごろ」.
So it turns out 「など」is a marker that indicates exemplification. So it doesn't really apply here.
「ごろ」also refers to an approximation. So the purpose of this sentence is likely to differentiate the various expressions for approximation. Reading further about 「ごろ」revealed that it was used with time, so this one is out too.
Reading further about 「ぐらい/くらい」are approximation for quantity. So that settled the whole thing, turned out I had picked the right answer.
Comments (9):
A-Goodbye.
B-Goodbye. See you next week.
I'm not sure about this one.
「おととい」means the day before yesterday so that wasn't the right answer.
「今日」means today. Unlikely answer. Unless they're supposed to meet again on the same day but I don't think so.
「来週」means next week so that would work. I knew this one.
「今月」means this month. This one would work too I think. I also knew this one.
I would've imagined 「また」would guide me in the right direction. From memory, I thought it meant "again".
I guess both "3" and "4" would work but "3" is more colloquial.
Comments (10):
-My mom is 50 years old. My father is 55 years old. My father is 5 years older than my mom.
I vaguely remembered reading that 「より」was used for comparison. After picking my answer, I read up a bit on 「より」to check if I misremembered or not.
So yes, I remembered correctly: a particle which indicates that something or someone is being compared to something or someone.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find the answer key but I'll keep looking.
Thanks for reading and let me know if you think I've made a mistake. At the moment I think I probably would've gotten 9 or 10 out of 10.
