This month marks three years of me taking Japanese language learning seriously. I’d like to jot down some notes on my journey, where I’m at now, and some resolutions I’d like to achieve in the future.

Background #

My first foray into Japanese culture and language, like many others, was through anime and manga around the ages of 12-13. It was my primary interest during that period of life, only fizzling out around late high school. I internalised a few hundred words, visited Japan once, and made several attempts at learning the language, but ultimately I was an unfocused child at the time who never hit the ground running.

Come my third year of university, I unexpectedly stumbled upon a cheap ticket to Japan, going on a three week long solo trip. One thing and another happend, and I found myself in a somewhat rural part of Japan missing some of my bags, without a single English speaker in sight. I ended up having to make a phone call in Japanese with an actual Japanese person, using my broken anime level Japanese to get my bags back - but somehow, I got my point across and it worked out in the end. After that conversation, I felt an exhiliarating “Wait, this is a real possibility” sentiment in regards to the Japanese language.

Year 1 #

Coming home from that trip, my motivation was sky high. I got right to work with Core10k (a deck I still use today) and skimmed through all of Sakubi in one shot. Year 1 was all immersion for me. With one or two exceptions, I switched all Youtube content I watched to Japanese content aimed at natives, not learners. If English subtitles were available, I usually enabled them, otherwise I would watch with Japanese subtitles or none at all. There was a good mix of all three. The content I watched were usually heavy on visual cues, such as travel, cooking, or games, where what’s being said is directly related to what’s on the screen. I only did lookups if something I didn’t know seemed important and was mentioned several times in quick succession. Everything else I let slip by. Learning was important to me of course, but I didn’t want to burn out by looking up everything and just wanted to enjoy myself.

By the end of year 1, I would estimate roughly 1500 words in my active vocabulary, with another 500-1000 or so in passive vocabulary. I did not do any other dedicated grammar practice after reading Sakubi other than occasionally looking something up on Imabi, and I did not follow a textbook whatsoever. As a very rough guess, I probably understood 20-30% of native dialogue spoken in the livestreams I was watching. Nevertheless, Japanese media was sort of my comforting escape from reality. That solo Japan trip was life changing and I was feeling a very severe post trip blues throughout the year. I would often watch several hours of Japanese livestreams after dinner heading to bed, learning while also satiating my yearning even just a tad.

Year 2 #

Year 2 was more of the same immersion throughout, but with one crucial difference. It was my last year in university and I signed up for Japanese courses. Since I was self taught however, I couldn’t handwrite kanji at all and was told to self study before getting placed mid sequence into first year Japanese. I was secretly hoping to get into second year Japanese at least, but I think it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. The courses were a nice and easy way to end my time in university, but they also rounded out and solidified many basic grammar points which I only skimmed through previously.

Through these courses I met a wonderful TA whom I’ll refer to as ‘S’. I met with S every week for two whole semesters to practice conversation. I could feel it then and I still think so now, but this was a very pivotal time in my Japanese language learning journey. I had a grasp for what sounded natural from all the listening I did, but that didn’t necessarily mean I could produce natural speech as I never spoke. I remember the first time anxiously going to her office and stumbling over my words many times, but she was a master conversationalist that always kept it at good but challenging level for me. I quickly came to look forward to these meetings and would even wake up early on days where I had no class just for some Japanese conversation. All the nervousness subsided and I was stumbling over my words less frequently.

By the end of year 2, I had roughly 3500 words in active vocabulary and another 1500-2000 in passive vocabulary. By my final meeting with S, I could hold my own in a one on one chat entirely in Japanese at native speed and natural cadence for at least an hour. Those morning chats taught me how to smoothly formulate ideas and think entirely in Japanese without an English translation layer. I can not reiterate this enough, but my Japanese would be nowhere near what it is today without S and all the conversation we had together.

Year 3 #

Having graduated university, I was back to my own devices. Year 3 was mostly just immersion once again. My Japanese was getting to a ‘usable’ state which was making me complacent. Part way through the year, I felt my vocabulary count was getting close to 6000 word guideline for N2 so I signed up for the JLPT for a much needed reignition to my motivation. I was a bit more proactive in learning N2 specific grammar by going through 日本語の森 and 出口日語’s videos and working through the 新完全マスター grammar book.

A few months later and my motivation was waning once again however. I ended up doing no practice tests or continued grammar study the in month preceding the test. Going into the JLPT, I was right around 5500-6000 active vocabulary, with 2500-3000 more in passive vocabulary. I was still doing my flashcards and consuming Japanese media, but English media had crawled its way back into my life again.

