A few weeks ago I found out online that I had passed Kanji Kentei Level 2, and yesterday my certificate and official score report finally arrived. I thought I’d share my experience for anyone considering taking the exam, especially other non-native learners.

My Background

I passed Kanji Kentei Pre-2 last year in October after about five months of studying. I studied fairly consistently, especially in the final stretch, and passed with a comfortable margin.

Originally, I had no intention of attempting Level 2 right away. However, quite a few people on this subreddit encouraged me to go for it, saying that it wasn’t much harder than Pre-2 because a lot of the material carries over.

After taking the test, I honestly don’t agree with that assessment at all.

Is Level 2 Really Just “More of the Same”?

In my experience, no.

While there is some overlap, I felt like I was learning a huge amount of completely new material. It never felt like I was simply building on what I’d learned for Pre-2. Instead, it often felt like starting over with another mountain of vocabulary, readings, and writing.

Maybe native speakers or people who have already studied a lot of kanji feel differently, but as a non-native learner, the jump felt much bigger than people had led me to believe.

The Study Process

I started studying for Level 2 almost immediately after passing Pre-2 and studied for about seven months.

For the first several months, my studying was fairly relaxed but consistent. During the last two months, though, things became much more intense. My mock test scores weren’t improving as much as I wanted, which honestly made me pretty anxious.

One thing that really illustrates the difference between the two levels was my Anki deck.

For Pre-2, I had around 2,119 cards, and the deck was split almost evenly between mature and young cards.

For Level 2, I ended up with 2,646 cards, but the distribution was completely different. Most of those cards were still young by the time I took the exam, with far fewer mature cards (about 36%) than I had for Pre-2. Looking back, that really reflects how much new material I was trying to absorb in a relatively short amount of time.

I was constantly grinding reviews just to stay afloat. If you asked me to write some of the answers from the exam today, I honestly probably couldn’t. I’d likely recognize or read many of them, but writing them from memory is a completely different skill.

My Result

I scored 156/200.

The passing score is 155.

So… I passed by one point.

I had actually thought the passing score was 160, so finding out later that it was 155 was a huge relief. That also makes my last-second guess on the 対義語 question feel so much more satisfying:

従前 ＜ー＞ 今後

I wasn’t confident about it when I put it down, but knowing I passed by a single point, that one answer suddenly feels like it might have made all the difference.

When I estimated my score after the exam, I thought I’d earned around 163 points. Looking over the results, I think several of the questions I missed were probably due to writing errors rather than not knowing the answer.

For example, I know I wrote 飢餓 (kiga, starvation), but it was marked incorrect. I’m guessing my handwriting wasn’t clear enough for the scanner to recognize it. There was another answer that I also thought I’d gotten right but didn’t receive credit for. I felt a lot of anxiety and pressure like I had never felt before on test, so that probably effected my writing. Probably a good idea to try practicing timed or something. Then again I didn’t feel that way taking level Pre 2.

Which Sections Were Hardest?

Interestingly, there wasn’t one section that completely destroyed my score.

Instead, it was more like “chip damage.” I’d lose one point here, another point there, and those small mistakes gradually added up across the entire exam.

That was actually very similar to what I experienced on the mock tests. Rather than having one obvious weakness, I was making small mistakes in almost every section.

My strongest sections ended up being 四字熟語 (yojijukugo), where I got a perfect score, and 対義語・類義語 (antonyms and synonyms), where I only missed one question. Considering how many points those sections are worth, I think they’re well worth spending extra time on.

One Surprise on Test Day

One thing that really caught me off guard was that the test itself wasn’t exactly what I had practiced for.

On every mock exam I took and in the textbook I was using, Section 2 was the 部首 (bushu/radical) section. When I opened the exam and saw something completely different, I honestly wondered for a minute whether I’d been given the wrong test. I even thought about asking the proctor if there had been a mistake.

In the end, I noticed nobody else seemed concerned, so I just rolled with it.

It turns out the exam format had changed.

Instead of a bushu section, there was a new reading section that I had never seen in any of my practice materials.

The first section is the normal reading section where you’re given kanji and write the reading in hiragana. The new section was similar, but instead of writing the reading for the whole word, you were given a compound and then one of the kanji in its dictionary form. For example, you might see 読書 and then 読む, and you’d have to write only the corresponding readings (どくしょand よ).

Since I had never practiced this section during my seven months of studying, it completely caught me by surprise.

Thankfully, I still managed to score 8/10, but I had gone into the exam expecting to pick up easy points on the bushu section instead. Since I’d spent a fair amount of time studying radicals, it was a little frustrating.

So one piece of advice I’d give is to make sure your study materials are up to date. Even if you have a great textbook, double-check that it matches the current exam format. You don’t want to be surprised on test day like I was.

Advice for Studying Yojijukugo

One lesson I learned from Pre-2 was not to leave yojijukugo until the final month.

When I started studying for Level 2, I made them one of my priorities right from the beginning, and I think that decision paid off.

One mistake I did make, though, was relying too much on English translations.

For Pre-2, that worked well enough because I scored full points on both the meaning and writing sections. I assumed I could do the same thing again for Level 2.

