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.

The table of hours (the one that was given by anrakushi) is the standard measure that is applied to anyone in gauging their JLPT level.

Normally, for those that are just taking the language for the fun of it and not intending to progress from level to level via the JLPT, then they normally talks about YEARS instead of HOURS.

That makes sense...thanks for clearing that up, enyafriend.

I am a beginner, hahaha
アニメもゲームも大好きだから、日本語を勉強のこと決 めた

makes sense and i agree with this except that i guess some language programs also care about the hours as the university i studied at in Japan in my second semester set a minimum of 300hrs of study rather than years. i think these hrs of study are also more referring to classroom study and not private study.

Not much, I only know a few words and phrases.
I'd like to eventually speak Japanese fluently

I've watched so many love stories that I can hold up a bitter fight or a sad, poetic confession of love for about 30 seconds, but other than those two nearly useless thing, I can't say much in japanese XD

lol i agree with tenchu
ive basically studied japanese my whole life but im not fluent and not really near it either >_<

In Australia, I attended a Japanese school for 3 hours every Saturday for five years (about 600 hrs all up) and I was always half/barely understanding stuff (because of my age, I had to skip a few grades and could never, fully catch up with the class). It was structured like an actual school in Japan and we used textbooks from the current syllabus.

I can hold a decent conversation in Japanese and convince natives into thinking I am Japanese (I lack an accent). However, when it comes to writing kanji and understanding semantics, I do struggle a bit...my vocabulary is quite pitiful too so I sometimes get tongue-tied.

I think I'd put myself at an intermediate-high level, probably more inclined to intermediate though.

That looks very useful, I shall investigate. Thank you.

I'm currently in my third year studying Japanese, but so far it slipped a bit since I study languages in school (Spanish and English and a little bit of German) so I pushed aside Japanese a little. But I intend to take back my study hours book and get back to business, as I really want to become a translator of several languages (weird to say, but actually Japanese is my third language, rather than Spanish ^^')

And thus maybe take a JLPT test soon... who knows?

I don't fit anything there. I've been studying the language (a Japanese lesson once every week, but no place to practice outside of that one lesson a week) for about two years now (I started in October 2005). I still feel that I'm "just starting out" since I'm still so bad with it.

I`ve never ever thought of how many hours I`ve studied Japanese - if I did, I could probably count them on one hand, but that`s beside the point. And yet, I passed JLPT 1. I never gave any thought to hours when I went for 2 or 1. (First I took 2, then did 1 because 2 was much easier than I had expected.)

I answered fluent, but technically I`ve never actually "studied" much at all. If I had to answer that way, I`d be in the less than a year.

Personally, I`d like to see a poll comparing the length of study with actual proficiency. Time tells little. :)

I find it fascinating that people actually count study hours. Under 100 I can see, but when you get up to 1000... How do you keep track? The same with the number of kanji people understand. Once you pass a certain number, how do you keep track?

hours: as i think i my unversity i studied at in japan wanted at least 300 class hours, home study is generally less structured and doesn't help give an indication really. you can know that if someone has been in a class for 100 hrs they should have learnt this and this and this. whether they remember and can use it is another thing, but they have been instructed.

now that is pretty easy to count because you just multiply hours per week of class by the number of weeks you have studied. i could probably work out how many hours of Maths i studied during six years of highschool (it goes from 7-12 here)


As for Kanji: At least for me this is easy, I use a language testing software called ProVoc. I load all the kanji i need to know for level 2 JLPT into it and I load on average 5 compounds from the level 2 JLPT vocabulary list (more compounds if the list contains them, if less i add some other useful compounds) Then the program tests me, like a flashcard program, showing me the english eg. essays, miscellaneous writings. then i write in my book the kanji 随筆 and then i type it onto the computer to check my answer. this gives me written practice and forces me to remember the character without recognising it like most flashcard testing does. I learn 5 new kanji each day with their compounds and test a random bunch of already tested compounds. i can track how many kanji i really know how to read and write by the list in my program. I may be able to recognise some other kanji but i wouldn't say i know them that well. for me i don't know a kanji until i can read and write it and know it in common compounds.

