How I Learned Japanese From Scratch: My Full Timeline (Year 3)

I’ll share what I did in my third year of learning Japanese — the year I finally reached a level that most would consider “fluent.” You can read about my experiences as a beginner and intermediate learner in part 1 and part 2 respectively.

Fall 2012 (September to December)

It was the start of my third year of college, and I had finally ascended to Japanese 301 — Advanced Japanese. Sounds intimidating, right?

I noticed right away that compared to the fun and thrilling first two years of Japanese classes, the 301 level was noticeably less interesting.

I believe this was the reason: during the beginner and early intermediate phases of learning a language, everything is new and exciting. Every vocabulary word and grammar point you learn is novel and immediately useful.

But after reaching the “advanced” level, you start getting diminishing returns. Most of the new vocabulary and grammar are just variations of what you’ve learned in the past.

To give a simple example: one of the first words I learned in my first-ever Japanese class was とても, the most commonly used word for “very.”

Over time, I learned various other ways to say “very.” すごく. 非常に. めちゃくちゃ. あまりにも. The list goes on.

When I learned とても, it was incredibly useful because I literally didn’t know any other way to say “very” at the time. By learning that one word, my ability to express myself in Japanese rose dramatically.

By the third year of Japanese class, I’d already learned at least five other ways to say “very.” Each new variation, while certainly nice to know, didn’t drastically change my ability to express myself. This is a prime example of diminishing returns.

This made studying feel a lot less satisfying than it did before.

Because of this, I realized something very important: it was time to focus less on studying, and focus more on practicing.

In two years of formal study I had accumulated a reasonable base of knowledge, vocabulary, grammar, and kanji. But I had very little experience actually using it. It didn’t matter how many synonyms of とても I knew if I couldn’t even get the words out of my head during a real conversation.

It was time to fix this problem.

How I Practiced

A year earlier I had attended my college’s Japanese Conversation Club, only to find out that my speaking skills were dreadfully bad. To spare myself from further embarrassment, I pretty much stopped going.

A year later, I was determined to face my fear of embarrassment and finally get good at speaking. So I committed to attending every single one of the club’s meetings without fail and practicing as much as I possibly could.

To make a long story short, this decision paid off immensely. I not only found opportunities to practice speaking, but I also met and befriended several of my seniors who had previously studied abroad in Japan and were, in my eyes, absolutely badasses at Japanese. I looked up to them and was able to get a lot of advice and encouragement from them.

I also spent every second of my spare time practicing in various other ways. I installed Anki on my iPod touch (yes, that ancient device) and went through tons of flashcards when waiting for trains and buses. When in transit or walking to and from class, I put in my earbuds and listened to Japanese podcasts. And at home, I consumed as much Japanese media as I possibly could on YouTube and shady anime streaming sites (this was before Netflix was a thing).

By the end of the semester, I found that my speaking abilities had improved noticeably. Words were starting to come out of my mouth naturally without needing to think beforehand. I was hesitating less and starting to have more natural-sounding conversations. Suddenly, fluency no longer felt out of reach — it was totally achievable and all I needed was a bit more time.

Spring 2013 (January to April)

This is everything I had been waiting for. I was accepted to a study abroad program in Kyoto, due to start in April 2013.

Because of the different academic calendars in the US and Japan, I had a long stretch of free time from January to April, when I didn’t have any classes or obligations. So other than working part-time to save money, I dedicated these few months to leveling up my Japanese as much as humanly possible.

I continued exactly what I had been doing before — spending every waking hour immersing myself in the Japanese language. I had essentially created a mini Japan for myself where I could get as much language input as I needed at any time of the day. If that sounds familiar, it’s basically the same principle behind prioritizing input over output that I still stand by today.

I also continued attending the conversation club’s meetings every week and practicing as much as I could.

During that time, I befriended a Japanese exchange student from Tokyo who was studying at my college for the academic year. Although he was completely fluent in English (having put in a great deal of time and hard work to learn it), he was so kind as to help me practice my Japanese, correct my mistakes, and give me pointers.

When it was finally time for me to fly to Japan and begin my semester abroad, he told me:

“I know you’re going to Japan to study Japanese, but I want to tell you that you’re already fluent. Even though I can speak to you in English, speaking Japanese with you feels just as natural and easy. You’re going to make lots of friends in Japan — good luck and have fun!”

Words can’t describe how much this meant to me. This wasn’t your standard “Nihongo jouzu desu ne!” that Japanese learners are so used to hearing — it was a real compliment and message of encouragement from someone who also went through the journey of learning a language.

After I finally made my way to Kyoto and began my semester abroad, I found out that I indeed was already able to converse about a variety of topics and communicate without any major hindrances.

I certainly stumbled over my words and forgot how to say things mid-sentence — that happened more times than I can count. But I did truly feel that I had already broken past the intermediate barrier and reached a degree of conversational fluency. There was no longer a huge gap between the Japanese I had studied, and the Japanese I could actually use.

The interesting part is that I had managed to do this before actually going to study in Japan. Looking back, I believe it was all thanks to being able to immerse myself in the language at home using TV, movies, music, podcasts, books, and games.

Even though I only had limited opportunities to practice output, the ridiculous amount of input I got was enough to develop my abilities in the language and help me actually acquire it on a deeper level.

Thanks to that, I was able to enjoy my semester abroad to the fullest, focusing on the most enriching experiences like making friends and exploring the country.

A Message to Fellow Language Learners

Remember that learning a language is a marathon, not a sprint. It takes years of dedication to reach fluency, and you will likely hit plateaus on the way and wonder if it’s really worth the hard work.

However, I cannot overstate that yes, it is absolutely worth it.

My journey to learn Japanese was one of the most joyful, rewarding, and transformative experiences I’ve ever had. It also quite literally changed my life — I later moved to Japan and have lived here for over a decade since.

I never would have thought that the decision to take a beginner-level Japanese class years ago would lead me to where I am now. But this is the beauty of learning languages — it can take you places you never imagined before.

This is just my humble story, but I hope it’s been helpful or inspiring in some way. I wish you all the best of luck on your language-learning adventures.