Learning Japanese in 2 years

[percent20]

So I am wanting to tour around Japan for a month in a couple years when I graduate college before I start in the "real world". I have been learning Japanese on and off for a year now, but finally started Japanese 1 class this semester and will start Japanese 2 in January.

I am starting to get serious about learning Japanese and am curios if it is possible to learn to speak Japanese fluently in 2 years to where I shouldn't have trouble making it around and talking to people normally. I will most likely be by myself as I am going to try to make it on about $3000; with some initial research at this point and time it is possible.

[mieth]

in all likelyhood your chances of becomming fluent within 2 years are low. I am not trying to be negative. I think within that time you can learn enough to get you around and get you fed with no problem. Heck even enough to get yourself some dates. I have been living in japan for 2 years going to language schools the entire time and when I watch tv I understand anywhere from 20-35 percent depending on the contents of what the show. I would hardly say that is fluent. but good luck with your time you can get a long way. I just dont think it is practical to become fluent within the time period you are giving. GOOD LUCK

[QuackingShoe]

If you engage in real, serious self-motivated self-study for two years, sure, you should be able to handle things quite well. To reemphasize, this is serious self-study, concerted effort toward a goal of Japanese comprehension, and doing what it takes to get yourself there. Going to language classes for two years and puttering about will not cut it.

[lazer85]

i have been studying furiously for about 2.83536346 years, and very efficiently (I skipped 2 years of college class since I self studied a lot after learning class material). I have been in Japan for 4 months. I can struggle through a novel at a snails pace, looking up about 5 words per page. I can't touch a newspaper and i dont really understand a damn thing on the news but I can have casual conversation.

Mind you, I'm not quick at picking up languages, I just study hard. If you study harder than me and you have a natural talent for it you can do it. I started off spending about 4-5 hours a day studying but after about a year it went down to about 2 or 3 hours a day. I think if you stay at 4 or 5 hours a day, use a good book and lots of supplements (websites like this, japanese friends or language partners and extra vocabulary lists) you'll be fluent enough to talk about anything 2 years from today.

If your talking about getting around and being able to talk about the weather or ask directions.

[WalterWills]

If you study all day every day for two years, you will make phenomenal progress.
Whether or not you'll be "fluent" at the end, who knows, but you'll be awesome at Japanese.

Also I think 2 years is more than enough time to learn all the basic Kanji and (most of) their readings.

[Belton]

Two years is a bit loose a time frame.
Study might be best counted in hours.
And the quality of study within those hours has an effect.
The ability to put into practice what you study also has an effect.

Fluent is another phrase that seems a bit loose too.
There are various methods for self assessment that grades the four major skill areas against real world skills. The European Union has one on it's language passport scheme.
Fluency is different from literacy as well. It is a common experience in any language learning to be in a position where you can read and write but not speak and listen.

For what it's worth, two years full time is what it takes state department students to become useful at Japanese.
I've seen claims of 1 hour (!) from a linguist, 7 days from a language book I have, 1 year on a website, 4 years most undergraduate programs, to "learn Japanese" so your milage may vary.

So the answer to your question is, it depends.
But two years of some study will be better than two years of no study.
While keeping your eye on the ultimate goal, it works best if you set smaller goals along the way.
I think you'd probably have no trouble travelling alone in Japan after 2 years study and you'll get more out of Japan for having put in the study.
Mind you, with the right mindset it's possible to travel about with 0 years study.

[Javizy]

Like people have said, it's going to depend heavily on a number of things. You seem pretty geared up now, but in 10 months are you still going to be able to grind out X-hours of study per day? You're going to have to vary your study and find materials that you're interested in, so you don't revert back to "on and off" study, which is probably your worst enemy at this point.

You might want to attend a language class, but whatever you do, you're going to need to put in a lot of consistent hours of self-study. A few things you might want to start looking into are:

Shadowing: this will give you a great accent, which will give you confidence and make you very understandable. Pronunciation gets overlooked a lot because it's so "easy", which is BS. It helps greatly with listening comprehension, and recalling the things you practice in conversation as well.

SRS Flashcards: probably the best way not to forget things.

