I just want personal accounts of how long it took you to pass each test. None of this 'I did it in x time but it could be done in 2 weeks' nonsense. ;P

So everyone, how long did it take you? How many tries, too?

Passed JLPT2 after 1 year of Japanese language studies in Japan. Passed it on my first attempt.

Is this question even answerable with any sort of precision?

I passed JLPT2 first try with a nearly perfect score in December 2008, roughly 2 years after I started studying Japanese somewhat seriously. I probably could have passed it in 2007, but I never tried. That doesn't mean daily or even regular study though. I didn't study at all for about 6 months in 2007/2008 winter, and never started daily study until after I took JLPT2. I didn't do any targeted JLPT study other than vocabulary.

I took JLPT1 in December 2009, but I'm still waiting on results. This time the only study I did was the kanzen reading book while adding vocab I didn't know to Anki. I started that about 2 weeks before JLPT1. I think I passed, but I should have spent more time on targeted grammar.

Currently I am studying for Kanji Kentei 4, but wish I wasn't. I'd rather be reading.

Took level 2 a year after I started learning Japanese. Failed by 3 points. Took it again this last December. Pretty confident I passed this time. So 18 months for 2kyu.

Never took 4 or 3.

This is just to make the point that not everyone is superman, or trying to be. I passed JLPT4 after about 3 years of evening classes in Germany and took JLPT3 two year later in December 2009. I think I passed that too. Passing JLPT was not a target I had when I started, but it seemed to be a convenient way of getting some measure of progress.

somukeru Wrote:This is just to make the point that not everyone is superman, or trying to be. I passed JLPT4 after about 3 years of evening classes in Germany and took JLPT3 two year later in December 2009. I think I passed that too. Passing JLPT was not a target I had when I started, but it seemed to be a convenient way of getting some measure of progress.

Amen to that Somukeru!

Yeah kinda difficult to answer. I first studied Japanese when I was 16 but then quit after a year. Started again in college, studied for 2 years, 1 year exchange, and one more year in college. Then 2 years of nothing (pretty much forgot everything but the basics) and then took level 3 and killed it. Came to Japan and failed level 2 after being here for 3 months, applied again for level 2 and didn't go, took it again last Summer and failed by about 2 questions, then took level 2 again this last December and pretty sure I passed (no results yet). Soooooo 12 years? Not sure how to calculate that.

I started studying in September 1999 and passed JLPT 1 in December 2004, first try. I didn't take any other JLPT tests, although I did take a practice JLPT 1 in Feb. 2004 and got 50%.

Amount of time studied and resources are the important factor. Amount of months/years is kinda' irrelevant.

yudantaiteki Wrote:I started studying in September 1999 and passed JLPT 1 in December 2004, first try. I didn't take any other JLPT tests, although I did take a practice JLPT 1 in Feb. 2004 and got 50%.

その能力の増加はかなり顕著だね。

Though I suppose those 50% could have been from being exposed to a JLPT test for the first time, it takes some getting used to. Still, from 50% to a pass on JLPT1 in such a short notice is indeed noteworthy.

I took the JLPT 1 last December after what is probably about 2 years of serious studying (I started 3 years ago, but the first two years were... meh...). Pretty sure I passed, so.. two or three years.
If you put in some effort it's very doable in two years I'd say. But remember, JLPT is nothing more than a single step.

Passed JLPT2 in 2005, having first started with Japanese beginning of 2002. I did about 2 1/2 years of evening classes, then 9 months of full time study in Japan, then a month or two of part-time studying for the JLPT2 before passing it. Like Aijin said, number of calendar months isn't very relevant -- the improvement in the nine months I was actually studying all the time rather than in my spare time from doing a fulltime job was huge...

I thought about aiming for JLPT1 this year but I'm not sure I care enough :-)

Tobberoth Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:I started studying in September 1999 and passed JLPT 1 in December 2004, first try. I didn't take any other JLPT tests, although I did take a practice JLPT 1 in Feb. 2004 and got 50%.

その能力の増加はかなり顕著だね。

Though I suppose those 50% could have been from being exposed to a JLPT test for the first time, it takes some getting used to. Still, from 50% to a pass on JLPT1 in such a short notice is indeed noteworthy.

Well, I was living and working in Japan at the time. I got the 50% in February, so then I bought a whole bunch of prep books and past tests and studied those until December while living in Japan; I guess that was enough to improve my score to passing (I actually got 80%...) 10 months in Japan while studying prep books seems like enough to me.

Also that 50% was without the listening factored in, which was for me the easiest part of the test, so it may not be as drastic an improvement as it sounds.

no one passed JLPT1 in 3 months?!

I started studying Japanese in 2002 and haven't taken any JLPT tests yet, but probably would be able to pass 2kyuu (although I'm not sure for the new test style).
Yeah, .... I suck XD

The average pace for university in America is one year of studies for JLPT4, two years for JLPT3, and four years for JLPT2.

ahibba Wrote:no one passed JLPT1 in 3 months?!

Haha! FTW!

I got a 55% on my first practice JLPT1 last month, after 8 months of studying. I think if I go through the kanzen master 1 grammar book, and continue my normal Japanese use, I can get a passing score this summer (assuming the test difficulty doesn't change). I basically failed the grammar section, because I hadn't seen half of it before. Looking back I wish I had studied a little for the JLPT, and took the test. I think my first real attempt will be this summer.

