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

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#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.

1 Like
#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)

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