bebio Wrote:I agree with this. The original poster should not be so naive to assume that just because he partially memorized how to write 2046 kanji with just one meaning, that he has actually mastered Kanji. Once you arrive in Japan, you will quickly realize that you are still almost completely illiterate. The most common Kanji have tons of variations in meanings, depending on the context, there are many Kanji to be seen that fall outside of RTK1, and mastering the reading will keep you occupied for a long time.

OP here. I am aware of this like others have mentioned that I don't know compounds or pronunciations yet or other meanings. I am actually living in Japan. Sometimes when reading materials out and about, I can use what I've learned from Heisig and make out a general meaning. However, the point I wanted to make was in regards to the study times listed on the Wikipedia page about JLPT - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_La...84-2009.29

Students with no prior kanji knowledge need 1300-2200 hours more to get to the same level as students with previous prior kanji knowledge. However, those students with previous kanji knowledge (I assume mainly Chinese students) also don't know anything about the pronunciations. They may be aware of compounds and more meanings but that definitely should not take an extra 1300-2200 hours.

If you read the interview with Heisig I posted originally, it's kind of the same thing people are saying here. I mean, if he had asked someone back then, "how long would it take me to be able to write 2000 kanji?", he would have probably been told "It can't be done", " A foreigner can't learn that many kanji" "It would take years" "You need to write each kanji over and over again hundreds of times" etc etc.

I can't believe one of the responders even doubted that he learned it in a month. I've been tracking my time that I've put into RTK1 and I have completed it in just over 100 hours spread over 3 months. Heisig, at that time, was studying full-time so I have no doubt that a person could pack that into a month.

Limitations are often in our mind and I'm just trying to figure out a way to make the process more efficient.

Quote:My Jewish friend who I met in Japan as my guide lived there in the country as a homestay for 9 months and got fluent (well, functional, then she picked up all the city/urban speak quickly when she moved to the city).

Actually I have also met a couple people who claim to have been able to pick up a language to a fluent level in 6 months.

One was an Australian I met in China. He had lived in a very, very rural part of China and was actually quarantined during SARS. He said he picked up everything in 6 months and then didn't even need to study afterwards. Watching him interact with Chinese people, he definitely seemed to know the language and pretty much every Chinese person would be amazed at his ability.

Another person was Colombian who moved to a homestay in Quebec, Canada with no prior knowledge of English or French and she said she was able to understand everything in normal day use in both languages after 6 months. I don't speak French so I can't verify how much she know but talking to her in English, she could converse a lot better than most people who learn English as a second language.

You're mixing up way too many things.

JLPT was based on instruction hours, not actual study hours. If you did Japanese in college, that's where the hours come from. You could do homework and that could take some hours but that doesn't count under those figures.

A Japanese person saying all those quotes might mean different things. For all you know, they might be assuming "Well if she wanted to say 望遠鏡, can she write that from memory?" Or they might be assuming, "If she sees 望 can she redraw it?" Or maybe they might be assuming "Can she write 望 so that it actually looks good?"

You then bring up fluency and functionality, which is a completely different beast from the JLPT.

I've said something like this so many times:
You're going to reach a point where working on efficiency is more inefficient than actually working.

Most, if not all of us are already there if not beyond that, so we just go to work.

If we all knew how to pass JLPT1 in 6 months, we would.

Some people are just really gifted with languages and can probably do it in 6 months.

Most people take a lot longer. And in no way does doing RTK put you on the same playing field as a Chinese or a Korean person. Not even close.

To the OP, since we all spend different amounts of time each day then we should maybe talk in terms of number of hours of study.

Sadly the part that comes after RTK is longer and doesn't have a magic bullet, but using various nice things often discussed here like RTK + SRS + Subs 2 SRS + kanji odyssey (superceded by kore), I think it took me less than 700 hours of study to pass JLPT2, so 2 to 3 times faster than Wikipedia lists for students with no prior kanji knowledge.

However, I believe that studying more than a certain amount per day has negative effects on your per/hour efficiency.

