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Verbs and JLPT Level 4

Lady Skywalker

Nihongo Newbie
20 Jun 2006
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I've recently started learning Japanese and am thinking of aiming for the JLPT Level 4 either this winter or next. I was wondering how much one needs to know about the verb conjugations for the Level 4 exam.
Do you need to know all the possible conjugations, such as the volitional, conditional or passive? Or just the bare basics (ie. past and present informal and formal, -te form)? :?
 
Welcome to the forum!

To be honest, I wouldn't worry about the JLPT4 and aim straight for JLPT3. Although it is unlikey that you could make JLPT3 by december, JLPT4 doesn't really mean anything and still costs a lot of money. Although if it encourages you to study harder its good in that respect.

From what I understand the JLPT4 is kind of halfway through a beginners course, JLPT3 being at the end of the beginners course. For 4 you only need to know some of the basic grammar (I'm not sure which parts but i don't think it includes causative or even passive) and a few (less that 100) Kanji. If you take the time to study there should be no problem passing that test in december.

JLPT3 covers all of the basic grammar. ie. pretty much everything in your textbook and you need about 300 Kanji.
 
I would recommend skipping both of them and shooting for JLPT 2, but that's quite a ways off if you're just thinking about doing level 4. However, from what I understand level 3 isn't worth all that much either.
 
Thanks for the advice! I think I'll aim for Level 3 next year then as I should be able to cover all that ground between now and next December. :)
 
I recommend going for Level 4, if only to get a feel for the test. I did it last year and am glad I did. As far as verbs go, you need to know all the tenses in both normal and formal forms, -te forms, and koto forms (koto ga dekiru/aru/suru). You don't need to go as far as passive. I don't think you even need to know conditional??? (Well, I only learnt conditionals this year and I don't remember them on the test last year).
 
Since you're from Taiwan you probably have exposure to kanji already. Normally a foreigner can get by with JLPT 2 (when job hunting), but for those who already know Chinese, Korean etc. JLPT 1 is normally the more ideal one to go for. In your case, you could probably aim for JLPT 3 this year with 2 hour studies each day 4 days a week.
 
Well, the location field says "Taiwan," but the flag says "UK-Gibraltar." Who knows what this person's native language is.
 
Says in his profile that he is a chinese-english translator... so he/she should have not too many troubles with Kanji, I suppose.
 
Glenn said:
Well, the location field says "Taiwan," but the flag says "UK-Gibraltar." Who knows what this person's native language is.

I'm from Gibraltar so my native language is English. I just happen to be living in Taiwan at the moment. :)
 
nhk9 said:
Says in his profile that he is a chinese-english translator... so he/she should have not too many troubles with Kanji, I suppose.

I'm a she (I thought that would have been obvious from the nickname!). ;)

Kanji aren't much of a problem for me thanks to the Mandarin but kanji aren't always used in the same way. Not to mention I need to learn a tonne of new pronunciations. My main problem is confusing the Chinese and Japanese pronunciations. It's a bit hard to undo years of Mandarin study so hopefully I'll grow out of this pretty soon. 😊
 
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