Greetings to all members of the Reviewing the Kanji forum.

I have a plan on taking the N2 test this December, and I want to ask for opinions whether my goal is realistic or not.

I came to Japan at the beginning of April and is currently enrolled in a full time Japanese language school. 3 months ago, I had barely any Japanese knowledge (less than 100 phrases and vocabularies from anime, less than 20 kanjis, and no grammar and kana knowledge at all).

However, thanks to the classes that I attend and the conversations that I hold daily, I was able to take the N4 test last Sunday. About 20 of my friends who took the N4 test gathered and discussed the answers. I think I did well on most of the vocabulary section, including the usage section. For grammar, everything is fine except I didn't have time to do the long reading in time but I managed to skim and guess and got about half of them right. The only part that I had problem with is the listening at the end. A lot of the questions are fine if it was in written form but somehow I couldn't catch it during the exam. I probably only got about 40-50 percent of the listening section and 70-80 percent of the language knowledge section.

At this point, I have read the Minna no Nihongo book 1 and 2 and know about 2,000-2,500 Japanese vocabularies. I know the exact kanji for about a third of them (I am not confident I can write them from scratch but I can read them just fine without being mixed up with similar kanjis). I really want to go to daigakuin or senmon gakko and having N2 by the December can be a leverage for me. However, I value N3 as well.

With that in mind and my learning pace, Would you recommend me taking the N2 in December or is that a long shot? I know some people in my schools had already done it before but most of them are Chinese, who already can read kanji, or Koreans, who have similar grammar structure. The reason I asked before the result come out is so that I can buy new books for N2 instead of N3.

Thank you in advance for your willingness to read this long post and help me.

You have to study your stuff for N3 anyway, even if you will take N2. Just get your N3 stuff and if you do really well then pick up N2 stuff.

Passing N2 in less than a year without any previous kanji background sounds like a superhuman feat to me. But you are in Japan and are immersed so I don't know how much that can boost you up. But you are only 5 months from the test and you may have not passed N4 yet. I wouldn't count on it. As a disclaimer I have never taken a JLPT test but have gone through the materials so I have an idea what it takes to pass. Anyway do your best!

I'd go for N3 and take N2 next year. Especially since you're in the country and can test twice yearly. N2 is actually quite hard, and requires you to be able to read and process information extremely quickly. I just can't see that happening in 8 months.

I was in a very similar situation and faced the same question, so I think I can give you some advice.

First of all, I think that it is doable under your specific circumstances. You attend language school full time, so you can focus completely on the language and have an excellent environment to progress. You have teachers that can answer all your questions, classmates to talk with in Japanese and that probably share similar problems and you live in Japan. That already gives you a huge advantage over most people.

However, the best conditions don't really help a lot unless you actually take advantage of them and also study your ass off. I'd say that if you take advantage of your environment, study in a disciplined manner and have some aptitude for learning languages and memorizing, it should be possible to pass N2 in December, especially as iirc passing it actually only requires 50% of the points... in a multiple choice test! Judging from the few data points that I have, the most dedicated students of full time schools can pass N2 after 9 months with mediocre results.

Assuming that it's actually doable, the next question is if you should actually attempt it. In the end, only you can answer this question, but let me give some points for and against from my point of view:

For:
+You might get the N2 certificate. However, I think that among learners of Japanese that paper (and N1) is usually valued way beyond what it's worth, so don't get deceived too much. Outside our spheres people hardly know the test and rightfully so. So if you want to impress ordinary people it's better to actually have a good command of Japanese rather than some stupid paper claiming that you're supposed to have it.
+If you set yourself a bold goal, you'll probably make a lot of progress regardless of if you actually pass the test in the end. Better aim high and fall a little bit short than aim low and pass.
+Your reading skills (and passive skills in general) will improve a lot. Given that most foreigners usually seem to struggle most with this aspect, I'd say it might be good to tackle it.
+The test can guide your learning and provide feedback about your progress (or lack thereof). Also, it can be quite motivating to have a tangible, measurable goal.

