I'm thinking about going for the JLPT2 and wondering if anyone can comment on how far the KO2001, through 1100 kanji will get me vocabulary wise (assuming I learn all the grammar elsewhere.)

Will knowledge of basic Japanese + these books be enough to pass the JLPT2? I've done RTK (twice...2nd time it stuck)

In a word: no.

For one thing, you're likely to completely fail the listening part. And I doubt KO2001 comes close to 6,000 unique words and complete readings for 1000 kanji. And the grammar in JLPT2 is way beyond basic.

JLPT2 is a serious test for people who are pretty good at all aspects of Japanese. KO2001 on the other hand is an (excellent) entry-level source of basic sentences and grammar.

Bear in mind the pass rate is also 37%, which would suggest there's more to it than just learning vocabulary and grammar rules.

Listening will not be a problem, its by far the easiest portion of the test. I have plenty of experience, and I've listened to JLPT1 listening examples and understood everything but some of the advanced vocab.

I just thought that in the 3000 or so KO2001 sentences, most of the 6000 vocabulary words would be covered, or enough to get a passing grade. That would only be 2 unique words per sentence.

[So you already know the vocab, or...?]

I assumed from the OP that you were a complete beginner.

But you can understand JLPT1 Japanese?

I don't understand.

Sorry should have specified, I'm not a beginner (been kind halfway seriously studying for maybe 4 years, 1 was in Japan) but just seem to have trouble getting over the hurdle of 6000 vocabulary words, so I was trying to get responses specifically about that.

I see now that on this site a lot of people actually do RTK + KO2001 starting from zero. I would be at a much less functional level of Japanese if that was all I'd done but man I wish I had been one of those people starting out.

I wasted years in classes and now that I'm halfway into KO2001 and I can finally read novels with enough comprehension to enjoy them. If this site is your introduction to Japanese you don't know how good you have it.

I cannot but disagree with harhol....
conditionned you already have a good grasp on 2kyuu grammar (which is a totally different issue : we already argued about that . Basically kanzen master , unicom series are the most wellspread and I can ensure you that both of them cover enough material even though I kind of prefer KM) KO2001 is plenty enough for 2kyuu .

I wasn't even totally finished with KO2001 (980 something) when I took the test in december last year and I passed with 71-73% after barely a single year of japanese study . Once again KO2001 is all about efficiency . Sure you don't know every word of the test , still you have a very large array of words available. And on top of that what you learn really pays off as they are the most commonly used word. And it's not even like it's a great discovery , guys like tim ferris , dominic o brien and I suspect cardinal mezzofanti showed earlier that you can learn a language at light speed with about 1000 words.And while I didn't count them there's damn more than 1000 words in KO2001. Off the top of my head I would say about 5000 .

FYI: KO2001 has 3600 unique words as stated by Coscom. If you average up a few pages you'll see that this seems about right. It comes out to something like 3.2 compounds listed per Kanji.

* For one thing, you're likely to completely fail the listening part.

True, that would need separate practice.

* And I doubt KO2001 comes close to 6,000 unique words and complete readings for 1000 kanji.

JLPT2 doesn't need omplete readings for 1000 kanji. You need on average around 3 compounds per kanji.

KO2001 has over 3000 kanji words + some number of non-kanji words. Don't know how many though. It won't cover all of JLPT2 for sure because the kanji sets for JLPT2 are different from those of KO2001.

There's at least 100 kanji you'd need to study from other sources, plus there's going to be some vocab in KO that's not on JLPT and vice-versa.

* And the grammar in JLPT2 is way beyond basic.

Yep, KO would not teach you all the grammar for JLPT2. Maybe only grammar up to JLPT3 plus 10% or so of JLPT2.

ghinzdra Wrote:I cannot but disagree with harhol.... I wasn't even totally finished with KO2001 (980 something) when I took the test in december last year and I passed with 71-73% after barely a single year of japanese study.

First of all, congratulations on passing the test! However, the OP's question was:

Will knowledge of basic Japanese + these books be enough to pass the JLPT2?

In your post you mention Kanzen Master. Correct me if I'm wrong but isn't that an all-Japanese book with hundreds of example sentences covering all the vocab & grammar? As activeaero said, KO2001 only has 3600 unique words, so wouldn't it be impossible to pass the test if you just used that and nothing else? It wouldn't be much of a test if you could pass while only understanding an absolute maximum of 60% of the material.

However, the OP then clarified that he already had a firm grasp of vocab and adequate listening skills, so it would appear that Kanji are his weakness. With that in mind, I'd say s/he probably could gain the required knowledge to pass JLPT2 using KO2001, because s/he already has a solid foundation to build upon.

But I maintain that it'd be impossible to pass JLPT2 using nothing but KO2001 and "knowledge of basic Japanese".

