Well shinmei did ask me before she opened this thread. According to her, this thread will involve more japanese text, instead of the romanji that I used.

Give her a chance ya?

sorry to dissappointed u all...actually i m guy not gal 

Rofl, well I figured if "she" was female then you guys'll go easy on "her".

Anyone taking JLPT this year end?

Taking N5 this year end 

Ganbatte

I'm taking N2. A bit worried

I'm taking N4.

I'm resitting for N1. Girigiri passed the last one, so I'm trying for a higher mark this time.

Really effective for me. Tough at first but after getting used to it, it is pretty fun method.

I learn Japanese informally and still got no interest in getting JLPT cert and qualifications.
Maybe I'll reconsider taking them later...

to me, JLPT benefits only when ur looking for a job in japan. Or to become a translator etc.

if we just have japanese frens that we wanna talk to, i think any form of japanese learning would suffice.

Got many colleagues taking JLPT, but still cant speak 

Well for me, I plan to take JLPT N4 next July. Not gonna make it this Dec, just started studying Kanji this month. So far, I probably can only recognize about 80 kanji and write 70+. two weeks worth of study, but it's getting tougher with more to memorize.  And I need to continue brushing up my grammar/vocab. I kinda regretted abandoning it for two years. I'm not taking any classes, self-study but almost everyday, so it's quite fun actually, at my own pace. Bought several books at Kinokuniya last week. Not cheap but for the sake of improving.

Since you guys are talking about reasons for JLPT, as for me, I'd like to challenge myself and see how much I can score or just to test my level of understanding. I also plan to one day maybe work in Japan so the certificate might help a little (hopefully if my future company wishes to send people over to Japan branch or anything like that). However, I do agree that speaking wise, you gotta have people to talk to only then you'll improve.

Recently, I met some Japanese fans (thanks to a certain fandom) on Twitter and I began to type in Japanese, I find it quite fun and trains me to express myself (sadly only in the form of writing). Nobody around me has liking in the language or share any interests in Japan so I've got nobody to talk to. But sometimes, I utter Japanese words or phrases subconsciously 

Can someone tell me about JLPT levels? Is that level 1 the highest or level 10 the highest? And what is the lowest level?

Is Genki Textbook worth buying if I wish to self-study japanese?

- I can write/read hiragana, katakana and memorized 1,840 kanji.

今年、N3試験を受けようと思います

No need. At this point, just buy novels or magazines and try to actually use your skill to read real world stuff.

I think I can relate to your situation, able to read hiragana but not knowing what it means.
For example, when doing mock exam N4, I encountered alot of words in hiragana. Because I'm so used to reading kanji, some words like せいげんじかん (制限時間 - Time limit)  took me a while to understand the meaning, much easier if it is written in kanji.

Hence the reason why I choose to take N3  this year and by pass N4 and N5.
カタカナが苦手ですよ！