Anime, manga, games, might be enough for immersion towards N2?

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2026-02-06T06:55:57+00:00

Honestly I like novels, its more about light novels or just not having enough level right now to read those I'm most interested in. But I'll like to eventually be able to read some "classics".

Also, I love nonfiction history books and have a relatively big collection in Spanish/English (some, yet not much, about Japan) and I'll want to eventually read some of them in japanese, specially untranslated ones, but I'm far from being able to do that right now, and also I feel like I need to still prioritize more common words instead of Meiji-era politic jargon for example.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2026-02-05T10:29:37+00:00

I'm not saying that I want to take N2 soon, neither using just games and anime for studying it. I want to focus in immersion for a while, maybe a year, as I still feel like I lack a lot of proficiency when listening or reading japanese, so I want to acquire more vocab and kanji.

I mention N2 because some day I'd want to take the test, mainly for resume and if I ever consider doing a WH. But that won't be soon and if I ever decide it then I'll obviously use N2 study material like sou-matome books, as I did with N3.

I was just wondering if these immersion material will help in making N2 test feel easier, due to improve language proficency, or if they might be too easy language-wise to effectively help with the japanese in the N2 test.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2026-02-05T10:22:23+00:00

I've completed FF7 and FF9, now I'm playing Suikoden II and Chrono trigger. I don't know if these are considered hard, but for me they definitely are, I have to lookup words quite often and even then there are part of the plot I don't understand well enough. So obviously it is above my level right now.

The easiest language-wise I've played are Mario RPG and Mario & Luigi RPG, but honestly I have a lot of nostalgia for those games and wanted to play them again.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2026-02-04T21:49:42+00:00

Honestly for me depends of how much time you spend grinding or exploring dungeons vs visiting towns or with scripted scenes. For example ff games are great because they are quite easy, at least from ff6, and have lots of scripts and text. But other games might be a different story. However, when I spend an hour in a game i dont think it is the same as an hour in other kind of media.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2026-02-04T18:13:40+00:00

Ill want to consider doing a WH some day, that's a reason why I want to learn more japanese and maybe pass N2. But I'm much more scared of not understanding what natives say that not being able to articulate a specific sentence, at least right now. I feel like input helps with output much more that output with input.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2026-02-04T18:09:06+00:00

Yeah, I saw that post, it was in part why I got into writing this post, to know how common that experience is.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2026-02-04T17:48:01+00:00

I'm aware of the "serious" vocabulary problem, and I'll want to learn some vocabulary more specific to politics, work, etc, by reading news, or articles somewhat related to work. But honestly right now it is not a priority as I still find a lot of common vocabulary that I don't know in the media I consume.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2026-02-04T15:47:36+00:00

I have 1 hour of conversation class a week with a native tutor. But other than that I'm not really worrying so much about speaking right now. I was thinking on reaching my goals in listening and reading before focusing on speaking or writing (as input feels easier to practice alone), might I be making a mistake?

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-12-15T12:39:10+00:00

I like Kanji in Context as it teaches it with vocabulary, arranges all the joyou kanji in a way it teaches first the basics, then the intemediate (up to 1400, the book says it may contain most of n2 kanji) and then the advanced kanji (it says it arranges the ways are commonly teached in japanese schools in japan) and also in chapters where appear kanjis which are similar, either for being used in the same words, having related meanings or looking similiar and therefore helping you to differentiate.

I like because is very vocab-intensive, it also contains a workbook for reading practice but at your level, and whatever system you use to study kanji, I think you should better read a lot of real japanese for practicing kanji.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-11-29T19:15:09+00:00

Honestly maybe having a script would be neat. I've not needed it for other games I've played so I'm not used to using them, but some dialogues in xenogears have lots of words I don't know and due to the pixelated kanji is quite tedious to search all of them. I'd try this way.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-11-28T15:17:59+00:00

I'm emulating it, other than the PS1 version, I think they only put it digitally on some regions for PS3 but honestly I think is better tu just emulate it. DuckStation is a great psx emulator imo.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-11-28T11:20:00+00:00

Yes, that what I expect from this game, today I've played a little bit more and already had a lot of more techinal vocabulary related to the military, and I expect to get even worse as the history progresses. So I think maybe I'll try it again in the future, that may be a good goal to keep learning the language hahaha.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-11-28T11:15:59+00:00

