How long have you been studying Japanese?

[mvogel]

Just a curious question. I have been going at it on and off for 15 years. The first 2 were intense with 2 hours a day. The next 12 years was on and off just to maintain and I have been back on it again seriously for the last year.

[jazzbeans]

15yrs is a long time! It's most of my age, how advanced are you in the language now then?

I learnt kana when about two years ago, just to get by with Japanese websites I visited, then picked up Japanese from media that I watched/listened to. But, I officially started learning Japanese in October 2008. I think I've learnt quite a bit in that time, although I have exams, so I'm talking two weeks off.. (well, I still read, write, speak and listen to Japanese everyday, but not as much now I have to study other things).

Is that on and off too? Maybe. But, I never thought I'd fully learn Japanese, now I'm quite determined to and I can't wait to get to the level of fluency of some people I know and some people on this site too.

[Javizy]

I officially started learning when I signed up to this site (February 2007). I've tried to do some amount of studying every day, even if it's just listening to a couple of Jpod lessons. Since I started late (age 21), I've tried to learn as much as I can as quickly as possible. Aside from Jpod, the biggest help has been Heisig and Anki.

[momopeaches]

I started really studying Japanese when I took my first formal college class in the fall of 2007. I couldn't afford to take the next class, so it was a year and some change before I was able to take the next one. Wouldn't you know it, I got sick the whole quarter. I've recently been going back and memorizing all the information I forgot from when I first started. Directions still give me issues! I'm trying to study a little bit every day, using Anki, my own flash cards at home, the textbook Genki, Jpod, and other Japanese podcasts. I'm not amazing yet. I've only just started to do kanjis..

[Belton]

Since I started late (age 21)

21 late?! Oh to be so young and carefree again. Barely an adult in Japanese society.
Late is the 70 year old woman who takes up Japanese. (taught by an acquaintance of mine)

[kino261988]

i study Japanese for about a year already, i study on my own because Japanese language school in my country is too very expensive i can't afford it, but because of free audio lesson of Japanesepod101.com i learn so much ... i noticed that learning from a book is too different from voice lesson... today my free 7 day trial had expired... i only can access is the free audio... i don't had money to pay to subscribe to a premium one... tomorrow back to the book again.... all i can say is i had a nice experience here in Japanesepod101.com... mina san gambatte...

[jkid]

FYI kino261988-san, if you subscribe to Japanesepod101 on iTunes you can continue to get new lessons for free as they are released. You only need a basic or premium account to listen to the lessons older than three weeks. So if you subscribe to the iTunes feed and get the lessons as they're released you can still continue to listen even without a subscription.

You can read more about it here: http://blogs.japanesepod101.com/blog/2008/11/07/change-dont-be-left-behind/

[kinyobi]

For me it's really hard to say, I've heard Japanese spoken nearly every month when mom used to call her relatives in Japan. But I didn't really indulge in learning it because we both had other objectives.

I did learn most of the Kana as a child mostly Hiragana, but found Katakana to be a little difficult so I put it off. I never learned Kanji aside from the numbers 1-10 and the simple ones like Big and Small, up and down.

Recently I got the bug to push myself to learn again; I tried in the past with just books like Living Language (Conversational Japanese) but they only taught me just Romaji and I felt I was missing the big picture. So now I am learning Japanese usage through Podcasts here and trying to incorporate the Hiragana and lessons taught here. I am itching to learn Kanji because it looks fun, but a friend of mine who is on her 4th of Japanese course in Hawaii told me to learn the basics first before jumping head first into memorizing Kanji. (Reluctantly I believe she is right, I just want to rush things - that actually take time for your brain to absorb).

Still playing catch up on the lessons and still time warped back in 2006-07 - as each new Jpod lesson comes out now I feel like darn I must be missing something good, but a failthfully listen to them in order (Survival, Newbie and Beginner Lessons).

I will have to go back and review the PDF when time permits because each class seems to build upon previous information.

I think what got me inspired again was some searches on YouTube has shown a lot of Foreigners are learning Japanese and were self-taught speaking well in video blogs and such - made me feel jealous in a way, thinking I am a Ni-Sei and can't speak the language (how sad is that).

So the drive to learn was sparked.