The JLPT 2021 Thread

Japanese Language
#1

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Continuing the tradition of shamelessly copying the previous year’s JLPT thread, by copying @Airdramon 's 2020 thread.

July : 4th of July 2021
December : 5th of December 2021

Official JLPT Website
Sample Tests

Welcome to the JLPT 2021 thread! Is it 3 months too early to create this? Yes, probably.

Please use this thread to discuss everything JLPT-related for the upcoming year.

What is the JLPT?

JLPT stands for “Japanese Language Proficiency Test”, or 日本語能力試験 in Japanese. It is the most official certification of Japanese proficiency there is, and it is held twice a year in over 85 countries.

There are 5 levels, which go in reverse order with the highest level, N5, being the easiest, and the lowest level, N1, being the hardest.

The JLPT is not only very useful, but also essential if you wish to work most non-English teacher jobs in Japan. Many people however take the JLPT simply to gauge their Japanese abilities.

Do you have plans to take the JLPT this year? And what level do you plan on taking?

For me, I plan to take the N3 in July. I previously took and passed the N4, and since moving to Japan last year I have been slowly working towards N3. I don’t expect to pass it, but I need the motivation for my studies.

Do you plan to take the JLPT in July 2021?
  • No
  • Yes, N5
  • Yes, N4
  • Yes, N3
  • Yes, N2
  • Yes, N1
  • Unsure

0 voters

Do you plan to take the JLPT in December 2021?
  • No
  • Yes, N5
  • Yes, N4
  • Yes, N3
  • Yes, N2
  • Yes, N1
  • Unsure
  • It depends on my results from the July test

0 voters

Have you taken the JLPT before?
  • Yes
  • No, but I want to
  • No, and I don’t intend to

0 voters

Good luck and 頑張って！

15 Likes
Joint Mock JLPT to substitute for cancelled 4th of July JLPT [who is interested?]
#2

Let’s just hope it actually takes place.

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#3

Depends for me on whether London / SOAS goes ahead. Edinburgh already cancelled for July and December

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#4

I imagine this will largely depend on the country it’s being held in, although saying that, the July 2020 test was cancelled completely so we can never be too sure.

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#5

I really wanna get back to studying for the JLPT and get that N2 certification since I was thiiiis :pinching_hand: close to getting it. Only thing left I needed to work on was my vocab tbh.

But life happened and I can’t do that until things calm down more so I’ll just keep maintaining my Japanese so I can hop right back in when things are better.

Also for me, the exam near my place is always so chaotic and to have covid get in the way of that would bum me out a little and I’d miss the chaos too much.

What’s the point of JLPT if I don’t see those adorable N5 takers who even go out of their way to eat pocky while shouting out “SENPAIII!!” here and there to the people they went with :sob:
ahh…youth…

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#6

I would love to try N4 this year, but I am unsure because of covid. I guess I’ll hope for december.

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#7

Might do N5 just for the curiosity of trying it.

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#8

Oh yeah another thing I miss about JLPT is that one girl who cosplays Haruhi Suzumiya while she takes her exams.

Queen.

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#9

I am just posting a friendly reminder. You can configure the Item Inspector script to study JLPT items with the “JLPT level with vocab” filter. For kanji the filter uses a database collected by @Kumirei. For vocabulary the filter makes an estimate by using the highest level of the kanji in the vocab as the level of whole vocab.

Disclosure: I am the author of Item Inspector.

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#10

would that actually imply studying grammar

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#11

I’m also waiting to see what SOAS does. I’m between sitting N5, which I’m quite confident I’d pass, and N4, which I don’t think I’m ready for at the moment.

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#12

百パーセントチャレンジ！

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#13

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple, as words are not included or not based on the kanji they contain but on their usefulness as words, for a learner on that level. You can see this here in Jisho: #jlpt-n5 - Jisho.org . In the JLPT those words will be used in hiragana and so that does not pose a problem.

Unfortunately, the JLPT tag is not exposed through Jisho’s API (there is a feature discussion which is 4 or 5 years old by now, so I don’t expect them to do anything about it at any point in time). When I wrote the JLPT indicator userscript I therefore decided to set up my own backend for that purpose. Feel free to pull the data from it that you need!

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#14

Thanks. I will look into this.

1 Like
#15

For your information, here is what I found.

The jisho JLPT data comes from the Jonathan Waller‘s JLPT Resources page. Foraging this site leads to the vocabulary page where the word lists are available in .doc and .pdf formats. I examined the .doc file. It contains all data in tabular form. It was easy to copy/paste the JLPT N5 table in Libre Office Calc and export it to csv. Producing a json file for JLPT data of all Wanikani vocabulary will be a simple python script. The data is licensed under terms that allows this.

There is no need to pull data from your backend. In Item Inspector context it makes sense to download all the data in bulk because the data is displayed in large tables on the dashboard. Then I can have it cached for weeks in wkof to reduce network transfers This design makes much less sense when displaying the data in a piecemeal fashion on a review session page as I believe your script is doing…

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#16

My initial plan was to take the N5 in summer, or if the hellplague doesn’t allow that, the N4 in winter. But looking over the kanji and vocab lists for N5, maybe I should set my sights a bit higher? There’s, like, three kanji I don’t recognize in N5. So, with five-ish more months maybe I can do N4 in summer?

3 Likes
#17

Grammar is your biggest indicator on whether you can pass it or not imo, mainly since you’re a WK user and you’re aiming for N5/N4.

Even in terms of vocab for N5/N4, WK does a decent coverage of them. It does not on N3+ though.

9 Likes
#18

If you want to study grammar/vocab (N3+) I really recommend checking out nihongonomori on YouTube they have a lot of vocab/grammar videos and it’s all taught in japanese, I’ve found it very useful.

3 Likes
#19

Happily, I passed the N2 taken back in December. I’m wondering if I should try and go for the N1 in July, for the sake of job hunting in Japan. I have no intention of working primarily in Japanese, but I think it would look good nonetheless. But on balance, studying the less useful grammar required from N1 would take away from time I could be using to master more basic grammar…

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#20

I plan on taking it in July, but I would not be surprised if it’s cancelled :sweat_smile:

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