Hi guys, I know this thing has been discussed many times but I wanted to come to know more of people’s experiences in studying japanese in order to read LN / manga/ novels… I’m very interested in it, but my level is close to 0, so I wanted to understand how long (approximately) it will take until I’ll be good enough to read some LN. I know every person is different, but I’d like to know how long u studied in term of years, days and hours per day to get to a decent level where u were able to do those things. I know this can be a very hard language to study but by reading ur opinion l’Il be able to understand some things better.
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This is a question I was wondering too when I started and I distinctly remember some person here said in 4 years, they could barely read the [Easy NHK News](https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/).
It’s 4 years and it’s about true for me.
I’m a fun learner who’s career has nothing to do with Japanese. I spend roughly an hour a day for the past ~4 years or so.
IDK, I studied around 2000 hours and read 15 books 4 game scripts and did a lot of random listening practice.
I can sort of speak “survival level” Japanese at this point and I have a lot of fun conversations with my tutor, but I wouldn’t go around saying “I can speak Japanese” to anyone important.
Reading is also hard, I can read books like, for 5th graders or something but reading paperback books intended for adults is a struggle for me. It’s not let’s say impossible but it’s slow because I have to do a lot of dictionary lookups.
Vocab-wise I have around 11k anki cards, probably around 8k are passive and the rest are active or some misc stuff like, kanji helper cards, grammar cards, you know.
It’s super easy for me to find words I don’t know or forgot. Especially the onomatopoeia.
~1400 hours of study over 2 years, 21k Anki cards (including both vocab and kanji) and around a dozen completed visual novels. I can read fine although still encounter plenty of unknown words or expressions. Still a long way to go, but I’m completely satisfied with my progress and can finally dial down the amount of Anki.
Department of Foreign Language (United States) classifies Japanese as a Class IV language, which is the hardest difficulty (coming from native English) and requiring approx. 88 weeks or 2200 hours of in class time in order to become “proficient” (this may not even mean fluent, but capable enough). Everyone’s mileage may very, so it’s most important that while you’re learning you are making it enjoyable along the way. Light Novels are a good goal and never hurts to start on them early when you get enough of a foundation, it will be slow and hard but you’ll pick it up.
I think it started to become comfortable after I had 15k vocabulary words in my anki deck. It took me over a year to reach that amount. But I was reading a lot of visual novels and manga to reach that many words, so it’s not like you can’t read an LN just because it’s above your level.
Ngl it took me almost 10 years to get where I am at because I’d get so overwhelmed and would stop studying weeks at a time, but I finally started Improving when I’d spend like 5 minutes a day studying. Till I could spend 10 minutes studying. I’m able to spend 2 hours studying now, but I really had to build up my stamina from 5 minutes first.
Without the 7 year hiatus? About 7-8 years. I’m cumulatively about 10 years in now. I can consume some media easily and some things still take more effort.
Right now Tears of the Kingdom and other Nintendo games aren’t too bad. Some I could go without word lookups at all but I like to grab anything new that I can. My only real hurdle now is vocab.
Bear in mind I started 17 years ago. There are far better and more accessible resources now. In fact I didn’t understand spoken Japanese until a little under 3 years ago. I had an audio processing problem I wasn’t able to fix until Japanese subs became more easy access.
When I started, 10 years was about the expectation
It takes time. According to some estimates, it takes a native English speaker about 3 times as long to reach a basic level of fluency than if they were to study Spanish or French. I believe numbers are 740 hours vs about 2200 hours.
I mean I can get through media after about 2 years of doing 1 or 2 hours of wanikani with some amount of reading that I don’t really track on top of that. Gotten through about 3 games at this point
I’m still learning and I don’t really have exact numbers. It’s been 149 days according to the vocabulary app I use. I can barely read something like this article https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/k10014089671000/k10014089671000.html which is geared towards lower level readers. I can understand the grammar but needed to do vocabulary lookups for several words. I don’t think there’s any way I’d be able to read a manga right now.
