Anyone tried Kanken?

made a sort of a video (just a narration) on the topic; for your reference:

How I decided to take and finally passed the Kanji Kentei level 1 test (Kanken level 1, 漢検1級)<

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You made a great case for going slow and being methodical with the preparation. Well done.

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Awesome vid and I liked the 10 yojijukugo one too! I’ll have to check out the others when I get some more free time.

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I am about half way through my task of cleaning up my handwriting. It is grueling but I am brushing up 30 kanji a day. I have a little over a month left to finish all the jouyou kanji. It’s amazing how I really didn’t learn how to write properly because I just used text recognizers and ignored stroke endings and proportions of the various radicals. I am not using anki for this. After I am finished, I’ll need to go through a bushu deck. I am undecided whether I will review the bushu for all the jouyou kanji or just like 2級 and 準2級. But I might do all since I’ll take the opportunity to write out the kanji as well so that my writing stays on top. I have a spreadsheet with the various bushu that’ll I’ll go through first. I want to learn the bushu names even though they are not tested at 2級.

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I wasn’t too sure where to ask this, but I figured the question would probably be relevant to kanken and they would be a good basis to go off of, so someone here probably knows.

I’ve been learning a lot of 1K/1.5K yojijukugo recently just for fun because I think they’re neat and are relatively easy to learn, but I’ve noticed their readings seem to have variation sometimes.

一日之長 can use じつ or にち
吉祥悔過 can have two pretty distinct readings it appears
words like 烏鳥私情, 群鶏一鶴, 桂林一枝 can have a の in them.
一水盈盈 and 盈盈一水 seem like the same exact thing

My question is: as far as kanken or yoji nerds are concerned, are both of these equally valid? Or is there one thats considered “technically correct” or “more correct” over the other that I should have in my head as the primary reading/form? If so, is there a source that will reliably tell me which is the one I should learn?

If you can find them both in dictionaries, then they’re both valid. You’d need to do a lot of hunting to find precise frequencies, since yojijukugo are already low frequency words. But I mean, if you have a resource to point to, no one would be able to say it’s wrong. One being more or less used would depend on the specifics of that particular compound.

For Kanken, I use the 漢検四字熟語辞典. If it’s in there, it can appear on Kanken. If it’s not, it can’t.

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This was part of my confusion. For 吉祥悔過 吉祥悔過(きちじょうけか)とは? 意味や使い方 - コトバンク kotobank only gives one, but dedicated yoji dictionaries have both like 「吉祥悔過」(きちじょうけか)の意味 and 吉祥悔過【きちじょうけか】の意味と使い方や例文(語源由来・類義語) – 四字熟語の百科事典 . I take it that prolly means both would be coolio?

Oof, non digital. I’m not too familiar with kanken testing, though. So like would they ever ask you to give the reading of a yojijukugo, per se? Or do they just ask you to match synonyms and antonyms?

Yeah, it wouldn’t be a big deal.

There are usually two yojijukugo sections on the advanced levels. One for matching them to definitions, so no readings even come into it. And another section where they provide a reading and you have to write the missing kanji. So, you don’t have to produce readings.

Ok, that makes sense. If thats the case, then I guess whether or not the hidden の is thrown in wouldn’t matter. On the other hand, if I remembered 吉祥悔過 as きちじょうけか and they gave me きっしょうかいか that might mess me up. Passing the kanken isn’t a current goal per se, but if I were want to set myself up for it in the future would you personally recommend learning both readings like that? Or in that dictionary you linked is it usually just the one primary one?

Also, I just came across this:

https://kanken1.com/benkyouhou/yojijukugo.html

And one line towards the bottom kinda confused me:

  • 「之」が含まれるものは省く

Whats the reasoning behind this?\

EDIT: nevermind, they had the reason below it lol

また「一丘之貉」のように「之」という漢字が入る四字熟語は、ほとんど出題されていません。1級配当でこの「之」が含まれるものだけでも約100個の四字熟語がありますから、出される可能性が極めて低いのなら、こちらも同様、時間と労力を割いて勉強する必要はないと言えます。

Some people don’t consider compounds that use the character 之 like the normal の to be standard yojijukugo.

Though I did find 一日之長 in the Kanken dictionary.

In the case of Kanken, the dictionary will have both if both can appear. In the case of 一日之長, only いちじつのちょう was listed.