Against:
-You might fail. If you really really need to pass either the N3 or N2, I'd say study as if you took the N2 while in reality going for the N3 in order to make sure to actually pass.
-It's a big time commitment. You'll have to spend a lot of time memorizing vocab, learning grammar and so on, so you'll spend a lot of time studying by the books. Due to limited time, this will obviously cut into the time you have available for more enjoyable experiences such as exploring Japan and so on.
-Your Japanese might end up not so balanced. If you mainly focus on passing the JLPT and study for that, you'll probably end up being good at exactly that but not much else and other areas such as speaking might fall behind. As you're living in Japan that problem is alleviated quite a bit, but still remains.

So should you take N2? I don't know, you'll have to decide for yourself. When I was in almost the same situation, I decided to go for the N2 and am quite happy with the outcome. The only thing that I regret slightly is that all the studying for N2 cut into the time available for actually using the language. My time in Japan was limited to one year and now that I'm back at home, I can still easily read books, study grammar, memorize vocab and so on, so it's easy to prepare for the JLPT. However, it's become very hard to get actual real life practise. However, it sounds as if you're set to stay in Japan for some more time, so this consideration might not apply to your situation.

If you decide to go for the N2, I'd recommend the following:
-新完全マスター文法 N3 (Has English and Japanese explanations, so it eases the transition)
-新完全マスター文法 N2 (Japanese only)
-新完全マスター読解 N2

Besides that, the main barriers for Westerners are the sheer amount of kanji and vocab as well as the reading speed required. So you might want to look at RTKlite to quickly memorize the relevant kanji and learn 20-30 words a day using one of the many resources available such as:
-premade anki decks such as core*k, Kanji in Context (floating around here somewhere)
-words you encounter in your daily life, reading books etc.
-tools such as sub2srs, EPWING2Anki to generate your own flashcards.

Good luck! I'd be interested in hearing how everything went once the test is over and results are out!

PotbellyPig Wrote:Passing N2 in less than a year without any previous kanji background sounds like a superhuman feat to me. But you are in Japan and are immersed so I don't know how much that can boost you up. But you are only 5 months from the test and you may have not passed N4 yet. I wouldn't count on it. As a disclaimer I have never taken a JLPT test but have gone through the materials so I have an idea what it takes to pass. Anyway do your best!

I think I went from 0 to N2 in about 2 years (well, just 2級 as it was then) and that was when working full time. Studying full time Japanese in Japan, I'd *expect* a person to go from nothing to N2 within a year or so. Some could probably even do better.

I'd say unless you have a particular reason why you need N3, just take N2. If you fail N2 then you know how much you failed by.

One thing to keep in mind about the N5/4/3 vs N2 is that the the lower ones split the Japanese up more. Listening, Reading, and Grammar are separate tests at lower levels. On the N2 Reading and Grammar are combined. For someone in Japan, if your listening is strong then that part of the test won't be too difficult. The thing you need to work on the most though is fast reading. There will be parts on the Reading/Grammar/Vocab where you need to be able to read a large passage and make quick decisions about it as well as interpret the meaning.

Hmm so I've been studying Japanese since March of last year. I definitely ramped it up towards then end of last year and am right now considering taking the N5 test in December. So after only 3 months of studying, you were able to take N4?

N4 is doable in 3 months of studying if you are serious about it and have the proper learning material (and practice books).

learningkanji Wrote:Hmm so I've been studying Japanese since March of last year. I definitely ramped it up towards then end of last year and am right now considering taking the N5 test in December. So after only 3 months of studying, you were able to take N4?

Well it's a bit slow to aim only at N5 after 1 or 2 years. Why don't you aim for the N4 too? Be confident. That's not an unrealistic goal to follow.

