The Joy of Completing Japanese N3 Language Studies

A major success on a customer support phone call

Matsuyama Castle in the Spring. Image from Photo-AC.

Last week, I finished learning all the vocabulary, grammar, and kanji required for level 3 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT).

Since I don’t live in Tokyo or Osaka (I live in a countryside-ish spot in Matsuyama, Ehime on the island of Shikoku), English is almost useless. Signboards, trains, malls, restaurants — everything’s in Japanese. In the city center and touristy areas like Dogo Onsen, there are a handful of overpriced spots that have English menus, but that’s it.

Learning Japanese is a required skill. This post is about life in Japan with N3 level proficiency.

The Rollercoaster Journey

The initial chapters of learning N3 were tiresome. The tedious vocabulary — kitchen terminology like itameru (stir-fry) and musu (steam), house cleaning terms like chirakatteru (messy) were boring to study.

I never remembered most of them the next day, making studying even more frustrating. The fact that I couldn’t hear Japanese people using these terms when conversing outside seemed to make my efforts in vain.

Even as I completed 60% of the N3 text, there always seemed to be unfamiliar words popping up in…