The testing environment is also unusual and stressful. I absolutely hate taking the JLPT, but I love self-testing at home.
I know people who know their stuff pretty well but absolutely bomb JLPT because they’re bad test takers. Not saying you are, but it’s a real problem for some folks. Just an extra level of difficulty to passing a test that isn’t really important unless you don’t want to teach english in Japan.
True. But they could make the practice test a real test from some random year in the past. Then you put in your answers into some web portal, and it runs its magic as if you were one more testee in that pool.
I will say, I was a lot more anxious during the real thing. I didn’t do mock time limit when I did the practice, and during the real I was stressing about not getting it all done in time. Plus just that extra pressure of the real thing. I do remember too with two of the listening questions, I was so preoccupied second guessing myself, I completely missed the first half of the following question, leading to completely random guesses.
Ok, all done making excuses
What does piss me off a bit about the 78/180 though, is that I did pass each individual section. I pass all three parts, but that equals an overall fair. I get they don’t want to call it a pass if you ace two parts, and bomb one, but the fact I passed all three. Feel a bit cheated.
I myself am neutral to the JLPT. I don’t think it’s the best designed language test and only a very rough indicator of Japanese level.
That being said some people need to take the test for school/work or want to take the test to set goals for themselves or test their knowledge. So it can be useful to those people.
So don’t let anyone talk you out of the test if you want to take it and don’t let anyone try to fool you into thinking it’s the best way to measure your progress with Japanese.
Anyways, what are your goals with Japanese? That could probably help us recommend techniques to get you where you want to go!
No problem, I remember when I was in your shoes. I wish I had been on WK at that time and could have reached out like you did!
Here is a good place to start:
I haven’t paid for anything on this site, only used what is on offer for free. He has a Patreon and special JLPT related content for 5$, might be worth a look.
The main site has some old tests that you can take now, too.
https://www.jlpt.jp/e/samples/sampleindex.html
You can also search for the Goukoku Dekiru N4/N5 books. I downloaded when a while ago, can’t remember where. I’ll DM you
Sample tests are important because the test has a lot of strangely formatted questions. You need to be able to recognize what kind of question it is immediately so you don’t waste time trying to figure out what they’re looking for.
Famously in the JLPT there is the four blanks and a star question. You’ll know what I mean when you start getting into it!
I don’t know your progress thus far but you might not be ready for a sample test yet, and need to start in a textbook and go purchase/download some N5 materials.
Yeah, JLPT is overall a bit silly (a language proficiency exam with no speaking is not a real proficiency exam, in my estimation). I’ve met people who have passed N2 and can barely have a conversation, and also met people who are functionally fluent and absolutely bomb the lower level tests.
It is a good motivator and way to set goals though, especially for individual study in the beginning. But yeah, no need to take higher levels unless for work/school/bragging rights.
That’s… by far the longest I’ve ever heard. Even for two hours of studying a week, the lessons have to at least err on the slow-side.
N5 is kindergarden - grade-one level, to my knowledge. WaniKani passes that in a few months.
Obviously WaniKani is mostly kanji-centred and doesn’t help all that much in terms of sentence-structure and common idioms that are used in day-to-day life. But TWO YEARS to get to such a low level of knowledge?
It can definitely be done faster. As for whether or not you should stay in the class is entirely up to how fast you want to learn, though. As with anything, you get out of it what you put into it. If you’re fine with hitting N5 after two years then there’s no problem. Find a regiment that fits into your time restraints and aligns with your personal motivations and study preferences. But if you’re asking if it can be done faster, the time you presented is COMICALLY long.
If you were ONLY studying at a school, especially one that was running part time, I can see this as being reasonable. I went to university in Japan and I know several students that wouldn’t have been able to pass the N5 even after 15 months of in country study. It was simply due to the fact that they didn’t study outside of the bare minimum to pass the class. Often those classes are very very slow moving. Then when it comes time for the next semester they would be placed into another low level class which was also very slow.
The key is to advance your study on your own in addition to classes imo. Then, it’s possible to reach this level in 6 months and probably N3 level by 2 years.
That said, I bet most students that attend that school just cruise through and don’t challenge themselves to do anything outside of the classroom, so I can see why they’d offer up that time frame.
that’s fair enough. again, i’m lucky i learn it at school, so i dont need to rely on finding my own resources (although on the other hand i’ve learned it for 3.5 years at school and can barely say anything … oh well)
this is a really interesting point that I’ve never heard before, although i kind of agree. the French and Japanese I learn at school sounds sooo different from the language they speak in real life. when I went to France last year, i basically had to UNLEARN the way id been taught to speak. these resources provide a good base, but not much more.
anyway, thank you for your notes on passing the N5. I should really start thinking about taking the JLPT tests because I’d like to have an official document one day to prove my fluency (even if it might not mean much to native speakers)
so true. ESPECIALLY with languages. i’ve been in classes with the same people for years and about 3 of us are almost fluent (this is french btw not japanese, i wish lol), the rest can barely put together a grammatically correct sentence.
Hello, thank you for replying. Yes, I think I do agree with you in saying that JLPT doesn’t cover all aspects of the Japanese language but can be used as goal setting.
For me personally, the ultimate goal is to be able to study in a university in Japan (I’m 18 this year ^_^) - but that will take 5 years or so because after college, I still have mandatory military service. So right now, the current goal is just to have strong foundation (whatever that encompasses) and take my time. But that doesn’t mean I wanna waste my time if I can learn something more efficiently if that make sense?
Sorry if my goals aren’t specific enough 
Ah yikes I see.
Thank you so much! You have been the kindest :))
As someone who also had mandatory military service (I had mine before college), just a thought: you might want to try to learn as much Japanese as you can before that. No need to rush, of course, but I think it’s very likely you’ll experience language attrition while in the military (i.e. you’ll forget a lot of stuff for lack of practice). Ultimately, that depends on how long the service is and how busy you are (some people use military service as an additional opportunity for study), but in any case, it’s easier to recover from forgetting information if it’s mostly advanced/finer points of the language than if it’s basics you find everywhere.
About the JLPT: for listening comprehension, all the instructions are in Japanese, and some of the ‘questions’ are in fact just examples to give you an idea of the question format, so you’ll need to be able to distinguish questions from instructions and examples. I believe they say はじめましょう (‘let’s begin’) after each set of examples and just before the questions, so look out for that. I hope that’s in the practice tests too. (I haven’t taken any JLPT tests yet though, so I’m just repeating what I’ve heard.)
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