However, many experts believe it takes between 4 to 6 months of dedicated study to reach a beginner level. On the other hand, you can expect to spend at least 3 years studying to become fluent in Japanese with near-native level accuracy.
Depending the length of your study time every day and how often you can practice alone, such as having speaking practice over Skype, listening to podcasts like JapanesePod101, reading and writing the writing systems, and actively trying to utilize kanji, you can learn intermediate level Japanese within 1-3 years.
To comfortably have a basic conversation in the language and recognize a few written words in a year, you will have to spend at least an hour every day studying the language. However, if your purpose is fluency, you may require another year or two to speak, read and write Japanese.
People who can speak Japanese fluently at a native level are generally referred to as "Japanese," but it takes them about 12 years to become fluent in JLPT N1 level Japanese. To master it in a period of three months, you need to study 30 to 40 times more densely than they do.
In short, Japanese is one of the more difficult languages for a native English speaker to learn. It takes much dedication and time. Learning the kana and how to pronounce the syllables is relatively easy, the grammar is about in the middle between easy and difficult, and the kanji is very hard.
Unlike other East-Asian languages, Korean isn't a tonal language. This means, that the meaning of the word doesn't change, regardless of what your accent is like. This makes learning Korean much easier than Japanese.
FAQs. Which language is easier to learn– Korean or Japanese? Korean is considered to be much easier than Japanese. There are more letters in the Japanese alphabet than in Korean. Japanese also contains more complicated Chinese characters and difficult grammar.
You may have heard recently that it's now impossible to study in Japan if you are over 30 years old. Luckily for those who fall in that category, this isn't actually true and it's actually never too late to chase your Japanese language dreams.
Learning Japanese isn't easy and it will take time. It's probably fair to say that you can expect a commitment of at least three years in order to achieve something resembling fluency. The average learner gets to the advanced level in three or four years.
You Can Learn Japanese to a Good Level After Just a Few Months. Chris Broad (Abroad in Japan) shows that it's possible to survive in Japanese with as little as 6 months of studying. Fluent in 3 Months Challenge head coach Shannon Kennedy learned Japanese in 3 months to a conversational level (around A2-B1).
Duolingo Is Great as a Supplement
It is great for learning vocabulary and seeing how words are used in context. However, it's generally not great for learning the “why”s or “how”s of language. This includes grammar and semantics–how words interact with each other to create different meanings.
Approximately it will take 88 weeks, or 2200 hours of studying, to become fluent. But this article shows tips and tools to expedite and make the process easier. This article is a part of our extensive series of articles on Self-studying Japanese.
I'd say a good and dedicated student is probably able to pass N2 in a year with enough elbow grease, and another year-ish for N1, but that's already quite a big pace. Your average learner will probably do N4~N3ish in a year, N2 in a couple of years, and N1 in 3-4 years.
Japanese is ranked as a Category Four language, the hardest category to learn, requiring 2,200 class hours. It has three writing systems: katakana, hiragana, and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are phonetic alphabets.
For starters, Japanese has three writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Kanji includes over 50,000 different characters, however, you only need to know about 2,000 of them to be considered fluent. You also only need to know about 5,000 Japanese vocabulary words to be considered fluent as well.
The jōyō kanji (常用漢字, regular-use kanji) are 2,136 characters consisting of all the Kyōiku kanji, plus 1,110 additional kanji taught in junior high and high school. In publishing, characters outside this category are often given furigana.
Which means, it's one of the hardest languages to master. They estimate 2200 hours of study before you can reach fluency in Korean. Or 88 weeks of extremely intense study. But if you want a more accurate estimate of how long it will take you to learn Korean, you need to go deeper than the FSI estimate.
It takes about 4-7 years (roughly 2200 to 4000 hours) to become fluent in every aspect of the language, if you spend at least an hour and a half to study every day. However, it's quite common for learners to become more fluent in some areas than others depending on how they allotted their study time.
It's a gateway language
Learning Japanese provides a 'gateway' to other languages with a similarly-high level of difference from English. Chinese, Korean and Arabic, for example, would all become easier to learn if you have an understanding of Japanese.
Expect to complete at least 3 years of consistent studying to achieve an advanced level of Japanese. However, should you decide to make this type of time commitment, you can master these linguistic abilities: Use complex sentence structures, vocabulary, and expressions to accurately share sophisticated opinions.
Answer: Ideally, up to four years study gap is acceptable. 4. Is there any age limit to study in Japan? Answer: For Japanese Language Program, below 30 is acceptable.
As we've already mentioned, Japanese is considered the fastest language in the world. It is always mentioned as the first on the list. So, here are 6 of the fastest spoken languages in the world, based on the average number of syllables spoken per second (SPS): Japanese - 7.84 SPS.
Many people are curious about how difficult Japanese is compared to Chinese – a language that many learners have difficulty mastering. Compared to Chinese, Japanese does have its own set of complexities and challenges but overall, it's considered easier for beginners.