How much Japanese you need to understand different media formats (AKA data is fun)

[cat]

@Naphthalene

@nativelearner

N3 (L26): This is where the world of Japanese media really starts opening up. You will be able to watch nearly half of TV shows and Movies as well as read roughly 75% of Manga! This is the first JLPT level that comes with proper understanding of a lot of native material. Unfortunately, most non-manga written material will still be well beyond your understanding.

Hard agree on that one from experience. At N3, I felt I could pretty much pick up any manga and read without issue (although I now realize that there are manga that would have been challenging, but just didn’t come across them; survivor bias, I guess). Meanwhile, I tried to read a few novels and children books and failed miserably

Yeah, I agree with this too. Although I never took the JLPT, after I’d gotten N3 grammar down (and had been reading the news for awhile) I jumped into books. I’ll note my first five books were levels 31, 25, 32, 31, and 28 so heavier in N2 range…but thankfully not a 34. 34s aren’t scary now but 4 years ago they would have killed me