Level of Japanese
 

I am just curious as to how much Japanese people have studied...

interesting time frame of using years rather than hours. i've never seen years being used to measure rough level in Japanese before that's all. i thought the standard was hours, at least that is how the Ryukoku University did it and JLPT does it. :) it will be interesting to see the results.

Really? I never to the JLPT and everyone I know talks about how many years they have studied? I have never heard anyone say how many hours they have studied Japanese before, to be honest. Maybe it's an American thing to say years (??)

it could be an American thing. The problem it causes is for example i did one year of studying Japanese in university in Australia before going to Japan and of actual class time i had just 72hrs in that year. i had learnt so little before going to Japan. that is why hours are used as people should generally be capable of similar amounts after so many hours but years is very vague because the number of class hours, home study etc can vary greatly.

just as an example, taken from wikipedia
Test content and requirements summary for JLPT
Level Kanji Vocabulary Listening Hours of Study
4 ~100 (103) ~800 (728) Basic ~150
3 ~300 (284) ~1,500 (1409) Intermediate ~300
2 ~1000 (1023) ~6,000 (5035) High Level ~600
1 ~2000 (1926) ~10,000 (8009) SFLIJ* ~900
*Sufficient For Life In Japan
Numbers in brackets indicate the exact number in the current Test Content Specification (Revised Edition, 2004).

anyway this is just a rough poll so it is not important ^^ just found it interesting.

I wish they had Japanese at my college. I started 'learning' it around 8th grade but wasn't able to take a class until last year as a Senior. So really I actually started learning last year. It was pretty much a study hall for me. :rolleyes: I found I picked it up quite easily and was always 3-4 lessons ahead of everyone else. Now I'm positive that's only because:

A) It was elementary Japanese and the basics aren't really that hard.
and B) I already had experience with learning another language so it made it easier for me.

Now that I don't have the class anymore, it's a struggle to continue my studies. I have two other language classes (Advanced German and Elementary Chinese) to think about, not to mention the science/writing/mathematics courses needed for my other major. However I don't want to give up Japanese, I love it so much!:rheart: As I can't really measure my study time in hours, (there aren't enough hours in the day) any suggestions for the most effective way to keep learning/have it fresh in my mind until I can get back to a classroom setting?

*phew, that was a lot*

This is my first year, starting July that will be my second year studying Japanese.

Right now, everything I know is based off my personal studying and what I've picked up from my penpal, but this April I will be going staying in Japan and taking a Japanese "immersion" course for one month. Hopefully that will give me a good foundation, and then I will be minoring in Japanese at the college I'm going to, only because they don't offer it as a major. However, the professor there is a native, so I'm hoping that will help a lot. And THEN, assuming I learn a lot of Japanese, I'm hoping to study abroad with Sophia University. :'D

Taking the JLPT 2 this year :D (note I said taking, not passing!!)
It's just a matter of kanji for me. And getting enough reading practice in.

As for the hours/years of study debate, when I first asked my Japanese teacher here how long it would take for me to prepare for the JLPT she said it's about 2 years for a Westerner but about 1 year for a Chinese or Korean person. Gah. :mad:
I'm taking it after a year but, as I said, I don't know if I'll be ready or not but also I'm living in Japan now so I'm learning fast and getting more practice than someone sat at Cambridge University reading grammar books all day.

Learn Japanese keeps Japanese fresh for everyone, all the time :vsign:

For the past few years, I've been trying to teach myself but lots of things just get in the way. Otherwise, I know a lot here and there, but I'm not really good at Japanese. I can pick up VERY simple conversations, though.