I'm sort of with Ghinzdra, you don't need to know 6000 words to pass JLPT2, not even close. It's all about knowing enough to pick the right choice, you don't have to actually understand exactly what it says in the text.

Having a huge vocabulary is a good way to secure a good score on JLPT2, but what is VITAL is a very good grasp of grammar and listening.
EDIT: This is what makes "basic Japanese and KO2001" too little. Basic Japanese is what is needed for JLPT3, JLPT2 includes a lot more stuff. The listening parts of JLPT2 aren't all that though, they use pretty simple vocabulary and structures... but it's close to real-life talking speed and you will have to keep up to pass that part, only a LOT of active exposure to japanese audio will make you good enough.

Remember that just because JLPT2 tests are created from a repository of 6000 words, 6000 unique words are NOT used on a JLPT2 test. Just because you only know 4000 words doesn't mean you will only understand 66% of the test. If you're lucky, only some of those 4000 are used and you suddenly know 100% of the words on the test.

Tobberoth thats a good point I hadn't really though of. They can't test 6000 words, there are 6000 words they can choose from.

If I knew 3600/6000 that would be 60%, but since the ones I know would likely be the more frequently used ones, my reading comprehension might be more like 90%?

Of course the harder words will probably be the ones explicitly tested, and if I know the JLPT they will be tested in a way where context does not give away the answer.

ghinzdra Wrote:I wasn't even totally finished with KO2001 (980 something) when I took the test in December last year and I passed with 71-73% after barely a single year of Japanese study.

Any chance you can elaborate on how you got to JLPT 2 level in a year. I'm working my nuts off at the moment and seeing how you did it would be interesting.

mistamark Wrote:

ghinzdra Wrote:I wasn't even totally finished with KO2001 (980 something) when I took the test in December last year and I passed with 71-73% after barely a single year of Japanese study.

Any chance you can elaborate on how you got to JLPT 2 level in a year. I'm working my nuts off at the moment and seeing how you did it would be interesting.

I'm also quite interested in this. Having just finished RtK, halfway through Tae Kim Essential Grammar and recieved KO2001 in the mail (literally 20 seconds ago!) I'm interested in how I can expect to progress. It seems like you took a similar course of action ghinzdra?

greatfool, there is a very simple answer to your question - take a past JPLT2 as a practice test, and you can answer the question yourself...

I'm in a similar situation as greatfool (actually a bit worse off).
I'm only half-way through KO2001 (end of first book).
I finished RTK a year ago, but I stopped my reps last year, so I've forgotten more than half.
I don't read as much as I should.

I recently took the 2003 2級 test for practice. I got 241/400 (pass is 240).
- listening section - about 80% (and I lost concentration a few times).
- kanji and reading sections - around pass-level
- grammar - terrible (had to guess almost every question)

So I'd say anyone who's finished RTK + KO2001 will be able to pass the kanji and reading sections (remember I'm only effectively half-way through each), but the grammar will be way too hard. Listening depends on your exposure (sounds like greatfool will be fine).

Luckily I think it's not too hard to boost your grammar for the test (that's what I'm hoping, I'm starting 完全マスター2級文法).

blackmacros Wrote:

mistamark Wrote:

ghinzdra Wrote:I wasn't even totally finished with KO2001 (980 something) when I took the test in December last year and I passed with 71-73% after barely a single year of Japanese study.

Any chance you can elaborate on how you got to JLPT 2 level in a year. I'm working my nuts off at the moment and seeing how you did it would be interesting.

I'm also quite interested in this. Having just finished RtK, halfway through Tae Kim Essential Grammar and recieved KO2001 in the mail (literally 20 seconds ago!) I'm interested in how I can expect to progress. It seems like you took a similar course of action ghinzdra?

If you don't have a full-time job and are highly motivated then it's well within your grasp. Not that I want to undermine ghinzdra's achievements - I can only hope I'm at the same standard in 12 months' time - but just adding 50 sentences a day will give you more than 18,000 sentences in a year. Assuming each one of those sentences teaches you something new (vocab, reading, grammar point etc.) then it's not unreasonable to suggest that you could be approaching high levels of competency within twelve months.

Recall that after fifteen months Khatzumoto was conducting a job interview in Japanese competing against long-time Japanese speakers, and he studied while also doing a computer science degree and (allegedly ) having a girlfriend. Given that the JLPT is based solely on recognition and doesn't require any output, you can certainly see how it'd be possible. A complete psycopath may even be able to pass JLPT1 within a year...

I went from complete newbie to passing JLPT2 in a year. Then again, I lived in Japan and studied Japanese 4 hours a day at a language institute.

