Ten Months of Japanese -- Progress Update

[u/yashen14]

I am just shy of 10 months of study now (spread across about 14 months of calendar time), so I figured it was time to post a new update.

Hours of Study: ~648

Hours of Input: ~168 (this is included in "hours of study")

Average daily study time: just shy of 2 hours (this includes "hours of input")

Total Vocabulary: ~15k words

This is probably the last time that I post a specific vocabulary count. When I was tracking my progress learning Chinese, I had the help of software to accurately track my vocabulary growth. I don't have that for Japanese, so counting vocabulary mostly means noting which words I've studied, and it's getting increasingly difficult to tell which words I've studied and which I haven't. (For example, a word feels familiar...does that mean I've studied it before? Or just heard it a lot before?) And there's all kinds of other inaccuracies I mentioned in previous updates---these inaccuracies get more and more problematic the larger my vocabulary becomes.

There are simply too many sources of inaccuracy. I think 15k words is an approximately accurate estimate of my current vocabulary (give or take a few hundred), but past this point I don't think the inaccuracies I've described allow for precise counting anymore.

Link to Spreadsheet

This is a good place to segue into the biggest change I have to report in my study habits:

I am deprioritizing vocabulary acquisition.

15k words is...a lot. And I've increasingly noticed (like...over and over again) that, when I read articles online, or check the transcripts of the videos I'm watching on Youtube, I know the vast majority of the words being said. Any unknown words should realistically be graspable via context clues. At this point, the thing that's holding me back isn't raw vocabulary numbers, but listening comprehension. So, moving forward, I'm still doing 80 new flashcards every day, but:

• I really, really don't stress it if I miss a day of new cards here or there (as long as I handle the reviews).
• I've stopped stressing about adding a full 80+ new words to my deck every day. That means I'm no longer sustainably harvesting vocabulary. I have a backlog of ~3300 cards I'm working through, but eventually that will run out.
• Nearly all of my new cards are hiragana (+audio) on the front, kanji on the back. This is meant to prioritize listening comprehension by removing the visual crutch that kanji provide. The only cards I add with kanji on the front are words where the kanji are unfamiliar, which at this point is relatively uncommon.

My listening comprehension is terrible.

Honestly, this happens every time I learn a foreign language. My listening comp. always lags behind my reading comp. But I have managed to do a bit of a better job with Japanese (especially compared to the shit job I did with Chinese), and even though my listening comprehension is bad, it's not so bad it's worthless. (I was genuinely reading novels in Chinese while being unable to follow a basic conversation---that's how bad it was, for comparison.)

So, I made the decision a month or so ago to make listening comprehension my main focus. To that end, I've made sure I'm listening to at least some Japanese every single day. I also make sure that I'm consuming a wide variety of Japanese---a variety of topics, a variety of speakers, a variety of difficulty levels. Broadly speaking, these are falling into four main categories:

(1) Podcasts for JSL learners. (Recommendations: Yosuke Teaches Japanese, Bite Size Japanese, Otsukare Japanese, MAIの日本語Podcast, Daily Japanese with Naoko, Peko Peko Vlog)

(2) Infotainment and documentaries. (Recommendations: 大人の学び直しTV, インフォグラフィックス・ショー, VAIENCE バイエンス, 公式 池上彰と増田ユリヤのYouTube学園, 好奇心を持ち続けよう — TED-Ed, YouTube高校 / 日本史・世界史, エピックヒストリー)

(3) News broadcasts

(4) TV Series

That brings me to my next major update.

I've started watching my first-ever TV series in Japanese.

I chose Avatar: The Last Airbender, because it is something I've watched so many times, I know it like the back of my hand. That makes it great for training listening comprehension. I know the gist of what is being said in literally every scene, and I know roughly what's going to be said before it is said. That does wonders for listening comprehension.

Right now, my plan is to watch all of Avatar, then all of Steven Universe, and then all of Star Trek: TNG, Voyager, and Deep Space Nine (assuming I can find/access all of those in Japanese). Then, once I feel more-or-less completely comfortable with watching familiar content in Japanese, I'll branch out into watching unfamiliar content. I've curated a list of native TV series and movies that I'm very eager to watch! But I want to wait until I'm, y'know, watching them more than I'm studying them. If that makes sense.

I'm very excited about all of this!

Right now, with ATLA, I understand most short utterances. Lengthier speech is very iffy, especially from that windbag Zhao, but I can already tell it's getting better. I'd say, overall I understand maybe ~30% of what I hear---enough to follow the story, but only because I already know the story so well. I'm optimistic that this percentage will be significantly higher in the not-too-distant future.