Native Skype Friend: you're going to want to practise speaking as much as you can before you go, if you have any chance of becoming fluent.

There are loads of other things to consider, but these are three things I didn't have early on that could have made all the difference.

[WalterWills]

I've seen claims of 1 hour (!) from a linguist, 7 days from a language book I have

What?! One hour?!?! Seven days?!?!
Who on earth has the audacity to say such a thing?!

Please tell me more!

[Belton]

What?! One hour?!?! Seven days?!?!
Who on earth has the audacity to say such a thing?!

Please tell me more!

I keep on meaning to write a blogpost about this.
How long does it take to learn...? how long is a piece of string?...
And I enjoy outrageous claims in titles.

The linguist's claim. (at least I think he has linguist training) To be fair it is sub-headed (but not master) and is probably deliberately sensational. Although I also must say I recognise very few of my own experiences in his articles. There may a correlation between the size of one's ego and how long it takes to learn a language...
http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/20 ... s-a-favor/

The book. Again I keep meaning to scan the cover. I think it's from the 1980s, and is divided up into 7 lessons, 1 a day to (maybe) give you enough Japanese to be a tourist or a guest. I doubt anything would stick in so short a time and there were no tapes to go with it. But I liked the title. "Learn Japanese in seven days"

[percent20]

Thank you for all the feedback.

On a couple of notes. I only learned off and on because I couldn't figure out a good structured approach to learning Japanese. However, I started taking a Japanese 1 class so i could get a more formal way of learning and it has worked out great. It has actually jump started me into learning and I have learned more in 3 months than I have in 1 year of any other method.

On the being fluent I really don't know the definition of fluent as I only know one language and have no idea how to compare. I guess to me fluent is if I can carry on a decent conversation, nothing to in depth, just fine and easily make my away around without looking like a moron to those in native to japan.

My main goal is to be able to go there and say I am visiting and them come away with a good impression of me as a person that cares about local customs and the language instead of being an pain to figure things out. I really don't want to use English at all while I am there if at all possible, unless I get in a situation that requires it.

I'll be honest my biggest problems right now is building up a vocabulary and learning kanji. I currently watch quite a bit of streaming TV from japan to get used to hearing Japanese, not to mention the disturbing amount of anime I have watched, most of it in Japanese with subs.

I have started to integrate learning Japanese into parts of my life to make it easier. Like when I look up words I look up the definition in English then look up that word or what is close in Japanese. I still have a ways to go but am hoping to get better.

Was thinking about trying to find a pen pal, but not sure of a good site to do that with and am nervous because of how bad I am at japanese at this point.

[QuackingShoe]

It seems like you're not, but just to remind, make sure you don't let the class be your main source of learning, and don't let it set your pace. Go far ahead of wherever your class is, because it's bound to be too slow, as classes are aimed at the lowest common denominator, the slowest student, etc. Get what you can out of it, but make sure it's not setting the bar for your Japanese. I mean, I'm not trying to impose my will on how much effort and how fast people should generally learn Japanese here; it's obviously fine to just go along with a Japanese class when it's a hobby and you don't mind taking many years to become decent. But from a standpoint of wanting to become really good at Japanese in two years, you're going to have to outrun your class, unless it's some kindof magnificent wonder-class (which may be true if you're somewhere other than the US or UK).

Listening to a lot of Japanese is great. I'd suggest at least frequently killing the subs from time to time, though, if not altogether. You also said you're watching Japanese streaming TV, which obviously isn't subbed, so that's great. But you might consider watching anime that unsubbed as well, to try and follow along something more structured than the background-noise that actual Japanese television often becomes. And if it's anime you've already seen, you already have an idea of what's going on.

Also, while listening is great, one of the best ways to grab vocabulary is to put a lot of effort into reading things. Since the words are right there on the page, it's obviously a lot easier to look them up from there than to try to catch whatever words you can out of listening practice. Both are very useful, they're just useful for different things. As mentioned, using SRS programs like Anki are helpful for remembering all this vocabulary too, though exact usage varies from person to person.

