Bunpro JLPT Tests! New Feature, Sep 20th 2025

Bunpro
#143

Ok that’s a big difference. I looked into Heisig a long time ago and my criticism with it was that it doesn’t actually teach Japanese, just arbitrary meanings of characters and that you could complete the whole book (which is a ton of work!) and still not be able to read anything in Japanese. So if WK fills that gap than that’s a big difference. But do they actually teach words or anything?

It’s an entirely different approach, but I personally had great success with the method of simply learning kanji through learning vocab. You figure out the meanings of characters over time by learning words that contain them, and you don’t have to waste time brute forcing all of the individual possible readings or memorizing stories. It feels like a much more natural way to learn.

2 Likes
#144

In the 言語知識 section, on the questions where you have to pick which option goes into ★, is it possible to reveal their order of the rest of the options after you are done with the test and want to check the answers?

3 Likes
#145

Going a little off topic from JLPT tests, but short version, even if you learn with vocab, it’s still extremely helpful to learn the meaning of the radicals and kanji. WK scaffolds learning for English speaking adults, whereas many other materials go by only frequency or testing levels.

That’s how we end up the first lessons of Duolingo starting with 寿司 and N5 focused materials with 魚 and Bunpro starting with 綺麗. Personally, I find each of these easier to learn when you have the components like 糸 口 ⺣ 田 in your lexicon.

Value aside, I think with words like 綺麗, 躊躇, 岐阜, 挨拶, it’s probably best to just learn the vocab since the kanji basically never show up outside of these words.

But for kanji like 上, it’s probably best to learn it as meaning “above, up” and read as じょう, then pick up the other words along the way, lest you see 上手 and 上手い first and think it means “good” or see it by itself and think it’s best to try the uncommon うえ reading.

The scaffolding of WK overcomes these issues well. To bring it back to the JLPT topic - the ordering will actually be worse if you plan to take the JLPT tests in order, but better if you plan to take the N2/N1 in the shortest period of time possible.

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#146

This should actually already be in most of the hints. I will have a search around for the ones that don’t include it so that the hints are even more helpful.

2 Likes
#147

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Abused the ability to replay the audio in the first one I took so I could get my badge. :sunglasses:

The language knowledge and reading parts definitely felt significantly easier than the December 2024 test I found online and took last weekend. I feel like the vocabulary was overall quite a bit easier, and in the real test, the choices for the reading questions seemed closer in meaning to one another. In the BP one, I often just had to read the first few words of each answer and would know just from that whether it obviously had nothing to do with anything mentioned in the passage.

Can’t speak to the listening section because I’m still terrible at listening so I don’t really have the ability to gauge it one way or the other, they both were extremely hard for me. :weary:

7 Likes
#148

Liking these tests. I’ve been doing them to get badges because I’m a dork like that, but I’m wondering why I show up on here as being JLPT N5 when I’ve passed N3 already?

1 Like
#149

As mentioned in the initial post, we’re still working on getting the forum badges working for JLPT😊. Congrats on passing the tests!

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#150

Love this idea!! But I can’t find it in the app, which is mainly what I have to use. Will an update be coming for that soon? Or am I just missing it somehow?? Thanks all, you’re the best!

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#151

I’ll second an earlier comment that there should be a way to view the ‘incorrect answer explainer’ even for questions that we answered right. Sometimes when you’re torn between options you still guess it right by chance and it would be better for review to be able to see exactly why the other answer is wrong. And it would also be good to just see the general kind of ‘traps’ in case you didn’t fall for something by luck.

7 Likes
#152

Fantastic, thank you so much!

1 Like
#153

Anyone knows how long are the breaks between sections in the actual JLPT test?
I’m trying to simulate the actual test as close as possible.

From Composition of Test Sections and Items | JLPT Japanese-Language Proficiency Test, it seems like Vocab, Grammar and Listening sections are given to candidates separately, which means you must get a small break between each section.

1 Like
#154

WaniKani teaches this way:
-first you see one or more radicals (or more specifically, kanji parts, since they don’t teach just the official radicals) and assign a meaning to them
-then you get kanji which contain that radical, and learn the on’yomi along with it (or kun’yomi if that one is what’s way more common)
-finally, you get vocabulary containing that kanji; each vocab item also shows you the context in which it’s used.
All building on what you already know, meaning you won’t get 靴下 if you know 下 but not 靴.
IMO you can’t properly compare WK to Heisig; WK is so much more. It’s my main tool for learning kanji, and with it I’m noticing I’m WAY ahead of my peers in my Japanese class, who are just going by Genki. And I’m only level 11 on WaniKani.

Back on topic though, having these tests available on Bunpro is absolutely fantastic. I’ve been wanting to take the JLPT but spots everywhere around me fill up so fast, and in a bunch of the places the test is only offered once a year. I had completely given up on ever taking the JLPT and resigned myself to never really knowing my level by JLPT standards. Now I can at least get an idea of whether I’d pass or not :smiley:

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#155

It might depend on the country but when I have taken it in Japan it was around 20 minutes maybe? long enough for everyone to go to the bathroom and stuff. Maybe 30 minutes if you include the time it takes for the proctors to collect everyones tests.

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#156

This is a great feature, thanks Bunpro team!

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#158

Thanks for adding the question explanations to the review. This already has helped me quite a bit!

Another request I have is a “hard mode” the existing listening for N5 to N3 by having an option to only ask the question after the passage is read. This would help greatly with practicing for similar question types in the N2 test without adding more voice acting work, just the editing of audio files.

A second “hard mode” request would be the ability to turn off furigana entirely during the practice tests.

3 Likes
#159

Is it me, or is the listening section pretty brutal?

I would rate myself as N4 level (finished all N4 grammar and vocab).
I just did the N5 listening test. Got 21/24, but I felt that my head was exploding because I had to pay so much attention. The audio is only played once and if you lose concentration, you are toast.

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#160

The audio section is definitely the hardest I would agree, but it is not any more difficult than the official exams. In some of the questions, the official exam will give you a bit longer after asking a question before the scenario audio plays though, so that can certainly help sometimes.

4 Likes
#161

I think the problem is that the audio starts automatically. I never did the official tests though, so maybe that’s how it is? Practice listening I did on youtube always gave me enough time to read the actual task AND look at the possible answers first. I felt like the difficulty was around other N5 listening practices when I stopped the audio to read the answers first.

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#162

I’ve taken English proficiency tests where the question is asked after a dialogue of a few minutes is played. If you are proficient enough, it feels more like a test of focus and short term memory.

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#163

tbh that is accurate to the real tests

I have n3 and I still got 23/24 on the n5 listening test haha

1 Like