How I Learned Japanese From Scratch: My Full Timeline (Year 1)

If you’ve started learning a new language recently, you might be wondering just how long it will take to see results. I hope I can help by sharing my own story of how I learned Japanese as an absolute beginner and eventually reached fluency.

To answer the question “How long did it take to get fluent?” right off the bat, I would say it took somewhere around two and a half years.

I’ll elaborate more in this article, but for now please take that number with a grain of salt. The reality is that everyone has a different idea of what “fluent” means, and how quickly you reach that point will still depend on countless different factors, including what languages you already speak and how much time you’re able to invest in your studies.

When I look back on my Japanese learning journey, I tend to break it down into the following time frames based on US college semesters.

• Year 1: Fall 2010 → Spring 2011 → Summer 2011
• Year 2: Fall 2011 → Spring 2012 → Summer 2012
• Year 3: Fall 2012 → Spring 2013 → Summer 2013

In this article I’ll share everything I remember from my first year.

Fall 2010 (September to December)

This is when I signed up for Japanese 101 and started formally studying the language. It was my first year of college and I was pretty much a complete beginner. I had learned a couple of very basic words and phrases from anime (like “hello,” “thank you,” and “I’ll kill you”) and I had memorized the two basic writing systems, hiragana and katakana. The writing systems can be learned in less than a week, so I don’t consider it to be a meaningful head start.

I didn’t have any particular goals at this point. I just wanted to get my feet wet and see if I enjoyed it or not. Luckily, I did!

I attended classes three times a week, each class being 80 minutes long. I also spent on average four to five hours a week on homework or studying for quizzes and tests.

I did exactly what was required to do well in class, but nothing beyond that. No supplemental studying other than periodically watching anime, although at this stage my anime viewing was entirely for entertainment rather than active studying.

At the end of these 4 months, my skills were somewhere along these lines:

• I could read and write hiragana and katakana, and around 150–200 kanji.
• I could form basic sentences and questions like “This is my brother. He has long hair,” “Let’s meet at 7 o’clock,” and “I eat hamburgers at McDonald’s.”
• When trying to speak (without having rehearsed anything), my brain needed around 5–10 seconds of loading time.

Overall, I think it was a reasonable amount of progress! In 4 months I picked up a good amount of vocabulary and grammar, and could “speak” if given enough time to think or rehearse. As experienced by most language learners, I had learned a bit of Japanese but had not actually internalized it.

If I were to take a trip to Japan at this point, I definitely wouldn’t be able to have spontaneous conversations. But I would be able to survive.

After the fall semester, I rewarded myself by spending my entire winter vacation binge-watching anime and frequently thinking “Hey, I know some of these words!” That was a lot of fun.

Spring 2011 (January to May)

It was my second semester of college and I had moved on to Japanese 102. I approached this the same way I did before — go to class, do the homework, and study for the tests. We started learning slightly more complex grammar and kanji, but everything was building off what we had learned before. I didn’t feel like it was a major jump in difficulty.

At this stage, I began to notice that my Korean-speaking classmates were exceptionally better than the rest of us. They barely had to think before speaking, their sentences flowed smoothly, and their pronunciation was cleaner. I was quite jealous.

I later learned that this is common because Korean and Japanese have a ton of similarities in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. So Korean speakers do have a significant advantage.

I mention this not to complain about my overpowered classmates, but because I want to bring up the important point that everyone has their own advantages and disadvantages when learning a new language, depending on their linguistic background.

A lot of people wonder if they’ll ever catch up with classmates who naturally have an edge. Here’s the quick answer: yes, you will!

By the end of the semester, I could do the following:

• Make more complex sentences like “I have to go to the bathroom because I drank too much water” and “I think McDonald’s burgers taste better than Wendy’s burgers.”
• Read and write around 350 kanji.
• Improvise very basic conversations with a lot of hesitation and overthinking.

Not too shabby for two semesters of study. I had made noticeable progress, although I was starting to wonder when I would actually get the chance to use all the Japanese I was learning. Every single word of Japanese I’d spoken up until now was in the classroom, so I was itching to use what I learned in real life.

Summer 2011 (June to August)

As expected, I spent most of my free time playing games and watching anime. Life was good.

I noticed that watching anime was a lot more interesting now because I could pick out a lot more random words and phrases that I understood. I think my overall listening comprehension was still less than 15%, but it was nice being able to enjoy more of these “Hey, I understood that!” moments than before.

However, the biggest highlight of my summer was when I finally got my chance to use Japanese outside of the classroom.

During a family trip to Taiwan, I had the unexpected chance to meet and chat with some students from Japan. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could understand small bits and pieces of their conversations. And when I attempted to say a few random sentences in Japanese, they understood me!

To be fair, I don’t think I said anything more complicated than “I’m studying Japanese. I’ve never been to Japan, but I want to go.” That’s all I could handle in the moment.

But for whatever reason, I felt an enormous sense of accomplishment from being able to communicate a few of my thoughts, in a language I had started learning less than a year ago. It was a small win, but a very important point in my journey.

My new friends and I added each other on Facebook, and from that day I started occasionally seeing Japanese posts and comments pop up on my feed. Not textbook Japanese manufactured for a classroom — real Japanese posted by real people. Suddenly, this language was no longer just a school subject for me. It was a real, useful skill.

This summer experience was super encouraging and gave me a huge boost of motivation. I realized that I wanted Japanese to be more than just a hobby — I wanted to take it seriously.

Wrap-Up of the First Year

In one year of learning Japanese, I learned around 1,000 vocabulary words, 350 kanji, and many essential grammar points needed for day-to-day conversation. That’s not the important part though.

The important part is this: I found out that I enjoyed learning Japanese immensely, and wanted to pursue it seriously with the goal of fluency in mind.

Most language learners don’t reach this stage, and I was very fortunate to have discovered something I cared so much about.

Before I knew it, Fall 2011 was right around the corner. It was time to start year two of my Japanese journey, this time with a newfound motivation!

If you’re interested, check out part 2 of the story.