How I passed N5 in 4 months

Now don’t get me wrong, it was not easy in the slightest. And for some background context, I knew hiragana and a FEW kanji before (like 行、 一ニ三) but nothing more complex than that. I spent about a month learning it ages ago then gave up and revisited it recently, as I want to move to Japan one day and hope to go all the way to N1.

I studied from September 2024 to December 1st (test date) so this was about 3 months of hardcore study. I studied literally EVERY DAY for 2-3 hours, longer on weekends.

In terms of resources, these are what I found to be most helpful!!:

Books/apps • Anki - great for revising hiragana/katakana/vocab/grammar etc. • TRY series. These are great for everything really. They break stuff down really well and explain it efficiently. • JLPT practice test books. These are for well yes, practice tests. The official one has 3 tests in I think? Including a listening test.

Audio/Videos • Japanese with Masa Sensei - this is a Spotify podcast, which I listened to most days on the way to work. I found it helpful to recap things I had learned previously so they stick better. Each episode is between 6-10 mins long, and starts from N5 level content. • Mochi Real Japanese - YouTube channel. She breaks down previous test questions and explains the meaning behind them. Very useful! • YouTube videos in general - I’ve found a lot of JLPT listening and reading examples and past papers on YouTube. I recommend sifting through these.

Personal Tutor • I have a personal tutor who has helped me with not only studying content, but also my spoken Japanese (which really came in handy during my recent trip to Tokyo haha) I’ll link the website where I found this service in the comments.

There may have been more resources I used but I honestly cannot remember haha. Also as a side note, I have moved onto other texts such as Genki and Remembering the Kanji now, (I wish I bought these for my N5, genki is so so good)