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Good afternoon!

I am curious as to which level of the site would approxiamtely be equivilant to the JLPT 3. I took the J-CAT test and scored in their pre-intermediate level which they said was about JLPT3. I have been trying to decide where to study since I know somethings well, and others not at all, and am kind of confused. If you could help me out, I would really appreciate it.

I don't know whether I can offer very useful advice, but I am actually doing JLPT N3 this year (only 3 weeks now!). That's not to say my ability is the same as yours - if you tested at that level you are probably way ahead of me. For me N3 is a stretch target.

The most useful podcasts for my current level of Japanese ability are Beginner Season 6 and Lower Intermediate Season 6. These are the levels at which I can understand most of the conversations. This is probably less advanced than the N3 exam (in terms of grammar and vocab) but it's the level that's most useful to me in terms of listening.

It may sound silly to be still using "Beginner" level when I'm studying for N3, and maybe it is, but you just have to find the level that suits your own ability and work with that.


I just want to add one warning about the JLPT test. Being "at the level" of the N3 test is not enough. If you decide to do a JLPT exam you have to prepare and train specifically for this test, and be very familiar with the kind of questions, the timing, and put in the hours to cram the vocab, kanji and grammar.

Roughly, the upper intermediate are JLPT3, the audio blogs JLPT2.

kon'nichiwa, minasan!

Thank you very much for your helps, daraconn3460-san, and Ogemaniac-san!!

Like they said, it's difficult to say exaclty which lesson is the "best" to study, because we don't know about
your current knowledge...

If you studies the basice grammar, you might try out "JLPT preparation" lessons

please let us know if you have any more questions!


Natsuko (奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

Ogemaniac wrote:Roughly, the upper intermediate are JLPT3, the audio blogs JLPT2.

I think that is a little harsh. The audio blogs have a lot of N1 vocabulary and seem well above N2. The N2 listening section doesn't seem any worse to me than listening to to an upper-intermediate stone cold (eg, without reading the transcripts first any skipping straight to the actual story so that you aren't given free context). In fact, I find the upper intermediates done this way are almost exactly as difficult as the N2 practice listening exams I have run through (and passed). I generally listen to them cold, then listen again in full, and then listen again while reading the transcript to mop up anything I missed.

I'd say

N3 = a bit above lower intermediate
N2 = a bit above upper intermediate
N1 = somewhere above the audio blogs (I don't know because I am prepping for N2).

Ogemaniac-san,
thank you very much for detailed explanations and help!!

Natsuko(奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com