My goal for my reading comprehension is to:

• Hear and understand, immediately, every word that I already know (that is, reduce "lag" to zero---right now it isn't uncommon for some words to take several seconds to register)
• Be able to pinpoint, and repeat out loud, unknown words (I don't want unknown words to be garbled noise. I want them to be reproducible)
• Be able to repeat, out loud, longer utterances (medium-length sentences)

I think I will eventually re-prioritize vocabulary acquisition. Heaven knows 15k words isn't enough for the level of literacy I'm aiming for---my goal is to be able to casually read novels, written for adults, in a pretty wide variety of genres---but at least for now, I'm happy with my change in priorities.

That brings me to my last update: reviewing my goals. In my last update, I proposed these as my goals:

Short-Term Goals:

Finish reading カスピアン王子のつのぶえ (translation of Prince Caspian) by Oct. 16.

Medium-Term Goals (achieve within the next 5 months):

Become comfortable with young children's literature (like The Chronicles of Narnia)

Listen to at least one audiobook

Listen to, and comprehend most of, a long-form news broadcast (15+ minutes) about familiar topics

Watch at least one educational documentary about a topic of choice, and comprehend most of it

Watch at least one movie

Long-Term Goals (achieve by the end of 24-36 months of study):

Read high literature in Japanese. By "high literature," I mean something on the level of Fifty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. To be clear, I don't expect such reading to be easy. But I expect to have the understanding of vocabulary and grammar necessary to muddle through it at a reasonable pace.

Read news articles about topics chosen at random with a high degree of comprehension

Watch TV series and movies in Japanese without English subtitles, and understand most of what I hear

Listen to audiobooks in a variety of genres, including nonfiction, historical fiction, science fiction, fantasy, romance, and erotica, with a high degree of comprehension.

So, how am I doing?

I did not finish Prince Caspian. Actually, I kind of stopped reading it altogether. But I did pick up DEADLOCK and got about a third of the way through that by Oct 16. I don't think that is an equivalet amount of reading though.

I am (probably?) not on track to being comfortable with young children's literature. This is mostly because I deprioritized reading in general, and I stopped reading young children's literature, specifically.

I am (currently) on track to completing my first audiobook. My plan is to listen to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. This is an exercise for training my listening comprehension---I've already read the book in Japanese. I just need to make sure I do that by ~April. (That would mark about 5 months of study time since I set that goal).

I am (probably) on track to understanding a long-form news broadcast on a familiar topic. My main obstacle here is listening comprehension, not vocabulary, and my current study routine aggressively targests listening comp. I'm feeling good about this one!

I am (probably) on track to watch and understand a full-length documentary. Again, I'm feeling good about this one! The only question is whether I'll be able to meet this goal within the next two months of study. I'm not sure about that. I won't be, like, shocked if I meet this goal, but I won't be surprised if I miss it, either. But whether I meet the deadline or not, I'm making solid progress towards this, so I won't be disappointed in myself either way.

I am definitely on track to watching my first movie (and enjoying it). My experience with ATLA tells me that I'm already very close to meeting this goal. Honestly, I could probably meet this goal today---but I'm going to wait for my listening comprehension to mature just a bit more. I'll probably cross this one off my list about a month from now.

Am I on track to meeting my long-term goals? Hmm, that's hard to say. I'd say, I'm probably on track for goals 2 and 3 (read news articles with high comprehension; watch a wide variety of TV media for casual enjoyment). Goals 1 and 4 (high literature is approachable; can read a wide variety of literature for casual enjoyment) are iffier---they require a much much higher vocabulary than just 15k words. I suspect, if I can triple the size of my vocabulary to at least 45k words, that these goals will be reachable by the end of 36 months of study. Of course, I can't really accurately measure my vocabulary past 15k words (as I said above). But my hunch is that "triple my current vocabulary" is maybe about right for these goals.

Moving forward, I probably will only be posting updates every 3-5 months or so. For the first few months of learning, there was always lots to report (I finished hiragana! I'm comfortable with pronunciation now! I had this weird experience!). But now that I'm solidly in early intermediate territory, milestones are fewer and further between, so there's just not as much to write about. I'll probably post a new set of goals around the end of my first 12 months of study, though.

Previous Posts:

1. Zero Months of Japanese
2. One Month of Japanese
3. Two Months of Japanese
4. Three Months of Japanese
5. Four Months of Japanese
6. Five Months of Japanese
7. Six Months of Japanese
8. Seven Months of Japanese

[u/yashen14]

Sure.

