BJT study guide
BJT · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The BJT Business Japanese Proficiency Test is a standardized exam that measures how well a non-native speaker can use Japanese to get things done at work. Rather than literary or academic Japanese, its material comes from ordinary business life: meetings, phone calls, announcements, emails, internal notices, proposals and simple figures. Employers, recruiters and training departments use the result to judge whether someone can follow instructions, reply appropriately and read the documents a workplace actually produces. It is therefore taken by people applying to Japanese companies, by staff being moved into Japanese-speaking roles, and by learners who want an external check on their progress. Topics on this exam: Listening comprehension (business conversation and announcement listening), Listening-reading comprehension (integrating spoken and written business information), and Reading comprehension (business documents, e-mail, notices, and figures). The BJT study guide has 3 sections and about 1,032 words.
01Listening Comprehension: Business Conversations and Announcements
Listening items present short business exchanges and public announcements spoken once at natural speed. You must extract the practical outcome: what the speaker wants done, when, by whom, and under what condition. Three knowledge blocks carry most of the marks. Honorific direction.
321 words, about 2 min02Listening-Reading Comprehension: Combining Speech with Documents
Listening-reading items give you written material - a schedule, price table, floor guide, graph, or memo - while a short spoken passage plays. Neither source alone answers the question; the answer exists only in the relationship between them. Expect tasks such as: which row must be corrected, which chart matches what the speaker describes, which option satisfies both the notice and the announcement, or what figure belongs in a blank cell. Two-direction integration.
358 words, about 2 min03Reading Comprehension: Documents, E-mail, Notices, and Figures
Reading items use authentic-style business documents: internal e-mail, notices, agendas and minutes, invoices, order forms, and simple charts. The tested skill is not literary reading but accurate extraction: who must act, by when, under what condition, and which exception applies. You also need enough command of business keigo to spot an inappropriate expression when asked which reply is correct. In e-mail, the first two lines usually state the purpose and the requested action; details and background follow.
353 words, about 2 min