@ OP, N2 is hard but considering your situation it's not impossible to pass N2 (you might not pass with flying colors though). It depends how much of N3 you already learned.

Seconding the suggestions in some posts above for
- RTKlite
- Core 6k
- Kanzen Master N2 Grammar

Whether you think you can swallow all that and still do enough reading / listening practice would be the important question. With potentially 5000 cards to review that would make it 35+ cards per day which to me is very heavy by itself.

What you can also do is to just get as far as possible and take the N3. You can even consider taking both N3 and N2 if you are willing to spend the money and don't get burned out.

I'll through in my tip for study materials that make it easier:
- 例文で学ぶ漢字と言葉N2
- 日本語総まとめN2 Grammar

Thank you all for your suggestions. I found out today that I have passed N4 even though the grade is lower than I expected (121/180 with 78/120 in Language Knowledge B/A/A and 43/60 in Listening). I guess I really messed up on vocabulary even though my listening is better than I expected. My Korean schoolmate with almost the exact situation as me (except he's Korean) even passed N3 in 4 months from zero knowledge! He was as surprised as our entire class. I bought the 日本語総まとめ book for both N2 and N3 because I have to study N3 anyway but I've decided to take N2 now after I passed N4.

learningkanji Wrote:Hmm so I've been studying Japanese since March of last year. I definitely ramped it up towards then end of last year and am right now considering taking the N5 test in December. So after only 3 months of studying, you were able to take N4?

Definitely, I don't see why it's a problem at all. Especially with success stories of people that have supposedly lower education background than me such as guys from the States that didn't graduate from college and had been doing odd jobs before but managed to pass N4 from zero knowledge in 3-4 months.

Thank you very much to hyvel for detailed explanation that almost reflects my current state of mind. 新完全マスター文法 N2 doesn't have an explanation in English, isn't it?

Do you have any recommendations on what other books that can give you explanations on grammar usage and not just examples? I am inundated with Kanji and Vocab books but right now I only have one grammar book.

akagishigeru Wrote:Thank you very much to hyvel for detailed explanation that almost reflects my current state of mind. 新完全マスター文法 N2 doesn't have an explanation in English, isn't it?

Do you have any recommendations on what other books that can give you explanations on grammar usage and not just examples? I am inundated with Kanji and Vocab books but right now I only have one grammar book.

First of all congrats on N4 and thank you very much for the update, I really appreciate it. Your experiences sound quite familiar to me.

While 新完全マスター文法 N3 has some English explanations, the N2 book is completely in Japanese. It's somewhat scary at first, but I found that after going through the N3 book and learning the vocab required to describe the usage of the grammar patterns in Japanese, the N2 book was doable. With the additional resources you have at your hands thanks to attending a language school, I'd guess that if you want to, you should be able to cope with it as well.
Otherwise, the 日本語総まとめ books contain some explanations in English. I don't really know the books too well, as I never bought them due to disliking them for some reason when I checked them out at a book store. From my limited impression, they looked to be somewhat easier and a little bit less rigorous than the kanzen series.

If you like explanations in English, the "A Dictionary of [Basic/Intermediate/Advanced] Grammar" is the definite reference. Buying all of them may be a bit pricey, but if you are serious about learning Japanese to an advanced degree of proficiency they're well worth it (I guess you could skip the basic one).

The N2 has basically two choke points that trip people up:
1) Lots of kanji & vocab
2) Required reading speed
Therefore, I'd recommend you to start practicing reading if you haven't already, because otherwise you'll probably run out of time on the real exam. If you can bear it, any kind of 読解 practice book for the JLPT should work and prepare you very well for the test (and I'd say that the things you learn there are definitely also useful in real life). If you can't stand the whole JLPT thing anymore by now, there should also be some easy books that you should be able to read by now. As you'll encounter lots of vocab and grammar patterns while reading, it should also be quite helpful to solidify and expand that knowledge.

Keep up the good work!