Going from N5 to N3 in 4 months and taking the JLPT

I’ve decided to participate in the JLPT December this year, after years of on and off learning I took the opportunity of this December’s JLPT test as a way to get serious with Japanese.

Between 2017-2021 I would study the language for a couple weeks and stop, but I’ve been keeping a good streak since Aug 2024 to prepare for the test. It might be a bit weird for some people as the title suggests I’m going for the N3 test even though I technically just started learning Japanese again, and yeah, it’s a LOT.

However, I’d like to clarify that I started this challenge already knowing Hiragana/Katakana, about 80 kanji and 700-900 words that I remembered from my past studies. With this in mind, getting to an N3 level by using Bunpro would mean around 30/40 new words, 10 kanji and 10 grammar points every single day until November, this will leave me about 3 weeks for me to review all the content, do tests and prepare for the JLPT N3 in December 1st.

I’m posting this just to share my experience and keep me accountable for my progress, so far, I’ve finished:

  • Full N5 vocabulary, almost finishing N4 vocab (less than 10 days to go)
  • Full N5/N4 grammar
  • N5/N4 kanji, with about 70 N3 kanji already learned (I have an anki deck for them separately + them in context with some new word that uses the kanji).

What does this look like in my day-to-day? About 4 hours of study every morning from 5:30-9:30am to review and study all new content and an extra hour of revision at the end of the day (around 8pm). During the day I like to immerse as much as possible in comprehensible input like YouTube, games and reading. I’ve been playing Youkai Watch 4 on a Switch emulator and reading Yotsubato! which is a really easy manga to understand if you’re N4+.

BY FAR the best channels I’ve found in comprehensible input have to be:
Japanese with Shun (The GOAT) https://www.youtube.com/@JapanesewithShun

Bitesize Japanese Podcast https://www.youtube.com/@the_bitesize_japanese_podcast

Speak Japanese Naturally https://www.youtube.com/@SpeakJapaneseNaturally

I’ll try to make some updates in here every once in a while to record if this is actually working or not, but I must say that this past month of study has been 10x more helpful than anything I’ve done in the past, by the 40th day of study I could understand pretty much 90-100% of Japanese With Shun’s videos targeted to N5/N4. Bunpro has been excellent for learning grammar and vocab, and I’m also using Yomitan for a different Anki deck (More slangs and words not found in Core 2.3k deck).

Strongly recommend this type of approach if you have free time, I work home office so this is an easy way for me to study the language. Even if you don’t actually learn 100% of what you study, the super fast progress is astounding to me so far, would love to know your thoughts on this idea.

2 Likes

I like this fast-paced approach as well and wish you the best of luck in your studies!

My recommendation is to make an Excel table chart with all the data)

If you have any other cool insides please share)

2 Likes

While writing this, I saw your own post as well, good luck too! I’ll start gathering my data in some sort of chart from now on

1 Like

Thanks)
I guess we spend quite similar amount of time on this, mb you spend a little more from what I can read. It’s nice to have a human being who also does this kind of challenge! (even though my goal is not jlpt test but idek what for now)

2 Likes

I like concrete goals like the JLPT to give me some clear direction on “what’s next” in the language, but I’m just using this to get a grip on the language, enough to start immersing in other media and learn while playing games, watching shows, reading books, etc.

I still plan on taking N2 or N1 next year too, but I’ll definitely ease off the “6 hours a day” thing after December and take my time enjoying the process.

3 Likes