I noticed that lately many people find my blog with search queries such as “jlpt revised n3″, “text books for jlpt N3″, “prepare for N3 jlpt”, “jlpt n3 books”, etc. This makes a lot of sense, since the last of the old format JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) examinations was conducted last Sunday, the 6th of December, 2009.

Starting next year the JLPT will be replaced by the revised format, which is essentially the same as the old one, except that the first (vocabulary and characters) and third (reading and grammar) sections are merged into one big one (with no pause? that’ll be tough!). And, of course, the introduction of the new N3 level, which is between the old levels 2 (new level N2) and 3 (new level N4). The gap between the old levels 3 and 2 was indeed rather large, jumping from beginner’s book to serious hobby level with a 300% increase in vocabulary required, for instance.

And with the introduction of the N3 level, a whole new market for textbooks and study aids specifically targeting JLPT N3 opens up, and you’d expect the publishers to rejoice and then hurry to be the first one to the market with such a book, wouldn’t you? So last time I went by the big Kinokuniya book store in Yoyogi, out of curiosity of just how difficult/easy the new level n3 was I had a look at the old JLPT bookshelf (where I used to hang out, before I graduated from the JLPT). And lo and behold there were none! None study books targeting JLPT N3, that is! Lots of books and flash cards and stuff targeting the other, old levels, still though. A search on Amazon has the same result: no JLPT n3 books.

The bookshelf with textbooks for JLPT level N3.

So where are these books? Did the book writers/publishers not realize that there was going to be a guaranteed demand for them? Or are they hoping people will buy the remaining old format JLPT books before they introduce new once to the market? Because surely the demand for old ones will drop significantly once new ones are introduced, especially for the old levels 2 and 3, I would presume. Anyway, as soon as they’re out and I’ve had some time to evaluate them, I’ll update my Best Books for Learning Japanese page with recommendations on JLPT N3 books as well.

You might have noticed that my last couple of blog posts are based around the search queries used to find my site, and so is this post, since I decided to write something about the topics that people are searching for while finding my site but that I haven’t explicitly mentioned. I noticed a lot of search queries such as:

• which book is better for jlpt 2 kanzen or unicom?

• good vocab book jlpt level 2
• jlpt1 book recommendation
• best jlpt books
• kanzen master vs unicom reading

and sure enough I’ve mentioned these terms a lot in my blog, but never really recommended any books. So again utilizing the convenient Squidoo platform, I wrote up a page containing my Japanese learning book recommendations. So from now on I’ll make additions there and reference it from my blog instead of keeping book recommendations spread out over different blog posts without coherence.

Currently, I have organized the page into these categories:

• Recommended beginner level Japanese books

• Kanji study book recommendations

• Advanced beginner, intermediate Japanese, and JLPT 3 level book recommendations

• Advanced Japanese and JLPT 2/1 book recommendations

• Business Japanese book recommendations

and I’ve also written some general ideas I have about studying for each of these levels:

• Just started studying Japanese?

• Learning kanji

• Progressing from beginner to intermediate Japanese

• Taking the step towards Japanese fluency

• Ready to work in Japan?

Anyway, all the books I recommend there are ones that I own or have owned (and sold) and have found useful. I’ve probably bought way more books than necessary over the years, but I find buying books for myself keeps me motivated to study, so it has probably been worth it in the end, even if some of those books sucked. I’ll add more books to that page over the coming weeks as I find the time to think up what actually made them good and write a review.

Let me tell you three things that I used to think sucked but really enjoy now:

1. Discovering a kanji I don’t recognize

2. Reading a word I don’t know
3. Finding a sentence pattern I don’t understand

Out of which 3 and 1 are fairly uncommon. And I am making an effort!

Every time I find a kanji that I don’t recognize, or a come upon a word I don’t know, or find a sentence pattern (grammar) I don’t understand, I look it up in the dictionary, find words using its different readings, locate sentences using these words, and add them to my Anki card deck.

I am learning 5 new items per day, and I make an effort to catch up by learning more on days after I for some reason didn’t do any new items (such as holidays). Most of these items are words, so that means my Japanese vocabulary is growing by at least 1800 words per year, which seems like a reasonable pace to me – although I’m sure it’s possible to learn much more than that.

