4400 hours over 4 years : results as a normal learner + travel in Japan

Why 4400

I picked this amount of hours because it's very often mentioned as what you need for full fluency. It comes from the Foreign Service Institute who say 2200 hours of Japanese lessons, and if you go a bit deeper, they also say you need the same amount of self study on the side, so 4400 hours total.

Now if you ask people who actually reached full fluency, they usually go for another meme number : 10'000 hours. From my own experience this sounds closer to the truth. I don't think the FSI is wrong or lying, they just have another standard : giving an estimation for diplomats who will work in a formal setting, which even if hard, is not a broad mastery of a language at all.

I believe that method itself isn't that important in the grand scheme of things. In the end it's just a tool to ease your entry in immersion, which will be the bulk of the work. Even if you're a big believer in textbooks and RTK, you'll run out of material before 1000 hours anyway. The only tool that has been agreed to be extremely efficient is SRS and going deep into anki has been my best decision.

I personally went for early immersion, which fits my learning style and high resistance to authority, but I'm sure it wasn't the most efficient even for me.

My goal is to give a realistic review of a normal learner. I'm 35, native Fr*nch speaker, started 4½ years ago, have average learning abilities and no prior knowledge of Korean or Chinese. If I have an advantage it is that I love learning in general and accept mistakes as part of the process. I was close to 3 hours a day and rarely moved from this. I'm approaching the end of the trip and have spent ~110 days in Japan this year.

My method

First 3 months

1 hour of grammar : principally Tae Kim, Imabi, and various English speaking youtubers without sticking to one

1 hour of anki : 20 new words and reviewed several times the failed and new cards during the day

1 hour of immersion : videos with English subs and read 1 (one) page of manga.

3rd month to 12th month

Stopped doing "grammar isolation"

Ramped up anki with 35 new cards a day. I'd add the "grammar points" to anki and treat it as vocabulary, which I believe it is. It took less and less anki time a day, from around 80 minutes to 45 as my brain adapted.

Read articles and light novels, watched videos with Japanese subs.

This was by far the hardest and most discouraging part of my learning. I wouldn't call it the intermediate plateau because I was still a beginner and progressing though.

2nd year to end of 4th year

Reduced anki to 0-10 new cards a day but kept the reviews, I went from 11k words at the start to 17k in those 3 years. It took around 20 minutes for ~150 reviews.

Rest was immersion and doing only what I actually enjoyed. Mostly read novels (highbrow ones without anime girls on the cover) and watched twitch and youtube livestreams. Also consumed a lot of various stuff on the side but the bulk was those 2.

At this point I was soon leaving for a 4 months trip in Japan and realized I had 0 output except typing in twitch chats. I got my first Italki "casual talk" lesson to see how it goes. Some people will say I should be fluent at this point, and other that I should suck since I never opened my mouth. It was right in the middle. I was able to have an hour long conversation across multiple subjects, but did a lot of mistakes and needed pauses to think. I took 2 others lessons then called it a day and planned to just progress during my trip.

5th year

The same except being in Japan and having opportunities to talk, now reading out loud sometimes and force myself to think in Japanese here and there.

Results

Listening : It's my strong point and would rate myself a 9. Thanks to ~1500 hours of livestreams I can easily understand casual and formal talk from people of all ages. Struggling with sonkeigo and when shop clerks take 10 seconds to ask me a simple question. I'd say it's the most important skill when having a conversation with a native and a general feeling of confidence being in Japan.

Reading : Used to be my main focus but dropped a bit. My anki says 17k but I estimate I can read more than 25k words, using a bit more than 3k kanji. No problem with novels that aren't too old, tweets, online chats, news etc. The speed is around half of a native's. I'm becoming better at reading weird typos and handwriting but it's painful. I still have to pause here and there no matter the context though, usually to remember the reading of words.

Speaking : I still didn't speak that much, maybe 150 hours total. I had some progress since I arrived, most of it comes from building confidence and accepting I have to use simpler words and sentences than expected. I still make mistakes regularly and stop sometimes to find a word or make sure I conjugate properly.

The good thing is that I can have long conversations and they understand 99% of what I say*. I SHOCKED NATIVES a few times and they don't feel the need to suddenly talk English to help me*. My pronunciation is decent but I don't apply pitch at all.

*this doesn't include the few awkward occasions where people couldn't process the fact I was speaking in Japanese and insisted on talking with their hands and broken English

Writing : I had to write my name in katakana for a waiting list in front of a restaurant and wasn't able to. Now I can write 3 characters and that's it.

Usage of Japanese in Japan

I'm white and traveling with my white girlfriend, no car, 3 months in Kyushu and 1 in Hokkaido, mostly small towns and villages, we transit and spend some time in the big cities for convenience and change of scenery.

Comparing to the last time we went 5 years ago, knowing Japanese makes it way easier and convenient. It feels good to be confident going anywhere and be able to communicate, read information, order food, hitchhike, take the right transports, etc.

People regularly come to us to ask questions and offer gifts, for some reason they often take for granted we're able to communicate and I'm glad I actually can.

Where it makes a big difference is that hosts with no English ability now almost always invite us for meals or outside activities.

An easy way to find them is to look for airbnbs where some comments say the hosts are social and engage with their guests. I can PM you a few that were not only cheap and decent, but gave the opportunity to speak several hours. Of course hostels can be even better but offer way less comfort, especially for 30yo boomers like me so I don't often use them.

FAQ

What do you mean by immersion ? Can you do that outside of Japan ?

I'm using the common meaning of it, aka learning by using native material instead of textbooks/courses. The point is to have fun and be sure that you learn what you actually need.

I fell for the 2200 hours meme, can I still do something with this amount of hours ?

Yes you can be very good at something if you focus on it. You can pass the N1 if you want, but will lack output and suck at informal Japanese. You could be able to watch anime without subtitles but certainly struggle with rare kanji, etc.

Can you pass the N1 ?

I completely ignored the JLPT system, but tried a N1 mock exam a year ago and it went fine, could certainly pass it with 90% right answers with a bit of practice.

How much money did you spend ?

0 on learning material, ~200$ on native material, 1800$ a month for all my expenses in Japan not including flight.