Hey everyone.  I thought it would be interesting to see how much time everyone has invested in learning Japanese so far using the JLPT levels as a proxy for actual ability.  I'm curious how the official estimates match with actual experience.  I only ask that you state the test you considered taking and calibrate your answer in hours, so that we know the actual time you've invested so far.  Other than that, study materials and methods would be interesting, but not required.  People who were considering taking the test can reply too if you think you are close to passing.

JLPT N3 (not taking, close but probably wouldn't pass)
1266 Hours invested so far
99% of my time was spent in anki studying core, tae kim, and rtk.

N2
About 300 - 500 hours for this test specifically (no idea really. just a rough estimate)
Primary resources were N2文法スピードマスター and 新完全マスターN2語彙

(2015-12-04, 3:05 pm)angelneko Wrote: N2
About 300 - 500 hours for this test specifically (no idea really. just a rough estimate)
Primary resources were N2文法スピードマスター and 新完全マスターN2語彙

Thanks angelneko!  Just to make sure we understand your estimate, can we assume you were roughly N3 level when the 300-500 hour clock started?

Hm, good thread. I tried the N4 this spring in Germany but failed miserably... got half of the points needed to pass.
Study time, roughly  12 days (8 hours a day), no Anki, whatsoever.

(2015-12-04, 3:27 pm)yogert909 Wrote:

(2015-12-04, 3:05 pm)angelneko Wrote: N2
About 300 - 500 hours for this test specifically (no idea really. just a rough estimate)
Primary resources were N2文法スピードマスター and 新完全マスターN2語彙

Thanks angelneko!  Just to make sure we understand your estimate, can we assume you were roughly N3 level when the 300-500 hour clock started?

Correct. I passed N3 last December.

Passed N1 with 152 points last December. 82 hours of Anki (of which 4.5 specifically for the test), probably around the same doing RTK1 in Memrise before I switched. 21 months of reading VNs (breaks not subtracted), probably in the low 4-digits. Miscellaneous other stuff that must have been less than 100 hours in total. This guide started it all.

N2 (tomorrow)
300h of 1v1 lessons, 110h of Anki (split over KIC,Core6k,RTK). So about 420 hours over 2.5 years starting from 0 after transferring to Japan. Daily listening and speaking impossible to count.

BTW, Good luck on the test to everybody who is taking ittomorrow!

@Vempele I totally forgot about that Anki deck. It's brutal, but wow, it has so much good obscure stuff in it, some of which I'm sure will show up on Sunday's N1. Now I have something to cram mode on the side for the next couple of days.

As for my hours, I have absolutely no clue. From August 2007 through June 2011 I learned on the side as a hobby, and finally passed N2 in the summer of 2011. Then I studied seriously a bit more, then got lazy, then fell into the "study in fall, recover from studying all fall by not studying the rest of the year" pattern. I've also had a lot of doses of RL interfering with my studies.

One thing I've kept up pretty consistently for the last four years is weekly conversation/tutoring sessions, so my speaking ability is okay.

I'd say this fall I've been studying about 10-20 hours/week for the last 12 weeks, sometimes a lot more, sometimes less. Depends on RL commitments, health, and all of that other troublesome crap that leaves me with no energy to study at the end of the day sometimes. Maybe 180-200 hours this fall? No idea, really. That's merely a guess.

I can't say for sure, because Anki bugged out and gave me something like -40000 hours one month, but I've approximated two different numbers for Anki reviews:
Estimating from graph: 400 hours over 42 months
Estimating by average time spent (assumed, as data prior to 2 years ago is lost): 630 hours

Outside of that, reading, a few months traditional study before finding Anki, this year's JLPT prep, etc. I have no metric for.
Maybe 1200 hours total?

(Off Topic, didn't think it deserved its own thread in this form)
Are there any Japanese bookstores in the Atlanta area other than Iwase Japanese Bookstore in Roswell? It doesn't seem like it (the one in Smyrna seems to have closed a few years ago). Also, if anyone knows when it's open, that'd be great too...