How to study for the JLPT: a daily routine for every section
Most JLPT plans pile on kanji and vocabulary and leave reading and listening for the last month. Here is how to choose your level, understand the scoring, and train all five skills a little every day.
The Japanese-Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) checks five skills: kanji (文字), vocabulary (語彙), grammar (文法), reading (読解) and listening (聴解). A common mistake is to treat it as a memory test, spend months on word lists, then discover in the last few weeks that reading under time pressure and following spoken Japanese are separate skills that take time to build. The plan below trains all five a little every day.
1. Start from the sitting you are taking
The JLPT is held twice a year, in July and December. Some cities outside Japan hold only one of the two, and registration closes well before test day, so check the schedule with the host institution in your city first. Working back from a fixed date tells you how many weeks you have and keeps the plan honest.
To choose a level, try the official sample questions on jlpt.jp rather than counting kanji. The JLPT has not published official kanji or vocabulary lists since the test was revised in 2010. The lists you see online, including the ones most apps use, are community lists built from older material and past tests. They are useful guides, but they are not a syllabus.
2. Know how you pass
Every level is scored out of 180, but passing takes two things: an overall score at or above the pass mark, and at least the minimum in every scored section. A great vocabulary score cannot rescue a listening score below 19.
| Level | Scored sections (points) | Overall pass mark | Section minimums |
|---|---|---|---|
| N1 | Language Knowledge (Vocabulary, Grammar) 0–60 · Reading 0–60 · Listening 0–60 | 100 / 180 | 19 in each section |
| N2 | Same three sections, 0–60 each | 90 / 180 | 19 in each section |
| N3 | Same three sections, 0–60 each | 95 / 180 | 19 in each section |
| N4 | Language Knowledge (Vocabulary, Grammar) and Reading 0–120 · Listening 0–60 | 90 / 180 | 38 and 19 |
| N5 | Language Knowledge (Vocabulary, Grammar) and Reading 0–120 · Listening 0–60 | 80 / 180 | 38 and 19 |
Pass marks as published by the JLPT. Check jlpt.jp before your test in case anything has changed.
So listening has to be in the plan from week one. At N1 to N3 it is a full third of your score, and at N4 and N5 it is the only section scored on its own.
3. A daily routine that covers everything
Thirty to forty-five focused minutes a day beats a long weekend session. Here is one order that works:
- Due reviews first. Spaced repetition only works if you clear the cards that are due today. Rate each card honestly: marking a shaky card "easy" just pushes it out of sight until you have forgotten it.
- A few new cards. Pick a pace you can keep on your worst day, such as 5, 10 or 20 new kanji or words. Every new card comes back as a review tomorrow, the day after and beyond, so a pace that feels easy in week one can become a heavy review pile by week six.
- One grammar point in context. Learn a pattern from example sentences, not just its English gloss. JLPT grammar questions test which form fits a sentence, so meaning alone is not enough.
- One reading passage. Time yourself. Read the question before the passage when you are looking for specific information, such as in notices, schedules and ads.
- One listening item. Listen once without the transcript and answer. Then replay it with the transcript and find exactly where you lost the thread.
4. Train reading and listening on purpose
Reading
Reading questions reward finding information fast, not translating every word. Practise skimming for the sentence that answers the question, and get used to passages that are longer than they look. If you read native material outside the test, you will also meet vertical text (縦書き), which runs top to bottom. Our guide to reading vertical Japanese covers it.
Listening
In the test you can't pause or rewind the audio. Many listening questions describe the situation first and then ask what someone will do next, so listen for decisions and changes of plan ("やっぱり…", "じゃあ…"), not for every word. Short daily sessions build this much better than a weekly marathon.
5. The last four to six weeks
- Do at least one full, timed practice test under exam conditions. The JLPT publishes official practice workbooks and free sample questions on jlpt.jp.
- Sort your mistakes by section and spend the final weeks on the weakest one, especially if it is close to the section minimum.
- Keep doing daily reviews. This is not the time to stop, and it is not the time to add hundreds of new cards either.
Common mistakes
- Treating word lists as the whole exam and ignoring the section minimums.
- Adding new cards faster than you can review them, then quitting when the review pile gets out of hand.
- Only reading with furigana. Turn it off for words you already know so you actually practise reading the kanji.
- Saving listening for "later".
For a closer look at what each part of the test asks, read the JLPT test sections explained.