We got tested to bits this morning. First there was a listening test, then a grammar test. The listening questions all came from either JLPT practice tests or old JLPT tests, to they were really tricky.<\/p>\n
I don’t like JLPT listening questions, because they’re all “gotcha” games. I never have conversations like these with real people.<\/p>\n
The conversation flows something like this: “Hey, have you seen the football?” “No, did your mother hide the football again?” “I don’t think so. Maybe I’ll go (unintelligible word) instead.”<\/p>\n
And the answer always hinges on the (unintelligible word) bit.<\/p>\n
The written part wasn’t too bad, since I studied for it, but my brain is pretty much empty at this point.<\/p>\n
I also had to rewrite my sakubun <\/em>test by the end of 5th period. <\/p>\n Good times.<\/p>\n S sensei gave out KitKats in out last N2 class today, and explained why. In Japan, a lot of people are superstitious about things to do before tests, and KitKat bars are seen as lucky, because kitto katsu<\/em> is how they interpret it, which means “definitely win.”<\/p>\n So eating a KitKat before a big test is like psyching up for it.<\/p>\n Also, tonkatsu or katsudon is also good winning food. Basically, anything with katsu <\/em>in it. Katsu <\/em>is the word that means “win.”<\/p>\n Stay away from losing or falling things, because when someone fails, they use a verb that really means “to fall.” So avoid anything with “fall” or “lose” in it. (And don’t fall down the stairs and lose your keys on the way to the test, or else you’re doomed!)<\/p>\n I forgot to mention that the omiyage <\/em>went over well with everyone on Monday, especially the teachers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lots of testing today: listening, grammar, and re-submitting my essay from last week. Also, good luck\/bad luck superstitions around tests in Japan are pretty popular.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[894,828,12,143,632,100,631,106],"class_list":["post-1145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan-trip","category-japanese-language-study","tag-japan-trip","tag-japan2011","tag-japanese","tag-jlpt","tag-luck","tag-okazaki","tag-test","tag-yamasa","category-3-id","category-4-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1146,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions\/1146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stupidamericantourist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Candy for Winning Spirit!<\/h3>\n