Hi everyone. I've decided to attempt the N4 this December, so I have 6 months to prepare. Any advice or tips on how to best go about this would be really helpful. This will be my first time taking the JLPT (I never took the N5).

I've done Heisig RtK 1 and 3 in the past, and even though I didn't keep up the reviews after finishing, I'm feeling pretty comfortable in terms of kanji knowledge. My current activity is learning to read the Core 2000 sentences, which I should be done with in a month. I'm also studying a vocab deck that has the N5 + N4 words, which should help with any that aren't in Core2k and also recognizing them without the contextual cues of familiar sentences.

That should put me pretty solid ground in terms of kanji and vocab, but leaves me worried about how best to prepare in terms of grammar and listening.

Grammar I'm getting some of by focusing on sentences rather than words in isolation, but I need to do more. I like reading through Tae Kim and the Kodansha books, but what's the best way to review and retain grammar? Also what's the best reference for grammar points by JLPT level, in terms of enumerating what I need to cover?

Listening I'm most worried about. What's a good way to approach this? Listen to things, obviously, but what, and how? Arbitrary Japanese from anime and doramas and such is way over my head. I'll pick out a few words and phrases but not get what's going on. I really need some n00bish audio. Maybe loading up the mp3 player with the JapanesePod101 dialogues and similar material would be a good approach? The difficulty level is better, and the availability of transcriptions and explanation commentary make it possible to explore what's going on with sentences I don't understand at first.

If anyone is curious about my motivations in doing this, it seems to me like a goal that is hard enough that I will have to push myself, but not so hard as to be unreasonable to attain. It has a firm cutoff date and success criteria, so it's not wishy-washy like "get better at grammar over the next few months". It forces me to work on areas that I'm weak, like listening. And, if I get my N4, it would mark a nice turning point where after years of on-and-off dabbling at beginner Japanese, I move on to studying intermediate stuff.

Having taken N2 once (and not passed, FWIW), I would warn you not to work on listening above reading. I went in thinking the 聴解 (listening) would be the hardest element, and ended up failing the 読解 (reading) section. By a lot. By contrast, I passed listening. YMMV, but I took a blase approach toward reading, and it cost me a passing score.

My recommendation: do a lot of both reading and listening, along with studying specifically for the test using JLPT prep books.

Re: Newbie audio - some possible resources:

(1) LingQ. Lots of great beginning audio for Japanese, with transcripts. I think it's worth it subscribing even for a month to download some of the MP3s and copy the associated transcripts.
(2) An N4 聴解 book, such as 新完全マスター. I have the N2 book, and it's excellent. These books also contain a lot of tips to assist in quickly sussing out the meaning of the sentences as they whizz past your head. The books come with a CD that contains a lot of short sample dialogues.
(3) Anything interesting that you can dig out of this thread: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=6840 - nothing here but lots of transcripts + audio for various comprehension levels. Lots of basic material here to get you well on your way.

There's no lack of material available. Find what interests you, and use it. Often. Every damn day.

Core 2k is a great collection of sentences, but they can be a bit boring.

As far as listening goes, you might want to consider mixing Core 2k with Subs2SRS anime/drama. The Morphology plugin can help keep track of what words you haven't learned. Anki also allows you to make card variants, so you can have a version for listening. It also shouldn't be hard to use the morphology plugin to find listening cards that you know all the morphs for, but haven't studied or heard before.

Be forewarned, Subs2SRS takes a lot of setup if your doing it yourself.

Thanks for the suggestions, I appreciate them.

I haven't taken the JLPT, so I don't know what the listening section is like, but I've been listening to the JapanesePod101 podcasts while driving and I like them so far as a fun audio supplement. I signed up for the website and downloaded as much as I could before the trial ended.

They are easy to listen to and I pick up new tidbits of grammar, vocab, slang, etc and it often reinforces what I've been learning in my textbook. It's a painless way for me to be exposed to more audio, and it's much better than listening to the same radio songs over and over again on my commute.

I'm not sure which level and seasons would be appropriate for the N4. They probably have a chart somewhere. Maybe one of the later beginner seasons or lower intermediate seasons?

I just wish their website was not so commercialized. Every time I go there I keep thinking I'm in an infomercial!

Good luck with the JLPT!