Seriously? Did you get proficient by living in Japan and adapting? I think that's how my mum became fluent..

Yes. That`s pretty much the way things happened in my case. I was lucky enough to get over here when I was still young enough to pick things up quickly. I only knew 3 or 4 phrases and a handful of random words when I first got here.

I have to say that after 10 years of being here, if I weren`t fluent I`d be pretty embarrassed.

Feel free to make a new poll.

I'm sorry that I did not make myself clear enough the first time around.

It is not like everytime you take out a textbook to study, you make a record of the hours that you put into. It would be absolute crazy to make that kind of record no matter how diligent you are. HOURS here signify the amount of CLASSROOM hours that you had put in.
E.g. 4 hours of lesson per day x 5 days week = 20 hours per week, and so on.

Hours are recorded on students attending lessons in a classroom environment, and NEVER on a personal basis or self-study.
Once you have completed the required certain hours, you are deemed to be ready for the particular JLPT level. Thus, you may sit for the JLPT exams accordingly.

Indeed, as those who have self-studied for many years, and do not feel they have any proficiancy, this poll may not fit. I was thinking about people that have gone through formal study. Of course, Nyorin is a unique case...likely the only one here who has fluency with no formal study (besides a native speaker).

To be frank, I have never met anyone who self-studied outside of Japan and reached any real level of proficiency. I would loved to be proven wrong, but I know I wouldn't have been able to do it outside of a formal class environiment.

I've been studying Japanese for three years in high school, but I've known the basics forever because of my grandma, she speaks fluent, but she has an accent still yet after all these years that she hasn't been in Japan.

I know someone who self-studied for years before taking it formally at a university. His Japanese is really good too and that was before he started a couple of years ago. I always admired how he seemed to be good with languages, although, he did admit that all the Spanish he knew is practically gone. The only thing he did complain about is that he wasn't all that confident with speaking it since he rarely had the opportunity to practice that. Last year, he was in Japan as a part of his exchange, for a year, for his major, I suppose (I know with international studies, seems you have to study abroad for at least a year or a semester). He's now a JET applicant for this year as an ALT. He's had his interview and stuff...just waiting to see if he was accepted. I hope he gets it. It'd be nice to know of someone I'd been talking to for years online to get in the program. ^_^

Your method of kanji learning sounds like a pain in the arse (with all due respect!). You know, there's a DS kanji game that does everything for you. Tests absolutely everything about kanji, so much so that although I am JLPT 2 kanji reading, I started at the bottom in the kanji game and have so far only worked my way up to the ８級　which is about a 7 year old's level.

I want to contribute to MMM
 

But you know I'm a native japanese,
I shouldn't vote on it?

What's the name of the kanji game?

Sure you should. You are fluent. I was just kind of trying to see where people's levels were.

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I really wanna learn Japanese, but my parents don't like Japan, so I'm doomed not to learn untill University!

Why would they not like Japan?

God knows!

Maybe her dad is like 80 and was a marine in the pacific theater :P

I have those games and i simply don't like them. i have about 4 different DS kanji training games and they just don't work as well. my way is not at all a pain in the arse, it is very easy and effective. i can track which words i keep getting wrong, quickly search for all words containing a particular kanji etc. I can even see statistics of how many i've been getting right and wrong in each session.

Those systems have some benefits but i find that writing on the ds is not realistic to real writing. they are all to sensitive and on some characters the way i write the character (very hand written style rather than computer style) it doesn't recognise them. While i have a kanji dictionary which is aimed more at adults and that accepts my writing styles. i assure you i learnt less in my time spent using the DS than i did on my program. you can't knock it until you have seen it in action :P

EDIT: i should mention i find these sort of programs better for complimenting my style of learning, not the basis of it. they are good for the sake of having sentences using the compounds that im learning.

I should point out that i learn my vocabulary through kanji, it helps me remember the words. so a program like these might help if you already know the words, but im learning the words as i learn the kanji and compounds.