Studying for the JLPT N2

Recently, I have started studying for the JLPT N2. I am using a combination of two JLPT book series: 総まとめ日本語 and 完全マスター. From scouring the internet, I heard that these two series are good to use to study for the JLPT N2. Unlike last time when I was studying for the JLPT N2, I did not order all the books in the 総まとめ日本語 series to study for the test. I have been using StickyStudy to study kanji and vocabulary (instead of buying those JLPT N2 books).  Lately, I am mostly studying grammar and kanji. I have a daily study plan, which I have mostly been sticking to. I think my biggest challenge will be reading and vocabulary. There is a huge difference in terms of the number of vocabulary words and the length of the readings in the JLPT from the N3 to the N2.

In terms of my kanji studies, I have been studying elementary school kanji. I finished playing the 漢字とオバケたちの館 series on Nintendo 3DS, so I am familiar with writing most of the 1,006 kanji that appears in those games. To further learn those kanji, I am going through them on StickyStudy by grade level and I have started studying middle school/junior high school kanji. I hope that sometime in December I can start learning 9th grade kanji. In addition to going through kanji by grade level, I have been studying StickyStudy’s JLPT N2 list.

Regardless of whether or not I pass the JLPT N2, having the goal to pass it has helped me become more serious about my studies since for the last few months I have become a little slack with my Japanese language studies. Planning to take JLPT N2, has encouraged me to play Pokemon in Japanese again, which I attempted a few years ago when my Japanese language skills were not so good. Recently, I started playing Pokemon Diamond and soon realized that it only has kana. I have to admit reading all kana makes the game less intimidating, but it’s also frustrating. When I look up new words, there are multiple kanji that the word could be written with. I have noticed that a lot of the kanji I am studying for the JLPT have appeared in the game, which helps reinforce what I am studying. I think I will continue to play Pokemon Diamond and if that goes well (I finish the game), I’ll move on to Pokemon Black and switch that to kanji mode.

JLPT results

Last month I wrote about my experience taking the JLPT for the first time. I took the JLPT N3 and was unsure of how well I did on the test. Earlier today, the results of the JLPT became available online. I passed the JLPT N3! My results were not particularly spectacular, but I did fairly well. My results were about the same for each section, so I think I did a good job last year of working on each of the different components of the test equally for the most part. I did mention in my first post about my JLPT experience that I did not study vocabulary very much and that was the section I had the lowest grade in. I was surprised to see that my highest section was the reading section, even though I did not even finish it!

This year, I would like to take the JLPT again and aim for the JLPT N2. As opposed to the first time I took the test, I have more time to study. I still plan to finish my JLPT N3 books first. N2 is a more difficult level than N3, so I plan to change my studying approach when I start studying for it.