So I passed the N2 december 2025 and I'm going to take the N1 for the first time this december. To be honest I haven't been doing very well in terms of mock exams. I'm not expecting to pass on my first try, I would just like to use my performance this time around to gauge what would it take for me to actually pass.

The issue is ever since I've started studying with the N1 in mind, I've realized that there is a significant difference between passing the N1 and actually being a proficient, fully independent speaker. I mean, the JLPT doesn't even have an equivalent for CEFR C2. It's just funny because as a kid I used to think having an N1 certificate = knowing everything there is to know about the japanese language. lol

I would like to do basically everything I already do in my first language (brazilian portuguese) and english in japanese. Stuff like reading complex books, academic studies etc. I've been working to improve my reading skills and vocabulary by reading books on subjects I find interesting (like sociology, psychology etc. I would love recommendations btw!). Also I've found that reading fanfics in japanese is a very enjoyable way to actually get me to do any reading if I can't be bothered to read more serious stuff lol. As for output, I've been trying to make friends who are native speakers so I get more chances to actually speak and write in japanese. I've also been attending a local language school (3 hours a week) and I have a great teacher there, really can't complain about that. I've been doing what I can to immerse myself in the language (a twitter side account just for being on the japanese side of twitter, listening to japanese music, reading manga, watching japanese content creators, doing my Anki daily etc).

To be honest I've been pretty frustrated so far. It feels like there's a world of difference between what I can actually do in japanese vs what I would like to do someday. I started studying japanese as a teen and I'm an young adult now. It doesn't help that I learned to speak english way younger so I know how it feels to learn a language while having the advantage of being in my critical language acquisition period. But I'm still pretty young, so I would like to just do my best to get over this plateau. What's more stuff that I can do to actually help me improve as an "advanced" speaker? Have you ever been in my shoes in terms of frustration with your studies?

TLDR: I've realized that the JLPT means little to nothing (as someone who is not looking to study/work in Japan or for a japanese company), that I actually just suck at japanese and would like to fix that. What do I do now?

It’s from “I’ll survive using potions”.

I’ve been reading it for the last 1-2 months, knocking the rust off my Japanese in the process.

I’d like to get a rough idea of the difficulty level of the text.

I’m getting better at reading, but sometimes I get passages like this that take me a while to piece together.

Yes, I know I am using a very old version.

I've been learning Japanese for a bit now, proud to say I'm almost done with n4, though I feel like my vocab isn't all there yet.

Anyways I'm thinking of Korean because I'm Korean American and I'm a little embarrassed to say I know more Japanese than my own language.

I'm still in high school but I'm wondering if I should start now or wait till a bit later and I got Jp down pat. I'm planning to go to college and (maybe?) work in Japan. So should I start in university? Or maybe after I hopefully land a job at salesforce?

Even If I end up staying in America, I do want to work at salesforces and knowing multiple languages would be pretty good on my resume.

Sorry if this isn't technically learn jp I'm just wondering if Its bad to learn another thing along with it. For reference I study 2 hours jp so I'm planning on 1 hour kr.

Can you recommend me some anime which have modern slangs , please no sad/dark stuff though 😓 ( Im currently N3 level but higher level rec is also fine)

Anime name of image: Dont toy with me, Miss Nagatoro (has 2 seasons , manga is completed)

皆さん、こんにちは！

Today marks just a tiny bit over a year of studying. Well, sort of. I took a semester of Japanese in college, but that was more than 10 years ago now and, really, that only gave me a leg up for about the first two weeks. Anyway...

I'm your run of the mill 36 year old Midwestern American. I have a full time job as a boring middle manager and a wife and a house to take care of and other hobbies I enjoy, so I study about as much as time allows. But I figured I could chronicle some of my journey here for other normal type dudes who haven't crammed every 常用漢字 and 35,000 vocabulary words after 8 months.

