Archive for March, 2010

New JLPT Levels: N5 to N1…

Sunday, March 21st, 2010

Many people have asked when I would add support for new JLPT levels (N5, N4, N3, N2 and N1… replacing old 4級 through 1級). Short answer is: Real Soon Now™.

The more nuanced answer is that we are working on it actively, but gathering data for the new level (only N3 differs significantly from previous levels: other should match roughly the old J4-J1 levels) is a very slow and uncertain process. There are no official lists of kanji or vocabulary for the new levels and the only way to proceed, is to cull them from existing textbook exercises and training tests (on the mostly valid assumption that said textbooks’ editors routinely have business “lunches” with JLPT people where secret lists of kanji might change hands). Since I would prefer the lists to be somewhat validated by official tests, it might be difficult to release an update before late Spring (when the next JLPT exam takes place)…

As an aside: take all the alleged “updated JLPT” lists you see floating around with a large grain of salt: they are all based on interpolation and essentially just break down former J2 level in two groups along grade level (for kanji) and frequency (for vocabulary): a breakdown that is far from verified in practice.

Until then, I would simply advise people who want to train for N3 to use 2級 for now (keeping in mind that it is largely above N3, but still the closest we have).

In the meantime, stats syncing and online scores should arrive soon!

KanjiBox 1.2: FlashCards and more!

Monday, March 15th, 2010

A couple major new features in the latest release of KanjiBox (1.2):

  • Missing-Kanji Drill: a “fill-the-gap” type of kanji drill (not unlike the kind used in some JLPT sections). Also incorporated into Quiz mode for Kanji, which now features a mix of both Drill types (“classic” Kanji Def and new Missing Kanji).
  • Study Mode lets you browse through customisable sets of flashcards. Just pick a category (kanji, vocab, kana etc.), a range of JLPT levels and the size of your study set (KanjiBox will automatically start with entries that you know least).
  • Plus the usual odds and ends… (including an optional Clock Display in Drill mode, specially for Jyuichi ;-)

Same, but with colourful moving pictures?

Only needed to ask: