I got this from the offical JLPT website and I got rid of the exact amounts while keeping the estimated amounts:

Test content summary
Level Kanji Vocabulary Listening Hours of Study Pass Mark
4 ~100 ~800 Beginner 150 60%
3 ~300 ~1,500 Basic 300 60%
2 ~1000 ~6,000 Intermediate 600 60%
1 ~2000 ~10,000 Advanced 900 70%

1) Is that 600 hours + 300 hours 3 150 hours or is it just 600 hours total?
2) 600 hours shouldn't take 3 years, in 2 years with 1 1/2 hours of study a day you could pass the test. (I'm guessing it's active study not just passive)

There aren't very helpful for choosing which level to take...
If I did 4+3JLPT in a year I would assume 2 in a year would be the same.

What are your opinions on the matter?

2 ~1000 ~6,000 Intermediate 600 60%
1 ~2000 ~10,000 Advanced 900 70%
hmmm. To be honest don't worry about JLPT, when you become good in japanese and have learned a lot. You should be able to do these tests and understand them without much effort. Although i understand it's a test, and you should study for it.

Try taking a few tests from each level.

You can see the past tests here: http://jp.hjenglish.com/papers.aspx
(they don't follow the same test format as the new N1-N5 system, but it should give you a gist of where you are.)

I found myself easily passing 3 kyuu, so I started to study for 2 kyuu, and then changed my mind and went all out for 1 kyuu when it came to registration time. It all depends on how much time and work you're willing to put in.

Guess it depends on how the question is asked from the survey on the test. Something tells me this is cumulative so JLPT 1 is about 1800 to 2000 hours of actual study time (less if you study specifically for the JLPT and it's quirks). So that's about 3 months if you push it ^_^

Now, if you're worrying about "is this how long I have to study?" then stop worrying. Those are based off self-disclosed numbers based mainly off Chinese and Koreans taking the test as they make up the majority. In addition, can anyone here with reasonable accuracy actually say how many hours they "studied" Japanese? I doubt the test got any reasonably usable data on that.

皆さんの進めをありがとうございます！
I took a practice test and got 45% on kanji and an average of 30% in the other areas. I know that I have a full year ahead of me and that after finishing RTK and genki ect. that I will probably raise that to a great deal but if I want a good score, 80%, is this too much?

If this is cumulative and I could pass the 3JLPT then I have a bit more than 600 hours to do in 9 1/2 months. So theoretically 2 hours of active study a day should totally do.

So I should probably do one hour focused on new content and the other on reviewing old content.

＾＿＾どうもありがとうございました！

gyuujuice Wrote:I took a practice test and got 45% on kanji and an average of 30% in the other areas. I know that I have a full year ahead of me and that after finishing RTK and genki ect. that I will probably raise that to a great deal but if I want a good score, 80%, is this too much?

Bear in mind that since this is four-option multiple choice, the "base" level if you answered basically randomly would be 25%. So if your current average is 30% then this is only barely above "just started"...

Right, but I was actually rather surprised that I understood 50% or more of the text.
(Sadly I missed a lot of the key words.)

To quote Frau Farbissina, the JLPT hour estimates are Lies!!! All LIES!!!!!!

the cake is a lie

it took me more than the estimate to get to JLPT3 but when I took it I passed easily and I knew a load of stuff not on the JLPT. So I'm guessing these estimates are for if you just study for the JLPT, and ignore what is actually helpful to you in real life.

Also you only need 60% to pass (in JLPT3 anyway) so you don't need to learn all of the stuff. I passed with 84% and I didn't know all the grammar or vocab...

3 -> 2 is a big jump tho, as you can see from the kanji/vocab numbers, hence the new level is in at 2.5. But for the new the level I don't think the kanji / vocab lists are being released which is a pain in the arse...!

I think personally I'm gonna cruise to JLPT2 in the winter, as learning just for the JLPT (as opposed to real life) is pretty shitty.

The estimated hours are not for native English speakers so you should pretty much ignore them, unless you already speak Chinese or Korean.

"the cake is a lie"

＾＿＿＾

"The estimated hours are not for native English speakers so you should pretty much ignore them, unless you already speak Chinese or Korean."
hmm.....well that wasn't very helpful. :\

Womacks23 Wrote:The estimated hours are not for native English speakers

Source?

Where is this "hours" thing anyway? I didn't see it anywhere on the official JLPT site or in the guidebook.

yudantaiteki Wrote:

Womacks23 Wrote:The estimated hours are not for native English speakers

Source?

Where is this "hours" thing anyway? I didn't see it anywhere on the official JLPT site or in the guidebook.

The estimates are based off of a survey included in the application. The majority of test takers are Asian (apparently 40% are Chinese), so it would follow that the estimates would be skewed lower than the actual number for people who didn't grow up surrounded by kanji.