For example I did RTK in around 150 hours over 3 months (like yourself) and after that I didn't have many reviews remaining. From what I've heard from students who have done RTK in one month - they may spend over 200 hours total and then still have tons of reviews to do after the book is 'finished'.

7, 8 months studying 8 hours per day, one could maybe pass JLPT1 - but likely with good listening + reading skills and poor speaking skills. I could never study that much .

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know that your efficiency drops after a certain amount of hours! I agree vosmiura, just look at when we study for other things.

If you ever tried cramming more than 4 hours for a test you'll know that anything after that 3-4 hour mark is just gruesomely boring and tedious even if you were rocketing through it at the beginning, and you don't retain that last bit of info that well either.

Can't be done. The end.

@KMDES

Why not just do transcripts? Forget Anki and watch videos with subs, listen to music with lyrics and head over to FNN news for a daily dose of news - the last two are Rikai-chan-able, which means its even easier. Sure it will take longer to build vocabulary, but you'd be building everything else (except production - unless you shadow, reply to the screen, and write interesting Kanji out).

There are other ways to study aside from Anki. Really Anki is just a convenient place to have everything.

Just for kicks, why not start a Kanji wall.

1 x BIG AS paint brush and black ink will be needed and about 100 pieces of A4 paper.

Simply engage in the art of super sized calligraphy. Once you finish a good one, just hang it up on the wall next to the 100 others and smile as you see yourself tearing it down with an even better version of it later on (version 2.0!). For an instruction video, see here:

<--- Now doing that in your room or garden would be hilarious fun.

@vosmiura
I've studied for 1.3 years. At 3 hours on average per day, I've done 1,095 hours or so. I might just pass N2 barely! Respects to ya! -700 is awesome juice!

@matto
Hehe, I sense fluency might mean able to speak and listen to you. A lot of other people would add reading and writing to that too. Probably if I was being totally honest, I would side with you, actually - perhaps, a more traditional view of fluency.

The figures for the number of hours taken to pass JLPT1 are pretty much meaningless. I mean how many people actually count the number of hours they've studied accurately?

From my experience I would say it's possible to get to roughly level 1 ability in 2-3 years if you are studying quite hard but not to the extent of completely giving up your social life.

Maybe this could be shortened to 1-2 years if you are completely immersed in the language e.g. going to a language school full-time and also using all your free-time for reading/speaking/listening practice.

Be careful about believing peoples stories of fluency in just x months. Especially in cases where you don't speak that language as you can't really judge accurately. For example, a friend of mine came to live in Japan over 20 years ago and talks to people very quickly and confidently in Japanese. To someone new to the language she might seem to be completely fluent (and Japanese people will compliment her that she is too). However, in truth she can barely read the language at all, and her speaking is full of mistakes. She also struggles if the conversation becomes at all formal or the topic is different from the things she usually talks about.

I'd say it's hard to take short cuts to well rounded fluency.

mutley Wrote:The figures for the number of hours taken to pass JLPT1 are pretty much meaningless. I mean how many people actually count the number of hours they've studied accurately?

From my experience I would say it's possible to get to roughly level 1 ability in 2-3 years if you are studying quite hard but not to the extent of completely giving up your social life.

Maybe this could be shortened to 1-2 years if you are completely immersed in the language e.g. going to a language school full-time and also using all your free-time for reading/speaking/listening practice.

Be careful about believing peoples stories of fluency in just x months. Especially in cases where you don't speak that language as you can't really judge accurately. For example, a friend of mine came to live in Japan over 20 years ago and talks to people very quickly and confidently in Japanese. To someone new to the language she might seem to be completely fluent (and Japanese people will compliment her that she is too). However, in truth she can barely read the language at all, and her speaking is full of mistakes. She also struggles if the conversation becomes at all formal or the topic is different from the things she usually talks about.

I'd say it's hard to take short cuts to well rounded fluency.

2-3 years seems kind of long from my perspective. Given what I've managed to accomplish in about 3 months I don't think it would take me that long. Then again I've been going at it AJATT style.