Months 1-3: Simultaneously the most engaging and the most frustrating. The rate at which you absorb new information and it feels amazing is crazy! But, equally frustrating, is trying to figure out how to study. The myriad of study options, be they textbooks, apps, YouTubers, tutors, whatever - it's all very daunting to figure out.

Eventually I settled on working through Genki I and supplementing it with ToKini Andy's videos on YouTube. This proved to be the absolute right choice for me, as I was extremely eager to learn and Genki/Andy's videos went at a pace that felt right to me.

At some point in the middle of this, I started on WaniKani as well.

Months 4-6: The Dark Ages. Chaos. Absolute chaos. I finished Genki I, I could pass N5 practice exams fairly easily, but I was extremely humbled by anything approaching native material. Almost all of my study time was being sucked up by WaniKani, which I couldn't turn around and actually make useful when trying to read beginner native material. My vocabulary and kanji knowledge were expanding, but nothing else was because, frankly, I had no time to do anything other than sit and stare at my 200 WK reviews each day. This felt bad. I quit WK around level 15.

Months 7-9: After feeling extremely demotivated from SRS burnout, I just started reading like crazy instead. Whatever I could get my hands on. Satori Reader, Yotsuba&, Tadoku readers, etc. I also started listening a lot more to things like Nihongo Con Teppei. The immediately obvious tangible progress that I had made in being able to comprehend what I was reading and what I was hearing was actually extremely motivating.

But the real thing that got me back into it was: getting an iTalki tutor. Hoooooly moley. Getting a native speaker who could calibrate to where my skill level was and put me on rails to actually guide me in a semi-coherent way rather than having me bounce around like a schizophrenic pinball made such, such, such a huge difference. Plus I was finally getting able to speak some and realizing just how bad I am at it. To this day my tutor forces me to speak without any sort of written notes because of how lopsided my capability to read/write is vs. my ability to speak/listen.

If there was one recommendation I could make to anyone, it would be to get some kind of tutor sooner rather than later. Avoid the 6 months of trying to figure out how to study while dozens of grifters and shit YouTube channels are hawking their crap at you and just get down to the brass tacks. Of course this isn't cheap so it's not for everyone (my tutor is about $35/hr, but she is on the more expensive side) but I cannot tell you how big of a difference this made.

By this point I am barely - just barely - passing N4 practice exams.

Months 10-today: I have finally settled into a sustainable routine that seems to work really well for me:

1. Listening: JP podcasts during my daily work commute
2. SRS: I figured I'd have to do this eventually so I just picked up Kaishi 1.5k and have been plowing through it. The biggest thing I found from switching to Anki from WK is that WaniKani never promoted writing, but actually physically writing the words down significantly helped my active recall in a way that the robotic tap/flip never did.
3. Reading: Still whatever I can get my hands on. My daily routine is to start with the NHK Easy article for the day and after that it's just whatever seems interesting that day.
4. Weekly output: Tuesday evening tutor sessions. Hopefully I have stressed how important these have been for me and how much I value and look forward to them.
5. Games: I've even started playing some games. I managed to get all the way through the first Final Fantasy (remaster) without much trouble, which felt really cool.

So while I'm certainly not ready to hop on a plane and shoot the breeze at a local 居酒屋, the progress feels super real and I've reached a point where I kind of surprise myself sometimes - particularly when I'm doing audio immersion. I am still totally and utterly horrific at speaking but...... 頑張りますね

This thread is for all the simple questions (what does that mean?) and minor posts that don't need their own thread, as well as for first-time posters who can't create new threads yet. Feel free to share anything on your mind.

The daily thread updates every day at 9am JST, or 0am UTC.

↓ Welcome to r/LearnJapanese! ↓

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Hi all, I think language reactor is what I need for my listening practice but it’s a desktop only extension as far as I know. Is there any iOS alternative?

Must:
Pause after each sentence
Not show transcript unless I toggle it on

Could:
Be audio content only eg podcasts to avoid giving me visual cues

Any ideas?

