To all of those who are now proficient in Japanese, how long did it take for you to really consider yourself “good” or “capable of speaking Japanese”? I’m referring more to outputting (speaking, writing) with natives, instead of just comprehension capabilities.

10 comments

1. Probably not until only recently, but I’ve also just lived in Japan for 3 years. Living in an environment where you need to (at least) speak Japanese for most of the day really helps. I’m still not confident enough to say I’m all the fluent, but I’m good in most situations.

   Edit: oh, after about 15-16 years of study.

2. I thought I was good after studying it seriously for four years in undergrad and doing a short study abroad stint. could easily pass spoken tests, could write academic essays, actually remembered a lot of kanji, etc.

   then I studied for and barely passed N1, came to Japan for grad school, and thought, wow, I speak much better Japanese now! that was due to a lot of my friends/classmates being Japanese, and all my daily life stuff being conducted in Japanese. this was like 3-4 years after graduating from uni. my writing kind of suffered, though, because I was attending a program in English and I made little effort to practice.

   then I joined a super traditional Japanese company, and I felt like I knew jack shit about communicating. after another four years, I can now say with confidence that I’m proficient in speaking and writing, in the sense that I now know how to adjust things like word choice, keigo, etc on the fly depending on the setting. still not perfect, of course, but I now look back on my 18-year-old overconfident self and have a chuckle.

   you can become capable of communicating in Japanese pretty early on in your studies, but how “good” you are depends on what your definition is, and that will likely be a benchmark you change with time

3. For output, about 1 year and half for writing and a little over 2 years for speaking. Living in Japan and going to Japanese school (just graduated, have N1).

   That is, when I am confident, some natives have told me they thought I was mixed/born in Japan, but when I am nervous my head goes blank and I can’t speak properly (not just with Japanese though).

   That usually happens exactly with those middle-aged Japanese people that just by looking at my face think I don’t know anything (not just language, but even common knowledge stuff) and talk to me like I am retarded, doing gestures even for the most basic words.

   I am bad at standing my ground or giving smart replies on the spot ever since I was a kid. Sucks to have low self-esteem.

4. Just passed the 10 year mark.

   Can’t tell when exactly I switched from replying to “So you speak Japanese then?” with “Yes” instead of “I try to”/”To some degree”/etc. I guess being somewhat confident in my ability to handle a broad spectrum of situations involving me using Japanese largely hassle free/without being a burden to my surroundings was key. So for exampoe … consuming books/movies/podcasts for enjoyment rather than learning purposes, holding conversations without having to ask for the meaning of stuff/being misunderstood, making calls, writing e-mails …

   However, writing business e-mails for example still takes me waaay longer than it should, I suck at reading text aloud, and comparing to English (not my frist language) I feel I’m still miles away of being able to convey more complicated thoughts clearly and effectively … so I’d never say I’m “good” at my current level.

   “Capable of speaking Japanese” without a “to some degree” in there? Idk maybe after eight years or so?

   In some sense I still feel “now is where the journey *really* begins”.

5. Roughly four years of intensive self-study.

6. When I internalized the sintactic logic of the language at the point that it feels like I’m thinking and talking in my native language.

   It doesn’t feel like I’m translating what I want to say in japanese but that I’m actually thinking in the logic of those sound just like you speak your native language.

   It is not that hard as it sounds just try not to focus to much on translation and the etymology of the each kanji and word. That will waste a lot of your time

7. “Good” is such a subjective term lol. Cue the imposters syndrome. But even though I have good days and bad, I think I feel like I feel pretty good about my speaking and writing (though there’s still a lot of room for improvement).

   I’ve been living in Japan for almost 4 years now. I started learning Japanese when I arrived. I think I became more confident in my speaking abilities last year (around the 3 year mark). That’s when I reached the point where I could discuss politics and social issues, and express my ideas and opinions with nuance. My goal is now to improve my vocabulary, because while I can talk about nearly anything, I feel like I tend to do so using relatively simple words.

   For writing, I think that’s come more recently (so around the 3.5-4 year mark). I can now write an personal narrative or argumentative essay (1,000+ characters) relatively easily and only receive minor edits. My goal now is to take my writing from “gramatically correct” to “well written.” I don’t think my phrasing awkward or anything like that (it would have been marked if it was), but I think I could learn to be more eloquent.

8. I started studying 22 years ago (omg) in high school. I had a private tutor who was a Japanese native, and she also got me involved in the local Japanese community. Back then there were so few good computer resources, so I guess I did most of my learning face to face. I think I started speaking proficiently in conversation after 3 or 4 years. I’ve mentioned in other threads, I am a corporate interpreter now, but do not feel “fluent” in Japanese AT ALL. Converse? Yes. Understand other peoples conversations that I’m not involved in? BARELY. News without subtitles? Probably also barely lol.

9. I started calling myself “fluent” once I was about four or five years in. By that point, my output was more or less at a point where I could express everything I wanted, although not necessarily in the most natural way. But honestly, it’s a process. Now that I’ve been studying for nine years, I’m definitely a lot better than I was five years in. But even now, I still occasionally have moments where I’m like “Wait, what did you just say?”

   Especially when I try to eavesdrop on conversations my coworkers have that don’t involve me. Doesn’t help they all speak varying degrees of Yamagata-ben lol.

10. I studied it at my home uni for like 4 years, went to live in Japan and study Japanese in a Japanese uni for a year. Those 4 years seemed to amount to almost nothing for my output ability initially. I was barely able to function in actual Japanese.

    After around 5-6 months of living in Japan I finally started to be able to hold conversations in Japanese, was able to do important phone calls in Japanese etc., such as making contracts on the phone. It was still a huge pain. Maybe 8-10 months in and it started to come out pretty naturally.

    Still wouldn’t say I’m really *good* at it, but at least decent and able to communicate relatively well.