Hi guys!

I'm planning to take the JLPT 3 this december. Right now I'm still half way through RTK1 and I do have a very little knowledge of the nihongo grammar.

What would you guys suggest me to do in the next 5 months in order to pass the JLPT 3?
I have already been browsing the net on what to do next after the RTK. I'm thinking of enrolling at Yamasa University's Online Center for Japanese Study http://www.yamasa.org/ocjs/english/index.html

But then I also found Tae Kim's website http://www.guidetojapanese.org/ which does not adapt the "usual" way of teaching japanese grammar.

I also found http://www.japanesepod101.com and they claim that they can make you learn nihongo by their audio, tests and even a consultation with a native japanese professor.

I'm really confused right now. Are there any other method you would suggest? My goal for now is just to pass JLPT 3. I also do prefer self-studying since "regular" schooling doesn't fit my schedule.

Thanks a lot guys!

Don't bother...my advice keep studying, get the JLPT2, that is the least I would aim for at first or so. Unless you need the JLPT3。
じゃあ頑張れね。

JLPT3 in itself is not very useful, but I think it's good to have goals, and JLPT3 is a decent goal to achieve in 5 months. It wraps up all the basic grammar.

I don't know how good Yamasa's site is, but from a brief look I wouldn't bother.

For JLPT3 you'll need just about all the grammar on Tae Kim's site. The Kanzen Master grammar book for 3級 is pretty useful for covering all the grammar - or the free alternative is to use the JGram website. Mine example sentences for all the grammar points and you should be set.

Start working early on the vocab. There's not so much, but don't leave it for the last minute.

This is a useful page to check http://www.mlcjapanese.co.jp/Download.htm .

I don't know the details of your current situation (ie. how much time you have available to study every day) but I did see that you asked about doing 100 kanji a day on another thread. If you did that you would need around 4 to 5 hours a day to study (it is possible by the way; I did it and so have a few others. You can search the forums for the thread if you're interested in it).

If you've got the time to do that then in 5 months you can study up to JLPT2 level at the least.

RtK 1 --> Tae Kim --> KO2001 --> Kanzen Master 2kyuu Grammar Book

This will take you to JLPT2 level. I know that it is doable in your goal's 5 month timespan because I'm on course to do it in ~4 months time. You need a lot of spare time though.

Even if you don't have the massive amount of spare time needed to do that, though, that plan I laid out above is followed by quite a few members of this forum (specifically RtK-->Tae Kim-->KO2001) and will give you a solid foundation in Japanese. You'd be hard pressed, I think, to find a significantly better study plan regardless of what your goal is. Although, if you're really set on JLPT3, and don't have the study time to get through all of that before December then you're better off focusing on just learning stuff for the JLPT3 curriculum; although it won't be as beneficial for your Japanese in the long run.

A JLPT3 certificate and $3 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks, but not much else from what I have heard. If the sole purpose of studying is to pass a test then you are well on to becoming a real Japanese in heart. Study what you enjoy. Don't make it all about passing tests unless it will open some door for you.

If you have 5 months to pass JLPT and know about these techniques, I wouldn't worry, not care. JLPT3 is extremely easy. Just add sentences to your SRS so you learn 10-20 words a day or so, preferably from the JLPT3 vocab list (and JLPT4, obviously). At the same time, add everything from Tae Kim. While doing this, listen to a lot of Japanese, Japanesepod101.com would be perfect. As soon as you can, try you hand at reading short texts. That should cover everything you need. The amount of vocabulary needed on JLPT3 is quite small and you only need 60% to pass. The listening is extremely simple, they speak SO slowly.

Yeah, I agree with the rest, apart from for your own satisfaction, I wouldn't say JLPT3 is of any use. It's much closer to level 4 than it is to level 2 (that's why they're filling that gap next year by squeezing a level between level 2 and 3 I heard). I would drop JLPT3 and study longer and aim for level 2. It's a significant step above level 3 in understanding Japanese.

wow! thank you very much for all your replies...I didn't expect to get that much advice.

The only reason why my goal for now is JLPT 3 is because in the next two weeks, I wouldn't have enough spare time to study. Right now, I can study full time (for the whole day) since I'm not yet doing anything. But in 2 weeks time, I might only have 2-3 hours a day to study (though I hope I would actually have more).

Passing JLPT 3 is more of a motivating factor for me to strive harder and continue on with studying japanese. Of course I aim to pass JLPT 1 someday and be really proficient in Japanese This is actually my short-term goal for now

BTW, what is KO2001?

EDIT:
and is RTK1 + TaeKim enough for me to pass JLPT 3?

sorry if i seem to be redundant heheh Im just a little confused right now

Thank you so much for all the help!

bloo8 Wrote:wow! thank you very much for all your replies...I didn't expect to get that much advice.

The only reason why my goal for now is JLPT 3 is because in the next two weeks, I wouldn't have enough spare time to study. Right now, I can study full time (for the whole day) since I'm not yet doing anything. But in 2 weeks time, I might only have 2-3 hours a day to study (though I hope I would actually have more).