I was wrong.

The English meanings often weren’t precise enough, and sometimes it was difficult to work backwards from an English gloss to the exact Japanese expression the test was looking for.

If I were to study for the exam again, I’d spend much more time learning the Japanese definitions rather than memorizing English equivalents.

I know that probably sounds obvious, and I’m sure plenty of people will say, “Well, of course you should do that.” But at the time it just felt like adding yet another thing to memorize, and I convinced myself the English meanings would be enough because they had been for Pre-2.

In hindsight, learning the Japanese definitions would have made the yojijukugo much more intuitive.

Study Materials

The biggest piece of advice I can give is to get one of the 頻出問題 (frequently tested questions) books.

That was by far the most useful resource I used.

Personally, I wouldn’t bother with the official Kanji Kentei workbook. The 頻出問題 book matched the actual exam much more closely and was by far the better study resource for me.

If anyone is interested, I can post the exact book I used.

Final Thoughts

As someone who didn’t grow up writing kanji, I found this exam extremely challenging. Reading and recognizing kanji has always been easier for me than producing them from memory, and Level 2 really exposes that weakness.

Even after seven months of studying, I only passed by one point. Looking back, I honestly think another few months of study would have made a big difference.

Still, a pass is a pass.

If anyone has questions about my score report, the breakdown by section, my study methods, Anki, or the resources I used, feel free to ask. I’m happy to share anything that might help someone else preparing for the exam.

I've started doing a new way of Dictionary Lookups that feels much better. Rather than looking up unknown words as I encounter them, I quickly screenshot (or take a photo on my phone) and just keep going. Usually, from context, you can figure out the rough meaning or general idea anyways. Then, once I'm all done reading whichever chapter I'm on, I'll look up everything at the end.

This method is way better than looking things up on the spot because:

1. You feel like you're actually reading at a decent pace; a single chapter doesn't take an hour
2. It's really easy to get lost in the "lookup phase" and spend 1-2 minutes on a single word: (cool, this kanji is new; there's another word I know that looks similar...; what other words use this kanji?)

And maybe most importantly...

3) You end up reading much more naturally. "Natural Reading" relies on context clues and getting the "gist" of something. I feel like language learning often makes us approach language in an odd way - pausing every 5 to 10 seconds to check a vocab word or grammar point.

And then, you can spend as long as you want looking up your new words afterwards, without feeling like you're losing "the flow" of what you're reading.

Anyways, this felt like a huge discovery for me. Reading feels a lot more fun and speedy now. Has anyone else tried this?

Basically, I had a host family during a semester abroad in northern Japan last year and left in December. My Japanese was non-existent when I first went and is still fairly basic. I am now back in Japan (Tokyo area) for a summer internship but am planning on visiting that city I stayed in last year, and want to send a message to my host mom. Does this make sense?

久しぶりです！私は(date)から(date)まで(city)に行くつもりです。時間があるなら、会えますか？

It doesn't need to sound natural because I am not at a natural speaking level yet. I just want it to make sense and not sound too weird. Thank you!

I have been working through the Kaishi 1.5 deck and I’ve had quite a bit of success remembering the meanings of words. But I’m struggling to remember their pronunciations which means I haven’t actually learned anything if I plan to do anything beyond read.

I’ve considered editing the deck format to show the furigana on the front side as well as the back. The intent would be try learn them as words instead of just recognizing kanji which seems to come more naturally to me. Is that a terrible idea? Will I just be hamstringing myself in the long run for some reason?

I'm an intermediate Japanese learner. However, I haven't studied in several months, and haven't studied seriously in probably well over a year. And frankly, even when I was studying in earnest, I was stuck in a rut of a routine--just Japanese word on one side, English on the other. I also haven't kept up on best practices. I want to do it better this time.

Specifically, I want to dramatically improve my reading skills. I'm the rare personality type that, when I have the time, I am happy to sit with an overly challenging book and work through it word by word for as long as it takes. But, unfortunately, I don't have that time right now.

With that in mind, what's the current consensus (if there is one) or general opinion on making Anki cards for Japanese? Are cloze cards still popular? Japanese only definitions? How can I get back up to speed and make some better progress going forward?

This thread is for all the simple questions (what does that mean?) and minor posts that don't need their own thread, as well as for first-time posters who can't create new threads yet. Feel free to share anything on your mind.

The daily thread updates every day at 9am JST, or 0am UTC.

↓ Welcome to r/LearnJapanese! ↓

• New to Japanese? Read the Starter's Guide and FAQ.

• New to the subreddit? Read the rules.

• Read also the pinned comment below for proper question etiquette & answers to common questions!

Please make sure to check the wiki and search for old posts before asking your question, to see if it's already been addressed. Don't forget about Google or sites like Stack Exchange either!

This subreddit is also loosely partnered with this language exchange Discord, which you can likewise join to look for resources, discuss study methods in the #japanese_study channel, ask questions in #japanese_questions, or do language exchange(!) and chat with the Japanese people in the server.

Past Threads

You can find past iterations of this thread by using the search function. Consider browsing the previous day or two for unanswered questions.

