LLearn Japanese

Finding reading materials that is similar to JLPT N1 読解.

  • December 11, 2024

Is there anywhere I can find reading passages that's similar to those on N1 exam, in terms of difficulty and topic? While preparing for the exam I went through quite a few past papers, and I actually find the reading passages so enjoyable (if it is not for exam…)

The level is suitable for me (a few new vocabs per passage) and I like how wide the topic ranges from. I rarely read novels or fictions not just in Japanese but in any languages. Also the length of the passages are just right, not to long or too short.

by mistertyson

11 comments

  1. I’m not quite N1, but it has been my understanding that the readings are similar to stuff you might find on NHK/newspapers or even Wikipedia. A lot of people here will find those boring, but the reality is manga and anime won’t cut it if you’re aiming for N1.

  2. I tried finding Japanese versions of things I already liked- for example, following National Geographic’s Japanese page on Facebook to read articles whenever they pop up in my feed, because I like learning about nature and animals

  4. Not sure where you’re located, but I’d strongly recommend the 科学の問い textbooks if you can get your hands on them. They actually sort of “straddle” N1 in a way, in that if you can handle them then you’re likely overprepared, and they also make for a nice “continuation” course beyond N1. The topics are all interesting and the essays are well-written with useful real-world phrasing and vocabulary.

    [https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4893589954](https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4893589954)

    [https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4893589970/](https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/4893589970/)

  6. On iOS / macOS I made an app that has some feeds of N1 reading material from around the web… And I used automated analysis of a frequency corpus to fill in the gaps on the JLPT lists that exist in the wild, to include more likely N1 material these days than other services with the limited data sets released years ago are showing. [https://reader.manabi.io](https://reader.manabi.io) big update arriving shortly as well, beta available via Discord…

    I’ll try to bring this to web soon!

  7. Shigesato Itoi sometimes writes the kind of philosophical, thoughtful humanities type stuff you might find in the JLPT. He’s a pretty famous and popular Japanese writer.
    [https://www.1101.com/](https://www.1101.com/)

  8. I have a book called 「日本がわかる、日本語がわかる　―ベストセラーの書評エッセイ24―」
    which has a big selection of essays and articles of the type the often show up in N1! it has a good range of stuff and it’s generally interesting, I’d recommend.

  9. I’ve been in the same boat. I personally found both ベストエッセイ and 天声人語 to be great.  The annual ベストエッセイ collections have some brilliant essays that are both abstract and metaphorical, with the writers discussing their own experiences.  

    The 天声人語 books are collections of editorials from Asahi newspaper. They do cover current events, but the writers draw parallels with things like historical events, elements of Japanese culture and even their own personal expriences. It’smuch more opinion based which I found useful for N1 prep.

  10. I kind of know how you feel, because when I was teaching my daughter to study for her private middle and high school entrance exam, and I was working on some Japanese reading comprehension questions with her, I felt like reading the entire editorials or essays😂
    Well, the texts for reading comprehension questions are just a section taken from a book, so it’s easy to read, but as a book, it was not 😂
    I actually got a book and I couldn’t be bothered to start reading it 😅

    I’ll give you a link to [an article](https://mocopla-yotsuya.jp/blog20230615/) that has information about authors and books that are often used for questions in private middle and high school exams.

    Looking over it, I’m interested in :

    [「清少納言が見ていた宇宙と、わたしたちのみている宇宙は同じなのか～新しい博物学ヘの招待（青土社」）by 池内　了](https://amzn.asia/d/cLojTRa)

    and

    [「ナマケモノは、なぜ怠けるのか？～生き物の個性と進化のふしぎ（ちくまプリマ―新書)」by 稲垣　栄洋
    ](https://amzn.asia/d/hk7bXw7)

  11. I see a lot of people recommending news articles and the like, but in my experience — and granted, things may have changed since I took the test ages ago — there’s at least a good portion of reading material that is closer to essays of a more philosophical bent (where they’re asking you to interpret the author’s intent, etc., instead of simply understand direct, factual text). So I definitely recommend making a habit of exposing yourself to that sort of writing in Japanese if you’re not doing it already.

    One go-to for me in the old days that, thankfully, is still going strong is the [ほぼ日刊糸井新聞](https://www.1101.com/home.html), an online “newspaper” (that has since evolved into a whole media-and-goods-empire) by Shigesato Itoi (糸井重里) who you may know as the creator of the MOTHER series of video games (he’s original a copywriter and essayist). The site is free — to read, at least — and there are editorial essays by Itoi himself written every weekday (<- these have always struck me as similar in length and style as the N1 読解 questions) and a bunch of other reading content like interviews with famous creators, etc. (search the archives and there’s literally like two decades worth of this stuff).

    Anyway, it’s worth checking out if you’re looking for free, accessible reading material that isn’t manga/anime/games but isn’t necessarily just dry news or Wikipedia articles, etc.

Leave a Reply