JLPT 2026 N3 -> N2 study plan

Japanese
#1

I recently took the N3 exam to get a feel of the real thing and to my surprise taking a mock exam at home and taking the real exam with 300 other students is wayyy different.

I need to prepare myself for passing the N2 next year (July 2026, I’m skipping the december session because I’m not in a rush) and I’d like to get your opinion on my study plan.

Grammar routine
-3 new grammar points a day until I’m halfway through the N1 (including the most useful N1 grammar points, as I understood that N1 grammar can show up in the exam)
-when done with the grammar points, stop adding new grammar point, bunpro review everyday + migii jlpt training on the grammar part.

Vocab routine
-sentence mine all the missing words from bunpro N2 vocab list, skip the very uncommon words (beyond 30k), add all the mined vocab to my mining anki deck
-early morning: review all missed items in the last 48 hours
-lunch: review all items queued in my review
-afternoon: learn 20 new words
-before bed: review all missed items in the last 48 hours + the 20 new words

non JLPT routine:
keep reading my books in japanese
keep listening to podcast
phone is in japanese
force my insta reels algorithm to show me reels in japanese (not the japanese teaching reels, but reels made by natives)
every week I meetup with my japanese friends to catch up with them and teach them french

before taking the N3 exams last week, I usually dealt with 5 words a day. But doing so, I’ll finish learning all the vocab there is to know for N2 the day before the exam.
By doing 20 words a day, I can be done with the 2000 new words of N2 within 4 months, and then I can confidentally do reading section cram exercice on migii.

While I was training for N3 if felt pointless to practice the reading section while knowing a quarter of all the vocab that there is to know for the exam (it wasn’t 100% pointless but it was 2000% frustrating and discouraging), hence why I’m chosing to ‘speed run’ the vocab part to get done with it asap.

With this approach I’m expecting to have covered all the N2 contents within 6 months. Which leaves me 6 more months to leisurely consume native contents, solidify my weak points during reviews, and to do mocks on migii.
And if I realise that 20 words a day is way too much or that the vocab routine takes too much time, I can always adapt so that I cover all N2 contents within 8 months, which still leaves me 4 months to solidify weak points and do mocks

Thank you for reading me, please feel free to share your opinion, every point of view is warmly welcomed

8 Likes
#2

I love how you plan about 6 months just for soldifying what you learned! Even if you’re slower than expected, you still got plenty of time for just rehearsing learned stuff :slight_smile:

When you’re done with the essentials of vocab and grammar, I would add test specific learning. Doesn’t have to be the whole six months, but maybe three months before the JLPT? Not just whole mock exams, but also specific exercises. By doing the real thing once and a few mock ones you probably already have a good grasp of how much taking the JLPT differs from just using the language and you probably already know which parts of the test are hard for you. Training for these specifically won’t make you better in japanese, but will make you better in passing the exam.

2 Likes
#3

this is very valid, I have a subscirption to migii, and while this app is far from being perfect for its price it allows me do to specific jlpt exercices on my phone. I’m planning on doing grammar and reading on migii during the 6 months of ‘solidification of my knowledge arc’, for the listening I find that it’s a pain to train so maybe I’ll train the listening part just one month before the exam, to get used to the ridiculous topics that usually comes up during the exam (I really hate the oral comprehension part lol)

2 Likes
#4

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Yeah buddy, lightweighttttt

Took me long enough, now I need to focus on immersion and output, I still don’t know what N2 will bring me in my life, if I feel bored/ frustrated of my N2 drills and mock I might consider not passing it, or at least trying but not too hard, and focus more on conversation instead.
My goal is not to be able to read every newspaper article or every sign at the shrines I visit, but being able to have casual conversation in japanese which I already can but still need to polish a few things so that my choice of word is pixel perfect.
Lot of things happened but I never missed a day on studying (at least on my anki)

N2 100% completed, as for the N1 I studied the grammar point included in the nihongo no mori N1 preparation video as I like the way they promptly explain grammar points with relevant example. NGL I’m a bit fed up with bunpro and it’s lengthy explanation + complicated example sentences, I already complained about it in another post, I’m still using bunpro as it’s a great tool, but higher levels aren’t as polished and straight to the point compared to the lower levels imo. I’m also not a huge fan of the English → japanese way of learning, English is not my first language, and when it comes to N1 I can feel that I’m learning things in both english and japanese, it’s not goot lol. Yes I can do Japanese → japanese, but I want to do that only if the explanation is not lengthy, which currently is not the case for Bunpro’s explanation. So I just note down my own explanation in french or in japanese using Nihongo no mori explanations and example sentences.

Routine was great, but took a lot of time, I decided to be a bit less hard on myself and allow me to pass the vocab even with some hints, this put me a lot of weight of my shoulders, and suprisingly helped me learn vocab more efficiently, I was more motivated and less frustrated by tedious lengthy vocab routines.

reading book is not my speciality, I don’t even read books in my mother tongue to begin with, so I only red 3 books (houkagou no jikan wari, kimitachi dou ikiruka, samishi yoru ni ha pen wo motsu) and a few stories from a book that contained a lot of short novels. It was great but reading on paper is hard, when you don’t know at least 50% of the words you’re reading in the whole page you can’t grasp the author’s mind, the books I was reading are not really as easy as I would have thought but hey, no pain no tartines comme on dit.
Podcast : I kept listening to yuyu but I realised that listening to podcast is not really good immersion as it’s aimed to beginners so the pronounciation is not the same as real life convo, so I decided that listening to uplifting music while cooking and doing home stuff is better than bathing into japanese language 24/7 even during rest time.
Phone in japanese: yes, but sometimes I switch back to french when I need to do administrative stuff or when I know i’m gonna party and be drunk.
Insta algorithm : quitting insta is easier, enjoy your life and don’t spend 1 hour of your day watching other’s success or brainrot content.
Meetup: still doing it, it’s my only source of output, it’s the best

6 Likes
#5

Seem like you’re on the way to do it, I have taken the December N2 test, and I can say that with your current progress. N2 in July2026 is gonna be easy.

Vocab and grammar is just now more than adequate, you can still review more and more, but it is not required. But, you need to have knowledge about the actual JLPT test as well, “what is that N2 is gonna entails?” is also what you really need.

For examples,

  1. What is the format of the reading sections? How many readings there are? How long each reading passage will be? In what order will you complete the reading session? How much time should you allocate to solve each passage (be very strict here, since time on the actual test FLY fast!)

  2. What is your strategy for the star grammar (sentence reconstruction) session? What is the best way to tackle the 5-question-long grammar passage? Is there any strategy for it?

  3. What will be the format of the listening, what are the pattern of the listening practice? How to actually do those? It is especially hard for the listening part 3 and 5! (Most of the time, the answer that repeat the keywords in the audio is not the correct answer!, especially for N2 and N1)

Yeah, I think you KNOW enough Japanese , but do you KNOW the JLPT enough? Will it surprise you at the actual exam?

I know this is off-topic, but every exam has a strategy, and pattern, look out for it, and apply those knowledge to those mock test as well, you will see a good results. All the best to ya!

1 Like
#6

With this plan I think you will rock N2. Best of luck!

#7

I thought about making an account with reels which are made specifically for learners, but not the typical just immersion stuff, but something that takes about a useful thing, or something. Like
これは何？
それは充電
私の携帯は、えとおお
充電は切れそう?

I don’t really remember that well, but this type of content can be somewhat fun (it it’s made with puns or something), with only a few unknown words which are the words that deliver the most sense and they repete it.

And it’s still the format of scrolling. Idk, haven’t tried creating an account like that yet.

#8

Wow good job!