Cranks Wrote:Just for kicks, why not start a Kanji wall.

1 x BIG AS paint brush and black ink will be needed and about 100 pieces of A4 paper.

Simply engage in the art of super sized calligraphy. Once you finish a good one, just hang it up on the wall next to the 100 others and smile as you see yourself tearing it down with an even better version of it later on (version 2.0!). For an instruction video, see here:

<--- Now doing that in your room or garden would be hilarious fun.

Well I actually do own such a brush (even bigger) but right now I don't have the moeny effording so much ink and I don't want to "rub" it by myself (that sounds kind of wierd, but you know what I mean, right? ).. I used to do that last summer in the garden at the river near our house with my girlfriend together. She basically introduced me to Shodou and this is just beautiful Sosho I must say~

Kuma01- I'm not saying it's not possible in less than 2-3 years, just that I think that is a reasonable goal for someone of average intelligence studying hard but unable to devote their entire life to studying. If you can go that extra step then maybe as little as 1 year is possible, but I can't imagine anyone managing much less than that especially not without leaving some pretty huge gaps in their knowledge.

Cranks Wrote:@KMDES

Why not just do transcripts? Forget Anki and watch videos with subs, listen to music with lyrics and head over to FNN news for a daily dose of news - the last two are Rikai-chan-able, which means its even easier. Sure it will take longer to build vocabulary, but you'd be building everything else (except production - unless you shadow, reply to the screen, and write interesting Kanji out).

There are other ways to study aside from Anki. Really Anki is just a convenient place to have everything.

I do all of those except the news one. News is boring enough in English let alone a foreign language. It's also very depressing. I also play a lot of J video games usually with voice acting. That helps alot. I'm at the point I can make it through most games, despite having to solve puzzles in Japanese.

mutley Wrote:Kuma01- I'm not saying it's not possible in less than 2-3 years, just that I think that is a reasonable goal for someone of average intelligence studying hard but unable to devote their entire life to studying. If you can go that extra step then maybe as little as 1 year is possible, but I can't imagine anyone managing much less than that especially not without leaving some pretty huge gaps in their knowledge.

Personally for me, I expect it will take me 3-5 years to get to the levels I want.. 2-3 years sounds right as well but it comes down to what you want to do in the language,

I talked to a friend who is further along. He had this to say:

Based on the idea of fluency being speaking and listening well only.
1) Set very specific goal, such as in 1 month learn how to talk about my day, the weather, food, etc.
2) Achieve that goal.
3) Rinse and repeat.

He thought you could probably get quite good in a very short time doing this. His reasoning was fairly simple: We often set for complicated goals that are often not practical or don't allow for a slow upward progression from a manageable level. Hence, working on talking about rather basic stuff followed by going slightly higher by function or topic allows us to ladder ourselves, rung by rung, to higher levels quicker than taking a rather general "I'll just learn it all approach" that we often take on.

An example of this approach in action would be:
Weather, etc. --> Requesting information --> hobby discussion --> Relationship discussion...

For listening:
Textbook dialogues (related to the above) --> Pilsumeur --> children's audio books --> topic based audio books with transcripts (in Romanji)...

Yes, I wrote Romanji...

Anyway, it was a good conversation over a few beers. I'm still trying to think it through a bit, but I feel he is onto something with this. Theoretically, with decent instruction, correction and resources this would be possible, although the learner would have to work through a text book at the same time, in my opinion, to round this approach out.

Didn't this Fluent in 3 months discussion appear once before...

I don't think even studying actively for 6 months solid you could class yourself as fluent. Your learning a whole language, not just a set of instructions. I don't think you could internalise everything to be use-able on command when and where you need it all the time. Speaking, understanding, writing, listening, everything.

Gingerninja Wrote:Didn't this Fluent in 3 months discussion appear once before...

I don't think even studying actively for 6 months solid you could class yourself as fluent. Your learning a whole language, not just a set of instructions. I don't think you could internalise everything to be use-able on command when and where you need it all the time. Speaking, understanding, writing, listening, everything.

