Visual Novels and the JLPT

8 comments

1. > Aside from reading visual novels (and probably doing listening via YouTube) and obvious test prep, is there anything else I should be doing?

   Practise listening. It’s easy to hyper focus on reading and suck at listening.

   > Are there any visual novels that people recommend to play in order to pass the N1? I’ve heard that the grammar and vocab in the N1 is quite esoteric.

   If you’re starting from a very low level, I’ve heard good things about Hanahira > Debutopia > Muramasa, but also whatever you like or sounds interesting to you. You’ll be able to read more if you want to know what happens next rather than forcing yourself.

   > Do you have any specific jlpt prep books recommendations? I was thinking of using the sou matome series but I keep hearing negative stuff about it online.

   I liked Shin-Kanzen Master if you don’t want to use Sou Matome.

   > Finally, what is a good site for doing practice JLPT questions?

   Search google for old JLPT exams and test yourself with those.

2. About 2, no. Unless there’s some special jlpt prep VN out there I don’t know of, best to stick with what you like best. Probably should get some variety in there though. I played dies irae recently, now playing kajiri kamui kagura, and they have a lot of reinforcing grammar points i hadnt seen that much previously. Those 2 can be kinda tricky, but the same author has written easier stuff so you can check those out.

3. You need a book called read real Japanese essays and a lot of news and editorial input. That material will give you a good feel for the type of material on the jlpt

4. You could just look at what other people who passed N1 by reading visual novels have done. I believe they track the visual novels read on themoeway discord and have some people who have passed N1.

5. If you read a decent variety of vns and are at least somewhat challenging yourself there isn’t anything particularly crazy on the n1, and some of the harder stuff like muramasa, dies irae, etc are definitely harder than any of the reading passages you’re going to find on n1. I’m convinced that the only reason people say that the n1 has esoteric grammar and vocab is because they don’t read enough actual Japanese to know what’s rare and what isn’t. The reading on the n1 is pretty standard written Japanese for the most part so just read a lot and it shouldn’t be much of an issue.

6. Just study JLPT grammar points by referring to textbooks like A Handbook of Japanese Grammar Patterns, and intermingle that with immersion. There’s a sort of a myth that there’s a clear cut difference in difficulty between most VNs, but the truth is, there isn’t. Sure, some VNs are exceedingly simply both in plot and prose, and they are ideal for beginners, and some are convoluted and sometimes even use archaic grammar/words, but 90% of VNs are roughly the same in terms of difficulty. A good rule of thumb is: VNs that rely heavily on dialogue tend to be a bit easier than those that are more descriptive, but that’s about it.

7. 1. Yes, reading and listening to the news. On higher JLPT levels (N2 and N1) you’ll be hearing tons of keigo, compound words, etc. at regular native speed.
   2. Not strictly. Any visual novels which use a lot of kanji should be fine as long as they don’t require you to memorize a ton of non-standard kanji and vocab specific to fantasy. Given the constraints, that might be distracting from the goal.
   3. Yes, SKM books – the gold standard in JLPT prep. Case in point, the JLPT N2 Listening book got me from struggling massively with listening, to finally being able to comprehend stuff.
   4. Probably worth getting a book with mock tests.

8. I got some JLPT N1 exam papers from past couple years, DM me if interested.