For those who have taken a Japanese test (any of them)

Japanese
#1

Hello! I wanted to make a post to those who have taken any Japanese test at all, to hear what you guys thought was the most difficult part of the tests. I have taken and failed JLPT N2 once, as well as years earlier taking and failing the JTEST, I plan to take both of these again (and hopefully pass) this year for the JLPT and probably whenever I’m forced to for the JTEST because I hated the writing portion so bad.

It was a couple of years ago, and I was fresh out of living in Japan for a year, so I was confident but easily the most difficult part for me at the time was the lack of kanji I had memorized! Nowadays I find I struggle the most with comprehension, not the lack of ability to read per se but simply putting it all together in my head.

I wanted to ask you guys what you found was most difficult about the tests you have taken and what you did, or are doing to improve on that perceived weak point, I figure if we share these perhaps there will be some solutions we could find for our own struggles. I look forward to your replies! :smiley:

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#2

解答即応 for me. I practice kanji everyday, and of course my speaking is the worst, but next in line is listening, and when I don’t have that many words for context, I literally do demonstrably as bad as pure guessing.

The only way to work on it is a ton of practice problems of that exact type, or hundreds of hours of legit listening practice. Obviously the latter is more useful, so I’m going that route in preparation for the next test, likely JLPT in June or whatever

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#3

For sure! I totally get that. Somehow, every time I guess an answer, I get it wrong nearly 100% of the time. I don’t even know how it’s possible. But for sure, I find the listening practice helps so much but it is probably the most tedious part of studying, at least for me.

I’ve been using the JLPT N2 listening practice videos on YouTube for help there, but I find them boring or in some cases easier than what I experienced in my JLPT test. What do you use for listening practice?

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#4

Well I’m in school here in Japan, so I get like 25 hours per week of listening for free, but after that, I mostly watch anime (with subtitles if possible) and do my best to focus on the dialogue. Sometimes I’ll venture into Japanese YouTube, or podcasts or something, but anime feels most natural

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#5

I’m surprised you still have any desire to listen to more Japanese after spending all that time already locked in haha. I went to a language school in Japan and found myself completely spent after school, so good on you for being so dedicated!

I’ve gradually had a harder time watching anime as time has passed, mostly due to my changing taste in media. do you recommend any Japanese podcasts that aren’t like, “This is specifically for Japanese learners”? I would really love to listen to a podcast along those lines, I’ve just had a difficult time finding one!

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#6

I took and passed N2 in December, going into the test I was most concerned about listening but time management in the first section ended up being what almost sunk me. I mostly flew through kanji/vocab but let myself get hung up for too long on a couple of the grammar questions and just didn’t have enough time to complete reading. Luckily I managed to get through enough of it to pass but I wished I’d done more actual timed full test or full section practice.

On listening, I thought I’d be lucky to just manage to get above 20 so I was pretty happy with the 35 I actually got. I did a lot of listening practice problems, I’d done the entirety of the 日本語総まとめ and 新完全マスター N2聴解 books along with the section in the N2 book from 日本語の森. I also listened to podcasts through out most of the day along with anime and youtube etc

If you want to find podcasts, there’s been a podcast recommendations thread floating around here recently. The easiest thing though is probably to just find the page for TBS or ニッポン放送, both of them produce quite a few podcasts (especially TBS). The more indie podcasts I follow started showing up in my recommendations after that

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#7

That’s so awesome! Congrats on passing N2!! That’s a huge accomplishment!! I feel that way about listening for this upcoming test but I hope I can do what you did haha. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I have considered going back to my old textbooks with the hindsight I have after learning a bunch on my own and online, I figure there’s a lot of context I was missing when I was younger yknow.

I’ll do some searching around for the releases from TBS! Thank you for the recommendation!

Now that you’ve passed N2, what do you plan to do? Was it just a goal for yourself or what will you do now that you’ve reached it? N1 exists of course, but If I’m being honest I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anybody desiring an N1 certification besides those few ultra-completionists out there, not even my teachers in Japan recommended going for N1 unless I just really wanted that badge of honor haha.