Again the definition of fluent means to be 'fluid-like' which of course doesn't mention what parts of the skill do you all need to be fluid in to be fluent. So, I could be fluent in Japanese because I can say all the ways to say 'Hi' and 'Bye' fluently.

It's basically a lie of omission. But hey, it sure sells well, who wanted to spend only 3 months and become 'fluent' in any language? 8D

KMDES Wrote:Again the definition of fluent means to be 'fluid-like' which of course doesn't mention what parts of the skill do you all need to be fluid in to be fluent. So, I could be fluent in Japanese because I can say all the ways to say 'Hi' and 'Bye' fluently.

It's basically a lie of omission. But hey, it sure sells well, who wanted to spend only 3 months and become 'fluent' in any language? 8D

Personally to me fluent means indistinguishable from a native (accent aside) anyone who accepts less than that is lying to themselves. We've all no doubts come across people who claim to be fluent in a language (usually something half assidly learnt at school... french / spanish) but then are actually close enough to useless in the language. Shit I can say "I have a pen" in german with a really good accent I'm told, but other than that I don't know a single other sentence. Doesn't mean I'm fluent in any definition I care to take seriously,

That's the thing with a lot of these 'Polyglots' they can maybe hve a conversation, but can't read of write in the target language. By native levels that'd be considered illiterate, but you know what they say 'You don't need to anything else in a language but have a shallow conversation with some stranger, all the rest is useless fluff.' must be nice learning 'all you need' in a new language every year. 8D

@gingerninja

lots of natives vary in their level of competence though. Some people take 'being native' to passing Keiten Level 1 (or whatever that insane Kanji thing is). Some people take 'being native' to being able to converse with Japanese schoolgirls and watch manga and read newspapers. It varies.

You know there are languages out there where there are few people who can write and read, but a reasonable community of people who speak it quite well. This is mostly in very poor countries, but could you call them less fluent just because they can't read or write?

On the subject of Japanese, fluency has nothing to do with competency or ability. Its really just a word the language community has decided to modify to mean things other than what it is intended to mean. The problem with this is that there are few, if any, reasonable standards to judge fluency (A high JLPT score doesn't mean a person is native and so on.) This is why, as learners, we make 'fluency' in to a level and each of us has a different definition (although, all share the concept of 'high level'). Hence, the controversy.

With all this in mind, how do you define fluency for yourself? That is an important question.

Kuma01 Wrote:2-3 years seems kind of long from my perspective. Given what I've managed to accomplish in about 3 months I don't think it would take me that long. Then again I've been going at it AJATT style.

2-3 years for N1 is way below average for people from English speaking countries.

Also, it's impossible to judge at 3 months anyway--if you looked at a N1 test right now you wouldn't understand anything, so how are you guessing the difficulty level? Pass N1, then come back here and let us know how long it took.

Lol, why not try it out now?

http://www.jlpt.jp/e/samples/forlearners.html

Me?
# The N1 had too much unknown vocabulary, but was way to slow for me. I found I wanted to say "Get on with it!" I skimmed through the reading and Kanji section, but felt I would have failed the Kanji big time as I'm not learning readings, just words, and I would have passed the reading barely (I can understand what they mean, but wouldn't be even 50% sure that I was right in my answer).
# The N2 was understandable. I probably could barely pass the listening. I skipped the Kanji readings as I'm not focusing on that right now.
# I didn't do any of the other tests as I don't have time.
# If I wanted it, I think I could pull through the N1 level stuff, but it would take 1 year of very solid study directly focused on passing the test (5+ hours a day). I'm probably N3 right now (40-50% through from looking over past tests).

zachandhobbes Wrote:@gingerninja

lots of natives vary in their level of competence though. Some people take 'being native' to passing Keiten Level 1 (or whatever that insane Kanji thing is). Some people take 'being native' to being able to converse with Japanese schoolgirls and watch manga and read newspapers. It varies.

I used to think that same thing. But I've learned, native-level comes down to your age group. I want to be able to do all the stuff people my age can do, but just in Japanese. That is my definition of native-level fluency, aside from the accent thing