Would you recommend I study the JLPT5 or skip to JLPT4?

6 comments

1. I think you’re probably overestimating the level of your college classes and while I’m not In the field everything I’ve read leads me to believe most companies want at least N2 if dealing/interacting with Japanese I also doubt most American companies will pay much attention to your Japanese level but rather your ability to program.

2. Truth everything I’ve seen pretty much for working at a Japanese company N2 at the least. And i agree unless you only want to work with a company that does business with japan but i highly doubt you would be interacting with those employees as a programmer. Basically just focus on coding, if you want to learn Japanese do it obviously but unless you are currently in japan or want to work in japan, N2 on your résumé is the same as basket weaving. Its cool, i cant do it, but im more interested in if your code is top shelf.

3. I genuinely think N5 is the most useless thing ever, what’s the point of getting certified so you can tell everyone that you know next to nothing. In my opinion, the JLPT is just not worth taking unless it’s the N3, but even then I’d say you’re better off spending your time studying more so you can take the N2, which is actually worth it as you can get a job with it.

   As was already said, yeah you’re overestimating your college class, open up twitter to Japanese accounts or a Japanese manga, you probably can’t read it that well, you can probably put learning Japanese on it if you want to pick it back up.

   As for what I recommend, I haven’t learned using textbooks, I use WaniKani, a website for kanji, my grammar is mostly picked up naturally, but I’ve started to watch some YouTube videos by CureDolly, my vocabulary is also naturally picked up, by anime and manga, some came from WaniKani too since they teach some vocabulary as a way to reinforce different kanji readings.

4. You may want to look at some sample questions on the official website: https://www.jlpt.jp/e/samples/forlearners.html

5. Imma have to agree with everyone here.

   If you want the JLPT for your resume, N5/N4 is pretty much useless. It’s not gonna help you in the slightest. It’s like if I, a non-native english speakers, put in my resume that I can recite the alphabet and say “this is a pen”.

   If you want it to boost your confidence and motivate you to study more, then sure. Otherwise, wait until you can comfortably take on N2.

6. I’m studying for the JLPT N4 right now. I’ve been studying from zero knowledge for 1.5 years (approx 1100 hours) and I’ve just reached the point where I’m somewhat comfortable scratching the N4 surface.

   For reference I can read about 825 kanji to varying degrees of accuracy.

   Keep in mind I proabably spent some time studying kanji and vocab from N3-N1 as well.