phauna
Member
From: Tokyo
Registered: 2007-12-25
Posts: 500
Website
I'm quite interested to know how long you have all been actively studying Japanese. I'm coming up upon one year actively, with a few months lost to not knowing a good way to study and starting with a terrible textbook (Japanese for Busy People). So I started a year and a half ago. I've been in Japan almost that long, too.
I must say I feel quite strong for a year, for Japanese. I mean a year of hard study in French I'd be hugely better than this, but still, compared to the Romaji using, non-Heisig, non-SRS, non-KO Japanese learners that I've met, I feel very satisfied with my progress.
Oh, I managed to cram 5300 cards into my deck in that time, do Heisig and post on this forum a lot too.
Last edited by phauna (2008 October 16, 7:58 am)
wccrawford
Member
From: FL US
Registered: 2008-03-28
Posts: 1551
I started being interested 10-15 years ago, by watching anime and reading manga. I got serious about 6 months ago and started actively learning. It gives me a weird perspective, since I get a lot of 'automatic' knowledge from anime without thinking about it, but have very little vocab.
Edit: Nukemarine made a good point about average study time per day.
I probably hit the 30-60 min average at this point. I try to study 1-2 hours a day now, but I've been quite lazy in the past.
Last edited by wccrawford (2008 October 16, 11:41 am)
Tobberoth
Member
From: Sweden
Registered: 2008-08-25
Posts: 3364
I started to be interested in the Japanese language at 18, but in those days I just learned some basic words like 赤い and such. Laster, around 20 I think, i decided i wanted to learn kana, so I learned both and some more advanced stuff... about 100 kanji or so, using the old technique of writing them several times.
Suddenly, I decided I wanted to learn Japanese for real, so I moved to Tokyo for 1 year and studied several hours every day in a language institute. This is when I consider to have started my studies of Japanese. In the end of that year (2007) I passed JLPT2. While my kanji writing skills were really low, I spoke japanese very well then. After comming home to Sweden, It was nice not to have to deal with Japanese constantly, so I didn't continute my studies... It took several months before I started doing it again, when I found this site. So while I learned my first Japanese words several years ago, I've only studied Japanese for real for maybe 15 months or so.
Aiming to take JLPT1 in 2009.
sutebun
Member
From: Oregon
Registered: 2007-06-29
Posts: 172
Pretty much 2 years exactly. I started taking first year Japanese two years ago at my university.
Classes don't move that fast, so I didn't learn much in the first 9 months (not that I was trying too hard anyway). I got the basics down, which was good to prepare me for self-study. I spent the summer after the class studying by myself and was able to skip the second year class.
I've only spent three weeks in Japan, so I'm pretty content with my level now. Holding a real, detailed, and long conversation is somewhat difficult (too many words I don't know!), but I feel I can communicate pretty effectively despite that.
I'm hoping to do JET after this year, so I want to study even harder and get really good before I head to Japan. My plan is to trick my students into thinking I don't know Japanese and listen to whatever they say about me while they think I can't understand them.
Last edited by sutebun (2008 October 16, 10:05 am)
I think I learned my first Japanese words in 1986 or so when I did Karate *lol* ... but of course with no intention to actually study Japanese.
In ~1998 I started to pick up my first Japanese words, tried to understand Hiragana etc. - again I didn't have any real intention to study the language back then.
In 2002 when I was still at university, I decided to take a language course in Japanese. Thanks to this I studied Japanese for 2 years, but with breaks in between. After that I became really busy "thanks to" final exams and stuff .... and had to take a HUGE break. After that I immediately started to study again ... on my own. All these breaks, that on- and off-studying had thrown me back quite a bit and I became frustrated, yet never gave up.
I visited Japan in 2007 after graduating from university and then decided to stay there for a longer time. Since the beginning of this year I live now in Japan and study Japanese every day. I can't study as much as I want to as I have a full-time job, but I definitely feel some progess that I never had in my home country.
My listening comprehension was pretty good before I came here, because ever since 1998 I have been listening to Japanese music and watched Japanese media (anime, jdrama, jmovies) on a daily basis.
In July 2008 I discovered AJATT and this site and decided to try Heisig. I've already heard of Heisig at that time, but only "bad things", so up till then I avoided it. I'm so glad that I finished RTK1 in one go. It definitely boosted my reading skills as I already knew tons of words, but couldn't figure them out, because I couldn't recognize the kanji back then (could only read around 400 kanji).
I've always been swimming somewhere in the 3kyu river, but I think I'm finally (but unfortunately slowly) on my way to 2kyu.
If everything goes well (and once I've saved enough money) I plan on going to a Japanese language school here for 1 year and do full-time hardcore studying which will hopefully kick my ass beyond 1kyu level .... some day 
Seeing how fast all of you progress in much shorter time is sometimes frustrating. Sometimes I'm mad at myself: "Why didn't you sacrifice more of your free time when you actually had tons of free time as a university student? Why didn't you use Heisig earlier?" or ... "If only I had started to study more seriously back in XY, then I could be at XY level now!"
Guess that's it.
One last word of advice: Never, n.e.v.e.r. take "long" breaks from your studies! It will only throw you back lightyears! I know - sometimes it can't be avoided, but even in those times, try to do a little bit at least twice a week or so. Just don't stall your studies completely!
Last edited by chochajin (2008 October 16, 10:15 am)
Nukemarine
Member
From: 神奈川
Registered: 2007-07-15
Posts: 2347
Technically, 20 months (when I moved to Japan). Granted, I started RevTK in June 07 and Sentence method about January this year.
I don't think I'm that far. Better in some areas than others. Such is life.