Finding 5 new items per days actually takes some effort though. Although some days just seem to bring with them a storm of unseen vocabulary and kanji, in order to keep a decent buffer of them – I aim at always having at least 50 unseen cards in my Anki deck for rainy days – some effort is required. These are my main sources for discovering unknown Japanese:

1. Japanese Wikipedia

2. News”papers” – specifically Asahi Shimbun
3. Books – any book, as long as it’s in Japanese

I find these three to have quite different characteristics; Japanese Wikipedia uses quite formal and long-winded language, decent supply of new words, but not many unknown kanji. The news on the other hand is written in that typically very compact form with lots of kanji compounds, but of course almost no non-joyo kanji, with a decent supply of new words, and also often interesting sentence patterns or vocabulary usage.

Books of course depends on the book… I read essentially anything I find interesting. Quite often that is books about the Japanese language or one of those introspective books about Japaneseness – of which there are plenty in Japan – both ones that go “Japan is the greatest” and those that go “Japan sucks”. The one I’m reading right now is quite basic in its general difficulty level but uses a tremendous amount of obscure kanji – actually I think the author is trying to show off – but that is of course great for my purpose.

Anyway, so, lots of reading, finding new things, and reviewing – every day. I used to listen to the radio a lot but I kind of grew tired of it and it stopped being very effective (although I still think it is for JLPT 1 listening practise), and besides now I’m listening to Chinese while working.

So that’s how I’m studying Japanese now, and I don’t expect it to change much for a while since I’m focusing on Chinese, albeit still mostly on a hobby level. Another thing I’m going to do is write a few more pages like my recently published page on software development-centered technical Japanese. I found writing that more fun than I had thought as well as providing me with a good chance for review, and I have a few more topics in mind!

For the record, here’s a breakdown of my studies up until this point:

• Fall 2002-Summer 2003: Half-time basic course in Japanese at the university. (During this time I also studied engineering at around 150%, adding up to around 200% of full speed academic credits.)

• Fall 2003-Summer 2004: Japanese conversation and Technical Japanese at about one quarter speed. Also studied Japanese history, culture, society, and politics at one quarter speed, while keeping up with my regular engineering studies.
• Fall 2004-Fall 2005: Didn’t study much in particular. In October 2004 I went to Japan for the first time as part of the post-graduate program on East Asian business culture that I was enrolled with. In January 2005 I started working, and that summer I went to Japan again for work for almost 2 months in total. Still didn’t study much though.
• Fall 2005-Winter 2006: I transfered to the Tokyo office in early October 2005. After getting settled I took up my Japanese studies again. In early 2006 I resolved that I should pass JLPT level 2 that year, which I did – thanks to diligent studies and frequent opportinities for conversation practice.
• 2007: While the passive vocabulary and expressions I had picked up for JLPT2 soaked in and strengthened my active Japanese skills, I didn’t study much at all actually. I spent my spare time this year learning web technology stuff and doing web-based projects such as Unreal Soccer.
• 2008: In February, I resolved that I should pass the JLPT1 that year, with a good margin, thus essentially repeating what I had done in 2006. Started reading books in Japanese and listening to the radio every day, which improved my passive understanding of the language dramatically. By early fall I started digging into the JLPT1 textbooks for real, then slacked off, but got back with a vengeance a month or so before the test. Started using Anki for tracking and reviewing vocabulary and expressions.

And that leaves us where we are today. So, adding up years spent studying and counting the half-time basic Japanese classes I took as one year’s worth of studies (that’s how the university counts it, anyway), it adds up to three full years – two of which I spent in Japan. Seems pretty reasonable to me, for passing the JLPT1.

Next up, I’ll be writing about what I’ve learned about learning, how this could have been done more efficiently, and how I’m going to study from now on.

I then took the test back in December. It felt like a pass, but I was unsure about my goal of getting a score over 80%. Anyway, today the result came:

So yeah, it’s a pass! And with a score of 84%, I consider it a success. It’s surely a relief to know that I won’t have to do another JLPT ever again.