The hour estimates are definitely in the application booklet sold in Japan. I don't know where else you can find them.

Then again, according to this person. 900 isn't remotely true, even for native Chinese speakers. I think he's probably right.

I don't know, I mean if I counted all the time spent listening or watching Japanese it would add up to a lot more, but in terms of study hours which to me means actively studying or reviewing, I don't think I spent more than 300 (if that) self-study hours to go between JLPT3 and JLPT2 pass level. Just pass level mind you; nothing spectacular. 900 hours to pass JLPT1 doesn't seem out of the question, but again - just passing.

Mind you I think it's easily possible to waste a lot more time running on the spot by not sticking to something, restarting things in search of the holy grail, or just various inefficiencies, it can quickly multiply the number of hours it takes.

Usually with class hours a number of hours outside of class are expected, so say 900 class hours + at least 900 active self-study hours + a lot more passive input on top of that, and doing RTK first of course, it seems doable. In fact, you probably don't need the 900 class hours . Just because a lot of Chinese learners use 2000+ hours of classroom study to get there, doesn't mean that's the minimum requirement. What say others?

The schools they are talking about are training their students to do a whole lot more things in Japanese than just pass the JLPT.

JimmySeal Wrote:

yudantaiteki Wrote:

Womacks23 Wrote:The estimated hours are not for native English speakers

Source?

Where is this "hours" thing anyway? I didn't see it anywhere on the official JLPT site or in the guidebook.

The estimates are based off of a survey included in the application. The majority of test takers are Asian (apparently 40% are Chinese), so it would follow that the estimates would be skewed lower than the actual number for people who didn't grow up surrounded by kanji.

The hour estimates are definitely in the application booklet sold in Japan. I don't know where else you can find them.

It's in the current one and I just choose an option in the middle. I have no idea how much time I've spent studying anyway. So I guess I can't really complain about the estimates :$

I was talking to my gf a couple of weeks ago about this. We got into a funny conversation about how much I've studied Japanese in the past 2 years and a half. My calculations are (minimum) 5 hours per day reading Japanese * 910 days = 4550 hours lol. This doesn't even include the number of hours listening/watching Japanese.

According to this, it N1 should be a breeze for me .

If you are worried about which level to take, just take the harder one. It's better to set high anyways right?

Yeah, I passed 900 hours around the 8-12 month mark. Even if a few geniae were thrown in to skew the statistic it still wouldn't be anywhere near 900.

It took me about 8 months to go from N5 to N2 standard (including 2 months spent on going through Heisig at the start) and I probably spent an hour or two a day seriously studying, so I don't think those figures are too unrealistic, though of course it'd vary from person to person...

But I spent 3 weeks in Japan, talk to Japanese gf every day, watch almost nothing but anime, listen to mostly Japanese music, etc. so I can't really put a number of hours on those activities.

dizmox Wrote:It took me about 8 months to go from N5 to N2 standard (including 2 months spent on going through Heisig at the start) and I probably spent an hour or two a day seriously studying, so I don't think those figures are too unrealistic, though of course it'd vary from person to person...

But I spent 3 weeks in Japan, talk to Japanese gf every day, watch almost nothing but anime, listen to mostly Japanese music, etc. so I can't really put a number of hours on those activities.

Same here man. I listen/watch japanese talk-shows,animes,read sites,watch more stuff, listen to music with lyrics,etc. I only actively learn for 1-3 hours a day but immersion/passive is way more than that.


Also on another: What do you guys think of this
http://blog.anokorok.com/2009/11/how-man...e-to-know/

I kinda agree with him on the kanji point but knowing 2000 is good as well but I think he's referring to Native-level abilities in reading kanji.

For reading, you don't really need to study individual characters after a certain point, so "knowing kanji" becomes a bit of a non-issue anyway. Just a matter of recognising the overall shape of the compound.

As for writing no one's gonna put your head on a pike for writing difficult words in kana and of course there's no problem on a computer.

dizmox Wrote:For reading, you don't really need to study individual characters after a certain point, so "knowing kanji" becomes a bit of a non-issue anyway. Just a matter of recognising the overall shape of the compound.

As for writing no one's gonna put your head on a pike for writing difficult words in kana and of course there's no problem on a computer.

For me it's just knowing more readings/context of that particular kanji, that hold me back from going to the next level. I can understand j-j stuff easily now. It's just the words, the kanji isn't the issue, but more there readings are. Although a lot of times I can guess the kanji readings easily. . Although I do remember reading that if you do RTK 3. 3007. That kanji gives you 99.998888888% coverage over kanji. (I think this is in terms of just purely recognizing the kanji and their meanings.)