That was my issue with N2 the last time I took it 1+ year ago. However, I eventually realized it was a problem with my reading comprehension not being good enough and eventually, after doing lots of reading practice tests I got to at least getting most of the answers correctly.
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US Test Takers:
December registration opens for N1 either on Monday (Aug 5) or Wednesday (Aug 7) depending on your location: AATJ United States JLPT Registration
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Registered for N1 in Seattle! Time to start studying again, that $100 fee is good motivation.
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A tentative hello into here as I just passed the N2 this round… I don’t know when I will officially sign up for this one as the price tag is the biggest, and I don’t think I could do it anytime soon, but I would love to see how others practice and prepare for this test and want to have this in my “watching” categories.
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I was originally hoping to take the N1 this year, but then I took a practice test and realized that I was not even remotely close, despite managing to pass the N2 last year. Oh well, maybe I’ll be able to beat it next year.
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Anybody thinking of taking the Jlpt N1 this july?
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I can’t because I’m in the US, but I passed one of their practice tests recently by a decent margin so I’m considering if I want to do it at the end of the year.
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I am, just signed up - I’ve been studying kinda unfocusedly for a few months, but now it’s actually only 3-4 months away so starting to worry about it. My main problem is probably gonna be the language knowledge/grammar part, I’m trying to use prep books but at this point everything feels like it goes in one ear and out the other. There’s just so much and I don’t see hardly any of it in my everyday life. Makes studying it feel frustrating. Are you signing up?
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Yeah, I signed up.
Right now I am just going through the grammar in N2 and adding them to anki.
What you said is true ,grammar is the annoying part of the test and is going to be the main problem and take most of my study time too.
I tried using test-prep books like shinkanzen but it wasn’t for me so I switched to nihongo no mori website catalog.
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Dang I had goals to get to N1 from (basically) 0 in two years and now I’m questioning that. I didn’t think about the test having not daily use grammar etc. Maybe I’ll shoot for 3 years as is it gets closer to time. I don’t need this for work, I just need to be able to talk to people in a business fashion about work so that is my focus. This was more of a bonus achievement/ side quest I wanted to complete.
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This isn’t to comment on your time (which above all is gonna be a function of how much time you can spend per day), but to clarify imo the grammar might indeed be often a little extra when it comes to spoken Japanese. Might slip out way more rarely if you’re getting a lot of your exposure through some form of casual conversation and the like.
I’d call it common enough written grammar structures, though. If you’re much of a reader I think you’ll be fine. At least in my experience taking one of their official N1 practice tests (which pulls questions from past tests), there was virtually nothing I hadn’t come across naturally.
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I took the N1 a few years ago and had similar experience. Never learned from textbooks and only learned grammar as I came across it in books.
Ended up not seeing any grammar I hadn’t seen several times before. Got a perfect score on language knowledge too. The obscurity of the content is overblown to say the least.
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I guess it primarily depends upon the person and the time they spent with the language.
Many people including me haven’t immersed much and hence when preparing for test like jlpt, exaggerate the unknown to a great extent.
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This is nice to hear, I only learn from japanese media and haven’t touched any of the recommended textbooks, which doing so I passed N3, intent to do the same for N2/N1 when it comes to it.
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So long as a good chunk of that media is literature, even if it’s in the form of light novels or visual novels, yeah you’ll be fine.
Whether or not that’s the “best” way to get there is another discussion, but there will be no real surprises on the test if you’re already comfortable with that sort of media.
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Oh that’s good to know! Right now I’m spending 2-6 hours a day on Japanese (usually 2-3) through my day according to toggletrack. Half of it is WK and KW with the rest being random bursts of LingoDeer or Immersion with Jap subtitles on so that I can (try to) read along with what they are saying. My goal is to finish WK in the 2 years till I plan to test + do anki cards for the few Kanji I don’t know and hopefully that plus immersion will get me there. I may also do practice tests. I can’t wait to be able to read more as I have a lot of down time at work (night shifts) where I could spend a bunch of time reading there as it’s encouraged to help us stay awake and attentive with out being too distracting.
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Piggybacking off @Vanilla I had passed N3 on the first try and I consumed a lot of Japanese media, I think for N2/N1, you can do it but the volume compared to N3 is much greater. I have failed N2 about 3 times so far and N1 once, so don’t take my advice too seriously but if you opt for the pure immersion approach, just make sure your taking those new/rare words/grammar points seriously when you run into them. Don’t be like me and just coast through it thinking you got the rough idea 
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