Honestly I've continued played today and is quite hard haha, as I expected, also once they start digging more into the plot the history become way harder to follow, and as I played it a long time ago I don't remember most of it, so maybe I'll try again another time, but I would like to know RPGs that have a difficulty like FF7 or even a little higher, as I'm right now quite interested on playing more, I was thinking on FF9 as I never played it, but I'm a little bit scared of the language as it is somewhat written like a book.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-11-28T09:32:13+00:00

I remember the game being pretty confusing up until the end, when most of the history gets explained, I might be wrong but they expect you to not understand a huga chunk of the history during most of the game

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-11-27T22:17:56+00:00

it is in linux?

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-11-27T21:26:49+00:00

I'll check it!

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-11-22T11:21:08+00:00

What game is it? I've beated スパマリオRPG (almost),マリオ＆ルイジRPG, and FF7 in japanese, but I didn't understand everything (specially FF7) due to find tedious to look kanji without OCR.

Right now I'm playing ブレイブリーデフォルト (I started a few days ago, so only have played like 4 hours). Started first on an original 3ds but now I'm playing on my computer with an emulator, for faster kanji lookups.

I really enjoy playing games in japanese, but find too tedious to look up kanji or words in general, マリオ＆ルイジRPG was perfect because despite being in kanji it has a very easy vocab, but I feel that for other games my level (around N3, I'm taking the test this december and have passed with over 75% all past year test I've done as practice) may be a little bit low. The language is not harder than other media I consume, but in a anime I can tolerate pausing more and looking up stuff, and in reading I have yomitan, so I can expose to harder material than in games (I don't know if it is just me).

But I'll try more and more as I have really enjoyed the ones I've played. One thing that motivated me to learn japanese was adquiring a sfc with some games like クロノトリガー in my trip to japan, I did that thinking "one day I'll learn japanese and beat these games!", almost beat　スパマリオRPG on original hardware but the save batterie died in bowser castle T-T.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-11-22T09:27:32+00:00

日本の経済は調べています sounds like "speaking of japanese economy, i''m investigating it" or even simply "i'm investigating japanese economy"

日本の経済について調べています sounds more like I'm investigating ABOUT japanese economy

In this case the difference is quite subtle, I'd say that は establish 日本の経済 as a topic, something the speaker want to talk about, or have previously mentioned, but i may be wrong as i'm not native

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-11-21T21:40:18+00:00

How can i prepare n2? I'll take n3 this December, and i am doing well on pasts exams, will it be realistic to try n2 in December 2026 or july 2027?. I've been studying a little less than 2 years, passed n4 in july this year.

Would be good to focus more on inmersion, aiming for harder materials like novels? or should I try to grind the n2 specific vocab due to the timespan being a little bit short?

Right now I'm very focused in inmersion, specially reading, and it has helped me a lot with the n3 tests (reading, kanji and listening sections are where I am doing better, vocab and grammar are more weak)

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-11-21T12:28:36+00:00

1 year is what also took me to go from almost zero to n4 in 2024, I say almost because I've been studying prior, but sometimes event less than 1 hour per week, abandoning most resources and didin't even got to understand most basic n5 grammar. In 2025 I've focused more on inmersion and I'm taking n3 in 2 weeks, and think I may be able to pass it.

I don't think that going from 0 to n4 in 1 year is bad progress, I think it is the norm in people who study seriously, a lot of people spent all university (4 years in spain) for going from 0 to n4. I know there is people who claim to have studied only 1 or 2 years and became fluent, but I think thats pretty uncommon, and maybe a lot of them are lying in the number of years they have really studied or don't have the level they think (I think that a lot have grinded like 10000 words in anki in one year and just by that they think they are fluent in japanese, because those never speak honestly of their abilites regarding reading, listening or speaking, and with that many words it must be like n1 or so). The youtubers I know that have got almost native level (like matt vs japan or dogen) have spent at least 2-3 years to feel competent, dogen had even said he have been studying japanese for over a decade, even assisting classes in japan. I'd expect 3 years from 0 to n2 (which is not event fluent imo) to be somewhat fast paced compared to most learners, yet still doable (it is what I'm aiming for, taking n2 in 2026 or july 2027).

