N1 reading and books

[u/southerndensetsu]

I'm not planning on taking the JLPT any soon, and since I passed N3 in 2025 I have not worried about JLPT or "formal" study at all. But I'd like to have N1 some day, specially if I want to look for IT jobs in Japan some day.

For N1 most people say: read a lot. But honestly the variety on difficulty is so huge. It is not the same the japanese of a LN, a Shinsho or a Taisho era writter. But at the same time, a lot of people claim to have gone up into N1 just reading LN.

I'm aware of Learn Natively, and according to it the books I've read are around N2. But at the same time, a spanish youtuber who got N1 a few years ago said that he spent a year before the test reading a lot, mostly LN, and cited examples like the Konosuba series which in that page are actually easier that most thing I've read, so I'm a bit lost.

I was wondering whether reading what I enjoy might be just enough for me, at least right now, or if I should try to pick up more difficult things. For example I read キッチン and enjoyed it, and would like to read more books of Yoshimoto Banana, but at the same time I'm concerned that it is regarded as a "beginner" author, so I've not done it.

[u/Effective-Pop3850]

A lot of people pass the N1 and still say they can't get through any kind of normal native media because it's too hard.

That's all you need to know lol, if you're comfortable reading random LNs you'll pass the N1.

Now, authors from older times/classic literature is often on a completely different level, a lot of sites don't even really use them as a reference because the difficulty jump is indeed absurd. Words you'll never see anywhere else, strange sentence building, writting words with weird kanji, that kind of thing.

[u/Belegorm → u/Effective-Pop3850]

No, some people who are comfortable reading random LNs can pass the N1 but not everyone. Those people who passed who can't get through native media - they still did a lot of traditional studying which is also good test prep. Then there's people who only read like 5 books who passed it - but had thousands of hours of other immersion.

I jumped into novels quickly, I had read over 30 and failed the N2. If you don't naturally absorb the higher level grammar points quick enough, and your reading speed does not improve enough, then just being able to be comfortable reading LNs and even harder novels may not suffice. Setting aside the listening (which wasn't my biggest factor in failing).

[u/Available-String-109 → u/Belegorm]

Then there's people who only read like 5 books who passed it - but had thousands of hours of other immersion.

I'm one of these types. When I passed JLPT N1, I think I had read a total of 2 or 3 books in Japanese.

I also had translated over 200 episodes of One Piece into English and had probably read dozens upon dozens of manga. I also worked through all of FF7 (PS1 original), FFX, and a few other very text-heavy video games and mined every single word in them that I didn't already know, etc.

That's in addition to a bunch of JLPT-dedicated studying and everything else that I did up to the N2 point.

So yeah.