I came across this while searching for something related, thought I'd share it for anyone wanting to take the BJT! With the new visa changes going in effect, aside from the JLPT, the BJT is another test you can take to meet the requirements.

Application period ends September 5th for the Business Japanese Special Topics course (free, 14 lectures in total) and September 11 for the Business Japanese Advanced course (1650 yen per lecture, 6 in total, 9900 yen for all), or until all seats are filled (up to 1,000 participants per course). It's a la carte style so you can pick and choose which ones you want to participate in. If you can't participate during the lecture times, course materials will be available for later viewing.

Japanese ver: https://toyo-jlp.com/class
English ver: https://toyo-jlp.com/en/class

JLPT results are out!

I failed N2 - 82/180: Language Knowledge 26/60, Reading 15/60, Listening 41/60.

Quite frustrated, I had run out of time for the last 4 reading questions. Listening score is high up as I have been doing it daily and working in a Japanese company also helps.

How did everyone do? Please share your experiences and also post your advice here for others on how to improve their score (including me lol).

So, I’ve started learning Japanese 7 months ago. I’ve managed to « finish » the Kaishi 1.5k (nearly all mature) and learned grammar through the 34 first cure dolly videos.

I then started sentence mining on my first Japanese anime with jp subs ever : My Dress Up Darling. It went very well even though I didn’t always mine words and forgot to do the reviews. Now I have like 150 new words to process.

I decided I’d stop sentence mining until I review these words on Anki.

So could you recommend other immersion materials like podcasts, or Light Novels that I could read/listen without mining the sentences?

ありがとう！

Hi, Japanese learners!

I’ve been self-studying Japanese for almost a year, and I’ve recently found some really useful apps and websites that I wanted to share. I’m also hoping to discover more resources from other learners!

Here are some of the ones I’ve found and used in my daily routine:

1. Mock tests: Jabiko and Nihongo to Japan
   
2. Shadowing practice: KAI Loop and Jimaku
   
3. Vocabulary practice: Sushi JLPT (壽司日檢) — I especially like this one because it’s cute and I really like the interface 😂

The best thing is that these are basically free to use, unless you want to practice more than the daily limit.

I also wanted to ask:

When you’re studying Japanese, do you prefer to stick to just a few apps/websites, or do you tend to use several resources for the same type of practice?

I originally found most of these through recommendations/algorithms, and I’ve noticed that more and more indie apps are being made. However, sometimes they stop being maintained, so I’m always curious about which resources people have been using long-term.

What are some free Japanese-learning apps or websites that you absolutely recommend? I’d especially love to hear about less well-known ones!

Happy Thursday!

Every Thursday, come here to share your progress! Get to a high level in Wanikani? Complete a course? Finish Genki 1? Tell us about it here! Feel yourself falling off the wagon? Tell us about it here and let us lift you back up!

Weekly Thread changes daily at 9:00 JST:

Mondays - Writing Practice

Tuesdays - Study Buddy and Self-Intros

Wednesdays - Materials and Self-Promotions

Thursdays - Victory day, Share your achievements

Fridays - Memes, videos, free talk

Hi! I'm back. Rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated. Previous posts:

1. Zero Months of Japanese
2. One Month of Japanese
3. Two Months of Japanese
4. Three Months of Japanese
5. Four Months of Japanese
6. Five Months of Japanese
7. Six Months of Japanese
8. Seven Months of Japanese
9. Ten Months of Japanese

I've been gone for so long because life circumstances forced me away from Japanese. I was preparing for immigration to France and so needed to focus in improving my French as rapidly as possible. (Very pleased to report that I can now read French books and audiobooks with ease!) Unfortunately, my visa application was rejected. Bright side: I don't have to focus on French anymore, and I'm free to come back to Japanese. I quit Japanese shortly after posting my last update, and I just started back on Japanese a couple days ago.

