Comme ça du Japon

You probably were intrigued by the idiom 虫の知らせ (Mushi No Shirase) “the word from the vermin (bug)” that I used in the article announcing that I was back from a long silence. A quick search in my japanese electronic dictionnary revealed that there are a whole lot of idioms related to 虫 (Mushi) “bugs”. Well, this is all I needed to start a new serie of posts!

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It’s been almost a year since I have stopped posting here on Comme ca du Japon. To be honest, I was waiting for some kind of 予兆 (YoChô) “an omen” for the end of this recession in order to restart writing. Sure enough, all the major media outlets did serve us their dose of Prozac on the smallest opportunities; however nobody had the gut to let the champagne flow. Indeed, the newly assigned deleguates 亀井 (KameI) “Kamei”, in charge of reviewing the privatisation of the Japan Postal Service, was barely brave enough to mention it at a press conference. So, if apparently nothing has changed why would I write this post in the first place?

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It seems pretty futile to even try to keep on updating this blog in these dark days. Needless to say, it’s time to invest your time even more wisely to up the ante. I might consider to temporarily change the main topic if the time invested in doing so is justified. See you at the other end of this dark tunnel.

This article is the fourth part of a series dedicated to the different software for the Nintendo DS to learn the Japanese Kanji.

Kanji kentei - Kanji examination

The Kanji-kentei is the official test of the knowledge of th Japanese Kanji. There are 12 different grades (from 10 to 1 and two intermediate levels) with progressive difficulty based on the japanese education system. The software 200万人の漢検 (Ni Hyaku ManNin No KanKen) とことん漢字脳 (ToKoToN KanJi Nô) “Kanji examination for 2 millions, Kanji brain non-stop” was the first software available on the Nintendo DS to prepare for the Kanji kentei (or Kanken in short) (november 2006, IE Institute). It features 7000 questions covering all the levels of the Kanken, from the easiest 10級 (Jû Kyû) “10th grade” to the expert level of the 1級 (IkKyû) “1st grade”. Note that the pre-1st grade and the 1st grade are mixed into on category in this software. Also, a new version titled 250万人の漢検 (NiHyaku ManNin No KanKen) “Kanji examination for 2 millions and 500 thousands” featuring a Kanji dictionnary and 47000 questions has been released on november 2007. In this article, we will review the first version of the Kanken series.

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