Passing JLPT 3 is more of a motivating factor for me to strive harder and continue on with studying japanese. Of course I aim to pass JLPT 1 someday and be really proficient in Japanese This is actually my short-term goal for now

BTW, what is KO2001?

Thank you so much for all the help!

Search for KO2001 and you'll find a wealth of info on it, but people aren't saying it isn't a good idea to have short term goals, but that maybe personalizing your goals and not wasting time studying for a test that doesn't bring Japanese ability to any sort of acceptable level. Like the JLPT 4... I really don't get that one, I feel as it is offered more as some nihonjinron thing, you japanese would be useless with JLPT 4 level study, JLPT3 doesn't increase that too much, there's not much of a point people on this forum tend to think.

KO2001 is Kanji Odyssey 2001, a collection of kanji groupings in roughly frequency order with sentences covering the common readings and compounds of the kanji.

http://www.coscom.co.jp/japanesekanji/index.html

A forum search should dig up various arguments for and against its use.

bloo8 Wrote:BTW, what is KO2001?

It's short for 'Kanji Odyssey 2001' and it's a series of 3 books about...well kanji

*edit: LTze0 beat me to it

The most important thing for passing JLPT3 is vocabulary. If you know it, you can fake a lot of other things (grammar, listening comprehension) but if you don't know it, no matter how good your grammar is you won't pass. From my experience, I'd recommend that you don't worry about grammar until you know all the vocabulary cold.

After I finished RTK1 in about April before the test, I went through the list at http://www.jlptstudy.com/ and put it into Anki. Fortunately, I had a really, really boring job and could spend a lot of time studying when I was supposed to be working. But 2-3 hours a day will easily get you there. I'd recommend adding cards at a pace so that by the time of the test, all your vocabulary cards are at least a month old.

This might sound really boring, but for me it was a huge breakthrough. (There's another thread on the argument for drilling vocabulary.) Somewhere towards the end of the list, spoken or written Japanese went from a sea of unknown words with a few words I knew floating in it, to a few unknown words surrounded by words I know. This is a great feeling, and when you hit this point is, I think, where sentence mining and immersion become much more satisfying.

Grammar-wise I just went through Kanzen Master. Skimmed is more like it, but I absorb grammar patterns pretty quickly. I only spent a couple weeks on it, pretty much cramming before the test. Not that it's the best way, but if you don't have a lot of time left after studying vocabulary, don't worry too much. A lot of grammar was stuff I had already been exposed to in about a year and a half of college Japanese (before I gave up and went back to self-study), and none of the new stuff was that far out of reach. And some of the things that were new to me (conditional, passive) I don't even remember seeing on the test. Maybe a couple of questions, but not enough to make the difference between passing and failing. As I recall, most of the grammar questions wanted you to recall which conjugation to use with which common expression.

Listening will be hard. Your tape will be crap, you won't be able to hear anything, and it will seem super-fast. I was not prepared for the fact that they do not repeat the audio - it is only played once. Even if your Japanese is not that good yet, try to find someone to talk to on Skype - there are a lot of people who really want to practice their English, and they won't mind if you aren't that great at speaking Japanese. Or listen to unscripted podcasts, etc. but in my opinion, anime and dorama will not help you here - the JLPT segments have no context and the audio quality is poor. Try to nail the other sections because you won't get a lot of points with listening unless you're really doing immersion, and again, vocab first - doesn't matter whether you can hear what they're saying if you don't understand the words.

I never studied kanji specifically, but I did add kanji to all my vocabulary cards (every word with a Heisig kanji, regardless of whether it was JLPT3 level or not). I also had kana->kanji/meaning cards, so that I wouldn't forget how to recognize the word in kana only (learned that the hard way after failing a few quizzes), as most will likely appear on JLPT3.

One last thing - my JLPT2 prep is going to be totally different. Because I have so much vocab under my belt, I'm using sentence-mining for grammar and vocab, re-doing Heisig using Japanese keywords, and doing lots of reading and listening - you know, AJATT-style. But that method was way beyond me before I learned the JLPT3 vocabulary.

Hi Delina!

thank you for your reply! It was very informative

You pointed out that I should focus on the vocabulary first. Is there a list of all the vocabulary/words that will appear (or be used) on JLPT 3? much like the list of 300 Kanjis that will appear on the test.

thanks!

My advice is to not get in over your head. I think a lot of people overstate just how easy JLPT is. I studied Japanese for 4 years at university, completed RTK, and I still failed JLPT3 last year.

Vocabulary is the main issue. Make sure you know the vocab. The grammer is also a really tough part of it. They will ask you questions where there is a sentence, and you have to select which particle goes in a certain place. There are questions where you have to select the proper reading of a kanji, and the choices might be like: しょ、しょう、じょ、じょう
There are questions where you have to select the correct kanji that goes with a certain reading. Some of the options might be the correct kanji but with a stroke missing.

Get some practice tests and run through them. This is probably the best practice you can do, as it shows you exactly what you need to study.

You're welcome!

