I think might as well take it so you get the experience taking the exam!
I’m also taking the JLPT for the first time in December and doing the N4.
Do you have a study plan in place?
Listening is also the scariest part for me, but there are a lot of practice videos on YouTube, fortunately.
I’m also planning to take the N3 next year. Let me know if you wanna chat Japanese practice and exam prep!
Currently yo-yo’ing between, “yeah it’s going to be okay” and “omg, I don’t know anything”
Same here. My practice tests say it should hopefully be okay but also I have no idea how accurately the practice tests I’ve been taking (ベスト模試) reflect the difficulty of the actual test so I can’t stop worrying about it. Gonna take the two official ones this month and hopefully they go alright as well, but if they don’t, it’ll be time for full panic mode.
Forgot the 3rd point I’m yo-yo’ing between which is “ugh I give up, I don’t care anymore, I just want it to be over”
I just want to pass N1 and never have to think about the JLPT ever again lol. Getting the certificate will be helpful for my plans for the future but at least I do have an old N2 certificate in the case I don’t pass, so that does put me a bit at ease.
FYI, in practice a lot of them just ignore this requirement. So no pressure if you struggle with the test 
I found that the average level reflected pretty well, but the individual sections may be harder or easier than the practice tests. So the main thing is to MAKE SURE that your time division strategy is robust. Last time, mine unfortunately hinged on grammar being a breeze, but in reality it took like 2-3 times longer than usual, and it threw off my entire reading section time.
My N2 certificate got me a job and now I can just enjoy studying without the shadow of the JLPT looming over my shoulders. Japanese is fun again!
Not really a great one. Mostly just trying to finish up all of my N4 Bunpro lessons before the end of this month (doing 4 new grammar points per day), and stay on top of the review load too. There are a lot more things I’d like to be doing too, but I can barely manage the above as is.
I also have some Spotify podcast that recites N4 words, and I’m listening to that on my daily commute to and from work, hoping to get my vocab better. I did an N5 one previously and got to the point where I knew ~95% of it. At that point it was a waste of time to keep listening to the whole thing, so I moved on to N4.
Same. I haven’t really spent much time trying to listen to long spoken sections, and I know that will be my downfall. I’m currently listening to each Bunpro sentence several times after answering, just to try to train my brain a bit (though obviously it’s not the best practice ever since I already know what the sentence is). But my Japanese friend says these sentences are even hard for her to understand because of how fast and slurred the speaking is. So that extra challenge should hopefully make the slower/clearer (presumably) audio in the actual JLPT easier to handle.
We’ll see what happens. My hopes are low, but I’m still trying to do as much each day as I can.
Good luck to you too!
Currently studying for N1 at the moment.
I’ll be honest I’m not even at the N1 grammar points yet, but I’ve done some pretty extensive reading and I’m sure I’ve picked up enough through that and consumption of media that I won’t fail too hard on the grammar section of the test. I’ve been doing 4 new grammar points a day (some days I only get 2, or none, life happens) and keeping up with reviews. Should finish N2 in a little over a week and then get some of the N1 grammar points studied before the test date.
Reading was the easiest portion for N2 when I took it last year (60/60) and my listening ended up being my worst section which surprised me. My listening isn’t poor but the way it was set up for the test tripped me up a lot. I plan on taking a few of the listening practice tests before the test to just refine that.
I don’t really have a reason to take N1 (or N2 last year for that matter) other than to 1. Get the cert for some point in the future and never worry about JLPT again, and 2. Motivate me to study grammar that I probably wouldn’t come across very often otherwise.
I’m not too pressured with passing, but would still like to just because I have been hitting grammar hard for the past month + change. Would be a nice add-on to having finished wanikani (after 4 years) earlier this year.
I’ve been doing around 80 - 90% on all the bunpro N3 tests and around 120-140 via migii. I think I’m in a pretty good place to pass. I’m mildly paranoid that the coming reduction in flights might get my local test cancelled since I think proctors have to fly in and I know a lot of test takers to but apparently international flights to the US aren’t affected. It’s just I’ve worked so hard for so long I’m a little on edge lol
I would be surprised if the shutdown lasted more than a week or so more.
Either way, when domestic flights get cancelled, they legally have to put the passengers on a different flight (or at least give a full refund), so fingers crossed the effects will be minimal. I also have to fly within the US to get to the testing site and it’s stressing me out a little bit, but I’ll do my best to ignore it until we get closer to the test date.
Anyway, imo it’s impossible for you to not pass, lol. I was passing my N2 practice exams at like 50% and I managed to scrape by, so you def have it in the bag.
Took one of the N1 Listening tests proper this time. I don’t feel too bad about 64%! I had hoped that I would be able to score higher since I think that my listening skills are pretty solid, and I believe that they are, but the biggest issue I was running into was just not knowing vocabulary.
I plan on taking another 1 or 2 listening mock exams and maybe another grammar / reading exam just to get a little more accustomed to the testing style before the date. The last grammar/reading N1 mock exam I took I got like 78% or so which I think is putting me at a pretty good chance of passing N1.
In other news, my N2 grammar study has slowed down significantly and I don’t think I’m going to really bother with studying most of the N1 stuff here on Bunpro for a while. I’ll probably just browse through and find the things I’ve encountered before, study those, and continue on from there.
Hope everyone else’s studying is going well! A little over 3 weeks left now…
As we say in the UK, it’s squeaky bum time.
Does anyone have any suggestions for practicing the quick response section of the N1 listening part? To me that’s probably the biggest wildcard in the listening section.
my plan of attack is to take all five N1 mock exam listening sections and thoroughly re-listen and analyze the questions that I miss.
i started with taking an N5 and N4 listening section last week just to warm up my ears (i’ve not practiced listening comprehension in a very long time!!).
i also plan to take some of the N3 and N2 sections without replaying them or allowing extra overthinking time - this could maybe help you practice the quick response section too!
Taking the N5. Been technically studying for a year, but didn’t start taking it seriously until around 8 months ago. I was doing Wanikani and got to level 14, but I didn’t like it because of the slow pace, so I switched to Kanji Garden and I’ve been doing that for the past month, and I’ve already learned over a 100 kanji that I didn’t already know from Wanikani! Been loving it. I tried a 2k deck a while ago, but I just ended up ditching it for Bunpro around Apri; of this year. I just finished the N5 vocab deck not too long ago and am around halfway through the N4 Grammar Deck. I try to do listening practice on youtube for N5-N4 level at least a few times a week. My weakest point is probably grammar, but I’ve been getting better at it because whenever I don’t understand why a specific particle goes where, or how to conjugate a specific verb/adjective, etc, I put it into ChatGPT and it explains it seamlessly. Great tip for absolute begginners I would say. I’m excited for my test in December!
@hudpro if it’s not too much trouble, would you mind telling me a bit more about how kanji garden is different from WK? Have heard about it but not sure if I should make the switch.
‘Finished’ N2 grammar and got a 61% on the reading vocab kanji section. Not awesome but I think I can bring that score up if I keep studying
Going for N2 for the 4th time in a row (once annually since 2022). After doing a bunch of practice tests this year, I tallied it up and (by a narrow margin) struggled the most with grammar…which is how I got here.
I do seem to have a general grasp of everything (did Shin Kanzen Master N2 grammar last year and Sou Matome N2 grammar this year, after all) but it seems forming grammar patterns (e.g. star questions) is a big sticking point.
