The JLPT Study Page

I set out to take the JLPT Level 4 exam in 2004, and was a bit confused about where to start.

Although some information about JLPT exams was available elsewhere on the internet, the information was rarely formatted or organised in a way that I was able to use and I was constantly worried about the official list of what you need to know - a question I've only just come to grips with recently.

Also, I wasn't quite sure what skill level was required. I sometimes hear people claim that Level 4 is easy enough to pass within a few months of studying Japanese - which I now realise is a gross under-estimate.

So, despite being void of any artistic talent, I decided to create the sort of web site I was originally hoping to find. I wanted all the lists (Kanji, Vocab and the largely unknown Expression List) and in particular I wanted a list of required Grammar. I also wanted to make sure the lists were up to date - since a lot of JLPT requirements were updated in 2002.

With some good fortune, I passed level 4 (2004) and then level 3 (2005), and started to create web pages as part of my study regime. Later, I decided to purchase the official Test Content Specification book to make sure that everything was correct and up to date. What I found was that a lot of lists available on the internet were either out of date (kanji lists) and/or contained a lot of mistakes (vocab lists) so I typed these up and checked everything - which is where www.jlptstudy.com comes in - it is a compendium of all my study efforts and a bit of extra stuff - just for the fun of maintaining a web site.

Although I'm studying toward Level 2 now, I like revising a lot and so often work on material (such as quizzes) for Levels 3 and 4. There is also the JLPT Study Forum. I sometimes use this forum like a blog.

I have often felt that there is a certain mystery surrounding the JLPT exams, perhaps due to the relative secrecy that surrounds the test content (the Test Content Specification is only meant for Japanese examiners). With this page and forum, I hope to clarify some of it and give people more confidence about what to expect.

ピーターバンダウッド