And yes, I did that without any SRS system and without Heisig, so it's certainly possible for anyone here.

harhol Wrote:

blackmacros Wrote:

mistamark Wrote:Any chance you can elaborate on how you got to JLPT 2 level in a year. I'm working my nuts off at the moment and seeing how you did it would be interesting.

I'm also quite interested in this. Having just finished RtK, halfway through Tae Kim Essential Grammar and recieved KO2001 in the mail (literally 20 seconds ago!) I'm interested in how I can expect to progress. It seems like you took a similar course of action ghinzdra?

If you don't have a full-time job and are highly motivated then it's well within your grasp. Not that I want to undermine ghinzdra's achievements - I can only hope I'm at the same standard in 12 months' time - but just adding 50 sentences a day will give you more than 18,000 sentences in a year. Assuming each one of those sentences teaches you something new (vocab, reading, grammar point etc.) then it's not unreasonable to suggest that you could be approaching high levels of competency within twelve months.

Recall that after fifteen months Khatzumoto was conducting a job interview in Japanese competing against long-time Japanese speakers, and he studied while also doing a computer science degree and (allegedly ) having a girlfriend. Given that the JLPT is based solely on recognition and doesn't require any output, you can certainly see how it'd be possible. A complete psycopath may even be able to pass JLPT1 within a year...

Don't worry
You're not undermining my achievement at all....
I'm very aware that I pale to khatzumoto. Frankly speaking every time I could indulge myself into bragging or weeping about my japanese I think about khatz achievement and I feel UTTERLY ASHAMED .And even now I rely on this to get motivated to get the 1kyuu. It's both extremely painful and a great source of motivation. As I said elsewhere I have a strong belief in the value of competition (as it can magnified in some shonen , the epitome being hikaru no go). The most important reason for the poor results of the bulk of the student is the poor standard set up .

So 2kyuu in a year should be your lowest expectation.

In case anyone is interested, I haven't done Japanese in 3 years until 3 months ago, when I did RTK, and am at KO2001 around sentence 500. Also reading some Haruki Murakami. Just took JLPT 2 placement test on kanjistep (though I hear the real thing may have gotten harder, but for now the results were somewhat encouraging)

Reading Kanji: 80 %
Writing Kanji: 80 %
Mimetic (Gitaigo): 60 %
Verbs: 50 %
Adverbs: 30 %

Grammar: 40%
Total: 56%

56 is well short of the 70 passing but the weak areas are easily corrected.
I bombed gammar, that doesn't concern me, I'll get kanzen master and get grammar to 100% in a few weeks. Also listening should pull me up.

I would guess that its not too difficult to pass JLPT 2 in one year with RTK +KO2001 + grammar books + lots of reading, if you can train listening somehow.

Kanzen Master?

This is grammar aid?

Aha, I just downloaded a past JLPT test, from 2003 and was checking it.

I started to do the listening part, but it was too easy, so I skipped it.

I did the kanji part at light speed.
There were only 2 or 3 production compounds that I could not cope. (when doing ひらがな－＞漢字).
Same for reading comprehension.

But about the grammar part, I was clueless half of the time. I guess I could do maybe 40% of it (counting that you'd naturaly get a 25% just from guessing).
Maybe kanzen master could help me ;D

mentat_kgs Wrote:Aha, I just downloaded a past JLPT test, from 2003 and was checking it.

I started to do the listening part, but it was too easy, so I skipped it.

I did the kanji part at light speed.
There were only 2 or 3 production compounds that I could not cope. (when doing ひらがな－＞漢字).
Same for reading comprehension.

But about the grammar part, I was clueless half of the time. I guess I could do maybe 40% of it (counting that you'd naturaly get a 25% just from guessing).
Maybe kanzen master could help me ;D

If you want to pass, I'd recommend it, though from what I've gathered, you don't care much for tests like that.

Kanzen master is almost like cheating if you use SRS. The example sentences are identical to the ones used on the test and every possible grammar point is covered. It won't make automatically give you the ability to use the grammar points, but since you only need to pick one out of 4, there's no way you will fail it at the test.

Kanzen master sounds good then. Would you recommend studying it over どんな時どう使う?

I'm aiming for fluency in the shortest time possible, and I'd rather get there sooner than worry about the JLPT.

greatfool Wrote:Kanzen master sounds good then. Would you recommend studying it over どんな時どう使う?

I'm aiming for fluency in the shortest time possible, and I'd rather get there sooner than worry about the JLPT.

I've never used どんな時どう使う. However, Kanzen master was made specifically for JLPT, so if your goal is to pass a JLPT, Kanzen master is what I would use. Whether どんな時どう使う is a better book in general though, I'll leave to people who has used both.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Aha, I just downloaded a past JLPT test, from 2003 and was checking it.

Which level?