One Year Anniversary Update

Japanese Language
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Starting timeline

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I started with Japanese in February 2025. I see that I have an achievement in Duolingo from the 16th of February and my first hiragana practice sheet downloaded on the 20th of February. I registered to CIJ (Comprehensible Input Japanese) on 18.3.2025. So this is my one year update on one year of using CIJ.

Hours and progression
I started slowly (as on the attached screenshot from my first month). Later I stepped up my hours to one, then two, and after 6 months to 3 hours a day of CIJ content. I have also been watching some content outside of CIJ, but that has not been comprehensible, so I have not been counting it in my hours yet.

I started listening to Teppei for beginners at around the 400 to 500 hour mark.

Altogether I think I am at 1000+ CIJ hours, 150 Teppei hours, and maybe around 350 anime and YouTube hours. A huge part of CIJ hours has been listening and semi-active watching while doing other stuff. Teppei was not really comprehensible for quite some time and I listened to him while walking or exercising. Anime is still not comprehensible. I basically listen/watch Japanese whenever possible: driving, cooking, doing chores, gardening, eating lunch, ironing, falling asleep… it is a lot of time, just not easy to measure.

I think I am going to start counting all my Japanese hours from now on. Not as a measurement of progress, but to see/show the commitment needed.

As for Anki, I tried it at the beginning but it was too difficult and I could not remember almost anything, so I quit after a couple of weeks. I might consider sentence mining in the future.

WaniKani and reading
I started a little bit of WaniKani three months ago and do around 8 new lessons a day. I want to start visual novels in a year and be maybe around level 20. Currently level 6.

I have not started reading yet. I went through one short VN and had to do so many lookups that I think I did not remember anything. I could straight up turn on subtitles because I had to translate almost everything. I will come back to it once I am level 20 to 25 in WaniKani. Probably.

Current comprehension
I have not started Intermediate videos on CIJ yet. Lots of Beginner level videos are challenging enough, so I stay with those for now.

Teppei for beginners is perfect now, but I listen to him for the second time, so I will move to his other content soon.

On YouTube I can understand content for beginner learners just fine, but content for natives is way too difficult.

I watch visually rich content like travel vlogs or room tours, but stuff where they just sit and talk is beyond my comprehension.

As for anime, basically all anime is too difficult. I try periodically Shirokuma Cafe, Teasing Master, Yuru Camp and some others, but they are out of my reach yet.

I do watch this stuff though, mainly cartoons for kids on Netflix. Not for toddlers, I cannot stand that stuff, but cartoons for younger kids. And I occasionally watch anime which is not comprehensible.

Output
No output attempts yet.

The bad
I have had quite enough of content for learners and I am tired of it. I think it affects my learning process, the so called affective filter. I watch stuff and I zone out constantly.

I am going to scale down content for learners soon to 1–2 hours a day and will be doing mostly incomprehensible stuff. I need something enjoyable even if it will not be efficient.

I have also been guilty of focusing on hours. That might not be so bad, because in many cases quantity beats quality. But I should not have been thinking about my hours as a measurement of progress or as a base for comparison. I will stop counting them altogether at some point and just do as much as I can each day.

On the bright side
I frequently have a strong urge to watch something Japanese. By something Japanese, I mean content for natives. Even if I understand only 10 to 20 percent, it brings me a lot of joy when I can occasionally pick up a word and kind of guess what is happening and what they talk about.

I hope this will continue or even grow as I get better and can understand more.

Closing thoughts
And that’s it for today. I have survived a year of daily Japanese input. I have done way more than I expected, but at the same time, I can understand less than I thought I would at this point. I hope I will have some better news in a year.

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Thanks for sharing, I always enjoy reading other’s experiences, though I make it a point of not comparing my progress to theirs. Everyone is on their own path and it may take more or less time to get where you want to be. I learned this the hard way while acquiring Spanish over the past 2 years, after hitting 1500 hours and still not being able to confidently speak or watch native content like the Dream Spanish roadmap suggests I should be able to do. Now with more than 4200 hours of Spanish, I finally feel how I was expecting to feel at 1500. With the Japanese, I’m trying not to bring any expectations or comparisons. Zero pressure to perform or complete milestones, just enjoy the time I spend watching videos, that’s it.

I’m curious, have you tried watching any content dubbed in Japanese, maybe movies or shows you’re already familiar with in your native language? I found this immensely helpful while learning Spanish and still working my way up to native content. I can’t wait to rewatch Avatar: The Last Airbender again in Japanese.

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Thanks sharing your experience with Dreaming Spanish. People typically assume (as it is written in DS roadmap) that Japanese should take around double the time projected by this Roadmap. But for me it is at least x3 so far. And yes, it feels kind of weird to be still watching Beginner level videos . It is what it is, I guess. I might even break some imaginary record for doing most CIJ hours :sweat_smile:
As for the rewatching content, I do the same thing with shows that received another season. I rewatch in Japanese previous seasons that I have already watched in English or German before watching the new ones.

