TL;DR: I’m going to take the JLPT N3 this December, what specific N3 resources do you recommend to give me the best shot at it?
Background: Hi, I’ve been studying Japanese for about three and a half years now. The first year and a half I went really hard and made really decent progress. After hiragana and katakana I started learning the basics with Tae Kim’s Japanese Grammar Guide and JapaneseFromZero’s videos on Youtube. At the same time I tried WaniKani’s free trial which I liked, but since I couldn’t buy myself the course I switched to [kanji.koohii.com](https://kanji.koohii.com) when I was done with WK’s free trial. I studied around 2000 out of the 2200 Jouyou Kanji but burned out and at this point I forgot like 80% of what I learned. I don’t regret doing it tho, since it helped me recognize kanji for their components, see what combinations are “possible” or feel possible, and also stop thinking that characters are just a bunch of squiggles.
I moved on to more challenging stuff. I learned about immersion but I didn’t get it at first (I think I still don’t quite get it), so I started following people on Twitter and watching YouTube videos and listening to Podcasts on Spotify (all of this content was from natives for natives). Needless to say, I struggled A LOT, but I kinda enjoyed the challenge. Anyways, this helped me with comprehending the flow of spoken japanese and how nuanced casual Japanese can be at times.
So at this point I’m like: alright I pretty much only need more vocabulary now, since a lot of the grammar structures I’m at least a little familiar with, so I started doing Anki. Again, I went pretty hard. I didn’t do it right tho, because of how insanely hard I tried. I downloaded the Core 6k deck and started learning 100 words per day. I only got to 4500 before I burned out. My “philosophy” was I just need to know what’s possible, I need to see what words exist and what kanji combine with which kanji and even if I don’t remember them, just making an “entry” about those words in my brain is good to jumpstart the learning process. I don’t know if I’m making sense. Like I just wanted to encounter for the first time as many words as possible, so that learning them later would be a little easier. And by later I mean in my reading. I got my hands on Harry Potter 1-1 and 1-2 (the japanese versions of a lot of books divide single books into volumes) and I was able to read them in the span of 2 or 2 1/2 months. Struggled a lot but also learned a lot. I also borrowed Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 and finished reading the first chapter when everything had to stop. I got a job and moved to a new city so I no longer had all day to study Japanese. Now I only listen to YUYUの日本語ポッドキャスト (and sometimes understand close to 99% of the stuff and other times like only 50%) on my commute.
So now I’m in a weird position where I don’t have as much time to study, and my knowledge is kinda all over the place. Since I didn’t take a structured guide to learning the language there’s a lot of holes in my “basic” knowledge but I also know some random “advanced” stuff. Before, I didn’t care about this because I thought “I need to learn everything anyways, so no need to fear the advanced stuff”. But now, I’m going to take the JLPT N3 in December and I need to focus all my learning into just passing that. If I do, I’m gonna be able to raise my salary significantly and it’s very important to me since I need the money. I can make space for 2 to 3 hours of study a day (I kinda stabilized now!) so I feel like the goal is within reach. What’s my best bet? Right now I don’t care if “preparing only for the exam doesn’t mean you’re actually learning the language”. I need to pass. Also, unfortunately I haven’t taken N5 or N4 yet, so I’m lacking the exam experience, I know that sets me back a little. If it’s woth anything I kinda know how those tests go, since English is my second language and I certainly took many language proficiency tests.
If you need any more context please do ask me, I’ll be reading your input. Thanks in advance
by eduzatis