So, I just received my result for N5 and I passed with 119/180. I scored the least on listening (32/60) so I'm wondering if the jump to N3 from N5 is possible or not. I did not put in much efforts for N5 so I think if I try hard enough, I can study till N3. The only concern is listening and I've also heard that N3 Kanji gets a bit difficult.

Do you think it's okay to go for N3 in July or should I opt for a safer N4 instead?

Well, I haven't done anything like this before, but I would say go for it, try and see. You didn't specify how many hours are you willing to put into actual study / day, (anything under 2 is a no-no), but if you want to actually be comfortable on the N3 level, not just pass the test, then you will have to practice just as much as you study a DAY. So this means 4 hours every day.
If you have already mastered at least one foreign language, then this should be enough, if you haven't then you might get into dead-ends, from which to get out might take some unexpected extra time - you should calculate with that as well.

All this assuming that you can actually process and store this much info, and have no problem motivating yourself to achieve this goal.

Sure it's possible!

If you want the qualification for a CV or application or something coming up then N4 is obviously the safer option.
If you're just using the test for motivation/gauging your own ability, and you wanna work hard and go for N3, then no reason not to go for it^^

If you had N4 that would be a different story, but even then N4 to N3 in 5 months (for an average learner) might prove difficult to achieve. Sure you're welcome to try, but the test for N3 is not a walk in the park like the tests for N5/N4 (go check out some old tests online). So I'd say go for N4.

I only ever did the sample questions on the JLPT site, I've never been to an exam. So my answer assumes that those samples are the same level as the actual test.

With that out of the way, N5 listening is very basic. So you're behind on listening. By a lot. Safe to say that's your problem area. Which is good news, because

1. Listening/speaking is one of the easier things to learn about Japanese (especially when it's standard Japanese, like on these tests).
2. N3 listening is not that tough (again, based on those samples). It's much easier than understanding ANY native media.

So yeah, I think it's possible to get there, if you change the way you study...and spend more time getting good at listening, by doing various drills (lots of materials available, not gonna go through them), as well as (and this is important) immersion (comprehensible audio input, in this case...how you make it comprehensible is up to you: you can study the subtitles first and then listen to the materials without subs, or you can try and find stuff that's comprehensible without subs). Lots and lots of immersion. Hours and hours, every day.

Do that for a while, see how you progress. Then, when you get good enough at it that you're moderately comfortable with the N3 listening test, you can worry about catching up on the Kanji and grammar. Based on your results, you're already good at doing that, so it shouldn't be a problem advancing quickly, with full time study.

If you intend to take the test again later and you feel extra motivated, maybe you could go for N3. You'll have to be very dilligent to get there in 5 months, but it's most likely doable.

I'll assume you're going down the Genki 2 --> Tobira route just to illustrate this. If you spend about 4 days per chapter in Genki 2, that leaves you with 7 days for each chapter in Tobira. I haven't quite started Tobira myself yet so I can't comment on that, but it seems doable.

The interesting thing about going for N3 is that if you intend to take another test at the end of the year, failure is more acceptable. Or is it? It's hard to say because I'm not particularly interesting in these tests, so I don't know what your goal is. I think the worst that can happen is you put in a lot of time and still end up failing N3, but won't you still be farther ahead than if you pass N4 without as much of an effort? At least, that's how I look at it.

It's kind of funny when I think about it, because I've been there in terms of not quite reaching my goals as soon as I hoped. I wanted to finish Genki 1-2 and RTK within 2.5 months, which is probably one of the most unreasonable things I've ever tried to achieve. And I "failed". Who am I kidding though, I still finished Genki in 3 months and 15 days later I finished RTK as well!

I think it is not so much about the 5 months but rather how many hours you are can study each day. If you start now, you have exactly 150 days of study time before the test in July.

1h per day equals 150 h
2h per day equals 300 h
3h per day equals 450 h
4h per day equals 600 h
5h per day equals 750 h
7h per day equals 1050 h
8h per day equals 1200 h

If you google for some estimates on how many "classroom hours" are needed for N3, it seems to be about 450h+.

So based on simple math:
--> If you study 4 hours every day, you should be able to reach "N3 level" in 5 months
--> If you study 8 hours every day, you should be able to reach "N2 level" in 5 months

When I started studying, I skipped the N4 and N5 because I felt they were too easy. Working full time and being out in the world every weekend on the mountains, the average study time per day was equal to less than 1h. That is why it took me more than a year from zero to passing the N3 in December 2014. It is not an easy test.

(2016-02-03, 9:45 pm)kanttuvei Wrote: If you google for some estimates on how many "classroom hours" are needed for N3, it seems to be about 450h+.

You need roughly to double self-study time compared to 'classroom hours'. Classroom hours are just that - hours spent in the classroom. It's expected that there will be an hour of outside study for every hour in the classroom.

That said, I'm not sure how accurate those study time guides are. Very few courses are aimed specifically at JLPT levels so I would expect study hours to vary wildly from one course to another in terms of passing specific JLPT levels.

If you're heavily studying JLPT specific materials, of course you won't need to double classroom hours time, at least for the lower levels. N1 and N2 have so much reading content that you'll need to spend quite a bit of time reading, whether you call that 'study' or 'leisure' is kind of irrelevant... if you haven't read enough to bring your reading speed up, you won't finish the tests in the time limit. I don't think that's nearly as relevant for N3 though so it should be okay here.

(2016-02-04, 2:16 am)SomeCallMeChris Wrote: That said, I'm not sure how accurate those study time guides are.

They are based on self-reported information. 

[Zgarbas]

Got for it! Trying hard and doing your best is more important than passing on your first go =)