I tried N2 3 years ago but I got absolutely stumped. Due to the pandemic and working from home, I had a lot of time to consume native material, mainly being watching anime without subs and reading manga/LNs raw. I took a 200 hour review class last year as well. My reading and listening improved slowly but surely as I consumed more native material. Speaking and writing grew too but not as fast as I’d like. Then when I tried N2 again today, I had an easy time with the vocabulary, the grammar part was a bit tricky, but it’s really the reading portion that absolutely stumped me. It’s discouraging considering that I know what the vocabulary words mean and I’ve read a lot of LNs raw but I couldn’t get at what the author is saying. The sentences felt extremely bloated and I rarely see actual media form sentences like that. The listening was okay but the real annoying part is how extremely indecisive the speakers are. I mentioned this in another comment, but the listening section usually goes like: Hey wanna do A? No, how about B? Maybe C is good? Nah that’s not it. Okay let’s go with D? The format is annoying because I’ve watched a ton of anime and live news and people don’t speak like this.
That being said, I don’t think I passed. Or if I did, it’s just barely. I was thinking maybe I should have done more of JLPT practice tests and review than consume native material but I don’t think it’s a good idea to put native material at a minimum. Whatever the case, I think I’ll just focus on speaking and writing since I feel like I’ll need these more. Is N2 really worth the trouble? I’ve been at it for a long time and the reading section always stumps me. I know you gain more experience by taking on challenges but if we talk about this on game terms, you only gain experience if you actually defeat the boss and you get no experience if you get destroyed.
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When it comes to whether the N2 is really worth the trouble, that’s all on you to decide, no? If it gives you motivation to study it could be worth it. If you need it for a job, then worth it. If you just want to read light novels and watch anime? If you can already do that to a degree you’re happy with, then not worth it.
When it comes to understanding what’s in the text, reading comprehension can be its own skill set to build up separately from grammar and vocab. Back when I studied for the N2 I found the 新完全マスター reading book useful. I also spent time reading Yoshimoto Banana’s “Kitchen”. If your only prep for the section was light novels I’d recommend branching out into a study book or adding some diversity in the types novels you read.
I might’ve missed it but you didn’t mention why you need the N2?
Keep going.
I did the N2 this afternoon and definitely see where you’re coming from – it seems like the N2 exam is a complete different animal compared to the native news articles/tv shows/media. In a weird way, I guess learning Japanese is different to learning Japanese in order to pass the JLPT exams – learning how the pass the exam was VERY different compared to learning the language in general.
In game terms I’d say learning Japanese is under one ‘experience’ progress bar while studying for the JLPT falls under another ‘experience’ progress bar. The only way to study for N2 would be using JLPT-specific resources like 新完全マスター・総まとめ・徹底ドリル…
You should branch out what you are reading. The N2/N1 exams tend to have more technical type writing with things like essays that you don’t really see in LN’s. Try reading more news articles and/or non-fiction books.
As for listening comprehension that’s just sort of the way the tests work. They have to waffle about or else people could just hear a word and get the right answer based on hearing just a small part of the recording.
I have some students who did N2 this time round. You can try the following method for your reading (tested this method many times and it has worked for my students)
Vocab/Grammar: 35分 (about half a min per question, ★ questions should take about 1-1.5 mins)Reading: 70分
N2読解の解き方: 情報検索→総合理解→短文→長文→中文
「短文→中文→長文→総合理解→情報検索」の順でしたら、確実に時間が足りません。
Also remember to eat Dars Chocolate before your listening. It really helps. =)
[https://www.morinaga-ap.com/dars/](https://www.morinaga-ap.com/dars/)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZCmS1LRsgs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZCmS1LRsgs)
> Hey wanna do A? No, how about B? Maybe C is good? Nah that’s not it. Okay let’s go with D?
I found this annoying for a different reason – because it’s such a real conversation. The way people speak in media is very different to how they speak in real life, and these kinds of listening questions bring back a lot of bad memories of spending ages trying to decide what to do with unengaged people, haha.
I did the N2 today too and I had pretty much the same experience. The reading questions were tough. Lots of waffling. I guess there’s no guarantee that the reading questions will be *well-written*, since a lot of stuff you’ll encounter in life will be poorly-written too. Listening was an absolute massacre for me and I’m pretty sure it’s the reason I’ll fail.
As for whether N2 is worth it, it’s really up to you. N2 is where the JLPT starts getting significantly useful for job applications. If you want to have a career in Japan that’s not limited to foreign companies or English teaching, it’ll make your life *a lot* easier. Otherwise, getting the qualification is just for your personal satisfaction. If you just want to consume Japanese media and culture, there’s no real need for it.
I think about it kind of like this: in English, reading YA novels won’t necessarily prepare you for the SAT (or A levels, etc). They’re just fundamentally different types of writing. Not all writing is created equal. It’s the exact same in Japanese. Just because you’re reading materials written for native speakers doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re reading material that will help you with the JLPT.
That doesn’t necessarily mean that the reading you’re doing is worthless. The JLPT is a pretty terrible test of holistic language skills and instead tests pretty narrowly for one subset of skills. If you want to pass the JLPT then you have to make sure you’re practicing the kind of academic reading it tests for.
