Hi, I joined WaniKani in 2018 and was very active for couple of years. I stopped at level 21 when my daughter was born;) I have created a bunch of free tools that you can use to support your learning. As I’m a software engineer I always think of ways how I can combine my tech skills with my interest in language learning.
Now I want to share my newest brainchild, it’s by far the most valuable and robust so far. This time I decided to build an online Japanese exam. In some ways it’s similar to JLPT but there are notable differences:
you can take it online, whenever and wherever, and there is no need to apply for it
the difficulty of questions constantly adapt to your answers, if you answer correctly you get more challenging questions (anyone remember JCAT?)
results are available instantly, you can share link to them here
all questions have been carefully authored by certified Japanese teacher just for the new site, all is brand new content
you actually can review wrong answers after the test!
It is going to be a commercial product and I aim to offer it for $10 for one-time exam access (I literally spent hundreds of hours creating it, also spent some money on native speakers whose input was essential) but… for now I’m opening it for WaniKani community (for you!) and you can use it for free. You can use WANIKANI24 code at checkout page to have 100% discount (yay!). The code is valid now but I’m not sure yet for how long. But at least for a week EDIT: it’s not active any more
The code doesn’t seem to be a working one but the field for it should be at the left side of the payment method fields or before your email if you’re on mobile.
@Till@derek790@Chrisgonal@mtlvmpr
Okay, I updated the site so you can provide a discount code (it’s still WANIKANI24) directly at the website. Click “I have a discount code” button.
Thanks. I have no intention of taking the JLPT so this was a welcome alternative. Everything was well presented and went very smoothly. Two minor things:
Is timing the listening section necessary? If you don’t click to listen to the next track it’s not like you can understand anything by the multiple choice answers as they are only numbers, so why is the countdown still continuing between tracks?
In the text comprehension questions, sometimes you couldn’t look at the question and the relevant part of the text at the same time, and had to scroll up and down a lot. Not much of a problem, but it would be nice if it could be avoided.
FYI, there’s a mistake on the confirm e-mail screen.
…or wait a few minutes.
Also, I realize there are a variety of views on this, but I have apprehensions about calling the highest level of achievement “Fluent” when there is nothing to test speaking ability. Another language standard, CEFR, puts “Proficient” as a level above “Advanced,” which has less baggage attached to it. Just a suggestion.
So I created my account to see what it was like. Then I wanted to exit your program but there appears no way to do that! I went through the first section and, again, there is no way to exit the program. So how many sections are there before I can finally exit? With only the first two sections, I already must have at least 40 minutes available, nonstop, to spend on this program (plus how many more minutes depending on how many more sections there are).
Am I missing how to exit your program? When I do finish the exam, will it then ALLOW me to exit OR will it simply REQUIRE me to start another exam?
I have absolutely no helpful critique to give you other than it felt like I was 15 years younger and trying to pass Swedish without understanding anything. I think it might be the lack of visial aspect for me since I’ve managed to read 2 books in my life so these kinds of test are a pain.
I’m dyslexic as well so that might have something to do with it.
I would say it still makes sense to time listening section. With no timing you would be able to take long breaks between questions to rest when others would not decide to do so. In this sense timing the section allows for fair comparison. I’d also say it provides some structure, is consistent with other sections and sets expectations on the duration of this part of the test. Anyway, I aimed to set time limit so you can freely listen to the recording, think a bit about the correct answer and move on.
In the text comprehension questions, sometimes you couldn’t look at the question and the relevant part of the text at the same time, and had to scroll up and down a lot.
I know exactly what you are talking about and I feel your pain. It’s not trivial to come up with better design but I hope to fix this some day Thanks!
By the way, I have been thinking about preparing a test on speaking ability but I wonder if anyone would be interested in taking it. You would record your verbal description of an image or response to some question and send it. Then a native speaker teacher in a suitable time would rate your speaking ability (e.g. correctness of grammar, vocabulary, accurarcy, fluency etc) and provide suggestions. It would definitely need to be a paid service as it would cost to hire a teacher for the job. Anyone would be interested in taking the test? I might need to start a new topic
Thank for posting the promo code. I just took the exam, I think the results are a fair reflection of my abilities. Some things that I noticed and that you might take on board:
In the reading exercises, I would have liked to see the text and questions side by side, and perhaps have one of the other scroll along. When either the text was long (or there were a lot of questions), I had to scroll back and forth to check between them.
In listening, the gap between N5 and N4 felt quite large, both in skill and in length of the recording. When I felt like I had no chance of getting the correct answer, sitting through a >2 mins recording felt a bit wasteful. That’s the nature of this test, I think, that you’ll received questions beyond your ability as well. It didn’t feel bad during the reading parts, but for listening I felt sort of bad about it.
Nice presentation of the results. I really liked the ability to quickly go back and review the results as well.
On the topic of speaking category. I personally would not be interested. The main benefit of being able to take this in my own time and get the results back instantly. I wouldn’t want to wait for someone to check my work.
Hi tomaoled. Thank you for the code. Did not have an issue with retrieving the free test at all.
I am, however, not ready to use the exam just yet so I do hope there is no expiry for the unlocked test itself. Down the line, I can see myself using this past the initial free test to gauge preparedness for the higher levels.
Thank you again and I wish this endeavor more improvements, more future test-takers and more success overall!
