JLPT round 2 – taking N1 in Japan

I wrote about my experience taking N2 overseas two years ago and shared some tips about preparing for the exam. Thankfully after all that preparation I passed by a wide margin. This time I took N1 in Japan, and I think I most likely passed it again (I'll find out in a few days...). So what advice can I come up with this time?

8 tips for learning Japanese free by yourself outside Japan

First, a short rant:

Something that has been bothering me lately is people boasting “I passed JLPT N2/1 after only 1 (/2/3) years!” or “I could watch anime and understand nearly everything after 6 months!” especially on sites for beginner learners, as if to prove their method is somehow the best. I can only imagine the number of beginners who manage to study for a few months to a year, realise their level is far lower than this, and lose motivation to continue, thinking they are just not good enough to get anywhere.

This is not me giving a patronising “everyone learns at a different rate” platitude. I just want to point out how meaningless a length of time such as a year or 6 months is. Is that one year where you as a native Korean speaker were living in Japan and having 3-4 hours of Japanese class nearly every day? Or is it one year where you as a native French speaker were holding down a full-time job and studying by yourself at the weekends? Don't get me started on this "fluent in 3 months" scam. Yeah, if your definition of "fluent" is "can make someone understand you want to ask where the toilet is", then sure.

You may not be able to change your native language, the amount of study time you have available each week, or whether you can spend time in Japan. But you can consider your study habits. It took me a fair amount of trial-and-error to find the ways I consider most efficient for self-study without spending money on classes, and without it feeling like work. Anyway, on with the list!

How is the JLPT scaled?

I address this point because it’s not clear from the JLPT website, and unless you have a degree in statistics their recommendation that you look up Item Response Theory will probably not be all that helpful.

JLPT tactics

I took JLPT N2 in December. I really wanted to pass first time because it was very inconvenient (not to mention expensive) to take it. So I spent some time devising a strategy, which I will share in this post.

This is the first JLPT I’ve taken, so some of these points might be less relevant to other levels.

GenkiJACS Tokyo review

Reposting this review of a Japanese school from a forum post.

I think GenkiJACS Fukuoka/Tokyo are not very different except that at the Tokyo school there are more short-term students, and more students in general. I studied there for 5 weeks in the summer and 2 weeks in the winter.