Wondering if I can reach uni levels of proficiency in 3 years.

5 comments

1. Yes, it’s possible, but it will take quite a lot of time invested. You won’t do it in an hour or two a day, you’ll have to spending most of your non-school hours on Japanese.

   It doesn’t need to, and shouldn’t, all be formal study. One of the best ways to improve your Japanese (or any language, native or second) is just to read more in that language, but listening to it and conversing in it also work. If you just push to the point where you can read easier manga and scrape your way through small talk conversations then most of your ‘study’ after that can simply be through doing things you enjoy, but in Japanese.

   The downside is you won’t really have time for friends who aren’t interested in things Japanese, the upside is that you can spend time playing video games, reading manga, listening to pop music, etc, and call it study.

   Well, you’ll need to read some more serious things too or you just won’t get there, but if enjoy say, historical fiction or detective stories you can get quite a lot of practice in with some very serious and useful vocabulary and language constructs while still enjoying yourself.

   Be sure to check out the MEXT scholarship,

   https://www.us.emb-japan.go.jp/itpr_en/mext-scholarship.html

   and even if you don’t get into the scholarship program consider taking a year in a language school between high school and university, reaching sufficient fluency in time to immediately sit in university classes after graduating high school isn’t impossible but not many people would succeed.

   There is also the option of taking considerably more time and doing just one semester or one year of exchange program rather than enrolling in a Japanese university, depending on what you want out of the experience.

2. “Uni level” is subjective. You will get out what you put in, and if you’re interested/passionate & consistent, you’ll be surprised how quickly you progress. A uni course with no personal drive may even hold you back, because you’re learning at the pace of the course and not at your own.

   Anecdotal story time.

   I know 3 Japanese majors (all from outside the US), all of whom I met in my first year living in Japan. All of them had done 3-year bachelors, and 2 of them (both Australian, but from different regions) were less proficient than I was after my one year of self study.

   The other, however, was a girl from Germany who’s university course eventually led her to taking and passing N2, and she had done her best (as I had) to be involved with her local Japanese community before coming to Japan. Her Japanese was really awesome and way better than mine at the time. I think if the other two had tried to involve themselves with a community or just get as much interaction with the language as possible, coupled with their courses, like the German girl, they would have been far more proficient than they were at that point.

3. Highly unlikely. But not impossible.

4. I put in around 4000 hours of study over three years, mostly immersion based (reading novels and watching Japanese television) and I’m currently an exchange student in Tokyo taking the same courses as native students, and happily understanding at least 90% of everything. So it’s possible, but it’s going to take a lot of dedication.

5. Curious as to what your reason for dedicating your young life to the study of Japanese? My own daughter is a dual passport holder, lives in Tokyo, and it isn’t like everyone is falling over their feet to hire her because she is 100% fluent in Japanese & English. I know adults who became proficient in Japanese and live in the country currently yet it often seems they regret all the effort they put into learning the language.