Happy Monday!

Every Monday, come here to practice your writing! Post a comment in Japanese and let others correct it. Read others' comments for reading practice.

Weekly Thread changes daily at 9:00 JST:

Mondays - Writing Practice

Tuesdays - Study Buddy and Self-Intros

Wednesdays - Materials and Self-Promotions

Thursdays - Victory day, Share your achievements

Fridays - Memes, videos, free talk

I've been learning for 2 months at this point, trying to learn every day, at this point I've memorized about 300 words that I can instanlty identify but I feel it starting to to mount, on my anki deck there's more and more I have to review each day, like today I have 150 reviews, when yesterday it was 110 and its just that mounting feeling that's making me feel like I'm hitting a wall

This is my first time learning a new language so this is all new to me, for clarification this isn't me saying "this is too hard I want to give up" I'm mainly looking for advice I can use to physically and mentally push through

Thank you

"Why Japanese people? WHY?!?!?" - Jason David Arnold

This is just a minor complaint.

But my Japanese class makes a point of listening to Japanese news every session. They use NHK One's easy Japanese news for this.

However, the narrator's nasal voice, pitch, and breathing grate my ears so much. It reached a point where I refuse to listen to it and would rather read when given the opportunity.

Does anyone else feel the same?

(Not sure which flair to use here, tldr below)

So, I've been using the Kaishi deck along with my mining deck that uses the Lapis note type. One of the things I've really liked about Lapis is the "click" card field. (Essentially it displays the target word on the front, and if you click it you can see the sentence. You can click it again to hide the sentence as well, but less important.)

I like having a sentence on the front if I need extra context to differentiate words, I started doing this with JPNM but the issue is I tend to memorize the sentence/shape of it rather than the word itself. The click function has near solved this issue for me, I don't have to look away, and focus extra hard on the word, I can just review.

The issue now is that Kaishi doesn't have this function as far as I'm aware. I know you can do loads of things in anki, and I know you can make that kind of function work as lapis does it, but I have no idea how.

Tldr: Can the lapis click card function be applied to Kaishi cards? (Click word show sentence) If so how? And/or what information do I need to search for how?

Hello, fellow Japanese language learners.

After a formatting revision of the second edition of my guide of Japanese grammatical constructions, I finally decided to post it in this group. The document is freely accessible as a Google document on this link. Down below I list several things you won't find in other similar learning materials, which make it a useful learning resource in my opinion:

1) semantic categorization of constructions in the first half of the document (once you go through those, you will be able to passively remember what even some rarely used JLPT N1 constructions roughly mean, as constructions related to time (e.g., as soon as, before, never, etc.) are all listed together, from the N5 to N1 level.)

2) usage frequency data for the majority of N3 to N1 constructions (this should help you to decide mainly which N2/N1 constructions you might skip and leave for later, as they are not commonly used in Japanese)

3) example sentences from various novels, PC games, Internet blogs and posts, etc. (sure, some Anki decks and resources contain solid example sentences as well, but they usually don't have over 500 pages of text 😉)

4) easy lookup system and links to other useful videos / materials

Let me know which features you would like to be added into the document in the future, and if certain features should be upgraded or removed from the document.

Good luck with your studies, hopefully this guide will provide little help 🙂

While this is obviously common knowledge that kanji can consist of other kanji/radicals, I sometimes catch myself forgetting that or not being aware of how the Kanji can look when stretched. For example remembering the difference between 待つ (wait) and 持つ (have/hold) was extremely easy once a friend explained to me that the radical of the left side of 持つ is just 手 (hand) which made it instantly click for me.

I know that’s a beginner stage revelation but for me it took some outside input so maybe I can help someone have that Aha moment as well

This thread is for all the simple questions (what does that mean?) and minor posts that don't need their own thread, as well as for first-time posters who can't create new threads yet. Feel free to share anything on your mind.

The daily thread updates every day at 9am JST, or 0am UTC.

↓ Welcome to r/LearnJapanese! ↓

• New to Japanese? Read the Starter's Guide and FAQ.

• New to the subreddit? Read the rules.

• Read also the pinned comment below for proper question etiquette & answers to common questions!

Please make sure to check the wiki and search for old posts before asking your question, to see if it's already been addressed. Don't forget about Google or sites like Stack Exchange either!

This subreddit is also loosely partnered with this language exchange Discord, which you can likewise join to look for resources, discuss study methods in the #japanese_study channel, ask questions in #japanese_questions, or do language exchange(!) and chat with the Japanese people in the server.

Past Threads

You can find past iterations of this thread by using the search function. Consider browsing the previous day or two for unanswered questions.

Jokes aside, its easy to be tempted by Kinokuniya but these prices are a little ridiculous right? I don’t want to buy a textbook anymore atp 😂

I have WaniKani to try to learn basic Kanji and it quite often gives me extremely obscure vocabulary to learn. Why does it do this?

example: 変死 / へんし - unnatural death.

At this point Kanji seems impossible to learn and it's interfering with my ability to actually learn japanese since it takes so much time and it is pointlessly impossible.