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Earlier this month, Peter and I took the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (commonly known as the JLPT). It was quite an interesting experience, so we thought we’d share about it here.

TEST LEVELS

There are five levels for the JLPT, with N5 being the lowest level and N1 being the highest. Each level includes components of listening, reading, grammar, and vocabulary.

We decided to start at the bottom level, with the N5. I’ve never taken formal Japanese classes before, so although my level is higher, I wanted to make sure I gave myself a chance to acclimatize to the Japanese test-giving structure.

SIGNING UP FOR THE TEST

The JLPT is available twice a year, in July and December. To sign up, you have to fill out a form on the JLPT website a couple of months before the test. The sign-up period is only three weeks long, and it’s not well-publicized as to when this period starts/ends.

That was the first hurdle: figuring out when the sign-up period was. We’d actually wanted to take the N5 test in July, and had been keeping an eye on the website. However, life got busy for a few weeks, and by the time I remembered to check the website again, we’d missed the sign-up period by a day!

We counted the interval between that sign-up period and the July test so we could estimate when the next one would start. When September rolled around, we were more prepared!

The next hurdle: filling out the sign-up form. Everything was going well, until I came to the part where they ask you to fill out your address. 

Our address was required was so that they could send us the little postcards that would grant us admittance into our tests. Those postcards would be our proof of identity/payment, and vital for test taking.

The internet form had intentionally restricted the address fields to allow no English characters. If you entered an English character, the form would error. (Clearly, they want to force you to use Japanese on the form, rather than English approximations.) But here’s the thing: our apartment number is “C-3”. How were we to tell them our address without using the letter that’s in our apartment number? Without it, they would get to the correct line of apartments, but not the correct floor.

We ended up using a Japanese character that’s pronounced “she” (which is the same way Japanese people pronounce “C”) and crossed our fingers that we would actually receive our paperwork.

(Thankfully, we did—our mail came with handwritten notations from the the post office workers who’d had to refer to their files to decipher our address.)

Our JLPT postcards

Perhaps the application process should have been our first clue that all would not go as expected…

PRACTICING FOR THE TEST

We picked up a few books to help us study for the test. Here are the books we purchased:

The books we purchased: (1) a book on vocabulary, (2) a book on verb conjugations, (3) two books (one each) with practice tests

The test is divided into 3 parts:

・vocabulary (20 mins)

・grammar (40 mins)

・listening comprehension (30 mins)

...so in theory, you should be able to finish everything in 1.5 hours, right? That's how it went when we did our practice tests. 

We both exceeded the minimum grade requirements by a wide margin on all of our practice tests. We were ready—or so we thought…

TAKING THE TEST

We were told to get to the test centre between 11:45 and 12:30 on December 1st. (It would start at 12:30.) We split the difference and arrived at 12:10ish.

Part 1:

Upon sitting down, the moderators proceeded to go through a long 20-minute explanation (in Japanese) of what was and was not allowed during the test. (They have a yellow/red penalty card system, as in soccer.) This explanation would have been impossible for anyone at an N5 level to understand. But these rules had also been outlined (in English and Japanese) on our postcards. 

Next, we were instructed to take the paper jackets off of our erasers—I suppose to eliminate the possibility of cheating. The moderator’s assistant went up and down the rows of desks, checking our IDs, and that we were in our assigned seats. The moderator instructed everyone to turn off their phones, place them in plastic bags, and then under their desks. The moderator and her assistant handed out all the test sheets, walking up and down the aisles. Then, in a separate step, they handed out the test question booklets in the same way. 

What was allowed on our desks

After about 20 minutes of preparation, we were allowed to write the vocabulary section of the test. This took 20 minutes.

----BREAK: 30 minutes----

Wait, what??

We all filed out of the classroom into an atrium where we were instructed to be quiet for fear of disturbing other test-takers at higher levels.

We all filed back into the room after 25 minutes.

Part 2:

We went through the same long 20-minute explanation as we’d experienced in Part 1. None of the steps were shortened. All of the same penalty card explanations were reiterated. Our identities were re-checked; phones, re-bagged; moderators up and down the aisles three times—with seat checks, test sheets, and booklets. Everything. The. Same.

After about 20 minutes of preparation, we were allowed to write the grammar section for 40 minutes.

----BREAK: 30 minutes----

What is going on????

We all filed out of the classroom into an atrium where we were instructed to be quiet for fear of disturbing other test-takers at higher levels.

We all filed back into the room after 25 minutes.

Part 3:

We went through the same long 20-minute explanation as we’d experienced in Parts 1 and 2. Again, none of the steps were shortened. All of the same explanations. Our identities were re-checked; phones, re-bagged; moderators up and down the aisles three times—with seat checks, test sheets, and booklets. Everything. The. Same.

After about 20 minutes of preparation, we were allowed to do the listening section for 30 minutes. Peter was in the room neighbouring mine. Apparently my room’s speaker was a little faster than his, which made it hard for him to listen. 

For both of us, our exhausted brains turned off halfway through and we were no longer able to absorb what we were hearing—nooo! (They re-started after a few minutes of panic.)

We went in at 12:30. We got out near 4pm. 

The JLPT ended up being a test of stamina more than of language! Phewf! Chalk one up for a new experience!

We will be studying differently for the N4....

2025-02-27 UPDATE

We passed! We received our results online last week, and our official Certificates of Japanese Language Proficiency (at the N5 level) today!