I was in Japan for 4 years before I took the JLPT2. Prior to coming here I had studied a bit of Japanese in evening classes. My progress has mainly been down to exposure to Japanese by simply being here.

Even though I got through JLPT2 last year, I wanted to try again coz I didn't really feel all that comfortable with it. I'm enjoying the test prep much more this year as it's more a case of just having to memorise stuff that I can understand. As opposed to last year where I was having to work harder to understand stuff before I could try to memorise it.

I like the tests as they motivate me to study in a structured fashion.

How about some study times to JLPT level stories?

I found this page a while back:

http://www.nvtc.gov/lotw/months/november...tions.html

it says to obtain "general level proficiency" in speaking and reading in Japanese requires 2200 class hours.

That seems a lot more reasonable than the JLPT estimate of 900 hours for JLPT1.

That would work out to about 20 hours of study a week for 2 years. Or 5 hours of study a week for 8 years.

So not a personal experience like you asked for, but I thought some interesting numbers. ^_^

I've often thought that quantifying study time in years isn't very meaningful since everyone's study habits are differentland might even change from one year to the next, but I'll tell my story.

I started studying Japanese at the end of my freshman year in high school. I learned what I could in my free time, and when I got to college, took 2 1/2 semesters of Japanese classes and 1 semester of classical Japanese. After that, my main classes intensified and I often went months at a time without learning any Japanese at all. I graduated college, finished RTK that summer, and then came to Japan. I started studying a lot for the JLPT, took level 2 4 months after arriving, and passed.
I continued studying, began reading books and the next year I took and passed level 1, about 7 1/2 years after I first picked up a textbook.

Kanji was my best section on level 2 because I studied by quizzing myself on every kanji word that was tested on 14 years of the test. Reading didn't go wo well because I hadn't had much practice with it.
The next year, kanji was my weak point because I hadn't had the time to prepare for it the way I did the year before, but because I'd spent the whole year reading books, the reading section was fairly easy. That, and I don't think the level 1 reading section is a lot harder than the level 2 reading section.


Fun fact: My college was one of the four testing sites in the US. I could have taken the test 5 minutes from my dorm room in a building where I took a lot of my classesm but I never did because I wanted to wait until I was ready for level 2 and didn't reach that level in time. Both times I took the test here, it was 3 1/2 hours away from my home. Ech.

I agree that hours of class time is an unreliable way to measure ability. I went from basically JLPT4 level to approaching JLPT1 in a little under one year thanks to very accelerated Japanese classes and total immersion - lived with a Japanese family and then with my Japanese girlfriend, watched TV/movies (even western ones) in Japanese, only listened to Japanese music, etc. The majority of my friends were also Japanese. A common "mistake" people make when they come to Japan is to surround themselves with other foreigners. In fact most of my foreign friends had few or no Japanese friends. That's why there are people who have lived in Japan 9+ years but can barely say hello.

Of course, extra self-study on the side with RTK and a good grammar reference helped as well.

Japanese classes in the west tend to be extremely slow paced. I know mine were, and it was a common complaint among the other foreigners at my Japanese school. Compared with my classes in Canada, we had roughly 3 times the class hours per week, and covered well over double the amount of material in one semester. The teachers also used only Japanese in class (except for the lowest level classes).

I wonder what kind of classroom environment they used to estimate the number of classroom hours required for each level.

You could call it AJATT, but I don't think that the concept of immersion needs a new name or can be attributed to khatzmoto (no offense).

I started my Japanese studies roughly 2 years ago　（Nov '05頃), at that time I knew little more than "sayonara". Started with Pimsleur courses(only finished the first course), then moved onto the kana, forced myself to read only kana (I felt time spent reading ローマ字 was time spent not reading kana). Fumbled along until I came to Japan in June of last year, when I began Heisig.

Took me about 7 months or so to finish RTK1 (add all the cards..), but during that time I studied for and passed the kanji kentei level 8(440字). Also about the same time as starting Heisig I started some "structured" learning for the JLPT, which I took and passed level 3 last year.

I took Kanken level 6(825字) in August, and passed with a score of 178.
Now I'm just focussing on JLPT 二級 prep.

After living in Japan for over a year now, my listening ability has become a strong point, but I still need lots of practice reading, and plenty of time spent going over those bloody grammar points! (oh, and I could do with knowing a few more words too!)

I think if I had to count every hour I have spent studying (constructive or otherwise) I'd most definitely be getting on for what the JLPT guidelines state as required for 一級 but I'm pretty sure they mean class hours.

two years studying in class 5 hours a week (one hour a day)
+
9 months studying an avg, 25 hours a week in japan at yamasa

times can be misleading. i think the first 3 months alone were
more effective than the whole 2 years back home.

i'm taking level 2 and fully expect to pass.

I took some *very* basic Japanese classes in 2001 taking advantage my mom was still working for the university where the course was held (which gave her a nice discount) and learned very basic Grammar and Hiragana. Never could understand 1 word of kanji. Of course, the course was VERY LIGHT, obviously intended for the engineer students who are loaded with work whereas I had too much free time because I had to skip 1 semester (my university doesn't have Japanese courses).

Entered first semester of my university career and left Japanese there for years until this summer when I found this site and learned that the JLPT even existed. In the last month of summer vacations I quickly recovered my rusty Hiragana and learned some Kanji.

Actually, I just came back from signing up for JLPT 4. Okay, so the level isn't that hard, but I assume you're not a med student that travels 5 hours a day in traffic using public transportation (I always view the old and run out of the mill mexican buses as that episode of the Simpsons where they used their sweaters to slow the bus down because it didn't have breakes hahaha) and has surprise Pharmachology and Surgery tests on the same day just for the sadistic fun of it.

I kinda had to keep my studies on low key this past month because I was entering finals of the tougest subjects, but these new subjects I'm having are pretty laid off so hopefully I'll have time to still prepare and (maybe) pass it.

I'm acing the kanji/vocabulary section but Grammar will be a problem. I can read Japanese but I'm a slow reader and they don't exactly give you a lot of time in the test. Hopefully with my extra time I'll be able to work with past exams to get the feel of things.

Actually, the only place in Mexico where you can actually sign up for the JLPT is a really nice Japanese school where it seems like people really do learn stuff. It's such a shame it's at the other side of the city (I can't believe it took me 2 hours to get home with no traffic. It's that far). There's another place in my area that has a Japanese course, but it's also very basic and it probably wouldn't teach me much of what I already know thanks to this site. Dammit, living in north-western Mexico City sucks! We only get bad Hollywood movies dubbed (god forbid people in my area have the mental capacity to watch subtitles), no subway lines and a bunch of Starbucks.