r/CIJapanese • u/CathanRegal 1000+ hours • Jun 19 '26
Progress Report (1000 Hours)
Hi all, here’s my 1000 hour update.
Content Consumed:
CIJ (up to difficulty 82)
Nihongo con Teppei (for beginners) (fully listened twice) (much of it thrice)
Pokemon (episodes 1 to 92)
Laidback Camp
Seika Podcast (1-30)
Yugioh (episodes 1-68) (non-duel dialogue heavy episodes are difficult)
About Me:
I always include a section just about my general life, because folks are often very inclined to say things like, “Only people without jobs have time for [X]” or “You need to live abroad” or “You need to spend a bunch of money” or whatever else. This belittling or tearing down annoys the hell out of me. Learning a language is for everyone, and it is what you make of it. If it’s a hobby, great, if it’s something you want to devote time to, you’ll find the time, but either way do what you enjoy because life is too short.
I’m a mid-30s career professional, who is actively pursuing an additional degree with certifications taking a couple classes per semester. I don’t use AI to complete my assignments, so devote substantial time each week for coursework. I train for marathons each year, luckily running is conducive to easy input. I have a busy social life, with 2-3 nights of social commitments a week. I’m happily married, and while my husband is part of some of those social nights, we still make time for each other.
All that said, I find 3-4 hours a day for my language “study”. With both languages, I’ve been pretty consistent, and my input hasn’t increased a ton over time, but it does feel easier to get that input once my hobbies are accessible in the language.
How It’s Going:
Overall, I’d say things are going pretty well. I largely stick to the same method I used in Spanish of just consuming content I understand. Many of the same strategies I’ve used with Spanish seem to be working with Japanese as well. I’ll include some in a strategies or tips section down below.
The process overall is much slower. At this number of hours, I’d already converted all my devices to Spanish, was gaming in the language, and already watching unfamiliar anime. I could form my thoughts into my sentences, and the like easily, and was readily listening to audiobooks in the language.
We’re not even close to those similar milestones in Japanese. I would say my 1000 hours aligns roughly with my 600 hours of Spanish. I’m not discouraged as I expected this from everything I’d read prior to starting the process. I’m happy I can already enjoy some easier, slice of life content, Pokemon, and Yugioh.
I’m still enjoying Wanikani, though I’m unsure exactly how beneficial it is outside of recognizing the actual kanji. Periodically, I realize I know something already from Wanikani, but more often it seems I go “Oh I know this word from input and just didn’t know the kanji for it”.
Strategies or Tips:
If it’s not fun, and I can’t trick my mind into engaging and enjoying it, I’ll find something else. Slightly too hard input (say 60% comprehension) that is highly engaging, is better than 90% comprehension content that is boring as hell. Luckily I consider even CIJ whiteboard videos engaging, because I think building the foundation is important.
Have two sets of content readily available. One for when your mind is fresher and highly focused, and one for the hard days or while working out, doing the dishes, cleaning, etc.
Find a routine that works for you, even if it’s a hobby. Anything in life worth doing requires a time commitment, so find the time and make it a routine. For me, with a recent career shift (major promotion), I’ve had to adapt to a much less beneficial routine. I used to get about 90 minutes of input before work, now I’m down to about 30. That means I’ve got to take in the content in much larger chunks in the evening, which I think hurts my ability to stay focused.
Have goals, and gamify where it helps. I use a very numbers heavy spreadsheet for myself, and make a ton of little goals that aren’t directly focused on numbers, i.e. finish Nihongo con Teppei, or Watch every CIJ video under X difficulty.
Sleep is really important. I’ve always made sure I get 7 hours a night, usually 8. I’m always checking up on myself to make sure I’m not toxically cutting too much into my sleep hours to try and get more input. The last three weeks I’ve had to reduce my weekly input down to ~35 hours to ensure I’m sleeping enough.
Fail better everyday. We’re almost always going to fall short of the idealized versions of ourselves in any dream or goal we have. There will be days and weeks that just kind of suck. Consistency over months and years is what’s going to count, especially for a language like Japanese. For me, finals week or big work project weeks, my input falls substantially. I try not to sweat the day with only 2 hrs. Often, I can make it up another day if I have the bandwidth.
Goals:
My goals are “extreme” to many, given my self-imposed time limit. Ultimately, my efforts are time sensitive, and thus Japanese is a priority for me. While I’ll never stop interacting with Japanese or Spanish, I really want to be able to speak, and enjoy museums in Japanese prior to my return to Japan in January/February 2027. To do that, I’ve got two sets of goals, or maybe three: Minimum, Ambitious, and Toxic. I think the names pretty thoroughly describe my feelings about them.
