Well, the test is done. I completed the JLPT N2 exam this past Sunday, and like last year, I feel exhausted. I can’t be sure if I passed or not; I will get the results 3 months from now in late February.
To be honest, I feel I might have passed. Not by a great score, but I think I might have passed just enough. Or, alternatively I failed by a close score. In hindsight, I spent too much time studying for things that didn’t really help, and not enough on things that I should have. I was not as prepared as I hoped but I was not completely off-guard either. I have mixed feelings about the test in other words.
But even failure has its value.
I’ve been continuing my read of a great Japanese manga called 宇宙兄弟 (uchū kyōdai “Space Brothers”) and recently finished issue 11:
Every issue tends to have an overarching message pertaining to adult life. In this issue, the following phrase is mentioned several times:
本気の失敗には価値がある。
honki no shippai ni wa kachi ga aru.
Which means something like “there’s value in true failure.” I thought this phrase was really inspirational.
Recently I was reading AJATT’s article on learning Japanese and aiming to fail. He points out the famous baseball player, Babe Ruth, who was famous for his home-run record, but most people are unaware that he had almost twice as many strikeouts as home-runs. He failed often, but because he kept playing, he also gained the record for home-runs.
So even if I did fail the JLPT N2, which is a distinct possibility, then I can go into the test much better prepared next time around. Even if I did pass, the test experience exposed a lot of weaknesses too.
Hello, this blog is about my life as a father, Buddhist and Japanophile / Koreaphile. Any useful information I can pass along will hopefully make the 
I took the N3 and while I have a feeling I either closely passed or failed, I feel I am much better prepared for the next time around. That quote is also inspirational and true. Even if we experience true failure we just have to keep going or we’d get nowhere.
Having taken the N2 twice now, could you give any advice on what kind of things would be helpful to study up on?
Hi Jordan and welcome. Actually, I’ve only taken the JLPT N2 once. As for advice, apart from studying all the material for the JLPT N2 (various blog posts about it), you should definitely get as much exposure as you can to Japanese language and media. Only then can you apply what you learned. Good luck.
I enjoyed reading this man. I too took on the jlpt n2 earlier this month and have a better feeling about it this time around. Excellent quote from that manga. I wish you good luck come this February.
Hi colin and welcome to the JLR,
I wish you luck on passing too.
It sounds like you’ve taken it before. I have a feeling I might be taking it again. ;p
Doug, if you’re at N2 level, you will have no problems reading and understanding real Japanese media. Just read newspapers (not NHK news, which is intentionally simple, but real newspapers), newspaper editorials (社説, great for vocabulary, Nikkei, Asahi and Yomiuri’s are available online for free) and magazines.
Manga won’t help much to be honest. It’ll make you feel great because you understand everything but ultimately you are unlikely to make progress.
Hi Steve and welcome to the JLR! That’s helpful advice. To be honest, I am still waiting to know if I passed or not, so I can’t really say if I am N2 or not (or still N3 level). But I think you’re advice is very helpful. True, I read manga a lot, and have been hesitant to read newspapers apart from an occasional glance. I’ll check out the suggestions you have. I never thought about reading the editorials in particular; the regular articles can be painfully tough at times.
Thanks for leaving a comment.
Well, in that case you might wanna start with http://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/ to get your basic news vocabulary up to snuff I guess. General news articles are really repetitive vocabulary-wise so it should be quite easy to get the hang of it. NHK stuff is generally easier to understand than, say, Asahi or Yomiuri.
Editorials are great because they contain tons of idiomatic expressions, flowery language and advanced grammar that you just don’t (easily) find anywhere else (but that you are still expected to know for your JLPT). Plus they make you sound really smart when you can say, “Yeah, we totally should demand that they move ahead with that constitutional reform” (today’s Yomiuri Shinbun)
(Not sure if you know Rikaichan, really helpful when reading online.)
Thanks Steve, I checked out the editorials for Yomiuri and Asahi (yomiuri was easier to find). I see what you mean now: this can really help reading practice for both N2 and N1 JLPT exams. I will update the JLPT prep page soon.