In this sub, it is extremely common to see posts of overachievers, who managed to go from zero to N1 in less than 2 years, sometimes even less than 1. While I’m very happy for them, it can also be somewhat discouraging for those who might not be as gifted, or perhaps don’t have as much time as they would like to study this beautiful language. Sometimes life gets in the way as well, and things have to be delayed or even left behind, language learning is certainly one of them. That’s why I decided to share my story with you guys, an average guy can also make it.
I started roughly 6 years ago, back then I was in my last year of my PhD, during my early 30s. I needed something to distract myself from the rather overwhelming pressure I was feeling at the time (if some of you have done, or are finishing a PhD, might relate to that feeling). I had already tried to learn some German, in fact I went to a German language school for roughly around a year, but I just couldn’t enjoy it. I still wanted to learn a new language, so I gravitated towards Japanese, largely because I, like many others in this sub, enjoy Japanese media and culture.
I bought the genki books, and slowly but surely started learning hiragana and katakana. Admittedly, this took me a lot longer that most people (perhaps 4-6 months? I don’t remember) largely because I had to juggle my PhD thesis with my flash cards and whatnot. On top of that, my short-term memory and visual memory are kinda whack, so it takes me longer than most people to learn that way I guess. While I was writing my thesis I started learning grammar with genki I, as well as N5 Kanjis. Again, this took me quite some time, because I was also trying to learn how to properly write kanji by hand, in a desperate effort to help my mind retain kanjis and radicals a bit better. Alas, it was a rather futile effort, that also made me learn slower. By the end of my first year of studying Japanese, I could barely read basic hiragana, katakana and the most basic kanjis.
Moving on to my second year, I decided to give wanikani a try, since it’s highly recommended by several people here and in other online forums as well. I managed to get up to level 35ish, until I just couldn’t keep up with it, there were times where I just didn’t have the time to go through hundreds of reviews per day, my job (I had already submitted my PhD thesis by then) just wouldn’t allow it. I also kept using genki I and II, plus other apps like dictionaries, bunpro and whatnot. By the end of my second year, I was probably N5ish, I didn’t take the test though so I can’t say for certain.
During my third year, I finished genki II rather quickly, for kanjis I used a number of apps, with limited effectiveness IMO. I also started reading the easy news from NHK. For listening, I used some podcasts like nihongo with teppei, plus your typical occasional anime show. A former colleague also suggested me to enroll in a local Japanese language school, which I agreed to, mostly to get some speaking practice. By the end of that year, since I had learnt most of the content assessed in N4, I took it but failed.
That didn’t stopped me though, I decided to keep going to my language school during my 4th year, while also reviewing Tobira (which I totally despised BTW) by myself. The NHK easy news slowly but surely started to become a bit easier, I could speak to a certain degree as well, but still not even remotely close to fluency. I also started using language exchange apps, like tandem, but it was mostly a waste of time. This year, since I had covered all the N4 content, plus a decent chunk from N3, I decided to skip N4 and go straight to N3, which I failed as well.
After failing both tests and graduated from my language school (they only offered courses up to N4), I decided to change things up a bit, I switched from tobira to the quartet books, finally started using Anki decks (I avoided it like the plague due to my experience with wanikani, but at least it’s free so there’s that), started reading more native material, as well as the shinkanzen master books, and took N3 again,. This time I finally passed! My first big W after 5 years!
But that wasn’t enough, I really wanted to push myself and aim for N2 during my 6th year, so I started taking private lessons, kept using my quartet books, while also using Try N2, as my private tutor suggested. On top of that, I kept using Anki decks and other sources for media for immersion as well. 6 months later took the test, without finishing neither quartet II, nor Try N2 (I was silly enough to think 6 months were enough for someone with a full time job, and other real life stuff getting in the way), once again I failed, but decided to keep going and took the test again 6 months later. That brings us to last week, I passed N2, not with a great score, but passed nonetheless.
I am very aware of all the mistakes I’ve made during my journey to learn this language, I could’ve done a lot of things better and more efficiently. However, at least for me, this is primarily a hobby (that’s becoming dangerously close to something I’ll use in my career), being more efficient would’ve meant that I’d probably had to do a number of things that I just can’t be bothered with, or spend an unreasonable amount of time and resources. Plus, as you can probably tell, I’m not exactly a gifted student either.
But that’s exactly why I wanted to share my story, to show that even your average student can get really far, even if you don’t have that much free time (on average if I could spend an hour of active study per day, I’d be lucky), even if you’re not as young as you used to (late 30s as of now), you just need to keep going.
Am I done? Certainly not, there’s still plenty to learn, I won’t stop until I’m as close to fluency as possible, will it take time? For sure, but I’m here to stay.
Thanks for reading!
Edit: typos
by MerryStrawbery