At the beginning of this year I wanted to set a goal for my Japanese and so I set my sights on passing the JLPT N2. However starting from around N4 seems to be a big jump and I am wondering about the practicality behind my plan.
Currently as it stands according to my SRS apps this is my current “status”:
* BunPro: Grammar at N4 (starting N3 start of next month)
* Wanikani: Level 35 (so 96.74% for N3 and 87.54% for N2 Kanji coverage) \[according to wkstats’s cumulative score\]
* Anki (3337 Mature Words & 720 Young Words) \[\~90% accuracy on all answers\]
As for non SRS study I’ve recently started re-reading Tobira and really trying to understand and comprehend all the reading sections in the book (now that I pre-studied all the vocab in the glossary from my Anki decks & some grammar points in BunPro). I noticed that coming back to it after not seeing it in 2 years my comprehension has shot way up and it’s a lot more fun than it was back then. I’m planning on going to 中級から上級への日本語 after Tobira and pre-studying my Anki deck I made for it. I also bought 新幹線マスターN2読解 and the Official JLPT N2 practice booklet to look at after. This is my current plan regarding the reading aspect of the test.
In regards to Kanji I plan to do 2 levels of Wanikani a month until I get to 50 (for “100% coverage”, according to wkstats of the JLPT) and for the grammar I’m planning on doing 2-3 new BunPro grammar points per day until I do all the non-JLPT N1 ones.
As for my listening skills, they’re really bad to the point that unless I’m closing my eyes and really focusing I can’t comprehend it well. Not all of it is gibberish since I can pick out the main idea in simple conversations and things like pitch/tone aren’t too big of an issue (like the YT channel *Comprehensive Japanese* is easy for example). However, the content in spoken language throws me off. Like the last time I went to Japan, I couldn’t understand hotel or store staff since they used expressions I’ve never heard before and spoke very formally.
I know I can spend time watching content to get the skill up but it’s a game of: “it’s at my skill level so N+1 applies, but is boring to watch” or “it’s content I want to watch, but I have no idea what people are saying”. Add on top of the fact I can’t as easily automate tracking progress and get immediate (or any) feedback on my comprehension, it’s a skill I don’t know how to refine.
So my question now would be, is the path I’m going on a practical one or should I aim on taking the N3 instead? I wanted to try for the N2 since I want to be somewhat proficient at Japanese before I consider moving there in a year or two. However with how much of a gap I have between my level (N4) to what I’m striving for (N2), I’m not sure the feasibility of it while also maintaining a day-job.
4 comments
If it were me, I’d keep all your current srs and drop the texts books in exchange for working through some LN or kid books (not えほん) and look up what you don’t know.
For listening, I’d start with a few hundred episodes of Teppei(or whatever is easy), then find something interesting you actually want to listen to.
Not saying this is the only way, but you could pass with a few hours a day.
What kind of immersion do you do outside of textbooks and SRS? If you’re not already doing it I would incorporate listening to podcasts, watching anime/drama in Japanese without English subtitles and starting to read manga/books in Japanese.
I saw you mention the reading sections of tobira. Im using the same book! Are you making use of the dialogue sections? The audio and video components are helpful!
I try to listen to the audio a few times without looking at the book to get what I can then read the section, listen again while reading to see if anything makes more sense. Then highlight or underline what I struggled with. Then I’ll have a better idea of I need to work on going forward.
Fellow worker bee here! Please refer to one of my old posts (you can swap N1 for N2, the books I’ve used were from the same series) . [https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/10julwg/comment/j5n1n4t/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/10julwg/comment/j5n1n4t/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
tl;dr: take **mock exams** for various levels right now to determine your actual current level, don’t base it on vague estimation. Base your goal on your schedule and mock exam feedback (thanks why you take multiple levels)
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I think it’s pretty obvious your plan is already really solid, I like 99% of it. It’s a good study plan. Then here’s 1% suggestion to tweak it more test-prepping style:
1. Get JLPT books for Listening (新完全マスター is great). Even after you have juiced up everything like an orange, the week before exam try reading the transcript out loud, and re-listen to the CD. it might be a good idea to also get the kanji&vocabulary book depending on the result of your mock exam. 新幹線(しんかんせん) 新完全(しんかんぜん)
2. Grammar: your current plan covers “learning”, but it doesn’t cover “test-prepping”. The entire first section (kanji, vocabulary, grammar) could be divided into learning phase and test-prepping phase, similar to learning the insertions of your pec and actually doing bench press — you need to have practiced enough JLPT exam-style questions before actually taking the test. Improve the speed and accuracy of recognition in the first section also gives you precious time to finish reading, as not having enough time is a chief complaint among test takers.
3. Take N4 and N3 and N2 mock exams right now, record scores for each section. If there’s a problem type you struggle with, make a note too. For me, those would be the last question in grammar section (they gauged five holes in an article and you have to fill it in) and the “compare A and B’s opinions” question in reading. When you take the mock exam early on, it’s great news if you especially suck at one or two problem types, because most people’s problem areas don’t really change and you just gained this valuable intel early on in the race. Another benefit is to identify areas you are already really good at and stop wasting time perfecting it before exam. (This is purely from the test-taking perspective)
4. always take several levels of mock exams, not just the level you think you are currently at. Take the mock exams until you absolutely cannot get 20% or higher. When taking an exam, don’t give up when you think the problems are too hard, try guessing, fill in every answer and still score it. The reasoning being you might be guessing some answers during the test, this way is surprisingly not bad for estimating your actual test performance. thats why I also recommend full-length mock tests, not just the kiddie version on JLPT website. when you are sharing your learning journey, share Anki or other app progress; when you are trying to distill a JLPT strategy, it’s helpful to have JLPT mock exam score distribution to share (otherwise it’s like showing your English teacher your Math grade report, we can infer you might be hardworking and smart, but we can’t deduce your Math capabilities)