Obviously this depends on a number of things, but what could I *reasonably* expect my Japanese level to be after spending a year in Japan?
I’ll be going out of my way to speak as much as possible and get into situations that challenge me, I’ll be living with a host family that doesn’t speak English, and will try to get textbook work in when I have the chance.
My current level is practically nothing, I’ll also be living with my partner who is pretty much conversationally fluent in day to day subjects.
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Somewhere between still practically nothing to pretty doggone decent.
nothing if you put no effort into it, conversational if you put a lot of work into it, fluent if you don’t pinch yourself to wake up from your dream
What’s your starting point? Will you be in formal classes as well? What will you be doing during the day?
The thing about trying to jump straight into an immersive environment from 0 is that you do actually need to do things and talk to people to function. So by necessity, Google Translate or English will end up getting used, or your partner will end up being the translator a lot. It can take quite a while to get over that initial hump, especially if you don’t have a class to act as a safe sandbox to practice the artificial sentences and basic grammar you’re learning (unless they’re actively tutoring you real people are surprisingly unhelpful for this kind of practice). I strongly recommend joining some sort of class.
For context, language schools (so if you enroll in an intensive program with multiple hours of class a day) advertise 0-N4 or 0-N3 in a year, depending on the program. JLPT doesn’t measure speaking, but assuming speaking abilities are keeping pace with others, I’d say N4 is “can comfortably handle basic small talk.” And N3 is “can handle everyday comversation.”
I came to Japan for work (so had to use a good amount of English during the day). I was self studying since before I even arrived, but I didn’t enroll in a once a week class until the 6 month mark. After 1 year I was just starting to get to the point where I could engage in a simple conversation about weekend plans.
I came to Japan with knowing how to say where I am from. So 0. After one year of taking classes 1-2per week I passed N4. I understand a lot but speaking is still blocking me a little. Is difficult for me to switch language how I’m doing that Polish-English. I didn’t have much time to study because os 2yo kid but now I’m back on track. If you will live with host family you will be more pushed to understand and talk with them. And you will see soon first results
I strongly recommend enrolling in a language class as soon as you get there. The more Japanese you know, the better your experience in Japan will be. It makes a massive difference. I’ve been to both J’s in Ebisu and Coto in Ikejiri and both are excellent.
To learn basic things like ordering another beer and getting directions, you can get that done in a week if you really focus and take good notes.
By week two, you’ll have learned how to apologize in 7 different ways, and for things you didn’t know you had to apologize for.
By month three you can obtain most survival japanese phrases and not feel like you’re making a menace at the kombini.
By the sixth month you’ll be convinced that Japanese is easy and you can get your N1 by the end of the year, because you haven’t learned how to count objects or know what rendaku is
By the ninth month you’ll be in total despair and understand how little you have learned but still have no idea how much harder it gets
By the thirteen month you’ll wish you had studied harder even though you studied as hard as you could have
My recommendation is to complete 100% of the DuoLingo Hiragana/Katakana classes as soon as possible, and start WaniKani after that — and try to finish Lesson 3 (Kanji) as soon as possible on top of whatever else you’re doing. It’s important to have a goal. Try to challenge yourself to take the N5 before the end of the year, or next summer.
Good luck!
〜N3
>My current level is practically nothing, I’ll also be living with my partner who is pretty much conversationally fluent in day to day subjects.
If your partner shares a native language with you, you are not going to get very far.
Don’t practice speaking with other non-natives, even if it is in Japanese.
I studied abroad in Tokyo for a semester with no working knowledge of Japanese and my school says we should have N4-N5 knowledge. I would recommend practicing it daily so production would be almost muscle memory