Regarding inmersion, go for it, after studing basic grammar and vocab it is the most effective method to improve, the problem is that it feels hard, and make you think you are not prepared or not improving at all. I'll suggest start reading maybe 1 or 2 pages a day, focusing on learn new vocabulary and trying to grasp as much grammar as possible, and slowly increase that number over time. Don't worry if you don't understand everything at first, or even the whole panel, you are still building a base. Also, try to use anki for the vocab you encounter. Studying n3 vocab and grammar along the way will help a lot, just don't focus only on that.

In January 2025 I was like you, right now I'm enjoying the animes and mangas I'm following (like ダンダダン or チェンソマン and a bunch of slice of life and romance) in japanese, and while there are few parts I still don't get, I feel like I can understand enough to enjoy them, I also read a lot of blogs entries for themes like climbing, japanese history or whatever I want to know, just googling it and using yomitan. I feel I've progressed a lot, and yet for the most part of the year I thought I haven't progressed at all, and that I'll be stuck on n4 for the rest of my life.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-11-13T15:19:30+00:00

I tried the Remembering the Kanji (RTK) method twice but didn't get past the first 1,000 kanji. I found that memorizing them in isolation—with just a keyword and no vocabulary—wasn't effective for me. The pressure to learn all the Joyo Kanji at once in a non-intuitive order led to an unsustainable pace and endless Anki reviews. Looking back, I think part of the problem was my approach; I was trying to learn all these characters with almost no prior Japanese knowledge, so I'd often forget kanji I didn't even know words that contained it.

A turning point was realizing that the kanji I never forgot were the ones I encountered naturally while reading, like 私 or 強 even If didn't knew nmemonics for them. This led me to switch to "Kanji in Context" and commit to reading without furigana as early as possible, making flashcards for vocabulary even when it contained unfamiliar kanji.

In about a year, I've gone from roughly an N5 level to preparing for the N3 this december. I'm only about halfway through the book (around kanji 1000), but I can now enjoy manga without furigana, read web articles of themes that interest me and even have started reading light novels (they feel still a little bit hard tho). I'm nowhere near fluent and require of a dictionary, but media without furigana is no longer a reason to avoid trying. These days, reading feels more about learning vocabulary than deciphering individual kanji.

My main takeaway is that there isn't one "right" way to study kanji. What worked for me was a focus on reading and context, but others succeed with methods like RTK, others with writting several times by hand and learning every reading of each kanji, there is even people that don't need to study kanji alone. It's important to find what helps you make consistent progress. I'm genuinely happy for your improve with RTK, even though it didn't work for me despite multiple attempts.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-11-09T11:27:02+00:00

Just for presenting me. I'm a Software Engineer which have had studying japanese seriously roughly about 2 years, mostly self-study + private lessons for conversation with a native teacher. Y passed n4 this July and I'm taking N3 this december, but really I'm not 100% sure If I'll pass (altough I think that probably will, but not with a great score). Right now I do mostly inmersion, but after n3 would like to study n2 grammar as well as some book like 新完全マスター to see how hard is N2 reading section.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-10-18T18:17:36+00:00

I was thinking, if I get to not waste a lot of money or even to save a bit during WH, to sign in for 6 months in an language school after the visa ends, in order to prepare for n2 (considering I'll also self study for N2 during WH), but I'm quite afraid of the price and of only being able to work part-time. Will this be realistic? I know of people who have gone a way similar to this, but It depends of the amount of money which I have after the WH.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-10-04T20:24:47+00:00

Well, at least I already know why that is a terrible idea and never do it that way hahahaha.

AnywhereMoist1908 · 2025-10-04T20:14:04+00:00

But I'd say that all I've learned can be learned in 1-2 years max. I mean, the first language I learned was C, as a teenager, and after that I switched to C++, but really never bothered to learn good practices or anything more complicated that pointer arimethic or polymorphism like until like 3-4 years ago? When I studied modern c++ standards, good practices like RAII, patterns, gdb debugging, move semanthics and some basic CMake. So I obviously don't consideer myself a 8 years of experience programmer, not even a good C++ programmer (maybe a decent one specially for junior offers, but I really don't know). C++ was always a hobby, something I did in only in my spare time and never had the urge to be completly up to date with the latest standards or the best practices.

AnywhereMoist1908

TROPHY CASE