I went to school for 1.5 years and got to N3(passed it). That was what the schools timeline was.
I havent really studied at all since(about 1.5 years ago), but i feel like my listening has improved quite a bit.
For example, im not really into Anime, but do like Dragon ball, which i watch to keep my ears sharp. I can understand at least 85% of it now without any subs, only limitations being vocabs mostly. When i’m on a airplane, i understand most the announcements too.
What level even is that? N3? I found it a lot less understandable when i had just passed N3.
My reading has definitely stagnated though, and my speaking is only marginally better.
Did anyone gain any substantial progress when not actively learning? I’d love to attempt N2 later, perhaps someone can share if they needed to study much for it after a long break but loving in Japan(and maybe improving passively).
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I think it’s important to draw a distinction between “studying” and “practicing.” I think it’s easy to have the image of formal study with a textbook being the only way to progress. If you’re not doing that, then you’re not working on your Japanese. However, that’s simply not true. If you’re watching DragonBall and actively engaging with the content, trying to understand without subtitles, looking up new words, etc. Then that’s a form of language practice! That will lead to your level increasing. Any form of practice where you’re pushing yourself to do something difficult will lead to improvement
Yes. I studied a lot up to N2, then I moved to Japan, and completely stopped studying. I even worked fully in English for the first 2 years here. I then took N1 without studying and passed it. The confidence you gain from ‘living’ the language as opposed to just studying it can help you keep your cool during the exam, which almost always translates into better results.
Most likely you went from academic N3 to more fluent N3.
This happened to me even before I moved to Japan just through consuming enough content in Japanese. I pretty much stopped any formal study after I got N2 but my language skills seem to be constantly improving, albeit slowly. Now that I live here, I have to use Japanese every day anyway.
I took N1 and stopped studying about two years ago. It has definitely gone down in terms of proper grammar and kanji knowledge. Everything else kinda just stayed the same.
My Japanese improved most when I was being social. Then work started monopolizing my time and in the last two years my Japanese has regressed from N2 to like N-fuckin-4.
I haven’t studied with a textbook in a long time but I’ve spent the past two years doing interpretation and translation as well as dealing with customers and bosses in Japanese. I don’t know if I’ve improved or gotten worse but I sure as heck notice my own mistakes a lot more than I used to. Very frustrating.
My Japanese ability shot upwards once I started working in a Japanese only environment, but I am obviously an outlier…
I got N1, realised my spoken and listening Japanese is still shit, and just stopped putting time and effort in. I can understand about 40% of what any Japanese man says to me first time around; slightly higher for Japanese women.
I now just use the same kind of Japanese for my job on a daily basis; thankfully mostly email based.
I almost never speak Japanese outside of work, by personal choice.
If you’re functioning in a Japanese-language environment, then trying to understand and integrate new words you encounter can be a form of active learning, I think. It’s a lot more fun than book-study too!
I also passed N1 and stopped studying when I left school and got a job (fully Japanese working environment).
I feel like my general comprehension has probably increased over time, as have specific work-related skills like understanding meaning when quickly skimming documents and emails. I used to have to focus to figure out what was going on in meetings at work, but these days I don’t have to concentrate particularly hard to understand what is being said. This is partially down to knowing more about the job specifically, partially just being more comfortable listening and speaking.
This comfort has noticeably leaked through to other areas too though – I no longer bother with Japanese subtitles for basically anything except period dramas, which are hard to follow at the best of times. I can play games and watch TV in Japanese pretty much without issue.
So my general ability in terms of writing documentation and emails etc has definitely improved, but I think that’s more down to just having had practice than anything else.
My Kanji writing skills, however, have gone down tremendously. I don’t write kanji -at all- anymore and struggle with even objectively very simple ones. I can just about manage my address – it’s that bad though.
I also occasionally catch myself using keigo by accident, automatically, when the situation doesn’t call for it, where the opposite used to happen.
Overall I think my Japanese has improved, but I don’t think I’d pass the N1 again if I were to sit it. I now lack the very specific knowledge that the N1 tests for, despite my general ability having improved.
You can look at N2 past tests online.
Yeah because I use it everyday at work. If not, maybe I’ll forget most of it.
Sadly no. My writing level nose dived as I almost never write by hand. My reading and conversation skills still progress without school but not in a good way. I got more and more “vulgar” or like an おじいちゃん every day, my formal Japanese is worst than ever.
In general, yes because I’m using Japanese every day at work. However, my ability to recall and hand-write kanji has gone down slightly. Back when I was still “properly studying” I used to write out all/most of the vocab I was reviewing each day so my kanji handwriting skills were through the roof. Now, they’re still good, but not as high-level as before. You just don’t write that much stuff by hand anymore (and I say this as someone who very much enjoys note-taking by hand, journaling etc).
I stopped studying when I moved here, knowing just about 200 kanji (lmao) and having broken conversational Japanese. In the 6 years I’ve been here I’ve been using Japanese on the daily and have become quite good at speaking. I watch series and read comics in Japanese (with furigana mostly) as well so my Japanese has progressed. If I were to take N3 I’d probably fail because of the kanji 💀 I can read/recognize a lot more now, but I don’t know how to write them by hand. In my experience, going out there and not avoiding a conversation has made the biggest difference. Just try to talk even if you don’t remember a word or didn’t understand something. Eventually I became able to hold any sort of conversation unless it is on a topic I am absolutely unfamiliar with (like internal surgery, history or politics🤷🏻♀️) but it’s not like I like talking about those topics in English or my language anyway haha.
I like talking a lot too so that helps!
I just learn kanji mostly and practice by actively working at a Japanese only company and speaking to people daily, I’m in charge of a lot of things somehow so I always have a chance to write up some reports or present something, so despite not studying using books and paper like you’d typically study, I’m actively using the language while also learning new words daily using online apps, I’d say I’m actually only “studying” kanji and their meanings. So yeah that’s also another way to study I guess.