I've messed up - JLPT N3 December

Japanese
#1

Hi! So, I’m looking for some advice.

I’m currently living in Japan and will take the JLPT N3 in in December and think I have royally messed up with my time management and have generally just been lazy.

I think I’m fine for both kanji and vocab, I think my issue is grammar and practical use or immersion.

  • Wanikani Level 37

  • Anki Decks Complete - Ankidrone JLPT N5, N4, N3. Kaishi 1.5K. My own mining deck consisting of about 400 words I’ve heard in conversations. I would say I have roughly about 6k words memorized.

  • I’ve finished Genki 1, and have just finished Genki 2 yesterday including the textbook and workbook. I was going to move onto Quartet but worry that this only covers 1/4 of the grammar needed and will take all my remaining time to complete in just over a month.

  • I’ve studied all N5 and N4 grammar on Bunpro but have only done 60/219 N3 grammar points.

  • In terms of my reading, I have read all of the Genki N5 and N4 graded readers and have generally not found them difficult.

  • Since February, the only listening practice I get is about 10minutes in the morning of watching “Japanese Super Immersion” on YouTube talk casually about random topics. And I do shadowing for 10minutes on the way to work with “Japanese with Kanako”.

  • I don’t really enjoy Anime or Manga so I haven’t watched anything in Japanese other than a few episodes of things here and there, but basically no immersion.

  • I have done no practice exams, and no exam reading or listening practice.

  • I’ve been doing speaking lessons with a Japanese teacher in Japan once a week for about 2 months. We just talk casually for an hour and a half. My speaking is pretty awful so it’s mostly her speaking, but I can follow along with our conversations most of the time with missing bits of information here and there.

Sorry this is so long. I have 46 days until the test. I think I’ve realized that I’m definitely going to fail but will still take the exam for practice. I’m trying to stop myself from just giving up and could use some advice on how best to use my time and proceed.

My plan going forward would be to scrap the textbooks and learn 5 grammar points on Bunpro per day. Start using all my free time to read novels and watch all of しろくまカフェ. And also try to do at least 2 practice exams a week. Maybe ask my Japanese teacher if we could focus on N3 specific something but I don’t know what to suggest. I’m just so brain scattered and annoyed at myself, I don’t know how effective this would be.

Feel like I just needed to get this off my chest.

Thanks for reading.

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#2

Nah man, you’re good.
JLPT is just about input so it doesn’t really matter if you don’t speak well as long as you understand.

Level 37 in Wanikani you should have learned around 1300 kanji at this point while N3 is between 500 to 1000.

Not sure where you are on grammar point.

If I were you I would do a lot of practice exam. Especially for reading you always have an image to take info from it can be puzzling if you never did it before. And the fact that the listening is a cd you cannot stop is also a bit bazzling.

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#3

All this sound good, but instead of reading novels and watching Shirokuma, it might be a good idea to do something like Shinkanzen Master for reading comprehension practice? I’m doing the N2 version, and am very impressed with how thorough it is - it goes through rhetorical devices and questions types, with many practice questions and answers with explanations. It just seems like it might be a more efficient use of your time.

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#4

I’m not so sure about that. They only have 60 grammar points learned, which means another 159 to go. Remember they have to pass with the minimum score on ALL sections, and with little immersion as they said, it’s gonna be tough. That is over 3 grammar points a day up until the exam, assuming you don’t forget any. The WK levels also don’t go through linearly.

My recommendation is to definitely grab something like Shin Kanzen Master grammar and grind the shit out of it. Work on the N3 graded readers here (since normal immersion will have a bigger mix of grammar/vocabulary and you have limited time). If your vocab is lacking, get the vocab Shin Kanzen Master too.

2 Likes
#5

True but the min score is 19/60 and you don’t have a separate grammar session. It kanji + grammar + vocab.

And 3 grammar point a day does not seem so hard to me. I did 10.

If they feel it is too difficult they may be able to switch for N4 but I still think they should go N3

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#6

You are not able to switch levels after you sign up.

And retention for 10 grammar points a day is very hard, especially at N3 where you start getting into more nuance differences. Three is doable for many people, but the main point is they have little time to solidify what they have learned. That, I believe, includes learning three the day of the JLPT.

The kanji parts will not carry you to 19 points, and that is even assuming you get every kanji question right.

1 Like
#7

I passed N3 on level 12 on Wanikani, having read one page of a N3 grammar book.

Seriously, don’t worry about it.
Do some practice tests and see how you do. Those are key moving forward since the format is one of the difficult parts of the tests.

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#8

Do the past/practice exams. And get a lot of listening practice, speaking is not important and should be dropped if you’re focusing with 40 days left. I passed last December having done 0 textbooks

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#9

Not to make you nervous but I remember failing N3 years ago and grammar being my biggest weak point (the catalyst to starting Bunpro). I remember finding vocab pretty easy and my listening score was high despite never studying for it explicitly simply due to also living in Japan. Reading seemed okay, but answering the questions associated with the reading was challenging because there were always two answers with similar vocabulary but different grammar that really threw me off.

This is just my opinion, but I’ve always felt like there are some grammar points at each N level that are practically guaranteed to be in there and can be seen frequently throughout the test. Just doing the grammar / reading sections of practice tests might help you find them and rather than cramming before the test maybe hammer down the most frequently occurring ones or the ones you simply have trouble with.

