JLPT guide
What is JLPT N2 actually worth?
It is the line where Japanese stops being something you study and starts being something you are employed for.
N2 is the level most people are actually aiming at, even when they say they want N1. It is the line where Japanese stops being a thing you are studying and starts being a thing you can be employed for. Here is what it does and does not get you.
Work
N2 is the usual bar for office work in Japan. Job adverts that name a level name this one far more often than N1, and for most roles outside translation, law and medicine, N1 is a preference rather than a requirement.
What N2 is understood to mean, in practice: you can read newspapers and business documents with effort, follow a meeting, and handle everyday work correspondence. That is roughly what the exam tests — and roughly where it stops.
Visa points
Under the points system for Highly Skilled Foreign Professional status, Japanese ability is worth points, and only the top two levels count:
| Level | Points |
|---|---|
| N1 | 15 |
| N2 | 10 |
| N3 and below | 0 |
Ten points is not nothing — the threshold is 70 — but it is not a status on its own either. It combines with your degree, your salary, your age and your field. If you are close to a threshold and hold N2, the fifteen points at N1 are the cheapest five points on the table.
University
Undergraduate courses taught in Japanese generally want N1. Postgraduate study varies much more, and a laboratory that works in English may accept N2 or ask for nothing at all. Preparatory courses and many vocational schools accept N2.
What N2 does not do
This is the part worth being blunt about, because the certificate is easy to over-read.
- It does not say you can speak. The JLPT has no speaking section and no writing section. Every question is reading or listening, answered by choosing one of four. You can hold N2 and struggle through a phone call, and many people do.
- It does not expire, and it does not prove anything current. A certificate from six years ago says what you could do six years ago.
- It is not a substitute for the vocabulary of your own job. N2 covers general Japanese. The words used in a care home, a factory or an accounting department are largely not on the paper.
Is it worth going on to N1?
It depends entirely on what for. For most jobs, no — the difference in what an employer will offer you is usually small, and the work between the two levels is large. For visa points, an academic course, or a field where N1 is named outright, yes, and the five extra points can decide an application.
A cheaper way to answer it than guessing: sit an N1 paper and look at the gap. If the reading is close and the vocabulary is the problem, N1 is months away. If the reading is not close, it is longer than that, and the hours guide gives an honest figure.
Getting there
If you are at N3 now, the step to N2 is mostly vocabulary and reading speed rather than new grammar, and which one to enter is worth reading before you pay the fee. Whatever you decide, the way to find out where you stand is to sit a full paper under time — there are papers here for every level, timed and marked, with the vocabulary of every question attached to it.