YMMV and it depends on what you mean by “decent,” but at the very least, you should be thinking about the journey not in terms of weeks or months, but years.
Japanese in particular is a complex languague. It takes time, and it depends on a series of factors: exposure, time dedicated to learn, personal ability of the learner, etc. As stated by someone else, focus on consistency and on the journey. Sooner or later you will become comfortable with the language, but in the meantime enjoy the process of it and stay motivated 🙂
“Life is a journey, enjoy the trip- The journey is a reward.”
人生は旅だ、旅を楽しもう― 旅はご褒美です。
This is how you think of learning.
I’ve been at it for a year now, spending on average 2 hours a day on it. I finished a basic grammar book, 15 levels of Wanikani and the N5 track of Bunpro. With the help of a dictionary i can slowly read simple manga or harder graded readers. Its slow going, but doable, and i for sure dont understand all grammar i encounter but oh well.
I tried things like Anki, but i realized its not for me. Wanikani, despite basically being Anki, did work for a while, but the endless grind of reviews and new words out of context burned me out, so i just bash my head against manga until words stick. At least this way i got pictures to look at and a story to try to follow.
Depends on what “decent” means. Took me about a year of uni classes, watching YouTube, and daily kanji study before I found that I understood enough to watch anime (jp sub) and enjoy it. I’m in my third year of study and there’s still a very long way for me to go, but I can relatively comfortably have conversations about topics that I’m familiar with. I imagine that I don’t sound natural at all but I can usually explain what I’m trying to say.
For native English speakers, Japanese in particular is a very time consuming language if you want to become proficient. But you don’t need to be particularly proficient to enjoy using the language (and if you do enjoy using the language, it’ll take less time to become proficient)
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YMMV and it depends on what you mean by “decent,” but at the very least, you should be thinking about the journey not in terms of weeks or months, but years.
Take a look at yesterday’s thread: [https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/wwibc0/how_long_to_get_fluent/](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/wwibc0/how_long_to_get_fluent/)
Japanese in particular is a complex languague. It takes time, and it depends on a series of factors: exposure, time dedicated to learn, personal ability of the learner, etc. As stated by someone else, focus on consistency and on the journey. Sooner or later you will become comfortable with the language, but in the meantime enjoy the process of it and stay motivated 🙂
“Life is a journey, enjoy the trip-
The journey is a reward.”
人生は旅だ、旅を楽しもう―
旅はご褒美です。
This is how you think of learning.
I’ve been at it for a year now, spending on average 2 hours a day on it. I finished a basic grammar book, 15 levels of Wanikani and the N5 track of Bunpro. With the help of a dictionary i can slowly read simple manga or harder graded readers. Its slow going, but doable, and i for sure dont understand all grammar i encounter but oh well.
I tried things like Anki, but i realized its not for me. Wanikani, despite basically being Anki, did work for a while, but the endless grind of reviews and new words out of context burned me out, so i just bash my head against manga until words stick. At least this way i got pictures to look at and a story to try to follow.
Depends on what “decent” means. Took me about a year of uni classes, watching YouTube, and daily kanji study before I found that I understood enough to watch anime (jp sub) and enjoy it. I’m in my third year of study and there’s still a very long way for me to go, but I can relatively comfortably have conversations about topics that I’m familiar with. I imagine that I don’t sound natural at all but I can usually explain what I’m trying to say.
For native English speakers, Japanese in particular is a very time consuming language if you want to become proficient. But you don’t need to be particularly proficient to enjoy using the language (and if you do enjoy using the language, it’ll take less time to become proficient)