Well for starters you can take it outside of Japan - check this link:
http://www.kanken.or.jp/kojin/kaijyou2.html
You can currently take the test in Sydney, Brisbane, RIYADH Saudi Arabia, Milano Italy, London, Bangkok, Singapore, Taiwan, Vancouver, New Jersey and New York.
You might want to update your kanken page which says that you can only take it in Japan.
WOW, that's awesome. Really, really awesome. I will update the page soon. I guess I need to get all my kanji kentei book resources together and put them online for reference :)
I just started getting interest ine Kanken because of maikeru going on about it, lol. I looked into it, and cause I just did the 3kyuu like last week, and thought it was way easy, i've already started trying to study the 2kyuu vocab. But I'm going through both 2kyuu, and kanken here at the same time, to help me learn all these crazy kanji and vocab that I need to know =)
So, it's awesome I can actually start taking the kanken test in syd! I only thought it u could in Japan. Now I can get more proficiency and stuff, lol
And p.s. Meikeru definentely get some more info up about kanken, cause i'm really interested in it =) Do u think some place sells those kanken STEP books in sydney somewhere too??
If you want to buy the STEP books, your best bet is to go to Kinokuniya at the Victoria Galleries (Over the road from Queen Victoria Building in the city).
Are there any major online booksellers in australia? I want to put together as much info as I can on where to get materials, but I'm not too familiar with what stores are big in Australia. I'll definitely put that kinokuniya in the info when I get a chance. I would be so happy to see more people going for the kanji kentei.
AFAIK In Aus if you want Japanese proficiency tests/kentei etc Kinokuniya is the only way to go. Mind you, I only found out about Kinokuniya 2 years ago.
Not too sure if any other shops sell Japanese materials of this nature here.
EDIT: In fact there is only one Kinokuniya in Aus, here in Sydney only. Poor Non Syd People. :(
I would consider it if they weren't all East Coast locations in the US. Though I'd only be ready for maybe 9kyuu if I was lucky. ^^;; But I'd try harder, that's for sure! Once I get a bit ahead for next semester, I hope to step up the kanji work.
Well, if you can get your hands on the step books, it's really, really easy to do self-testing and know with rather high accuracy whether or not you're competent with a particular level; it doesn't feel nearly as wishy-washy as with the JLPT.
I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to get them (there's a Kinokuniya about half an hour from my house, and Japantown's only twenty minutes away...) but funds are tight. ^^;; Right now a lot of my work is with recognizing and knowing the readings for kanji, so I need to do a lot more writing anyway. I can only reliably write what's in Genki up through what we've studied so far. I'll remember those step books once I feel ready to test myself, though!
The STEP books are great, and not just for testing yourself, but for breaking things down into very achievable small 'steps' (pun intended, in fact I think that's where the name comes from). Extremely recommendable and (at least in Japan) cheap.
yeah, i know about kinokuniya, cause i was living right in sydney cbd until about a week ago. now i'm like 20mins train ride away, but it's still cool.
I just didn't see the step books last time i was there.... are they just yellow, and all in japanese or what? I gotta go have a look again....
And yea, before i used to buy my jap textbooks online, and it was cheaper but with the shipping included it's about the same as what u would get at kino... but just check.
I've bought from www.thejapanshop.com before and it's really good.
Also there's jlist.com but shipping a bit expensive.
Here's what they look like: http://www.amazon.co.jp/2%E7%B4%9A%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97%E5%AD%A6%E7%BF%92%E3%82%B9%E3%83%86%E3%83%83%E3%83%97-%E6%94%B9%E8%A8%82%E4%BA%8C%E7%89%88-%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E6%BC%A2%E5%AD%97%E6%95%99%E8%82%B2%E6%8C%AF%E8%88%88%E4%BC%9A/dp/4890961402/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231417620&sr=8-1
Hope that link works. If it doesn't just go to amazon.co.jp and search the 漢字検定.
I plan (hopefully in the next month or so; I'm busy cramming for the next kentei in 3 weeks) to have a section of the site dedicated to reviews/info on textbooks and workbooks.
Some sad news about the Kanji Kentei... I don't know how much longer the test will be around. The Ministry of Education here in Japan has been doing some investigating why this non-profit organization made billions of yen last year. I took level 8 at the start of February this year, and I hope the organization stays together at least until I get my results! :(
Here is an article in english... http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200902120054.html
That's unfortunate, but due to the popularity of the test, especially in Japanese Junior High schools (I believe it's used as a way to give students goals for elevating their kanji knowledge), there's no way they could let it simply disappear. It might involve some changes to the corporation, but I can't imagine the test actually going away.
I used to live in the town that kentei's HQ is based in so I would walk past their bookshop all the time and so decided to take the kentei!
I have some of the step books and I found them very useful, the ones at the lower levels in particular are very fun, they also helped expand my vocabulary a lot.
I want to take pre-2 this year but I have a lot of trouble with things like 4 character compounds and stuff, is there a good book to learn these from? I never bought the pre-2 step book, but I'm assuming they're not really covered in there since I have 4 and while it does test some of them, they're not really in the sample vocab, just as test questions and I could never do them :'(
I've only been studying Japanese for a little over two years, but recently have started taking interest in taking the kanken someday. For several semesters my class kept getting our hopes up for a kanji class, and sensei finally got the class approved, so this semester about 40 of us are taking a kanji class at school, and we're using the step books. I really like them. ^_^ We're in book 9 before, and class was boring for a couple of weeks when we were just going through step 10, but even though we all knew the kanji in step 10, it introduced a lot of vocab. Most of us know at least the majority of book 9's kanji, but we're doing other stuff like working on calligraphy a lot, so it's interesting. I'm hoping to get through book 8 on my own over the summer, and start next semester with step 7.
