I’m kinda debating about just sitting the N2 in December to see where I’m at with things - going in with the full knowledge that I would fail if I sat it. So far I’ve taken N5, N4 and waiting for the results of July’s N3 results. Not sure what to do. Unfortunately the place that I sit my exams has the registration for December open and conclude BEFORE I get the N3 results back.
Is it hard to find a seat for JLPT? I assumed it was easy to sign up for it
It really depends on the location.
Like in London UK, there are a lot of people who sign up. The available places fill up in 20 min in the last few years. Australia fills up fast too from what I remember.
In some places in Europe there are free places for a few weeks.
In Japan, its fine too.
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I’m still wondering whether or not I should take the N3 in December.
It should be OK for kanji and grammar but I’m afraid that there will be too much unknown vocab
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Well, I’ll try the N2 in December in Japan, gonna immerse there for a month before. Already got all personal devices set to japanese to immerse naturally and been reading various materials actively.
Boys be ambitious!
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I took the N3 in July just gone, but I don’t think I passed. I did take the N3 previously and I failed by 5 marks so I think I would like to take the N2 in December. I’m currently working reworking through all the vocab and re-checking N4 grammar onwards. I think it is doable if I kept up with 5 grammar points a day, but all of the vocab and grammar compounded over time might make this a bit difficult. Regardless of whether I pass or fail, I am going to take the N2.
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Hey 
@rustx. I am relatively new in my journey for learning Japanese. I passed N5 in 2023 and had to skip thhe JLPT last year. I didn’t have the money to travel to the test site. My reading and kanji proficiency is great for the level I am at, but my listening comprehension is abysmal. You stated that you learn via anime. What is your process? And do you have any advice for someone in my predicament?
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Heya, if you have good reading and kanji you can definitely just dive straight in.
To give my starting process I went straight for my favorite anime regardless if it was way beyond my ability at the time. I find that you’ll always get infinitely more value out of something you enjoy rather than watching something simply because its been recommended or is ‘known’ to be easy such as しろくまカフェ
So basically first find whichever show, then when you have your show, preferably in a local format.
Head over to https://jimaku.cc/ (I used to use https://kitsunekko.net/ before it was run over with bots) and download the related subtitles. Drag the subtitles into your video player (I use MPV player, VLC etc are all good) and thats pretty much it.
When you have subtitles it makes it far easier to go along, and you’ll get the bonus of not only reinforcing what you know but you’re guaranteed to run into tons of kanji and expressions you haven’t seen before.
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What do you guys write in the “Institution where you are studying (or studied) Japanese-Language” box? Bunpro Academy? Bunpro School of Spaced Repetition? Jakevard U?
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I’ve been using Migii since June to help prep for the N3 and I think it’s been helpful, hopefully I can get registered properly
I just took the N3 as my first JLPT test and it wasn’t too bad, though the listening was really hard for me. I might take N2 here in December just to see how it is, but I might not. It depends how much more studying I do before the applications open.
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Just a heads up for people in the US, signup times are now posted on Taking the JLPT in the United States - American Association of Teachers of Japanese.
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This map doubles as a projection for the next American election 
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Okay, realistically, how does this go down?
Do people far away from these testing centers buy plane tickets, travel to the testing area, test in the area, leave the area, see the result from areas away from the testing area?
How many people have bought plane tickets to go to say Miami and bombed the N5 exam? Do you think they coincided this with their vacation?
I NEED to know.
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I’ll be making a ~5 hour drive to the closest testing site to me, then driving back after.
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Can you please post your journey. Not the test part. But what you did. Would you make a stop at Cracker Barrel? If so, WHY?! What was the price of gas? Found any weird tourist traps?
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When going on a road trip to the JLPT exam center, what works better as a prep food, I wonder? Hamburgers or sushi?
Sushi. Then you can claim bad sushi made you have the runs during the exam, as an excuse for not passing.
Remember folks, it’s not that you were unprepared or nervous, you just had a bad case of 下痢.
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I find it utterly fascinating that 痢 is a dedicated kanji meaning only diarrhea. Curiously enough, it has the kanji for profit inside. Maybe it was profit from evacuating a JLPT learning site from slightly out-of-date gas station sushi.
You ever wonder if there’ a story behind why the kanji received their markings? If so, what’s the story for 痢?
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痢 is what is called a phono-semantic kanji (形声), so it has a component which represents the meaning (semantic) and a component which represents the sound (phonetic). With 痢, 疒 represents the meaning (sickness, illness) and 利 represents the onyomi (リ) - keep in mind that here 利 has no meaning and is only used for sound. The vast majority of kanji are phono-semantic like this.
疒 is actually extremely productive as a component. My kanji dictionary has about 150 entries which have it as a radical, which makes sense if you think about the fact that people would have needed specific words for all the different known illnesses way back when. Note that that includes some doubled up versions of the same kanji.
Another common one which learners enjoy is 痔 (haemorrhoids, piles), made up of 疒 and 寺 (used for the onyomi, ジ). You can see that 持, 時, and 侍 also all have ジ as their onyomi. There is a semi-well known image of a (presumably foreign) kid wearing a hoodie with this kanji on the front; version with his face blurred below:
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