1 Like
#10

Thanks all for the responses.

@theremeene Thanks for your recommendation on the Shin Kanzen reading book.

A moment ago I went through some of the N3 points on Bunpro and added 20 or so to my reviews that I actually already knew pretty well (for some reason). So that puts me at 75/219 as of today.

I just bought the Kanzen Master N3 Reading and Listening Book. I’m going to work my way through those, do 5 Bunpro lessons a day, and try and see if I can work through both Quartet 1 and Kanzen Master N3 grammar book without dying. Will also try and do at least 2 JLPT practice tests a week.

I’m 100% going to fail but I will update the thread when the test is over and results are out for anyone interested on how badly I screwed up lol.

Edit: I went through ALL the N3 points and managed to find loads that I had already practiced on Anki as set phrases or words so now I’m sitting at 108/219. Much better than 60/219.

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#11

No problem! Also, I wouldn’t stress out too much about completing all the grammar points for N3 on Bunpro - I only discovered bunpro after I passed the N3, and I remember finding a lot of new grammar points in bunpro’s N3 deck. I can’t put an exact number on it, but probably around a third of the grammar points were new to me. I still managed to score pretty well overall (>90 percentile)…

So don’t go in thinking you will fail, I think you might be better prepared than you think. All the best!

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#12

This sorta reminds me of school. Coming into class right before a major exam and all the kids being super nervous, saying how they are going to fail, and not having practiced enough, listing all the shit they have done to prepare. It was always 10 to 100 times more than what I did to prepare. (They came out all fine lol)

4 Likes
#13

Buy this book and do it

https://learnnatively.com/book/3fae6de48a

image

With regards to grammar - there is more grammar on bunpro than there is in the shin kan zen master bunpro book which is said to be where they take it from; so don’t stress too much

https://learnnatively.com/book/e5f36b1e86/

image

I think basic grammar knowledge will suffice for a pass; those aiming for higher percentiles want more in-depth knowledge.

4 Likes
#14

I dont think you need to stress out this much.
As others have pointed out instead of rushing out to buy more material to speedrun do some bunpro JLPT practice exams to see if you even need to.
I’d suggest starting with N4 just to figure out what the test actually wants from you and then assessing your actual N3 knowledge.

Also I’m in a similar boat, cramming 2h a day for N3 atm.
I have just finised my N3 anki deck and am also around 80/N3 on bunpro grammar.
From what you’ve listed you are doing fine and certainly have done more than me :smiley:
一緒に頑張れ💪

3 Likes
#15

I haven’t taken N3, so I might be a little off base, but for N2 the biggest issue I (and MANY people) face is the reading portion. It seems like you’re on a really good track, and IMO you might be putting a little too much emphasis on grammar. It’s fine to not know all the grammar! I would definitely invest in an N3 graded reader or a Shinkanzen Dokkai book. It’ll get you more used to reading longer passages, and it’ll also include vocab and grammar points baked into the reading.

I know it’s easier said than done but try not to stress! A calm mind is just as important as a good night’s sleep for a test.

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#16

Also for me at N3 there’s a bunch of grammar points that are similar but different, 限る ones, 訳 ones, ように ones etc… If I was in your situation, I’d skim over them, I’m finding learning the differences and them settling in my brain is difficult as when translated into english they have similar meanings. But my experience of N4 is that there will be only a few questions on the trickier grammar.

1 Like
#17

Bunpro’s srs is like going into a debt.
I don’t know who actually goes into a debt here, but knowledge comes after you do a lot of reviews.
As you are in hurry, I really recommend working on each point thoughtfully. Like reading all the examples, understanding well, visiting other resources and reading all the example sentences there. Hand writing the most clear examples (1-3 of them) to your notebook (preferably in a way so you can read each of them in 2-3 seconds so you can go thou all your sentences every day in like 10 minutes, after even writing down all n3 points)

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#18

But it’s not like I won’t recommend everything that has been said earlier by others here)
Just though this one wasn’t mentioned

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#19

Definitely study grammar. Like focus on that and reading to the exclusion of all else, IMO. If you’ve only done practice readings at the level N5 and N4 level, you might find N3 to be a big jump. I second Kanzen Master as a great choice for book practice. So-matome is also good, but Kanzen Master is a little more rigorous.

You aren’t going to be perfect at the grammar or fully understand all of it in 46 days, but the more you can get at least a good idea for or some familiarity for, the better. I wouldn’t worry too much about listening, especially since you live in Japan. If you really are good on vocab and kanji, then I personally think getting the grammar is the most beneficial thing you can do, but make sure you’re doing reading practice, too, since if you haven’t done the higher level readings, you might find that it stumps you.

I’ve helped people study for this exam before, and found that often reading was the most challenging part for them just because the sentence structures get more difficult at N3. The test is also timed, so if you are struggling with comprehension, it’s really easy to end up taking too long trying to sort it out and not finishing the section, so the more practice you can get the better.

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#20

Yeah, I second that bit about timing and pressure. Reading at N3 level is one thing, reading it under time pressure in exam conditions is a completely different experience.

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