Kanji
Studying for the Kanji section of JLPT isn’t really difficult. It is just time consuming. For many students taking JLPT, Kanji seems to be their biggest concern. However, for levels 4 and 3 it shouldn’t be. For level 4 you only need to know about 100 Kanji characters. Level 3 requires a knowledge of 300 Kanji characters. If you have mastered Hiragana and Katakana, learning the Kanji for these levels is relatively easy compared to levels 1 and 2. Kanji is just time consuming and boring. More than Kanji, vocabulary is the area where the hard questions come in the first section of the JLPT.
Here is a sample video of a level 4 Japanese Proficiency Power Video Tutorial
Vocabulary is referred to as “goi” in the test. The vocabulary questions are focused on adjectives, verbs, adverbs. Most of the vocabulary questions are written in hiragana for level 3 and 4. Unlike Kanji questions, you must understand the context and content of the question. With the Kanji questions you can get away without understanding the meaning of the sentence because you are only identifying Kanji. Chinese students in particuler do well in the Kanji section, because of their knowledge of Chinese Kanji. In most cases students can pick the correct readings of Kanji with out even reading and thinking about the question. However, the vocabulary questions test your understanding of word usage in context.
The best way to learn Kanji for the JLPT is to learn words rather than individual Kanji readings. In the test you are not really tested on Kanji readings, but rather on Kanji vocabulary readings. There is no point learning all the possible readings for 100 Kanji when you won’t be tested on this anyway. It is far more beneficial and productive to learn vocabulary in context. So learning short sentences is a better way to learn Kanji and to learn how to read. Keep in mind you have about 800 words to learn for level 4 and 1500 words for level 3.
Here is a sample video on the JLPT Level 4 Kanji section from our product Japanese Proficiency Power. In the video we show you how to approach the questions with lots of hints.
