Hello everyone. I have been studying Japanese on and off for 15 years, 5 years of learning in a class and the rest passively by myself. I am currently living in Japan and want to take the JLPT N2. I am currently using the New Kazen Master N4 for reading comprehension, it is pretty easy but I am trying to figure out the next step. Should I buy N3 books and work my way up or N2 and just fill in the blanks? With either of those option should I buy all books(Grammar, Vocab, kanji, listening comp, and reading comp.) or should I focus on one workbook. I tried using apps and websites to study but the workbooks give me more motivation to do them and makes me feel I have progressed a little more.
Thank you in advance!
2 comments
Are you taking it in December? I tend to over prepare but that’s not a lot of time to get all the material in…
If you are confident you are *already* N2 level, like you have already learned all the material and are just reviewing, I’d just buy a whole set of N2 books (I like the 新完全 sets but also use the 総まとめ books). The trick is none of the JLPT prep books are designed to actually teach you the material, they’re just for review of material you should already know. Some people find the 1-3 sentences examples and 0-2 questions per point to be enough, but I never have.
If money is tight and you can’t afford a complete set of N2 books, I’d focus on listening and reading, then vocab, and kanji last. Kanji is just kanji, you can flash card them. Same with vocab. But listening and reading for the JLPT tests are very specific – they want you to accomplish certain goals that aren’t just “can you follow a conversation” or “can you read a passage”. They want you to be able to follow a monologue and interpret a speaker’s unspoken goals from their spoken language; they want you to be able to skim a passage for key information and process it, drawing conclusions that aren’t specifically stated. Those are the tricky bits.
The only other advice I’d give is practice actually taking the test, under actual test conditions. So with a timer, bathroom breaks only at specific times, no food, *listening after completing the rest of the test so you’re exhausted*, etc.
And remember that passing the JLPT is not necessarily indicative of skill in communicating in Japanese, especially if standardized tests are not your thing (or, conversely, if you’re *really good at tests*). They just roughly correlate.
Basically yes: just do the books on repeat (repetition is very important), get old tests / mock tests and try to take them in one sitting at least a few times (it’s important to get the full 2h + test experience: I failed my first attempt because I had no idea it would be so exhausting to sit there and write the test for that amount of time).
Studying for JLPT is a whole new level of tedious so my recommendation is to start your preparation maximum 6months before taking the test, no longer!