The Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) is an exam administered in early December each year, at a number of places in Japan and at various locations worldwide. The next test will be on Sunday December 1st, 2002. It is administered by the Association of International Education, Japan (AIEJ).

The Kanji SITE is primarily aimed at people who are studying for the JLPT. As such, I've organised the kanji according to the official JLPT syllabus. There are 80 kanji required for Level 4, a further 165 kanji required for Level 3, another 755 kanji required for Level 2 and, finally, a further 1,036 kanji required for Level 1.

These 2,036 kanji include all of the Japanese government's official list of 1,945 Joyo ("normal usage") Kanji. The 1,945 Joyo Kanji include 1,006 Kyoiku ("education") Kanji, which Japanese schoolchildren learn in their first 6 years at elementary school. For a more detailed explanation of the Joyo and Kyoiku kanji syllabi, click here. Suffice to say that the JLPT system is more relevant for adults studying Japanese as a foreign language.

There's an official AIEJ website, though they don't seem to keep it terribly well updated. They do have plenty of information on the test sites and so on, though. Better that you hear it from them rather than me. Wherever you are, your teacher ought to be able to tell you how toget hold of the application forms.

What they don't tell you on the official website is that the application forms are some of the most complicated pieces of paperwork you will ever have seen. When I did the Level 4 in 1998, it took a good hour and a half for my teacher to talk me through the application process. But then maybe I'm just dim. Certainly it was quicker last time (2001), but I challenge you to find anyone who enjoys writing their address out in kanji nine times - five of those on the same form.

Possibly the best advice I could give you would be to take the test in a different country, thereby bypassing all the byzantine Japanese bureaucracy. You can contact the AIEJ to request information on where the test is administered in your own country, or just try to find a language school yourself.

Now the good news. The test itself isn't so bad. The question papers are the same format every year, so a little preparation can go a long way. Also, all questions are multiple choice, so there's no actual writing involved.

The general consensus among those I have spoken to is that passing level 4 is possible after less than a year of part-time study. Level 3 probably requires a further year's part-time study (lucky, that, seeing as how you have exactly one year to prepare for the next one...). To make the jump from Level 3 to Level 2 in a year appears much harder. I sat the Level 2 in December 2001, two years after passing Level 3, and found it extremely hard - but that's most likely because I didn't really study for it. My plan has always been to take it in 2002, so 2001 served as a valuable dry run - it was worth doing just to see how much work I would have to do to be ready next year... and the answer was "a lot".

People who have passed Level 2 (for they do exist) go all misty-eyed when the subject of Level 1 is raised, as if talking about some mysterious holy grail that many have heard rumour of, yet remains only the stuff of legend...