Road to N1: Resources, Reviews, Rants (Part 1) - Preparation for JLPT Listening

November 27, 2020

It's almost December. When it comes to December, many people might think about how to happily spend quality time with their lovers or families. Some people may think about becoming a new and better person. But those do not apply to me. What I can think only when it comes to December is nightmare and torture of Japanese learners who will challenge the JLPT exam in the first week of this month.

In case you don't know what JLPT is, JLPT (Japanese Level Proficiency Test) is one of the most popular tests for measuring your ability in Japanese. There are about a million people who take the test in each year. The test has five levels, ranging from N5 (Simplest, requires about two semesters of Japanese college classes) to N1 (Hardest, requires more than five years of regular study). The test focuses on your language knowledge (vocabulary and grammar) and language execution (listening and reading).

I have already taken JLPT 4 times; I took N5, N4, N3 and N2. I was lucky enough to pass each level in one go. I was very happy because the test is very energy-consuming because it takes about three hours to finish all of the sections. However, my goal since I started learning Japanese is to pass the highest level (N1) before graduating college. I figured out that I should start soon since I might not have time to prepare for JLPT anymore when I am Junior or Senior.

However, one of the problems that I found when I study for Japanese is that I usually forget the grammar and vocabulary that I have learned for advanced level very quickly because I didn't get to use it much in my daily life. (Wish I could have all my classes in Japanese haha) My strategy is to cram all tricky vocabularies and grammars before exam, and focus more on listening and reading comprehension.

Here are some of the videos that I recently watched and thought that they help my listening skill a lot ! (These videos will be suitable for N2+ learners !)

I hope these videos will help you prepare for the upcoming JLPT exam ! Next time, I will discuss about how I prepared for the vocabulary and grammar section of the exam. See you again !