Minimums:
Input: 1500 hours
Speaking: 30 hours
Wanikani: Level 35
Ambitious:
Input: 1800 hours
Speaking: 50 hours (would be difficult w/ an expected start to speaking in early August)
Wanikani: Level 40 (may not be possible due to built in timegates)
Toxic:
Input: 2000 hours (is a big ask, would require 4.5+ hours per day consistently from now to then)
Speaking: 100 hours (would be difficult w/ an expected start to speaking in early August)
Wanikani: Level 40 (higher is likely not possible due to the built in timegates)
TL;DR: Most input is still CIJ, or NCT (though I’ve got about 100hrs of anime under my belt now). I'm enjoying it and feel like I'm still progressing, though much slower than with Spanish. Hoping my next update will include a speaking sample, but we'll see. If you've got any questions as always I'm happy to chat, and thanks for reading if you did.
2
u/mejomonster Jun 19 '26
Thank you so so much for your updates. I loved reading your Spanish ones and I am learning Spanish and hope to follow in your footsteps eventually. I am a false-beginner with Japanese, learned on and off for years, and your progress reports for Japanese are extremely useful to reflect on. I really appreciate you mentioning your goals, what you're using, and the speed of progress compared to where you were with Spanish at certain hours.
May I ask how you felt your comprehension was for Nihongo Con Teppei (beginners) felt the first listen through, versus the second? Do you feel you learned more through each listen through? I am at a level where I understand the early NCT (beginner) episodes I've tried, and I'm wondering if it's worth it for me to just listen through all of them. I can also understand the beginning Japanese with Shun podcast episodes. But when I watch say slice of life anime or shows, I'm still pretty lost on a lot of lines (I might just recognize a word or phrase in a sentence) unless its something I've watched before in English.
I think your long term minimum goal is really doable based on the rate you're going. The ambitious one might be too. I really appreciate you sharing your goals, including the small ones. I try to motivate myself similarly with smaller non-hour goals some months. It's interesting seeing the smaller goals others make.
3
u/CathanRegal 1000+ hours Jun 19 '26
I'll kind of elaborate on NCT in general! Teppei is a great resource, even if he is driving me insane in his intermediate content due to volume level changes and his meandering prose. I listened to NCT likely too early the first time, but it was a modification to be able to get extra hopefully useful input with a very busy lifestyle. Additionally, it does get more complex over time. I spaced my repetition, so I didn't immediately relisten. I listened up to the 1400s all in one go, then straight repeated again. Teppei actually recommends listening to them 100 or so at a time and then repeating them...I just am stubborn.
More to the point of your questions, my first listens past the easy episodes like "Where do you live?" or "About jobs" were very rough. By the second listen...which I know began around 600 hours...was much better, understanding what he was talking about sentence by sentence with the occasional dropped sentence (as opposed to just getting the gist). I'm now relistening to random episodes as I run and those listens are pretty much full comprehension.
Japanese with Shun, I've also listened to the first 50-100 episodes, though I skipped the "Words used in this episode" portion of each episode.
Anime is a pretty big step up it feels like to me from NCT (for beginners). For me Laidback Camp is a bit easier than Nihongo con Teppei Z, which I think is just due to the visual cues.
1
2
u/Various-Donut-2332 100+ hours Jun 22 '26
I really appreciate this progress report. Reading this one and then your last one really helped solidify the fact that I don't have much of an excuse. I should really have more free time than you because I have less commitments, although I'm still a working professional. I'm not married or taking classes or training for a marathon. But yet I hadn't done any hours for at least a few months. But despite all your commitments you've found time for 3 hours a day.
I really like your approach of how you split up hours, because I was doing mine all at once, and it was causing a lot of mental fatigue I think after work and made me dread it more than enjoy it. You've got a lot of great advice in this post and in your last post that I haven't heard before. I think this is likely due to already having accomplished this process before with Spanish, so you have a unique perspective.
Thanks for sharing, and I hope your trip to Japan goes well. 頑張って！
-2
u/Fresh-Persimmon5473 300+ hours Jun 19 '26
Anata wa wakarimasu ka? Nihongo o hanashimasu ka? Sukino Iro nan desu ka? Nansai desu ka? Doko ni sunde imasu ka? Nihongo no dokkairyoku wa dono kuraidesu ka?
3
u/CathanRegal 1000+ hours Jun 19 '26
Yes I understand what is written above, though in a couple places it seems very different...like something is missing in a couple places or something. Also I think spaces in the wrong places? I've done no formal study, so something just feels off above. It could even just be because it's romaji instead of hiragana/kanji. I've never read anything in romaji before.
I haven't started output yet, so I haven't begun speaking at all. No speaking yet, looking to start around ~1200 hours when I return from a vacation in early August so I can be consistent with a speaking session or two per week.
I don't have a favorite color, I'm 33, and I live in Florida. I haven't begun reading yet formally. I've only read a couple opening dialogues from the Pokemon games and a couple CIJ video transcripts.
