Hi guys, I’ve prepared an update on my six-month Japanese learning journey. It’s the kind of update I really needed when I was starting out—and honestly, I still wish I had something like this from someone more experienced. But I didn’t find it. Most, if not all, updates out there seem to come from people doing things very differently.
First, a quick disclaimer: English is not my native language. I don’t live in an English-speaking country and never have. I learned English at school—which went about as well as you’d expect—but later improved a lot through what people call now “immersion”: lots of podcasts, Netflix, Disney+, Crunchyroll, and most of all, video games.
Additionally, I also learned German using a similar method, but back in the pre-internet era—mostly by watching a lot of German TV. That was a long time ago, and I don’t practice speaking, but I reached a similar level of comprehension as I have in English. I can comfortably watch all kinds of content. So I know from personal experience that pure ALG—Automatic Language Growth—works, and it works without any extra tools.
Back to Japanese. I wanted to follow the same approach, but unfortunately, I came across some popular ideas online that somewhat tainted my process. The method, mostly spread by AJATTers, is quite different from Comprehensible Input. It involves doing a lot of Anki to memorize vocabulary, studying grammar to make incomprehensible content more understandable, and basically brute-forcing your way to comprehension.
There’s also a lot of pushback against this method on YouTube and elsewhere—because, really, how can you “immerse” when you’re basically drowning? A fair point, honestly.
On the other hand, what we’ve been trying to do here, is learning through Comprehensible input. And I did not realize, that this really doesn’t require dedicated vocabulary or grammar study, because (well, obviously) you should be able understand what’s happening on screen without knowing every word.
I’m sharing all this to say: I’ve experimented with a lot of tools, but what I’ve found is that the only thing that truly makes a difference is the number of hours of focused, comprehensible Japanese input.
I’ve been doing around two hours a day for most of the time, but recently I added another hour after quitting all the other stuff I mentioned. Three hours might sound like a lot to some, but even with a full-time job, kids, a house, and a garden—I can manage it.
Typically, I listen to older videos while walking or exercising, and then I watch new videos in the evening—instead of Netflix, anime, or gaming. I usually watch 3–5 new videos, each three times. That takes me about two hours in the evening. Then I listen to the same videos again the next day. I aim for around 100 hours a month, and doing it this way doesn’t interfere with any of my daily responsibilities.
Right now, I’m at around 350 hours of Comprehensible Input. It’s not enough to fully understand native content yet—not even kids’ shows—but each month makes a noticeable difference. I’ve set a reminder to test my comprehension with easier native content once a month.
Oh, and I wanted to mention that Dreaming Spanish has a great roadmap, and it seems to match my progress really well—just multiplied by two. So check it out, to have an idea of what to expect. https://d3usdtf030spqd.cloudfront.net/Language_Learning_Roadmap_by_Dreaming_Spanish.pdf
I’ve tried a lot of different approaches, but in the end, I’m sticking with Comprehensible Japanese—at least for the near future. I’ll add some easier native content when it becomes accessible. And I have started practicing kana. I „learned“ both Hiragana and Katakana seven months ago and almost forgot it in the meantime. So now I practice a bit every day.
So yeah, that’s it. And see you in… what? Six months, hopefully.
Best wishes and stay focused.
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