Speaking of which, if I did a JLPT1 now, I’m sure I’d get a 90% score. Because I really got up to speed with my study routines before the test, and guess what – I never stopped! Yes, start at 100% and then increase, is the philosophy I follow. Since, in my opinion, I’ve now proved that I know how to study efficiently, I’ll keep writing about study methods and efficiently learning Japanese more from now on. I’ve got some good things going now, so I’m hoping that sharing my techniques can be of use to someone.

The score, as you can see, breaks down to 86% on writing/vocabulary, 80% on listening, and 85.5% on reading/grammar. So compared to the mock test I did before the real one, that’s much better on writing/vocab (up from 70%), slightly worse on listening (down from 82% – must have been that damned clown demon!), and a little better on reading/grammar (up from 81.5%). I’d speculate that the writing/vocab score was unreasonably low on my mock test for some unknown reason, and that reading/grammar went better on the real thing because I concentrate better when I know it’s for real, and 90 minutes is much longer than my usual attention span.

Low score on listening, as before, despite me listening to the radio while working, watching tv, and talking to my girlfriend, I cannot really explain. Actually, it might not have to do with Japanese in particular. I’m a good listener in the sense that I let people talk and make an effort to understand what they’re getting at, but I’ve realized I’m very bad at concentrating to someone talking for more than a minute or so… I lose concentration and start thinking of other things quite quickly. I’m the kind of person you want to send an email to rather than call on the phone if the matter requires more than 15 seconds to explain, if you see what I mean. Maybe that’s just it. Or maybe it’s because I had a very annoying, slight kind of ear disorder of my left ear the day of the test caused by a minor cold just before and sleeping without covering myself with the blankets properly. Even compared to my native northern Sweden, winter in Japan is a cold experience (since the houses are built by scammers and crooks).

Anyway, that’s it for today. Back to studying!

So how did the studying go? Well, decently good but not as good as I had hoped. For a while during fall I slowed down a bit (but never stopped) due to external issues. I kept reading books and listening to the radio, of course, to get continuous Japanese language input.

The weekend two weeks before the test, which was a three day weekend in Japan, I spent almost all days studying grammar. I was going through the Kanzen Master grammar book, reading every grammar item, the example sentences, and did all the exercises, in order basically.

Then I took the week before the test off, using my precious remaining paid holidays, in order to cram the last bits and pieces. Actually that was mostly vocabulary, but I also reviewed grammar, reading (the Unicom reading comprehension book), and listening (Unicom listening comprehension book).

I also entered the word lists I had gathered over the last year into Anki, and slashed the default intervals by at least a factor of 10 in order to cram the 755 words I knew I should but didn’t know. I had tried Anki before but was too appalled by the UI (I still am, and the fact that it’s slower than Java at starting up even on a dual core 2 gig machine), and a bit sceptical to using a computer for learning (yeah, feel free to not consider me Generation Y), but in the end I overcame this and it turned out pretty well, although I’d really recommend using Anki the way it’s intended to be used – which is as spaced repetition for long periods of time, not cramming. (It’s actually got a “cram mode” but I found that pretty useless – slashing the intervals proved to be better.)

Anyway, about a month before the test I did the writing/vocabulary part of a mock test and got pretty much the same result as before – even slightly lower – with 80% on kanji and 60% on vocabulary compared to 82% and 64% before. I don’t know why it was lower, maybe just random disturbance. However, when I did the rest of the mock test about a week before the real test, I had 82% on the listening (up from 72%), 74% on the reading (up from 68%), and a whopping 89% on the grammar (up from 78%). So the intense grammar studies had clearly paid off. Remember that the grammar section takes 20 minutes – 11% – of the test time, but still account for 25% of the score, and is the easiest section to cram.

So in total I had 78% on the second mock test – even though I did the vocabulary part before cramming vocabulary – so in the end, the forecast is looking good. When I took level 2 I had 65% on the mock test a week before, and ended up getting 81% on the real one, so I think I pull myself together when it’s for real too…

But I also think I was a little bit unlucky with some of the content that the real test covered. There were some topics appearing especially on the first part where my vocabulary is lacking. But even allowing for a 5% lower score due to that, it’s likely to be a pass, but may be closer to 70% than 80%, which I consider to be the lowest acceptable score. If I don’t reach that, I’ll probably do the test again soon.