I can’t say I can recall if a multi-reading one showed up in a question before.

Yeah it looks like they say they just don’t appear much and not necessarily that they can’t appear, so I guess they should all still be in there and just aren’t selected really? Thats kinda a shame because I think there have been some really cool ones that use 之, but I can understand the argument.

Interesting. In that case, could I bother you to look up like 雲中白鶴 for me really quick? I know it really wouldn’t have an affect on the ability to answer any questions on the test, but I’m just curious if it lists both or only one with/without the の.

Only one reading is listed, うんちゅうのはっかく

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Is there a 四字熟語 dictionary app as good as yoji.jitenon.jp for iOS? I have the kanken produced one in book format. Unfortunately it seems there is no app version like there is for the regular kanken kanji dictionary.

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I am currently trying to level up my method for studying and read several blog entries about how to pass the 1kyu.
One book I found looks interesting but it is not published anymore and a bit expensive as a second hand version.

It’s the 漢字音符字典; with it it seems to be easy to infer the Onyomi of any Kanji, and for me that would be quite helpful.

Did anyone of you read that book and do you think it is worth it?

Also I am wondering if I should buy a Nintendo 3DS with an updated version of the Kanken game, as my older Nintendo version is slowly falling into pieces. I read through most of this topic, and it seems there is not really an alternative for the Kanken game from Nintendo, is that right?
(Writing with my finger on a smartphone wouldn’t work for me)
I also wouldn’t’ mind buying a tablet for my PC if there would be a PC Kanken game because I wanted to do so anyway, but I couldn’t find anything so far.

I have major issues with the 3ds version of the kanken software. The questions repeat too often. Even though there is a database of many new questions, it repeats at a maddening pace. So much so that I can’t stand using it. The DS version works as it should. And I had tried both versions for the 3ds and the issue hasn’t been corrected. I have an issue with the Kanken DS 3 version though that the synonym and antonym section doesn’t specify which one to look for. This makes things much harder. But it is still better than the repeated questions of the 3ds version.

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Thank you very much for this information.

Actually I made a similar experience with two different DS versions.
I bought another version several years ago that also includes level 1 and a dictionary but lost it recently.
Switching back to the older version, I realized, that the questions on the one hand repeat even within one test (!) but that the overall experience is better, but I cannot explain how exactly because I lost the newer version.

At the moment I only use it while on the train, and it has a certain effect of bringing back forgotten things from previous levels.
After reading your review, I think, I will go without the DS game once the DS is broken.

Off topic, but I was wondering if it is only in my impression that recently on the train there are more people who read paper books rather than electronic devices?
Books without sleeves actually… Back when I was commuting in Tokyo more than ten years ago, that was rare, only foreigners read book without sleeves (I don’t know if it is called sleeve in English btw, I mean that paper or fabric cover for privacy).
Is there a change of reading culture going on?

Yes, both games for the 3DS repeat the questions at an unbearable rate. Don’t know if it’s some exam frequency algorithm going wild, but it’s really bad.

The UI is definitely better than the DS ones, but what’s the use of a good UI if you can’t fulfill your study goal, right?

I’ve honestly never noticed problems with repeating problems, except for after maybe 50 or so questions in a given category. Is that what people are talking about?

When I use the game, my typical use pattern is 10 or so questions in all kinds of different levels and categories (so 10 in level 8 writing, 10 in level 4 reading, 10 in level 2 synonyms, etc), so I rarely do 50 in the same one. Am I just naturally avoiding repeats like that?

I also never personally thought that repeats after 50 or so was a problem. I just stopped that category and moved on.

I think by changing levels you are naturally avoiding that, indeed. The problem happens if you are cramming a specific level. Even though the game itself tells you you’ve seen only 50% of the questions for that level, it keeps showing the same ones again and again, and it’s very hard to get the remaining ones to show.

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I’ve never actually tried to get a particularly high percentage in any given level, except for 2, which was the test I most recently took.

I don’t remember exactly what the percentage is, but it’s high, like 80% or more. I can check later.

People are doing 新規 or whatever and not 復習, right? When they want to see new items. I think that’s what they’re labeled.

For why I think I didn’t get to 100%… I imagine that some of the categories I really don’t like, I didn’t do enough reps in those to get there. Obviously those will always keep me from moving up in percentage if I do the categories I want to do more instead.

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