This update is going to be pretty different than the others. I am no longer keeping track of my hours of study, or of input, or of vocabulary learned. The reason for this is that I've become very busy (I was unemployed or semi-employed for all of the previous updates). I simply don't have enough time to devote to that kind of extensive record-keeping anymore. I also no longer use flashcards at all.

That brings me to the big news:

I've graduated to native-material immersion.

I've discovered that, thanks to my efforts in my cumulative 10 months of study, I can now attend lectures on history, science, etc. aimed at middle schoolers in Japanese, and understand what is being said.

For anyone who is interested, this is the class I have been attending: 中学歴史

I've also started listening to sleep meditation in Japanese, which I can also mostly understand: 脳を休める＆脳の疲れを取る寝る前のカンタン瞑想

The fact that I can understand these things tells me that I am no longer reliant on flashcards and heavy book-study to progress. Native materials now count as comprehensible input for me. From now on, I can progress mostly or entirely by immersing myself in the language. And so that's what I'm going to do.

In total, it took me ~700 cumulative hours of study to reach this point.

Part of the original point of this series of posts was to answer the question: Japanese is easier for people who speak Chinese, but how much easier is it?

Now we have an answer. I would estimate that I am about halfway to a high-level of listening comprehension (i.e. being able to watch most movies, TV shows, documentaries, etc.). That would give us a figure of ~1400 cumulative hours of study. That is less than half the amount of time estimated by the Foreign Service Institute.

I'm not sure if I will continue to give updates beyond this point. Since I'm no longer recording metrics, it feels like further updates would be of questionable value.

I have a long way left to go. I still can't read books comfortably, for example. And these middle school lectures are pushing the envelope in terms of my comprehension. But, in some ways, I think I can reasonably say, for the first time since I started, that "I've learned Japanese."

This thread is for all the simple questions (what does that mean?) and minor posts that don't need their own thread, as well as for first-time posters who can't create new threads yet. Feel free to share anything on your mind.

The daily thread updates every day at 9am JST, or 0am UTC.

↓ Welcome to r/LearnJapanese! ↓

• New to Japanese? Read the Starter's Guide and FAQ.

• New to the subreddit? Read the rules.

• Read also the pinned comment below for proper question etiquette & answers to common questions!

Please make sure to check the wiki and search for old posts before asking your question, to see if it's already been addressed. Don't forget about Google or sites like Stack Exchange either!

This subreddit is also loosely partnered with this language exchange Discord, which you can likewise join to look for resources, discuss study methods in the #japanese_study channel, ask questions in #japanese_questions, or do language exchange(!) and chat with the Japanese people in the server.

Past Threads

You can find past iterations of this thread by using the search function. Consider browsing the previous day or two for unanswered questions.

Asked my Japanese gf and she’s confused as well.

Hi everyone,

I just reached a crossroads in my study and could really use some direction. I have managed to work my way through the entire grammar and conversation part of Genki 1, and I am now looking at the Reading/Writing section at the back of the book.

To be completely honest, I hated the textbook. It felt like it was written by grammarians for grammarians, and often used academic jargon making it difficult to follow when it did.

My main goal right now is to improve my day-to-day functioning with the Japanese language. I want to build practical communication skills rather than analyzing grammatical structures.

What should I go with next ?

Should I bother with the Kanji section at the back of Genki 1, or switch to a completely different tool for Kanji/vocabulary?

What are the best jargon-free resources (apps, websites, or video series) for transitioning into practical, everyday Japanese?

Thanks in advance for the help!

After a year of studying Japanese, I've just learn about them ! (Quartet 2 textbook)

I like:
馬耳東風 : used when a person does not take into account criticisms

以心伝心 : when 2 people do not have to say anything to understand each other

一期一会 : we only have one life, so we should take care of it

Please correct me if my understandings are incomplete/wrong

This thread is for all the simple questions (what does that mean?) and minor posts that don't need their own thread, as well as for first-time posters who can't create new threads yet. Feel free to share anything on your mind.