I think a more relevant question to help gauge how quickly one can advance is "how many hours total do you think you've been studying Japanese?" Granted, such a question is VERY difficult to answer. However, it distinguishes between those that study every other day for an hour and those that put in 3+ hours of active study. The difference is both with a year of study, one has 170 hours while the other has almost 1000 hours of active study. I'd wager the later is better at Japanese at that point.
PS: I think I average an hour of active study a day, so about 400 hours roughly.
iSoron
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2008-03-24
Posts: 490
Since March 2008, using RTK, SRS and all the other fancy stuff from day one. Average of 2-3h per day, I think, not including immersion time. First, I learned Hiragana, then RTK1, then Tae Kim's Guide, then Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. I'm now studying the kanji compounds and their readings.
Before March, I only knew 'arigotou' and 'sayonara'. Now I can read some Light Novels with the aid of a dictionary. Not the news yet, though. Too much compounds per square inch. ^^
I learned for a year, pretty slowly. Evening class, light vocab and grammar, kana. After those twelve months, I read AJATT, found this site, and decided to step it up a notch or five.
I'm now a couple of months into my second year of Japanese. With all these new tools and methods I've got - not to mention the time I'm putting in - I'm pretty confident that I can have a much better year 2.
Ji_suss
Member
From: Toronto
Registered: 2008-08-22
Posts: 96
11 years, on and off. Mostly off!
Went to Japan in 97 with no Japanese. Studied once a week formally and at home a few minutes a day--I was working in an English environment. Did Busy People 1 and 2 by the time i left in 2000, and had maybe 300 kanji that i could recognize. I'm a bit ashamed that i didn't progress faster, but I felt at that time that if i could ask for things, order food, buy things, and talk about weather, it was enough. Certainly Japanese expectations of foreigners (esp. N. American) are quite low. And i had no intention of staying a long time.
Came back to Canada, took a few evening classes, etc just to maintain the little i had. Studied Genki 2 and started An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese.
And then this year something caused me to reexamine my dilly-dallying, and after reading AJATT I decided to kick myself in the butt and learn kanji, which I've been doing since the end of August, i guess, a half hour a day when i can.
So total hours? Maybe 100 hours for each textbook, that's 300. Maybe 200 hours on my own. Then a half hour a day for two months. Maybe 530 hours over eleven years---pathetic!!!
I've learned more in the past two months than in the previous ten years.
But my knowledge of Japanese culture,customs and history is almost encyclopedic, i'd say. And 3 passive years in Japan didn't hurt my comprehension and pronunciation.
But basically i squandered a great opportunity. :-(
Matthias
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 2005-10-27
Posts: 37
Next year it will be 20 years for me, so I thought I would be the one with the longest history, but I lost to Raichu. まいた。
In 89 I tried RTK for the first time and miserably failed right after Heisig left me alone to build my own stories.
You do not know how fortunate you are, there was no RevTK around at that time and also no SRS available. I was lucky enough to find de Roo as a story source and instead of an SRS I used the cards from Heisig's blue box (including ridiculous primitives like "migrating ducks" and far too many mistakes).
My progress was slow compared to most of the bright people here or at AJATT but anyhow I came to a point where I could speak at a more or less decent level. I used it a lot when I worked for a Japanese company from 95 to 99; that helped a lot.
I passed 2kyu in 96. But I gave up on 1kyu after I realized that it was too difficult for me without living in Japan. And till today I just did not make it to Japan ...
I could live without passing 1kyu but I considered it a personal failure that I did not know all the 2000 kanji which I had learned over the time in various attempts. That was something I had to straighten out and I finally straightened it out in 2006. The use of an SRS made all the difference.
I use FullRecall as SRS and I just love it. I selected this year 200 additional kanji to learn. Most of them are indeed important, but if I am honest I just made it because I love to learn kanji with the SRS. For the same reason I look around here for some other interesting stuff that might get me hooked to learning again.
Matthias wrote:
Next year it will be 20 years for me
Got me by a year. I started in 1990 and completed a J minor in University. The focus was very much conversation for the first two years. Years three and four were heavy into written composition.
Since then, worked in Japan for a total of perhaps 3-4 months on various projects (usually about 15-20 days each) - with a year or more in between them. The rest of the time bouncing on contract jobs throughout Europe (with a few detours to HK) - these have always been long hauls as I lived on the west coast at the time.
Keeping up with study has been very difficult, and alot of the conversation skill has been lost. Although, usually by week 2 "in country" you start to feel a bit more like "converstion" and less like "listening and nodding". Almost always have audio material playing in car / plane / etc - so this has helped. But this is something that needs to be done ACTIVELY. Listening in a passive state (zoning out) only gives you a feel for the temp and tonality - nothing more.
RTKing for about 2 years. Remembering all those that were once learned and forgotten without use. Made the move from site to Anki about 2 months ago to combine RTK with other subject (grammar, sentences, words, compounts, names), with a priority setting to RTK. Adding probably about 50 per week. In no hurry here. And I can't really afford more time. The key is to keep going.
Faburisu - thank you for the platform which has allowed great people to come together.
Forum members - thank you for coming together and sharing. This has become a great community.
Good luck to all those starting out, and to those well on their path.
Last edited by ew8049 (2008 October 18, 11:49 pm)
Nekesu04
New member
From: United States
Registered: 2008-05-21
Posts: 6
I took my first Japanese class my Sophomore year in high school, so almost 6 years ago, it's funny how I got A's in all my Japanese classes but failed Spanish. I pick up words well enough but I always had trouble with intermediate grammar and Kanji. Decided to give the RTK method a try last week, at about 200 now with 35 a day and I'm remembering them pretty well.