Anyway, from this peroid of intensive study, I can at least draw these conclusions:

• Exercise books are good for self study. For some reason I had a lot of books, some of which I even read frequently, that included exercises, but I never did the exercises. The Kanzen Master books for instance are good, and the Unicom listening comprehension book. I guess if you follow their recipe of doing one chapter per day then you’ll be in good shape for the JLPT.

  Maybe it was because I was introduced to them as part of classes that I got off on a bad start. Doing exercises is good for your memory. I’ll definitely finish the kanji part of the Kanzen Master book too – I didn’t do that because my kanji skills are already good enough for the test.

• Use a computer program for vocabulary training! I have to admit I was being foolish not to do this from the start. After having used Anki for a few weeks now I realize how much simpler studying vocabulary has become. Especially using the synchronization feature I can keep my vocabulary synced between home and work (I often add work-related words). Also the fact that the software keeps track of which items need attention is very convenient.

So now we just have to wait for the score? No, now we keep on studying. All this studying has reminded me of how fun it is both to study and to learn, and not to mention the greatness of being able to communicate and read books in Japanese. Fortunately, there is still more to learn.

I’ve now done a mock test, using the Unicom book that contains two mock tests, to get a grasp of where I’m at and what I need to focus on. I can highly recommend that book, by the way. I used it for level 2 as well. Besides the tests, it assists in analyzing your weaknesses and tips on what you need to study.

Anyway, here’s a breakdown of my scores:

• Kanji: 82%
• Vocabulary: 64%
• Listening: 72%
• Reading: 68%
• Grammar: 78%

Interestingly, that means the average score for each of the three sections (kanji/vocabulary, listening, and reading/grammar) is 72% – quite a coincidence.

So what to make of this? First: it’s a pass, with a 288 p/72% score. That also means I’m on track for my goal to pass with more than 80%. When I do the mock test at home I’m more strict than at the real thing in that I don’t choose randomly when I don’t have a clue, and I try to finish it as fast as possible – I don’t stop to think and I don’t use spare time for reviewing.

I do that because I want data on how much time I actually need so that I can plan how much time to spend on the different parts during the real test – potential points vs time. For the reading section I had more than 15 min to spare, so I think this affects the end result by a few percentage points. Also, when I did the same thing for 2-kyu two years ago at this time, my score was barely above 60%, but on the real thing I scored 81%, so I think my score on the mock test is lower because I don’t concentrate as much as on the real test as well.

Second, the surprises: grammar score is high, reading is a bit low, and listening is lower than expected. I haven’t studied grammar really, but my studies consist mostly of reading, so I would have expected reading to be higher and grammar much lower. I felt very uncertain when answering many of the grammar problems even though I passed them. The only reason I can think of is that my book reading and radio listening have made me grasp grammar intuitively, much like a native speaker would.

The low reading score might be caused by me doing that section after coming home from work. I felt very tired by the end… And as I mentioned above I didn’t do any reviewing using spare time. After all, I read normal (actually, some of them are probably more academic than most people prefer to read) books written for native readers pretty much every day, and I don’t feel I’m missing out on the content of those books, so I don’t think my reading skill is bad. And time is definitely not a problem – my Japanese reading speed is good.

Low score on listening, despite listening to the radio for a few hours every day, I think was mostly caused by me not being up to date on the vocabulary used. Describing how people look and asking strangers for directions might be very common textbook examples, but it’s not something you do very often in real life… I am going to go through the Unicom listening comprehension book for 1-kyu as well, which contains the equivalent of about 4 tests’ worth of exercises, and that should be enough to easily get me above 80%.

Third, as expected: kanji is my strongest point and vocabulary is my weakest. Kanji are natural for me now, although recently I’ve been working on improving my kanji skills even more (I’ll write about my study methods some other day). But acquiring vocabulary is tough! I don’t really like repeating words or sentences or anything like that – I’m lazy – but I just hope to pick things up after seeing them enough times in books and news articles, and from hearing. The vocabulary used in JLPT is somewhat specific and specialized, albeit limited, and I have not been reading material specifically targeted at the test. Here as well, I am going to rely on the Unicom, namely reading comprehension book. But I’ll probably hold off on that until right before the test and keep reading normal literature that I enjoy reading for now.