Opinions are also varied pretty widely on kanji, but I recommend Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig as a way to make sense of the writing (doesn't teach readings, you can pick them up later) of the kanji as quickly as possibly. On the other hand, if your main goal is to be able to speak Japanese when you get to Japan, rather than read it, you could downplay Kanji for now. However, I think that's unwise for two reasons: One, the kanji are a vital part to the logical structure of the language, and knowing what kanji mean, and what kanji are used in what word, make the words make much more sense and become something other than a string of sounds. Two: As I mentioned earlier, reading is one of the best ways to increase your vocabulary and Japanese in general, and you can't read if you're not literate.

Sorry for the clipped tone of this post and the total lack of links to things I reference, but I have to go so I was just typing this out as quickly as possible.

[Belton]

Was thinking about trying to find a pen pal, but not sure of a good site to do that with and am nervous because of how bad I am at japanese at this point.

http://www.language-exchanges.org/
this is a good site to find a language partner.

http://lang-8.com/ is another good social site where you can try out your reading and writing skills with real people. (I use mixi, but that's now impossible for people without a Japanese mobile phone account to set up anymore)

I'd just go for it rather than wait for some future date to be better. It really helps. You can only really learn conversation by talking with native speakers. learn to make do. a bit of confidence goes a long way.

I had a penfriend early on who wrote quite complex Japanese. I was really out of my depth but overall it helped. I probably would have given up on a book but not on something expressly written to me that I needed to reply to.

Not wanting to lower your study pace, but for me two years of my hobbiest approach (not everyone's a Japanese learning machine), gave me enough confidence and ability to travel away from the Kyoto and Tokyo areas and stay places where no English was spoken and there were less foreigners about. I managed to have some conversation, travel by bus and train, eat interesting food, see the sights, get lost now and then. I had made friends via the Internet who were happy to meet me and I had a wider experience because of that.
So with two years of more intense study who knows what you could do.

[Javizy]

I'd definitely find a penpal as soon as you can. You can start off just e-mailing, and suggest voice chat when you feel a bit more confident (if it's not suggested to you). My friend originally suggested it to me, and I really wasn't looking forward to it, but it turned out to be a lot of fun, and left me feeling good about my Japanese. You'll be surprised at how all that stuff you've been learning flows out when you're put on the spot. The one thing you'll regret is not getting more practice sooner

If you want to do something to prepare, then try shadowing like I mentioned. I'd done it for a number of months before my first chat, and my friend didn't have any problems understanding me, and there was no breakdown in conversation as a result of pronunciation issues. It seems like almost a silly thing to do, but stick with it and it'll definitely pay off.

[rdudj]

After 700 hours of study at a Japanese language school in Tokyo (currently I'm in my 11th month of school) I can say that I'm no where near fluent. I'm at an intermediate level in school. I can get around ok in daily life, hold conversations, etc. But I rarely understand more than 40% of what's said to me in conversation.

I think I wouldn't even make it this far if all I did was self-study. In my opinion, taking classes full-time in Japan is about the best thing you can do to learn Japanese. And even then, it's not quick. I'd say after 2 years of full-time study(20 hours a week) at a language school, your Japanese can get to the point where you could work in a Japanese environment without much trouble or study in a Japanese university in Japanese.

From books you can learn grammar and vocabulary. From watching tv shows you can improve your listening ability. But unless you speak Japanese everyday, your speaking ability will likely be woefully insufficient. I'd say my speaking ability is insufficient and I do speak Japanese everyday.

My point is, don't rely on just self-study to get you to fluency. You need speaking practice as well. Your best bet would be to study in Japan. Your second best option is to find a language exchange partner on Skype and try to practice speaking in Japanese for an hour or 2 everyday. Combine that with an hour or 2 of grammar and vocab self study and you should be on your way.

[wccrawford]

My $.02: Yes, you could become 'fluent' in 2 years, but it would require that you give up everything else in your life for it. No english friends, no english movies, etc etc. Even time with Japanese friends and movies would be somewhat limited with all the study time you'd need.

With less work, you could become passable in those 2 years. Enough to get around in daily life and have weak conversations.

If all you do is go to school and do your homework, you'll be nowhere near ready to speak to natives.