The criteria for all 4 JLPT levels contain the sentence "This level is normally reached after studying Japanese for around...".

Level 4 - 150 hours.
Level 3 - 300 hours.
Level 2 - 600 hours.
Level 1 - 900 hours.

Do you think this refers to class/lesson time only? Or do you think this includes personal study time as well?

I know that I have around 600 hours of personal study time, and maybe 75 hours of class/lesson time, but I am only at the JLPT 3 level, and no where near the JLPT 2 level.

What do you think?

I think the way they reach this figure is by survey when you apply for the test. In the test application materials there's a section where you write how many hours you've studied. They say to include all study time, even personal.

So, for most people, they reach Level 2 after about 600 hours. However, for people like me, it's more. I was a double major and had to relearn some Japanese that I lost, and I wasted a bunch of time studying things that ended up not being very important when I was studying. So, my study time is going to be pretty inflated compared to my JLPT level because I've only recently started seriously seriously studying.

i watched 300 hours of Naruto... so that means i can pass level 3 right? (haha just kidding)

That list is pretty bogus IMHO.

It's probably skewed by the Chinese and Korean test takers that form the majority of test takers and know a great deal of Hanzi/Hanja before they start learning Japanese.

There is only one way to find out.

It's a meaningless metric. Personal study time matters way more than class time. Personal study methods vary greatly in effectiveness. Classes are also very different in how much they aim to teach. Some I've seen the curriculum for teach twice as much as those at other schools. Giving just "number of hours studied" doesn't distinguish between personal and class time, study methods, how intensive the classes are, etc.

Well, lets count my hours:

1.5 hours /day for already 90 days => 125 hours.
heplessly trying to learn kanji other ways => 30 hours?
1 anime or dorama episode/day for the last 10 years, 20 minutes each => 1216 hours

Oops, I think I blew level 1.

No im pretty sure its class hours.
http://www.handbook.unsw.edu.au/undergra...N1000.html
That is a level 1 japanese course at my university
6 hours per week lessons, we have 12 weeks a semester so thats 72 hours.

JAPN1001 (Japanese Communications 1B) is the same time, another 72 hours.

1st year level is ~ JLPT4 so ~150 hours :. JLTP4 ~150 hours. [We learn roughly 100 kanji and all this other crap, so its more or less jlpt4]
2nd year is JLPT3 [add another 150 hours] [you learn approx 300-400 kanji in 2nd year]
so it all matches out.
except 3rd and 4th year level probably give you JLPT2 level combined

I agree with LioSama.

I took levels 4 and 3 when I was first in Japan, back in 1994-5.
I remember at the time looking at the question about how many hours and being informed by my teacher that this was only classroom hours.

I recall the application form for level-4 was more difficult than the actual exam as well, hence the need for assistance in completing the application even though I passed the exam with no difficulty whatsoever.

Taken straight from this year's application booklet. It's all hours.

Now, you could make the argument that even though they ask for all hours in the application, that somehow the estimates for what level you should take are based on only in-class studying.

However, I can't think of any other way for them to make those estimates if they're not using the study hours codes from the application, which include personal study hours.

I think the hours are for active study only. Passive studying via Music, Manga, Anime, Dramas, etc will probably need to be 5 times that to score well on the listening/comprehension portion.

For RTK, I think it's safe to say 3 minutes for every kanji you've added to the review cycle plus 20 seconds per review gives a good estimate on your kanji study time. Example, I have 2200 kanji and 24000 reviews. That's about 250 hours of study time. I also have done several hundred reviews in Anki which I'll rate as 1 minute per (it's writing and listening, or reading and pronouncing).

Point being, thanks to electronic reviewing methods, I have a good idea the amount of active studying/reviewing I've been doing. Sadly, it's not anywhere near 900 hours. Now if you count all that time with my iPod, well.....

Of course there is quite a bit of difference between active and passive study, but that's a little bit of a personal decision. I would say that if you're really breaking down the anime and trying to understand every line, looking up new words as you go, then that's studying.

If you're just watching something in Japanese with English subtitles, I wouldn't count that.

"Do you think this refers to class/lesson time only? Or do you think this includes personal study time as well?"

With 100% mathematical certainty I am able to tell you that: it includes all of the time that you have spent studying actively.

However, if you want to know whether you ought to include the time you spent reviewing, or whether you ought to include or exclude previous knowledge of hanzi/hanja the only way to find out is to ask the people who made up this graph directly.

It's probably a lot simpler to just find some old tests and take them to see where your abilities lie. Hours don't mean much, IMO. Some people pick up on Japanese quickly, and some don't. Some classes are great, some are awful. You can't judge someone's ability with such a non-measure. If you don't know the quality of the hours, you're just guessing.

rich_f Wrote:It's probably a lot simpler to just find some old tests and take them to see where your abilities lie. Hours don't mean much, IMO. Some people pick up on Japanese quickly, and some don't. Some classes are great, some are awful. You can't judge someone's ability with such a non-measure. If you don't know the quality of the hours, you're just guessing.

I'm tempted to take a pre-test, but something in me says to be a maverick and don't try to study for the test. Just take the path I'm walking and see if it ends up overlapping where the JLPT thinks you should be.

I'll sign up for the JLPT 2, even though I'm nowhere near it (aside from Kanji) at the moment. Let's give myself a goal.

Anyway, the point I was making was that with an SRS like Anki and RevTK, you can get a good "guestimation" on the number of hours you've studied at least in the active reviewing side of the house. I can look at the numbers on my iPod to get a rough idea on the number of hours I've listened to Japanese. Only thing I can't quanitify is time spent reading text books or watching Japanese TV. Regardless, it's alot.