Lastly for this post, I’d like to mention one more ingenious scheme I’ve come up with to extract more data from doing mock tests: marking certainty of the answers. I mark them essentially in 4 degrees, although I only make physical marks for 2: feel quite certain (no mark), feel a bit hesitant (one dot), feel like I’m mostly guessing (two dots), and don’t have a clue (no answer). Afterwards, I compile the percentage of correct answers for each certainty level (last level is obviously 0%). A stimulating paper exercise if there ever was one! But this time it also told me one thing: if I feel certain or hesitant doesn’t impact the score. But for the two-dot level the probability of a correct answer is halved. In other words I can go ahead and use my intuition even if I feel a bit hesitant, which saves time, and focus my reviewing (using time left after answering all questions) on a few questions that I felt very uncertain about.

Anyhow I’m interested in hearing about other’s progress on the JLPT and if you’re blogging about it, please post a link in a comment. Please also post comments on your own findings regarding the test. I’m quite exited about the test itself, besides becoming fluent in Japanese!

In the near future I also intent to write something about what I’ve learned about learning – because I feel I’m really getting into that now, and I’m already looking forward to the next language learning adventure – and also about my own study methods targeting JLPT1, and something about learning Japanese vs passing the JLPT.

Don’t forget to apply!

Anyway, I also found this shocking announcement of changes to the JLPT test! Shocking not in itself nor in its scope, but because they finally got around to doing it. For my fellow students who have not yet reached level 2, here are changes in a nutshell:

• Starting July 2009, exams for level 1 and 2 will be held twice a year.

• Starting 2010, the test itself will change. There will be 5 levels, N1-N5.

The new levels will be laid out like this:

• N1: Like the current level 1, but with a somewhat higher scope.

• N2: Like the current level 2.
• N3: Between the current level 2 and level 3.
• N4: Like the current level 3.
• N5: Like the current level 4.

In other words, there’ll be a new level between levels 2 and 3, and level 1 will be adjusted to be a little bit harder. There will be no changes in the composition or methodology of the test. So still the same parts, same scoring, still only multiple answer questions, no writing, no speaking, etc. The “N” stands for “Nihongo” and “New”… bit lame if you ask me.

So what to make of this? Having the test twice a year is definitely a good thing. I would have taken it now in July if it was available. As we all know, passing a test doesn’t just mean studying the target of the test, one must study the test itself too (unless it’s really below one’s level). I wonder why they only included levels 1 and 2 for the July exams though. Going from level 4 (N5) to level 3 (N4) in half a year should be possible…

The new N3 level: a good motivator perhaps for people struggling between old level 3 and old level 2? That was probably the largest gap in the levels, since it meant going from essentially only trivial kanji to actually being able to read some real material. But since everything below level 2 is hobby level without practical significance, I can’t help thinking that part of the reason is to make more money from applications… as mentioned in the report, there are now over 3 million students of Japanese world wide, and with each application costing 5,500 yen, that’s serious money.

Changing level 1: it would have been nice to get a little more concrete information regarding that change. They essentially say “it’s gonna be that same… but a teeny weeny bit harder”, which isn’t very informative. I would have liked to see one more new level above level 1. As I’m approaching level 1, I still feel there’s more to go for Japanese fluency. A new top level would not only certify that, but also serve as a motivation. Well, at least there’s the Business Japanese test and kanji kentei…

Anyhow, I’m still on track to pass the good old level 1 in December. I’ll probably take it the following years too to make sure I’m still progressing. Might as well take the new N1 level in 2010… Keep studying, everyone!

After having spent last year mostly away from language studies, doing web technology stuff and other programming projects, this year I find myself spending much of my spare time on improving my Japanese. My goal is to pass the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) level 1 – the highest level – this year. And not only pass it, but pass it with a good margin, or I’m not satisfied.

Two years ago, in 2006, I decided early during the year to take JLPT level 2. I didn’t think I’d pass and neither did my Japanese teacher, but study I did and pass it I did with a score of 81% (60% is necessary to pass). This year I am aiming for over 80% again, preferably closer to 90% (for level 1, 70% is necessary to pass).