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Same :weary_face: I’ve been slacking on CIJ and input in general because of this. I just want to move on to manga and anime but it’s waay out of reach. Even the intermediate videos here are.

I think a pure CI method may not be enough for Japanese. I already finished the Kaishi 1.5K deck on Anki and now I’m doing the grammar deck on Migaku. I actually spend most of my time doing these decks with a bit of input.

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The method itself is enough to get us to native material, we just do not have enough content for each level yet. I would need 4 times the Amount CIJ has now. So I have to either repeat, which is taking its toll after second- third time, or go to YT and use other content for learners, but the quality of YT material is all over the place.

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The CI method is strong enough to learn Japanese. We just did it in under 1.5 years with annoyingly strict immersion only rules. Is it perfect yet? No absolutely not, but we just enjoyed Matrix, Harry Potter, Rick and Morty, Sumo competitions and the spring koshien all in Japanese.

However, any path you choose will take a significant investment - because Japanese is quite work intensive.

Even with kaishi etc you will need many hours of immersion to recognize the stuff which you memorized.

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So I have to either repeat, which is taking its toll after second- third time, or go to YT and use other content for learners, but the quality of YT material is all over the place.

I love seeing updates like yours, thank you for sharing your experiences specifically after 1 official full year of CIJ! Have you watched all of the beginner videos? If so, have you tried sorting by easy and trying the easiest intermediate videos? If you’re starting to get bored of repeating the beginner videos so many times, and you’re starting to get comfortable with travel vlogs and dubbed kids’ shows for native speakers, I think it would be a good idea to at least try out some intermediate videos - you may be surprised that you understand them just fine. Everyone is different of course, but these 4 for me in particular didn’t seem any harder than the surrounding beginner videos (difficulty 40 - 49).

Seika’s Makeup Routine: Comprehensible Japanese

Making a Matcha Latte for the First Time: Comprehensible Japanese

Guess Where Yoshito Is: Comprehensible Japanese

Warm Items for Winter: Comprehensible Japanese

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Thanks, you are right, they are easier as some Beginner level videos and I will get to them soon. But most Beginner videos have more visual cues, which is I think better for learning. And more importantly, there is “only” 120 or so hours of intermediate vidoes. That is like a month of content :smiley: so I would need to start repeating soon again. Does not really solve much.

On a second thought, I could do maybe two playthoughs, which would give me 240+ hours and see how far would it get me. And I still do some Teppei on the side. Repeating once is great for catching some missed stuff. My burnout cooled down a bit since I posted this update and I lowered down CIJ from four to two hrs a day.

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I wouldn’t really count time that is spent semi paying attention or while doing other things as this is not active learning.

The same way you can live in a foreign country for 20 years and never pickup the language passively.

I do agree that Doing Just CI can be hard to focus on.

I don’t track my time listening To the CI audio while working out or the time I have the video’s on in the background while doing dishes etc. This is not active learning and like any other subject retention will be very poor.

I do notice that after doing CI for a couple months then jumping back into anki I get big jumps in comprehension/recall and likewise after working in anki then going back to CI. Sometimes the brain just needs a break from a certain method of learning.

I get the worst results mixing anki/CI/etc together at the same time.

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CIJ counter does not separate my active/semi-active watching, so the number is simply a sum of my CIJ hours as shown in CIJ dashboard

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And as you see, I separately mentioned Teppei and other stuff in my original post. But, I think I should actually count everything from now on, to really see and show how much time it takes. The hours do not mean anything for comparing to others but they will show that I have actually been investing 5, 6, etc hours a day, and it took me XY thousand hours to get to desired result. And yes, maybe even make a point against this approach, but I am not doing it on purpose. This is best I can do and I want to correctly report on it.

But again, not to compare with others or to somehow await certain level at certain hours.

There are actually quite famous people in the Japanese learning community who reported that passive listening was a huge part of their routine. Like Trenton or Phantom madman.

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lol didn’t know we could email each other outside the forums.

I downloaded the audio pack for viewing outside the CI site, likewise if I watch a video in the background I just watch it without logging in, as i usually do this with stuff i have seen already the lower selection has been fine.

Yea i’m only tracking hours to see how it compares to the dreaming in spanish roadmap, mostly as a curiosity as my end goal is simply for consuming media and reading books.

Oh I have no doubt passive consumption is a large part of many people’s routines (mine included but i don’t track it), it doesn’t cost anything and does not have a negative effect, but extensive research has shown it has very little gain per hour vs any form of active study.

Japanese will be my 3rd language, English (native), Thai(second) now Japanese.

I also taught ESL K - 6 for 10 years. In the end there is no right or wrong way to learn a language and no one way works for everyone.

Do what feels right for you, in the end the biggest factor will be the incremental small gains you get from steady effort.

Good Luck, Have fun

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I do not intentionally do CIJ passively, semi-actively or in the background. I do not do CIJ while exercising, walking, cocking etc. I have Teppei for that. Just to make it a bit clearer. My non active (not fully focused) CIJ happens because I just cannot stay focused while sitting in front of the screen :sweat_smile: