I signed up for the Japan Translation Federation ほんやく検定

Just caught up on the thread, and having seen you around on the forums actively for years and watched your Kanken journey as well as just witnessing your general Japanese knowledge, the fact that you failed just has me questioning the legitimacy of the test (obviously I’ve never seen your translation work, but I can only assume it to be adequate). If it’s aimed at Japanese natives, but a native English speaker with your level of Japanese can’t pass, who the hell does?

I just finished up a translation/interpretation course myself and the tests worked similarly; I got results for each test but zero feedback of any kind on the translations themselves or why I got the scores I did. Which I found super frustrating considering that the accompanying workbooks were literally just “translate this passage and then compare it with the provided example”, and many were decades old. Some also had noticeably strange choices in the English, even some outright errors. お疲れ on the test. Can’t believe how frustrating it must be to not know what went wrong.

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It’s possible to buy the past test booklet later on when that comes out, but all that will tell me is one possible way to word things. But if, like you said, it has things I consider strange, then that would put a different spin on it. I’m not banking on that, because I think it’s not a healthy reaction to just assume the test must be wrong, but I guess that’s a possibility at some point.

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The more I think about it, the less interested I am in trying again though.

It’s expensive. It cost me 13,000 yen for the past test booklet and the test (2,000 and 11,000 respectively). If I want to have even the vaguest idea of why I failed, I need to shell out another 2,000 yen. Then another 11,000 for another chance?

When I felt reasonably sure I would meet the 3級 level, which sounds quite pathetic in their description of it (basically you had mistakes in both accuracy and language, but an acceptable amount when considering that the test environment is tougher than a real job), I was not so concerned with the promised lack of feedback.

It’s easy to think you could throw a lot of money at this thing without really having any specific idea how to get better.

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I was also interested in doing this test but if somebody like Leebo fails. Then there is zero chance that I will pass it.

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That’s discouraging news @Leebo! You sounded confident after doing the translation, so I’m sure it was more than a passable effort. Strange that they give you a straight fail, not even a 3級.

Just a guess, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the reason. Feedback I have gotten on translations in Japan often included that I didn’t translate everything in the source text (e.g. left out some hedging expressions), or changed the target text to sound more like natural usage (such as in conventions of written correspondence).
Missing the “perceived ‘correct’ translations” is probably what did it for you.
No feedback is harsh, and really unaccountable to be honest. I would try to get some insider information. If you have a chance to show your translation to someone who has passed this exam, or if there is some preparatory short-course for it, you might have a better chance on your second try. It costs a chunk of money but the qualification would be worth a few attempts.

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