Japanese Level 2 Update - 300 Hours
Hello dreamers, I’m back with 300 hours.. Some of you may recognize me from the Dreaming Spanish subreddit, where over the last two years I posted my updates as I worked my way through the 7 levels. After some time doing some French, I decided to switch to Japanese as it interests me more ultimately.
Progress since 100 hours
I have definitely noticed more comprehension as I’ve gotten more input, but the progress is very slow. I’m hovering around level 40-50 on Natural Japanese’s website, and around a N5-N4 level on Youtube videos. I’ve found that my comprehension varies heavily depending on the content of the video. Cooking/food videos are the most comprehensible because so many beginner videos focus on food. Thinking back to my time with Spanish, I do feel like I’m around where I was at 150 hours back then, which is to say, starting to notice the separation of words, the sounds of the language, and more common grammatical constructions.
I am repeating a lot of content at this stage. There simply is not enough beginner content to get to 600 hours, and even if I repeat everything on Natural Japanese and Youtube within my range, I will come in under 600 hours. I hope that as I get more hours, intermediate content will start to unlock as there seems to be more of that type than any other content online.
The biggest issue with CI in the Japanese space is that many creators are still finding their feet. I mentioned this in my last update, but it’s very frustrating to find a potentially good channel and then they ruin their videos with hardcoded subtitles, or constant English interjections. It feels like once I break through the beginner stage for good, I won’t have this problem.
I am able to listen to some very basic non-video content, like Nihongo con Teppei, but most podcasts are still too difficult. This also tracks with my Spanish journey, where at level 2 the only podcasts I could manage were super beginner stuff like Cuentame and Chill Spanish.
Reading is still pretty much impossible. I have noticed I recognize common kanji/words, which is cool because I have not studied kanji pretty much at all since the beginning. I’ve also noticed that hiragana is pretty easy for me, but katakana is more difficult as it comes up less frequently. My plan is to try a few very simple graded readers during the next level and see how it goes.
Tools I am using
I am still using NativShark, but I have slowed down from doing daily lessons because the reviews were building up and taking a ton of time each morning to do. I still do a lesson every once and a while, but it is definitely not my priority at the moment.
I have all but stopped using Anki, but I do plan to add it back in soon, as I think it will help me speed up acquisition. The main roadblock with Anki is that it’s just super boring and I don’t feel motivated to do it.
I gave up on all other tools, like Wanikani and RTK. I don’t like the amount of time for very little return that they offer.
Plan Going Forward
I will continue doing what I’ve been doing. The method I used for Spanish definitely works for Japanese, but I can see why things take so much longer. There are no cognates whatsoever (besides borrowed words, but even they sound different enough that I don’t immediately recognize them) and the opposite grammar is still a lot to wrap my head around just yet. These first couple levels are basically about building that base that already existed in Spanish, and once that’s set, I can begin to make more rapid gains. Still, I am pleased with what I’ve accomplished so far. The fact that in just 4 months I have gone from Japanese being completely foreign sounds to being able to follow beginner videos is a huge achievement, and I’m excited to keep progressing forward.
Please leave any questions below and I will do my best to answer them.
Thanks for reading!