But this time I’m using different methods than I did in 2006 to pass JLPT level 2. Back then, I spent time studying kanji, memorizing grammatical patterns, and doing reading exercises from a course book featuring the same kind of texts and questions that appear on the actual test, and also a similar course book for listening. I used the UNICOM books targeting JLPT2, and found the reading and listening books very good, albeit short. I also bought the grammar and vocabulary books, but they were not good. For grammar and vocabulary, I found two books called 日本語総まとめ問題集 grammar (文法編) and vocabulary (語彙編) that were very good. Pictures and fun all over.

For reference, my strong point then was writing/vocabulary, and the weak point was listening. People say if you live in Japan, listening is easy because you hear Japanese all day, but it wasn’t for me. After the test I bought a TV, mostly to improve my listening.

This year I’ve also got the Unicom books, and the Kanzen master grammar and kanji/vocabulary books. As before, I think the Unicom reading book is great, but still short. I haven’t tried the listening book yet. As I wrote I was using different methods. Except for the reading comprehension, but that doesn’t take you very far since the book is so short. The theme for learning Japanese this year is having fun doing it.

I’m not studying kanji this year. One reason is that kanji is no longer a problem (relatively, of course). The other is that I think I will pick up enough kanji from increased reading. Also if you get dwelling on all the peculiarities of kanji, you risk spending too much time on that. At least I do, since I find the peculiarities interesting.

Grammar: I’m no longer memorizing patterns and functions, I’m copying all the example sentences from the Kanzen master book to flash cards and drilling them. Writing the flash cards is tedious, but drilling them is not (particularly). I’m writing on average about 4 example sentences for around 200 grammatical patterns. I plan to finish next month… I go through some of these flash cards on average a few times every day.

My thinking is that instead of, like I did on the JLPT 2 test, analyzing the grammatical structure of the sentence and remembering how the four alternative answers fit into that structure, this year my brain will do all pattern matching work for me. Like “this reminds me of that sentence, so that answer it is”. On top of that, it’s great for learnign vocabulary and expressions as well!

But that’s all old school – the core of this poodle consists of something entirely different! The first one is reading books. Real books, in Japanese. When you get to JLPT1 level that is very much possible. I was planning to start reading books this summer, hoping to have picked up enough grammar and vocabulary by then. But then my workmate told me he’s been reading the Harry Potter series in Japanese and recommended them for simple reading. So I borrowed the first book from him and started reading it – and now I’m hooked. Not hooked on Harry Potter, but on reading books in Japanese.

Harry Potter is really good, since it includes furigana for pretty much all kanji. One could argue this is not good for learning kanji, but I think it is. I don’t want to learn incorrect readings – I might think I know the reading when in fact I have just made it up myself, and anyway as I mentioned before I’m not focusing on kanji – I think that will come by itself. Harry Potter is also good because it’s a Western book. That makes it easier to read when even when you don’t have 100% comprehension – at least you don’t have to struggle with cultural understanding. The story isn’t very complicated either.

So that’s one thing: reading books in Japanese. Grammar, vocabulary, expressions, and reading speed all at once, and it’s fun. The other revolutionary idea came from the same coworker. He had an old, analog radio on his desk at work for a while. I work in a high tech software company targeting the next, successor of the next, successor of the successor of the next, and successor of the successor of the successor of the next series Japanese mobile phones. Having an analog radio on your desk is weird. Initially I just thought it eccentric. But then it hit me: how much time I’ve spent looking for good Japanese podcasts, online radio, and just about any piece of spoken Japanese on the web. A cheap-ass analog radio is actually all that you need! Free (if you avoid paying the NHK fee), simple access to spoken Japanese blurted out like there’s no tomorrow, any time of the day, on any subject you can think of.

So I got myself a small portable radio for 2,000 yen at the local electronics store in the alley. It’s great! I can get on average around 2 hours of listening every work day. At work! It makes both learning Japanese and working fun. I think the radio is what will make the difference between a good score and a great score on the JLPT in December. For anyone in Japan who’s above JLPT2 level I’d really recommend it. This year the listening section will be a breeze.

If only one could get some licensing agreement set up to broadcast all Japanese radio on the web for all the people struggling to pass the Japanese Language Proficiency Test who are not in Japan, that would be great. But probably unfeasible.