I’ve been pretty consistent every day studying during lunch and in the evening, so I’d estimate that’s maybe 300-500 hours of studying to get there. So I’d say it probably takes more hours than that to get to that level of reading.
I’m not finished by any means. I’ve taken a slower route than a lot of people. I have about 2600 in my Anki deck after a year and a half (really only a year using that specific sentence one) and then I’ve done another 1000 from a core deck. As for reading, I don’t have the exact time recorded, but I’m somewhere from 1 to 2 hours of reading a day on average (sometimes more, sometimes like 30 minutes,) and then maybe another 30 minutes to an hour of listening on top.
Where I am though, is I can read manga without lookups, though I do miss the occasional words. My anki deck is growing faster now than ever before, because the time invested beforehand really boosted my acquisition of new words. And while I definitely need a dictionary for anything more difficult than Manga, I don’t feel uncomfortable reading them. The only thing stopping me from reading more is time. (I’m full time job, post college adult with other hobbies.)
Since it’s going to be lifelong, it isn’t really hurting me any that I don’t know more since I know my habits will get me there. I’m betting at about 4 years, I should be pretty comfortable reading most things with minimal lookups, just based on my current pace. I also like to shove listening wherever I can, so I know I can at least understand my way around when it comes to being in Japan, whenever that happens.
I think around 2 hours of active a day with some passive listening sprinkled on top for 3 years will get you to a really good place. Probably not perfect fluency, but a great starting point. Then the fulltime immersion built into being in Japan will have a really strong foundation to grasp onto and make you even better.
I’ve been casually learning on and off for about 5 years. Still can’t read anything I’d want to read for reading’s sake but it’s been useful in unexpected ways. Anyone who is exposed to the language on a regular basis will benefit from learning it IMO. Getting to the level where you can read a wall of text with no audio or visual context takes more discipline than I have to hit in a reasonable amount of time. I’ll be happy if I can do it another 5 years from now, if ever. Still don’t regret starting and wish I’d done so sooner
It took me just over a year of studying/immersion for 4-6 hrs a day to feel just barely feel comfortable reading a light novel and 2 years in I can read easier romance type series easily but still struggle pretty hard with most fantasy and sci-fi
I have been studying for 1 year 2 months now. I know around 5500 words and have gone through all of Remember the kanji. I probably fall on the more aggressive end of hobbyist learners having spent around 2-4 hours a day studying + immersing in Japanese.
I estimate it’ll take 3 years in total at my current pace to reach the point where I would consider myself near native (read novel length books with minimal furigana, strong listening + speaking).
In terms of getting into native material it took me around 10 months at my pace before I felt comfortable enough to attempt it (really struggled). I would say it’s only been in the past month or two that I’ve been able to following along with native tv shows + Japanese subtitles somewhat comfortably.
I’m still learning
I’m not fluent by any means and I’m still a beginner just 6 months in but I think you should set realistic goals from the get go, I’ve been reading your other comments regarding wanting to start earlier or fearing you might end up stopping and that’s just not the right approach. You don’t learn Japanese, you become japanese yk
Any amount of japanese you do everyday over time will stack up and give you results 2? 5? 10 years? You will eventually get there just don’t stop.
With that said I think you can expect to hit your goal in about 2 years time. I consume an unholy amount of japanese just cause I have nothing better to do with my time so even 6 months in I can easily pick up the general context of things in Japanese (not understand! Just have a feel for it) another 1 or 2 years and I’ll be fine
Just keep learning my friend your progress will get faster the better you get (well it’ll feel slower) but it’ll be faster lol
I’ve been learning for about 2 and a half years, and have been living in rural Japan for the last year of that. I can comfortably speak to people and understand just about anything I encounter, but my reading still leaves a lot to be desired because I’m lazy and haven’t practiced as much as I should have. I’m currently studying to take the N2 in December, and while the listening portion is trivial for me to understand, actually reading the questions and their answers (as well as the remaining two sections of the test which are reading and kanji) are what’s holding me back.