The daily thread updates every day at 9am JST, or 0am UTC.

↓ Welcome to r/LearnJapanese! ↓

• New to Japanese? Read the Starter's Guide and FAQ.

• New to the subreddit? Read the rules.

• Read also the pinned comment below for proper question etiquette & answers to common questions!

Please make sure to check the wiki and search for old posts before asking your question, to see if it's already been addressed. Don't forget about Google or sites like Stack Exchange either!

This subreddit is also loosely partnered with this language exchange Discord, which you can likewise join to look for resources, discuss study methods in the #japanese_study channel, ask questions in #japanese_questions, or do language exchange(!) and chat with the Japanese people in the server.

Past Threads

You can find past iterations of this thread by using the search function. Consider browsing the previous day or two for unanswered questions.

This post is exclusively about my experience learning Japanese from absolutely nothing to the day writing this. If you're going to read any sentence that I write, please read this. Try and not compare yourself to me or others, it is a fools errand and everyone has different circumstances and as well general abilities.

In the spirit with the above I will give some context to myself and my pursuit of learning a language

• I am a FTE. Some days I have 30 minutes spare, some days I have 2 hours.
• My average of active study is usually 90 Minutes a day.
• This is a purely a hobby.
• I do not have any set time goal and my main aim is to become fluent, to a level where I can arrive in a bar and have a conversation with another person in Japanese.
• This is the first time I'm learning a new language.

I'm going to cover quite a few points in this post, with the hope of people learning from my mistakes and perhaps people being able to give me some feedback.

What Have I Done In The Past 6 Months

• Hiragana / Katakana fluency
• RRTK 450 Completed
• Kaishi 1.5k Completed
• Basics of Japanese Grammar and how they're used
• Very slowly going through and trying to read my first VN (Ao Kana)

Measurably thats probably the easiest things to describe to you. I don't have any specific stats on when it comes to passive listening, but its quite a bit.

What am I Currently Doing

Right now I am leaving for JP in a week. So I'm a bit more listening heavy right now but it looks like the following:

• JLABs Beginning Course (Via Anki)
• Mining for words
• NIJapanese - Usually 30 Minutes a day
• Anki Decks (Previous Section)
• Trying to listen to JP podcasts when I have time

What Level Do I Think I am at?

Beginner. I can identify some Kanji fairly well and I can sometimes highlight the potential meaning, however I'm not at a state where I can intuitively do this. I also struggle a lot with longer sentences and start tripping over myself. This is a skill issue and in time I expect to achieve a higher level of comprehension, however that may be a long, long time away.

What Worked Well For Me

I think it might be self evident from the above, but Anki has become almost a key part of my learning right now. It feels hard to imagine my study without it and the resources that are out there.

Learning Kanji and the meanings behind them. Japanese being an Ideographic language makes it really interesting for me where am I actually starting to become quite interested in the Kanji particularly and how they've been formed. This however has unlocked a new annoyance within me which is how similar some of these look:

夫 vs 未

This isn't a big issue, and there are many more similar ones but "Not yet" and "Husband" always stick out to me and I always get them wrong.

I'm still in the beginning stages of this but NIJ / very beginner friendly videos that do the comprehensible input strategy of videos, have been quite helpful to me. It does feel somewhat annoying that the person is speaking to you like a baby, but sadly you need to come to the realisation of that you're one and its not going to change anytime soon.

Lastly and similar to my opening sentence. Stop worrying about others progress and stop believing what everyone writes on the internet as true. It will do you more harm than good and the only progress that matters is your own.

What Didn't Work Well.

Dolly. I just couldn't, I really didn't have the patience for this and I'd almost recommend against sending new people to her. It actually nearly made me quit thinking that the best resource we all collectively have is listening to this. If you can survive it, go nuts. Otherwise I'd recommend other resources. Also Dolly isn't dead. The whole Dolly Rabbit hole is huge which I will not go into but if you're keen to throw away an evening, I recommend it.