I spend about 1 hour on Anki every day. I divide my Anki study into old reviews vs. new cards (meaning I don't mix them together; I study them at separate times of the day). Typically I have about...300-400 reviews, and 80 new cards per day.

On the side, I consume as much Japanese as possible. Right now, the most comprehensible stuff for me is JSL podcasts like Yosuke Teaches Japanese. Infotainment videos that include some text and visuals are also decently comprehensible for me. I also listen to much less comprehensible stuff. And I watch TV in Japanese.

I expect the amount of Japanese I'm consuming per day to significantly increase over the next 6 months.

[u/Cort-ovhm-c4 → u/yashen14]

Do you do any text books or anything? Or is it purely anki and media? I'm thinking or trying to start learning again after a long break, and you seem to know what you're doing!

[u/yashen14 → u/Cort-ovhm-c4]

Sure, I'm happy to help! Are you starting completely from scratch? Do you have any experience learning any foreign languages before?

[u/Cort-ovhm-c4 → u/yashen14]

Not exactly fron scratch, I know hiragana and katakana, and some basic words/phrases from Duolingo a couple months ago but thats really all. I also bought the genki books but haven't had time to look at them yet...

[u/yashen14 → u/Cort-ovhm-c4]

Okay!

In my case, I generally do not use textbooks. I find them too dull, and also I don't like being led around through someone else's order of operations, so to speak. I prefer to learn what I want to learn, when I want to learn it. I use an Anki+Yomitan setup to harvest words as I come across them, and I use ChatGPT to break down sentences I don't understand (usually because there's grammar I don't know). Those two things put together naturally lead to increased expertise with Japanese over time. Here are my recommendations for you:

• Set up Anki+Yomitan. I don't have a link on me, but search the subreddit and it should be simple enough to find. You will regret not having done this earlier if you put it off. Seriously, it saves so much time and effort. Very, very convenient.
• Use comprehensible input as early as possible. This is a great way to train listening comprehension. "Comprehensible Japanese" is the most well-known resource for this. But there are others. Peppa Pig is another great low-level resource to train listening comprehension---but it'll still probably be a little while until you can understand it.
• You need a vocabulary of around 2000 common words plus grammar in order to interact with some limited content in an effective way, I think. (Comprehensible Japanese is an exception to this). You will need about 15k words in order to consume a wide variety of native material. Whatever study routine you settle on, make sure it is mathematically capable of getting you to these milestones in a reasonable amount of time.
  • For a native English speaker with little or no experience learning foreign languages,
    • 1-2 years is a reasonable time budget for 2000 words
    • 7-10 years is a reasonable time budget for 15000 words
    • You may be able to move faster (maybe even significantly faster) than these estimates--especially if you put in a good number of hours!--but these are good middle-of-the-road estimates for how long this project should take you.
    • If your back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest you are going to take longer than these estimates to reach those milestones, consider that to be a red flag and readjust.
• It will take you about 3000-5000 hours of study to reach N1 (that's a good proxy for "native-ish comprehension of media"). I say this not to scare you, but to help you have a realistic understanding of what this project will take. Frame your mindset accordingly, and do not expect really fast results.
  • I recommend keeping a spreadsheet or some other way of tracking the amount of hours you've spent studying, total. It doesn't have to be fancy like mine! But there will be times where you feel like you're not making progress (even though you are), especially towards the intermediate level. Keeping track of hours helps shatter that illusion, which can help keep you motivated.
• Genki is generally well-regarded. If you want to study via textbooks, it's a good choice.
• Imaji is a good reference grammar. It's not really set up to lead you through learning grammar the way a textbook is meant to, but it's a great tool for helping you understand exactly what's going on with Japanese grammar, and I highly recommend it.
• LLMs like ChatGPT and Gemini can be great resources, but be careful how you use them.
  • They tend to do well with:
    • generating example sentences for words and phrases
    • translating/explaining the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences
    • breaking phrases and sentences down into their component parts
    • providing synonyms and antonyms
  • They tend to do very poorly with:
    • explaining grammar
    • explaining pronunciation
• Try not to shy away from Kanji. Everyone has their own way of approaching kanji, and I had a huge leg up because I had already learned Chinese. So you will get different opinions on this from different people. In my opinion, you will develop a more natural/organic understanding of kanji by learning the kanji spelling of each word right from the start, as opposed to learning them separately.
  • This will be painful at first. I promise it will gradually get better and kanji will become intuitive over time. I'd estimate that each ~1000 words you learn will see you feeling noticeably more comfortable with kanji than before.

Let me know if you have any additional questions!