JLPT #

So the N2 was a pass, carried by the listening section. I just barely scraped by in language understanding and reading. I have mixed feelings about the test. On one hand, my scores objectively weren’t very pretty. Yet at the same time, I felt like the test was much easier than I expected it would be? Before signing up, I had the feeling of shooting for the stars and just seeing where I end up - passing was just a small hope in the back of my mind similar to how one hopes that they at least get their money back from a scratchers ticket. Leaving the test room however I was quite underwhelmed.

I’ve always held the JLPT in such a high regard and as a clear, definitive goal. I mean, it’s the baseline level for many things like job consideration, bonus points on visas and whatnot. But now my sentiment was “if my level Japanese can clear this hurdle, perhaps it wasn’t so high to begin with”.

Self-assessment #

That leads me to the present, a few months after the JLPT. Realistically what can I actually do in the language right now?

• Listening

  • I can understand roughly 90% of conversation in the media I watch, which admittedly is more casual content such as travel vlogs or gaming livestreams
  • Native level speed is not really an issue, but muffled speech or bad audio still trips me up
  • I consider this my strongest skill

• Speaking

  • Speaking for hours at a time, or spending a day entirely in Japanese itself isn’t really an issue provided that it’s limited to basic chitchat and everyday topics
  • I don’t speak Japanese daily anymore, so I need a little warmup time to get into the right headspace or else I end up saying anything as soon as it comes to mind which is a bit stilted
  • More thoughtful discussions are doable but they tire me out fairly quick and my choice of phrasing isn’t always as nuanced as I’d like it to be. Topics such as the pros and cons of buying an akiya, or the relationship between SNS and lookism, and so on

• Reading

  • My social media is mostly in Japanese and I read it intermittently everyday
  • Longer passages are fine too if it’s in my skill range. Although I felt this heavily when taking the JLPT, my reading gets progressively slower the more I read. It’s mentally draining
  • Full books and novels are still rough. I’ve read two books in Japanese, コンビニ人間 and ノルウェイの森, the latter of which I’ve already read once in English. Many pauses and lookups were needed. I understand that to get better at reading, I need to read more books, but it just isn’t very enjoyable for me. My tolerance for lookups is really low and I don’t see myself enjoying it until I’m down to maybe one lookup per chapter

• Writing

  • Essentially nonexistent
  • I can still write all the kana and some very basic kanji like 水 or 日, but I’ve mostly forgotten everything I learned in that year of university classes
  • I don’t see this being a skill I put serious effort into, at least not until much later

Listening and speaking are definitely my strong points, at the expense of reading and writing. Everyone has their own goals for learning Japanese, but my goal from the start has always been getting to a point where I can talk to and connect with more people. Staying true to that goal, I feel like I've achieved a lot.

It’s kind of a weird feeling. I’ve spent quite a lot of time language learning in the past with French and German, but neither of them are as effortless as Japanese. When you have an intrinsic interest in the culture itself, the langauge is really that much easier to pick up. I can spend my entire day listening to only Japanese and have it feel completely natural, comfortable even. I’ve never had this feeling with any languages other than my native ones. That is so exciting to think about. It feels so freeing, by my own efforts.

Future goals with the language #

• Pass JLPT N1 within the next year or two

  • I know now that the JLPT isn’t a great measure of competency, but it’s still useful for immigration and visa purposes. I hold out hope that I can one day build a life over there and put this place behind me for good.

• Increase my vocabulary with more technical and nuanced words

  • I’d like to get to a point where I can effortlessly have conversations about deeper topics such as philosophy and the state of worldly issues.
  • Getting to this point would firmly plant Japanese as my second most fluent language behind English, as I can not do this to satisfaction even in my heritage language.

• Read more

  • I’d like to be able to pick out anything that seems interesting to me on Syosetu, or other trending novels and read it with ease. By ease, I mean roughly 1-2 minutes per page, ideally no lookups.

• Spend more time in Japan itself

  • Currently, I go on yearly Japan trips. They are usually around three weeks in length - two dedicated to Tokyo and one in a new region, usually a quieter rural place. To the best of my ability I’d like to increase this to more than once a year. Both so I can meet my friends more often and to spend more time present in a non English centric society.
  • I’d like to try living in Tokyo at least once. Ideally it would be through a job that’s related to my field, but I would be willing to take a sabbatical for some sort of school visa as well.