The JLPT listening section is just dumb. The Japanese in it isn’t terribly difficult, especially when compared to tests for other languages of similar level. The difficult thing is just the formatting. I’m pretty sure I’d even find a JLPT style English listening exam to be taxing. I find the listening section to be an extremely difficult test filled with relatively simple Japanese. It’s not testing your Japanese, but rather your test taking abilities.
Personally I think focusing on speaking and writing is a great idea. Those are skills often neglected by Japanese learners, but they’re super valuable. They’re also the ones that I personally find to be the most rewarding. Whether or not you try the JLPT again is up to you. I think it depends on you, yours goals, and your interests. There’s no right or wrong answers.
Edit: because thinking about it makes me annoyed, let me illustrate how dumb the JLPT listening is by comparing it with something you’d here the DELE (Spanish) B2 listen exam. Like you said, the JLPT is all just people being indecisive. 90% of the questions are just “what will the man do next?” But, even if you don’t understand what D is, as long as you understand that D is their final decision, then you can answer the question, because all the answer choices are direct quotes from the recording. Whereas in the DELE it’d be something like
A: Hey Marta! How’ve you been? Haven’t seen you around lately.
B: Good to see you too, José. I’ve actually had a bit of a rough time recently. I was hospitalized last week.
A: Oh no! That’s terrible! What happened? Are you ok?
B: I sprained my ankle on the job, but it’s nothing major I’m fine now. My son came to visit me every day though, which was really nice.
A: Glad to here it! Speaking of which, how’s your son? Is he still playing basketball?
B: He is! His team just won a tournament so we’re going to Barcelona to celebrate
Why was Marta in the hospital recently?
A. She was injured playing basketball
B. She was visiting her son
C. She had a workplace injury
D. She sprained her ankle in Barcelona
The actors speak faster than in the JLPT, but you can hear the recording twice. In order to answer the question, you have to know that “hospitalized” and “in the hospital” are synonyms and be able to realized that “straining your ankle on the job” is an example of an a “workplace injury.” The JLPT doesn’t require you to synthesize information like that (which is actually a higher level language skill) and instead relies on trick questions and convoluted misdirection
Well, to be honest, consuming native material doesn’t really do much for passing the JLPT, actually, among the language proficiency tests I have taken, JLPT is the worst at measuring the actual level of one’s language abilities. The fact that there is no writing or speaking test speaks volumes. Also, in order to pass, it is necessary to know certain vocabulary and grammar, so it helps to get the books and study vocab from them. So you might know a lot of words in general, but they need to be the right ones and especially N2 and N1 are specifically oriented towards more “serious” language, like essays, business related stuff and so on.
So if you need N2, yes, it is worth it, N2 is much more recognized than N3, but for testing how good one’s Japanese is just for fun, I would say it is not worth the money or trouble if you don’t want to do it.
Reading comic books with words in speech bubbles and lots of sound effect words won’t prepare you to read longer sections of text *without* pictures.
It has always amazed me how apparently the one thing so many JLPT aspirants *won’t* do is build the type of reading skills/abilities which the JLPT covers: the ability to read their way steadily through a text at a reasonable speed and without stopping to look things up.
If you have no *need* for the JLPT, just do whatever fulfills your needs/goals for Japanese language learning and usage. If that’s reading Japanese comics for personal enjoyment, great. But if you *do* need it, you’re going to have to put in the work to acquire the kind of reading skills they’re testing for, and comics aren’t the optimal material for that.
With reading what helped me was kanzen master reading. It tells you specific words and patterns to look for that lead to the answer for each type of question. Also it has a breakdown and process for each type of situation.
For example it will start with having you look for the keywords and the theme, then looking for the pattern that usually signals the answer, then it will summarize the point and show you the answer. Reading each section multiple times really helped me learn to parse the reading questions.
Also another thing that helped me was reading non-fiction essays because the language is more complex. Although finding good essays is hit or miss, but there are books that have collections of award winning essays available on amazon japan.
I agree that JLPT listening sucks and tests your ability to deal with trick questions more than any actual listening ability.
That being said, I’m always surprised when people who claim they’ve read novels struggle with the reading sections. I just don’t see how that’d be possible unless you just guessed your way through those novels without actually comprehending much.
You should be quite safe if you are getting around 125/180 for your mock test.
I have some tips that I share on handling the listening and reading sections for N2
Listening: https://youtu.be/htq-CHE70jM
Reading: https://youtu.be/-yNTvxNuTDg
Op,
I felt the same way when I was preparing for N2. I ultimately decided it wasn’t worth the trouble and decided to focus on consuming native content and living life in Japanese. That was years ago and I don’t regret the decision.
That said, if passing is the goal, as others have mentioned, I think studying 新完全マスター, etc is the best way to prepare.
Personally, I’ve never done well on these types of tests, even in my native language. I chose to pursue a Master’s degree in Japanese translation instead,
It’s perfectly fine to opt out of taking the JLPT. It’s not really the best test of one’s true ability anyways imho.
You’re reading LN raw, understood the words mean, yet couldn’t get what the author mean? maybe the problem is maybe you’re not familiar with non-fiction writing? I’m not reading LN so I’m sure my vocabs is below yours, yet I still understand most of the reading section yesterday… (and not easy time with the vocabs part)