Here is the list I used - it is not perfect, but it is very good and it makes up for any of its flaws by being free. Also, if you do notice a mistake, just e-mail the author - he's very responsive.

http://www.jlptstudy.com/3/

I used this site mostly for the vocab list, but there are some sample tests, lists of kanji and grammar points, and other resources as well. Don't forget that you'll need to add any words that you don't know from JLPT4 - the jlptstudy site has that list, too.

The biggest thing for me about the JLPT 3 mock tests I took in class was the listening. I could do alright on the written portions, but I was just not prepared for listening to speech at that pace. Do a lot of listening practice to develop your ear for Japanese. It's difficult to do without living in Japan for a while, but it's become easier with things like podcasts.

I probably would not have been able to develop my ear if I hadn't lived in Japan for a while. I'm envious of the people here who've worked hard enough on listening to understand it without having the advantage I did of being immersed while I was in Japan.

Once you develop your ear, the JLPT listening becomes a ton easier. I noticed I didn't stress out over that section quite as much as I stressed out over the grammar section.

bloo8 Wrote:You pointed out that I should focus on the vocabulary first. Is there a list of all the vocabulary/words that will appear (or be used) on JLPT 3? much like the list of 300 Kanjis that will appear on the test.

If you would like a printable vocab list for the JLPT3, there is one on the page that vosmiura suggested way back in #3.

http://www.mlcjapanese.co.jp/DownloadF/3...ryList.pdf

Here is the whole study packet for the JLPT3 with kanji, vocab, etc.

http://www.mlcjapanese.co.jp/DownloadF/3-all.pdf

bloo8 Wrote:and is RTK1 + TaeKim enough for me to pass JLPT 3?

Those aren't enough, because they don't teach vocab, or listening.

My preferred way is to learn vocab with sentences. For listening, try japanesepod101.

vosmiura Wrote:

bloo8 Wrote:and is RTK1 + TaeKim enough for me to pass JLPT 3?

Those aren't enough, because they don't teach vocab, or listening.

My preferred way is to learn vocab with sentences. For listening, try japanesepod101.

What excatly is jpod101, I always thought it was some dumb paysite? no?

Yonosa Wrote:

vosmiura Wrote:

bloo8 Wrote:and is RTK1 + TaeKim enough for me to pass JLPT 3?

Those aren't enough, because they don't teach vocab, or listening.

My preferred way is to learn vocab with sentences. For listening, try japanesepod101.

What excatly is jpod101, I always thought it was some dumb paysite? no?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=jpod101

It's a paysite, but new lessons are free...

Well you can also download all the old lessons during the free trial period.

stoked Wrote:http://lmgtfy.com/?q=jpod101

LoL. I'll have to remember lmgtfy.com.

stoked Wrote:

Yonosa Wrote:

vosmiura Wrote:Those aren't enough, because they don't teach vocab, or listening.

My preferred way is to learn vocab with sentences. For listening, try japanesepod101.

What excatly is jpod101, I always thought it was some dumb paysite? no?

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=jpod101

It's a paysite, but new lessons are free...

Unnecessary.

Zarxrax Wrote:My advice is to not get in over your head. I think a lot of people overstate just how easy JLPT is. I studied Japanese for 4 years at university, completed RTK, and I still failed JLPT3 last year.

I think this is more of a reflection of how pathetic our educational system is in the US than how difficult the JLPT is. I volunteered teaching English in Kyoto at a charity run by a Catholic priest in exchange for a room and meals. He had a program where American students spent three months teaching in Japan and earned credit hours towards their Japanese degree. My room-mate had three years of study at Illinois University (I think it was). After only 9 months of self study while holding a full-time job in Japan, I was at a higher level than he was.

I would bet someone doing self study four hours a day for six months on a site like smart.fm would score higher on JLPT than a C average Japanese major graduate from a typical American university and avoid repaying the $30,000 in student loans to boot.

bodhisamaya Wrote:

Zarxrax Wrote:My advice is to not get in over your head. I think a lot of people overstate just how easy JLPT is. I studied Japanese for 4 years at university, completed RTK, and I still failed JLPT3 last year.

I think this is more of a reflection of how pathetic our educational system is in the US than how difficult the JLPT is. I volunteered teaching English in Kyoto at a charity run by a Catholic priest in exchange for a room and meals. He had a program where American students spent three months teaching in Japan and earned credit hours towards their Japanese degree. My room-mate had three years of study at Illinois University (I think it was). After only 9 months of self study while holding a full-time job in Japan, I was at a higher level than he was.

I would bet someone doing self study four hours a day for six months on a site like smart.fm would score higher on JLPT than a C average Japanese major graduate from a typical American university and avoid repaying the $30,000 in student loans to boot.

They would probably score higher than the A students too. A lot of A students taking language courses do their assignments and their prep and they get good grades and they think "I'm doing great in my language study". Unfortunately getting good grades mostly enforces the belief that they're doing something right, and they believe that they don't need to search outside the classroom or their textbook for learning. Teaching institutions seem to perpetuate this sort of belief but, while it might work for other courses, it doesn't really work for languages.