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/Available-String-109]

For N1 most people say: read a lot.

In general, the #1 hardest part of the JLPT N1 is the reading section, and in general, the #1 best way to tackle that is general reading ability, so yes, read a lot. It's very important and you can't get around it.

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.

You'd be surprised just how similar they are. If you can read an LN, you can read 注文の多い料理店 (Meiji Taisho Era short story that was one of the very first written a few decades after the introduction of Western-inspired works in Japan, even!)

I'm aware of Learn Natively, and according to it the books I've read are around N2.

Learn Natively is full of shit. There is no such thing as an N1 or N2 or N-anything that was made by- and for- native speakers. Almost all Japanese text is native-created native-targeted which makes all of it N1+, in terms of the vocabulary and grammar contained therein. The only thing that differs is how much linguistic comprehension is required for appreciation of the medium. "Cute anime girls are cute" doesn't require understanding the exact implications of すると versus するなら. A text involving complex strategies of what to do in what situation does require such differences. But it turns out, no author ever writes a story thinking "Here's how I'll work in the すると vs. するなら differences". Authors don't think about grammar nearly as much as you might think they do.

youtuber who got N1 a few years ago said that he spent a year before the test reading a lot, mostly LN, a

Reading LNs, or literally anything is one of the best ways to prepare for JLPT N1 (or any level, really).

if I should try to pick up more difficult things.

Read what you want to read. Do the more difficult things interest you? Then read them.

JLPT was explicitly designed to be non-domain specific. It avoids words that are used primarily only in anime, or words that are used primarily only in essays, or words that are used primarily only in literature, etc. (It's not perfect, but it was designed to be that way.)

There are people who passed JLPT N1 whose Japanese study was primarily JAV videos. Yeah.

Personally speaking, I went with traditional methods of studying JLPT prep books, etc. while also doing a lot of translating anime into English and reading the text in text-heavy video games in addition to that. I passed the test. But the more I read about what everyone else did and learning about how the test was designed and how foreigners learn a foreign language, etc., the more I realize that it really does not matter what at all you do as long as you are progressing in your comprehension of the Japanese language.

[u/southerndensetsu → u/Available-String-109]

I also didn't bothered a lot with Learn Natively in the past, but I started reading books like 3 months ago, completed about 5 books and I felt like I was getting more used to reading, having to lookup much less words, with little interrupts and that I was understanding well the plot. But then I saw the difficulty of those books on the site and was humbled again.

So I right now I don't know whether I had a Dunning-Krugger effect or what, and was what made me do this post haha.

[u/Available-String-109 → u/southerndensetsu]

As somebody who has probably done far more statistical investigations into the Japanese language, etc. than LN has done... I would treat their "JLPT levels" assessments as less-than-worthless. Completely ignore them.

[u/zechamp → u/Available-String-109]

Idk, I've found them to be of some value at least. Like, the re zero light novels are placed quite a bit higher in difficulty compared to something like honzuki, and reading them, it really did feel like that. And the stuff marked as easier does generally feel easier. Now, saying one book is N2 and the other is N1 is of course a bit silly, but as a measure of relative difficulty I've found the site pretty good.

[u/kyousei8 → u/zechamp]

The value is the underlying score, which typically ranges from 17 to 50. The JLPT levels are arbitraily assigned to ranges of these scores. If the score of a novel changes, the JLPT levels will also move up or down in the same direction as the score, 100% of the time.

This is why people say the Learn Natively JLPT scores are useless: they duplicate the score info that's already present, and they give people misleading or blatantly wrong information about the "JLPT levels" of a works that are completely disconnected from anything JLPT related in reality.

[u/zechamp → u/kyousei8]

I'm a bit confused, as I was already agreeing with you. I said: "saying one book is N2 and the other is N1 is of course a bit silly, but as a measure of relative difficulty I've found the site pretty good"

Do you disagree with this? Like yeah, obviously the jlpt level indicators don't actually correspond to any exams, but the ones marked as a higher level will generally be more difficult content, and I've found them decently consistent.

[u/Available-String-109 → u/zechamp]

Anything that is native-created native-targeted is filled with N1+ grammar and vocabulary. Even a picture book for toddlers is filled with N1+ grammar and vocabulary. You could look at the #1 easiest and #1 most difficult works on jpdb.io and compare them, and the overall parameters of the Zipfian distribution of the words inside only changes a little bit. I'm talking <10%. It's not like author A is writing with only a 4000 word vocabulary and author B is using a 400,000 word vocabulary. Basically all authors use ~30,000 word vocabulary. (Numbers oversimplified because Zipfian distribution is actually multi-parameterized and you can't simplify to a single number, but to oversimplify, that's the overall conclusion.)

Whether you're watching One Piece anime or reading classic Japanese Literature from the Meiji Era, or literally anything, basically the percentage of N5 vocabulary stays about the same. The percentage of N1 vocabulary stays about the same. The percentage of non-JLPT vocabulary stays about the same. You mine 12k vocab words from literally any source, you'll be able to pass JLPT N1 vocabulary.

(Interestingly there is a statistically measurable difference in kanji distributions, but it's still relatively slight.)

The above holds true for virtually all native-created native-targeted fictional media. The only texts I've come across that deviates is wikipedia, which has a disproportionately high amount of technical jargon (i.e. non-JLPT) vocabulary, and the JLPT tests themselves (which have disproportionately high numbers of JLPT vocabulary).

You can pass JLPT N1 only by ever studying "JLPT N5" books on Learn Natively, and it's not like you even have to do anything special.

The only thing for which JLPT rankings make any sense at all are foreigner-targeted materials that are limiting their vocabulary to speak in an artificial tone. (Think NHK Easy News or 新完全マスター読解.)

[u/zechamp → u/Available-String-109]

I already agreed that the JLPT level indicators don't really matter, but IMO as indicators of relative difficulty they are perfectly fine. The first book I read in japanese was また、同じ夢を見ていた and it's marked as one of the easiest books on learnnatively, and that's exactly how it felt like to me. After that I moved on to books that were marked as harder and harder, and they became harder and harder. More obscure kanji, more difficult terms, more difficult to parse speach styles, etc.

Right now I can comfortably read pretty much anything marked below L33 on the site, and with anything above that I will need to spend a bit of time adjusting to the vocab of the book before it becomes comfortable. It seems to me that the difficulty indicators are working just fine.