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#8

Thank you! Walking out of the test I was absolutely certain I didn’t pass so it felt really good to see that score report!

I’d think about doing N1 at sometime in the future but I don’t have any specific plans or goal for that. Right now I’m mostly just happy to not be studying specifically for a test. I’m winding down a lot of the SRS I had been doing, and replacing it with just reading books and stuff. I do like read mode vocab on here though.

Aside from continuing to learn I’m planning to start trying to find a job in Japan so that’s the goal for the year. I lived there as a teenager and have wanted to move back, now seems like the time to do it!

I do think doing practice books/problems for the JLPT does help, if only to not have to think about what kind of question you’re answering and to get a feel for what a right and wrong answer look like. I haven’t really used textbooks at all while learning Japanese but I think this is a case I’d recommend it! Good luck if/when you take them again!

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#9

I recently passed the N3. It was a mix of SRS based learning, reading practice and listening.

Vocabulary and Kanji: Focused on it solely through Anki and WaniKani. WaniKani saved my ass, my vocab and kanji section went really well.

Reading practice: For this I completed the Shinkanzen master reading comp book. Highly recommended, ill be doing the same for the N2

Listening: Mainly listened to Yuyunihongo (podcast). Other than that I dont really consume any other japanese media.

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#10

You can set your location to japan on the apple podcasts website in case you weren’t aware

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#11

Took ttbj test last November, albeit it is college test. Not JLPT.

First time I failed miserably, second time. I barely passed overall test score but still failed kanji test. Listening is definitely my worst skill tho.

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#12

I bet!! I can’t imagine the relief after the like, what, 2 months of waiting that they have you do post-test! :rofl:

Oh, for sure, that’s awesome. I think replacing test-taking studying with real-life application is probably way better, considering how much of the Japanese that you study is often not useful for real-world scenarios at all lol.

That sounds like an awesome plan! I hope that your adventures in Japan are helped along by all this study you did!! You deserve some rest from the pain of using textbooks!!

Thank you very much for your recommendation!! I definitely will check out my books haha. I’m generally just motivated simply by the fact that you made it through!

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#13

Congrats!!! :congratulations: :confetti_ball: Did you find it difficult? Any observations during the testing?

These are all fantastic resources, Wanikani is an all-time favorite, truly the best I’ve ever found for my need to have everything gamified lol. I find that with Anki, since I’m given the choice to say how I did, I often can be convinced I got something right, my SRS is often messed up. Do you find issues like that with Anki?

I’ll check that podcast out for sure!!! I need listening sources desperately, as my last test I took I was deeply out of my league haha. Thank you for sharing :smiley:

@EbonyMidget Thank you for this piece of info!! I didn’t know this and I will now go on a journey to find a podcast on there!! Seriously, thank you.

@Stay_coolXD Good on you for taking the test still!!! Any particular things you think you’re gonna do going forward to improve? Listening is by far my worst skill too, considering living in America, I don’t have all that much exposure to Japanese lol.

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#14

For listening, the 3 podcasts I wholeheartedly recommend are:

yuyunihongo
Saya’s Japanese lessons
Haru no nihongo

If you find other near about the same level, please let me know :slight_smile:

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#15

No clue. I tried listening to N1 test . Determined that it probably too early for it. So give listening test a try if that your thing. For me I probably postpone it or just casually listen during anime or shows or any Japanese I come across that I find interesting

#16

Thank you!

And good luck in your studies, I think having taken it before will probably be a big advantage! Be sure to follow up when you do take it, I’d like to know how it went!

#17

@shivansh Will do! I’ll check out those first and get back to you!! Thank you :smiley:

@Stay_coolXD Makes sense! Listening tests help me out, for some reason I just can’t do anime anymore :sob: but podcasts are the shit!

@asii_k Thank you for the vote of confidence! I sure will, I think this time it’s all or nothing haha, I’ll come back with the worst score known to man or something

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