9 months ago I was using a romanji travel guide, but I had a passive knowledge of JLPT2 grammar and vocabulary from growing up. So it was more like 9 months of kanji practice and pulling knowledge from the bottom of my brain to the top.

btw proof that AJATT didn't work for my speaking

Always a little depressing to hear how fast some people pass it

I put in massive effort, and for me JLPT4 was the hardest level.
Took a lot of work to get there over maybe 9 months, but then to get to JLPT3 was a lot easier (Just learn a bunch of vocab).

That took a total of just a couple of months more. I still don't consider myself fluent at JLPT3 i.e. speaking, etc.., so continue to work on that and start on 2.

Does seem to be getting easier after the big jump to 4 when everything was new.

I arrived in Japan Summer 2007, studied while working as a teacher and passed JLPT 2 in December 2008. ギリギリ　failed JLPT 1 the following summer, and took it again last December. Could be another fail, I fear.... Looking at my registration date on this forum, I jumped straight into RTK, and it's been the key to everything else.
No language school, but I was lucky to find the occassional tutor. The rest was self-study.

Well...

I started studying for the JLPT test June 2009, but before that I had been studying Japanese by myself 8 years and in college for 3 years.

At first I wasn't sure what level I was, but after taking a few past test I guessed I might be somewhere between level 3 and 2. I spent June and half of July reviewing all of the JLPT4 vocab, and then I spent the remaining half of July and August reviewing all of the JLPT3 vocab...

I thought I might try to review all of the JLPT2 vocab too, but it started to pointless because so many of the words were Kanji compounds of kanji I already knew. I also took a few past tests of JLPT1 and JLPT2 to gage where I was (as it was apparent to me by then that I was not between JLPT2 and JLPT3) and realized that I was already scoring passing grades for JLPT2, and about 50% for JLPT1.

Figuring that I might have a shot at JLPT1 (and since I had no motivation to study for a test I was already passing) I took every single past JLPT 1 since 2008 and worked on 4 different kinds of workbooks.

I'm guessing about 300/400. The test was easier than I thought... The vocab was surprisingly a lot of the words I studied, the listening was way shorter and easier than earlier years, and the reading was pretty dull stuff but I guess I've seen worse...


But we won't know for sure until March...

Haven't done it, never will do it. After 4 years of doing Japanese at school and with a tutor and getting comparatively nowhere to what I have in 6 months on AJATT (I think I can pretty much call myself fluent now. Not native level, but fluent), I hate all formalised testing. Useless, boring, pointless.

thecite Wrote:Haven't done it, never will do it. After 4 years of doing Japanese at school and with a tutor and getting comparatively nowhere to what I have in 6 months on AJATT (I think I can pretty much call myself fluent now. Not native level, but fluent), I hate all formalised testing. Useless, boring, pointless.

If you live in Japan and are looking for work it is useful in getting a job, or at the very least gives you an edge over a person who doesn't have it when they decide who to give interviews to.

Some people also use it as a goal marker, which isn't really a bad thing either. I fully understand your point on that you can just learn the language and become fluent without need for testing, I'm just saying it's not useless to everyone.

It took me about five years to attempt to take JLPT 2, but I think I failed. However, although I started doing the Kanzen Master grammer book for about a week, I immediately decided against studying specifically for the JLPT.

Those five years were:
3 years of Japanese at my college in America
4 months of Japanese at a college in Japan (three classes a day, 15 hours a week)
about 6 months of falling behind and not studying at all
one year and a few months living in Japan and studying on my own

I learned far more in my 3 years of college in America then I ever did in Japan, or I ever did with SRS and RTK (I've finished RTK, and have done a big chunk of Core 6000). The one exception to this is my listening skills which are quite high from having lived in Japan so long.

I studied Japanese for a good 4 years in college, never set foot in Japan, then took JLPT 3 and failed it with about 50%. Those results were typical of the other "hadn't been to Japan" students at my school.
Now I've spent a good year since then just studying about an hour a day on my own, and just passed JLPT 3 with about 80%. My progress seems incredibly slow compared to some people, but then again I suppose a lot of people are studying Japanese full-time.
I'm finally just getting to the point where I am able to start reading some manga and understand most of it, so it seems like my pace is increasing now and its not so incredibly frustrating like it used to be.

As for me, I began studying Japanese at the end of 2008. I took the Nihongo Nouryoku Shiken 4 Kyuu at the end of 2009 and passed. It took me a year to study for it. I'm now planning to take the next level up, which will now be N4 because of the switch to a 5 level program. Perhaps I will switch to N3 when registration time comes around if I am feeling up to it.

My training program for the test wasn't actually to study for the test itself.

Pimsleur Japanese Level 1-3
iKnow.co.jp
Genki Book 1
9 Credits worth of Japanese classes
And a bunch of playing around with Japanese in other less significant ways.

I'm interested as to what the training regiment was for those who passed JLPT Level 2 in just a year of study. PLEASE LET ME KNOW SO I CAN BE AS SKILLED AS YOU ARE! haha

Spencer