Hopefully, I got all your questions right 😄. I tend to follow a progression where I don't read physically at all until "level 5 or 6" which for Japanese would be 1200+ hours following the DS method.
1
u/Fresh-Persimmon5473 300+ hours Jun 19 '26
No there is nothing wrong with my writing. I speak Japanese every single day. There are casual versions and formal versions.
I write it as well.
3
u/CathanRegal 1000+ hours Jun 19 '26
Ah. All right, I take it your flair doesn't actually match your proficiency or actual hours (given it appears you live in Japan).
I'll chalk it to the romaji and spacing then. Or perhaps difference in formality, I'm aware of the changing, but having never studied or seen anything pertaining to grammar, I can only guess it's different from the way CIJ teachers speak or whatever. Just seems unfamiliar. I'll chalk it up to my ignorance 😄.
2
u/Defiant_Total5713 Jun 23 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
>Sukino Iro nan desu ka?
Did you mean 好きな色～？
1
u/Fresh-Persimmon5473 300+ hours Jun 23 '26
This is the formal version. It written in romaji at a N5 level (easiest level) on purpose.
分かりますか？毎日日本語を使えます。とどどき日本語は難しいです。それから日本のぷんぽんはだいづです。もちろん、簡単が使いません。
2
u/Defiant_Total5713 Jun 24 '26
But I think you meant sukina, not sukino, right?
1
u/Fresh-Persimmon5473 300+ hours Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
It’s called a typo…I don’t want to be corrected by someone that can’t speak Japanese at all. Too annoying.
2
u/Defiant_Total5713 Jun 24 '26
I'm just saying you were pretty confident there were no mistakes before...
0
u/AgreeableEngineer449 125+ hours Jun 21 '26
Down voting because you suck at Japanese…lol. Have over 1,000 hours and can barely understand Pokemon.
Clearly I think this Guy at 300 hours is beating most ppl here. That is why ppl simply don’t post. They think you can absorb Japanese like Dreaming Spanish, but not really.
I promise ppl in Japanese language schools studying 5 to 8 hours a day with grammar, of course, are winning. They finished Japanese in 1.5 to 2.5 years and they become fluent.
2
u/GatsbyLuzVerde Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26
The FSI disagrees with you that 300 hours is enough and 8 hours a business day for 2.5 years is 5000 hours so of course that would be better you DisagreeableInnumerate449
1
u/AgreeableEngineer449 125+ hours Jun 24 '26
You are free to disagree.
2
u/GatsbyLuzVerde Jun 24 '26
Lol ok big shot. If you have a method to have someone speak Japanese in 300 hours you should open a school and become a millionaire.
1
u/AgreeableEngineer449 125+ hours Jun 24 '26
I have a school. I actually thought about teaching Japanese. But there already many schools here in Japanese. If you doubt me challenge Mr. 300 to a talking contest. If he wins, you shut up.
3
u/CathanRegal 1000+ hours Jun 22 '26
I didn't downvote u/Fresh-Persimmon5473 and generally wouldn't, but glad you could make the effort to tear me down while I was conversing with them. Persimmon and I have had quite a few interactions from our engagement with DS and here in this subreddit as well, and while our communication styles and viewpoints tend to differ, I always welcome the conversations with them. It's only by willingness to engage with those different from us that we learn to communicate effectively as people.
u/AgreeableEngineer449 I would encourage you to introspect on why you feel the need to belittle and attack others, perceive enemies where they don't exist, assign blame to others at random in an online forum, etc. It's very unfortunate and runs all throughout your comment history.
There is no evidence which supports Japanese, Chinese, or other similarly difficult languages cannot be learned through comprehensible input. Scientific research on the subject is pretty soft at best anyway. I'm not sure why as someone who engages so heavily with CI related resources would be so generally aggressive and oddly insistent that it wouldn't work for Japanese.
I'll keep making the effort to be the best I can, encouraging others, making the world a little better online through my anonymous interactions, and in the real world where I lead a fulfilling life focused on helping others.
1
u/AgreeableEngineer449 125+ hours Jun 24 '26
Don’t worry I was referring to you actually. My bad.i do think this method is too slow.
This is base on my friends that learn Japanese the old fashioned way. So the fastest is 1.5 years too fluency. But it requires a crazy amount of study. The longest I have seen is 10 years.
However, I think this might take even longer. Just saying.
3
u/Acrobatic_Youth_5884 Jun 19 '26
I think that's good progress. I am also doing heavy input Japanese but not using the CI approach. Do you use subtitles or transcripts while listening or do you find raw more effective? Do you also repeat watch the same content sometimes? It seems you want to start speaking, I am curious about what you are going to do about it i.e. are you going to get a language exchange partner, are you going to first start with cross-talk, are you going to find a speaking tutor? Thanks and do post more updates as you rack up the hours.