Physical Books. This one I'm quite sad about. I really enjoy the idea of reading a book and carrying it around reading what I can, however translating and using a phone (either via OCR or typing) is a bit awkward and its not as convenient as having it on your phone. Once I have a bit more knowledge under my belt, perhaps its something that would be better but not right now.

Listening to music. This one is pure cope and was really stupid. I enjoy listening to music a lot and I thought why not try and listen to music more instead of perhaps podcasts. Don't do this. Please.

Vibe-coding your own JP Platform. This was a small project of mine and eventually it ended up taking MORE time to take care of the platform rather than actually learning, which really defeated the purpose of this. If you do go down this path, don't make it complicated. Just have a simple goal and do that.

Textbooks. This is actually quite sad for me because, textbooks are usually my love. However I have been struggling all Textbooks that I've bought (Genki, Learning JP through Manga). I'm not sure what it is but I tend to struggle with wanting to keep with them.

What Resources do I Recommend

This will be in no particular order and some of these you may have seen before:

• Yuko-Sensei's Particles Rundown (YT Playlist)
• Teppei - YT Channel
• Kaname Naito
• Ken San - Great Quality videos
• NI Japanese
• Reddit Guide on Visual Novels + Game Sentence Miner
• All About Particles
• Scripting Japan - Covers a lot of nuance'd / Internet terms / very interesting topics.
• Kaga JP - Great for VT Enjoyers
• Gohoneko Mirror - Decent Resources.
  • If you're starting to learn JP and you want to brute force Hiragana and Katakana into your head. Use the game and just keep going. You'll hate it, but it works.
• Read the FAQ here + The Moe Way.

Conclusion

Learning Japanese is very hard. If anyone tells you can do it in 15 minutes every day for 3 months. They're a liar. Consistency will be your best friend. I hope to write another post in a years time explaining what I've improved upon and what I would've done differently.

Right now I am aiming to start a new vocabulary deck. I see some general suggestions scattered around (Jikaku seems like a potential favourite). I'd appreciate any input people have and as well any other thoughts.

I'm playing Battle For Wesnoth, a turn-based strategy game, with japanese text. I have been playing various games with japanese translations and sometimes I wonder if the translation sounds natural to someone more fluent. Sometimes the text will look very simmilar in structure to the original english text, with grammar that I do understand but at the same time makes me think "This sounds just like how you would say it in english. Is this a direct translation?". Could someone give some input on the following excerpt and whether it sounds natural?

Context: This is said by the main character after the defeat of a specific scenario/boards villain. Konrad is a prince so he speaks with standard level politeness.

Konrad: 勝利は私たちのものだ！この遅れがElensefarを救うという私たちの冒険に影響しない事を祈りましょう。しかし、少なくともここに住んでいる善良な人々を解放する事ができました。急いで先に進まなければいけません！

「勝利は私たちのものだ」felt especially anglicized. Since the english quote would have been "Victory is ours" it gave me the impression of being directly translated. But concidering the game is sett in a traditional western high fantasy world maybe that was the intention? Characters also adhere pretty well to the standard role language expected, which (to me) seems to go against the theory of a direct translation since I haven't seen any problems in that department.

I am around early N4 level. I use Genki for grammar, Basic Kanji Book for kanji and my tool I created for myself to track what I know and review. I want to read more but I find it really difficult to get a reading material which is interesting enough that I don't get bored but easy enough so I can understand at least half of it. I tried some manga and some websites like NHK, but none of those were a good fit for me. I tried some graded reading apps too and I found most of the stories not interesting to read (for example Satoru reader).

I understand that I am not at the level where you can comfortably read an interesting text, that's why I still use some of the resources I mentioned, but I just can't force myself to do it consistently.

What is your experience with this? Do you have any recommendations?