I also had a multicultural upbringing and speak four languages total, and generally find language learning to come naturally to me (which is nice, because practically nothing else does lmao). What took me two and a half years might take others 5+ years, and might take others <1 year. Everyone learns at different rates and is good at different things, and everyone’s situation is different. I went hard on conversation practice (I was taking 1-on-1 conversation lessons with a native tutor three times per week for about 6 months before moving here, and most of my practice since I’ve come here has basically been “go outside and socialize”) but others may not have the time, money, or otherwise ability to do that. If you focus more on reading and writing and kanji and academic Japanese with the goal of reading LNs, you can probably be better than me at that stuff pretty fast.
Anyone can learn any language, babies do that shit all the time. It’s a product of the time and effort and commitment you put in, what you decide to focus on, and how much you are able to practice and keep at it consistently.
Learned my first word exactly 30 years ago. Lived in Japan, married a Japanese person, have worked in Japanese companies speaking Japanese every day for the last 25 years… and still haven’t “learned Japanese,” because there’s always more out there. Just enjoy the ride and don’t give up!
So I am almost 2 years in. I only have about 1-2 hours per day to study during my kids nap (my kids aren’t in school yet, and they are at home with me.)
I finished the KiKi’s Delivery Service (魔女の宅急便) novel. Now, it was a SLOG; and I used the dictionary a ton, but I did do it. So I guess it depends on what level you want to read at; like never use a dictionary? It’s gonna be a LONG time.
I am probably about to “survival” level Japanese. I can have surface level conversations (I am understood, but make plenty of mistakes).
But I enjoy it. I get excited when I notice a jump in understanding and ability. The main part of it is ENJOYING the process. Yes, you have to push through some things, but finding ways to enjoy it makes it fun.
I don’t see the harm in taking the plunge! You could “waste” time learning Japanese OR you could waste time scrolling on reddit/social media/ video games, ect.
Been studying on my own since day 1 for 1.5 years.
Conversing is still challenging but I can have a very slow every day conversation with people. My text messaging is a lot faster than speaking. I can read any slice of life manga and understand the entire story and only have to look up a word every few pages, or I can figure out what the word means. Books can take a while but most of the time I’m fine. Reality tv shows, YouTube and anime with subtitles I can understand most of what’s going on, but not everything so I have to make flash cards for those.
I’m working on my N2 and I’m still learning. So… still going. Been a long ride.
Started 14-18 in HS for class. Stopped until like 25. Started again to move to Japan for work. Stopped during Covid around 29-30. Started again at 32-33. Now 34.
Long ride.
I did around 2 hours a day for 2.5 years before i got N2 (little to no exam study). I mainly learnt vocabulary from the top 2000 anki decks then dived into reading graded readers and then RTK (remembering the kanji). From there I had fun by watching lots of netflix dramas. I would make a couple of new sentence flash cards per day. My current anki deck is around 10k including everything I’ve learnt and I’m sitting at 5 years of study on and off. Going to take the N1 in July.
I live in Japan now and don’t struggle too much unless it’s releated to law/cultural things. So I would say around 5 years to get to the point of reading manga and novels fluently. My motivation for Japanese was my frustration for not being able to understand and read kanji.
12 years in. I can read basic novels aimed at kids and teens. I still need to use a dictionary to understand all the words, but I can usually get the gist of it without.
I was going to answer but I studied full-time in Japan which included hanging out with native speakers as soon as my level was good enough to do so…
Instead I’ll just say that it entirely depends on how many hours you can devote to learning without taking long breaks.
If learning Japanese was your sole hobby and you ignored the other three skills to focus on reading you could get to the point where you could consume any media you wanted in about a year. Most people can’t commit to it that hard core so it’s going to take longer.
Since you’re apparently just going to focus on reading (and not writing or listening or speaking) it might take you a lot less time than the average learner.