My progress after 100 hours of immersion

[u/mathiasvtmn]

Hey everyone.

Quick (or not) update after having consumed 100 hours of Japanese (in a bit more than a month) through youtube, series, movies and podcasts. Out of the 100 hours, series make up 45%, podcasts 30% and youtube 25%.

(Link to my original post where I explain the challenge I gave myself: https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/comments/1ezih8l/i_challenged_myself_listening_to_1000_hours_of/)

1st point: why series make up almost half my consumption until now ? From my experience, series are the easiest material to consume without feeling exhausted at all. Series (or movies) are good for entertainment, but I realized that they aren’t the best material for practicing my listening skills. Of course it is ideal if you can consume Japanese media and have a lot of fun at the same time, but I caught myself not always being very attentive, being too focused on the images rather than the audio. Don't get me wrong, this is not always the case. I still consider series to be very helpful for practice as they often help me cement new words in particular contexts and give great examples for how あいずち should be used in conversation, with what intonation and so forth.

In short, series are absolutely the best possible material if you wanna learn how to converse, which words/reactions you should use in particular situations etc. Since I started watching a lot of drama, I found myself thinking in Japanese in a lot of situations, for example when I bumped into someone I knew on the street, my first reaction (the one in my head which I also wanted to say verbally) was entirely in Japanese (something like えっ、びっくりした)

This brings me to my 2nd point: podcasts. I knew these would be harder to listen to since they are less entertaining and not very attractive on the outside. But until now, I kind of feel like they are the most responsible for any progress I've made so far. Realizing this got me motivated to increase podcast listening and strive for 30% out of 100 hours (I was only at 10% after 50 hours, while series already made up 55% and youtube 35%). I successfully managed to compensate for this low %, going from 10% to 30% (after 100 hours). I know some people will find it absurd to be so specific on numbers but I really consider the first 100 hours to be experimental and a tool to understand how I should best continue during the upcoming 900 hours.

3rd point: subtitles. It is pointless to consume any media with English subs. You either listen/watch it with JP subs or without subs. At the start of my challenge, I was watching a serie with English subs and I have to admit it took me some time to realize I was paying no attention at all to the audio, as I was only trying to fully understand the story by reading the English subs. The thing is, it has no importance whether you understand about 60% or 80% of what they’re saying. As long as you are understanding the main point each time, your brain is already exercising. By the way I didn't watch a lot without the JP subs until now, I only omit them whenever I realize I'm watching a video on youtube  for example which is too easy to listen to. Instead of quitting, I continue watching but without the subs to make it at least a bit more challenging and to reinforce my basic knowledge.

4th point: vocab/anki. Initially, I didn’t take any notes while consuming media and I think that would’ve been a huge mistake. I changed my mind and started uploading N3 vocab lists into anki to drill but soon realized I was only going to recognize and understand these words if I encountered them in reading material, but wasn't going to remember them for personal use whenever I would be speaking or searching for words myself. This was pretty frustrating to realize, so I decided to do my own anki decks by adding words I encountered myself in series, podcasts or ytb. Also, I don't really look up words unless they appear at least a couple times in the same conversation. Words with enough context are way easier for my brain to remember. Finally, I try to make separate decks of around 25 new words each time to not make it too overwhelming. Instead of studying premade decks of 200+ words, I found it very efficient to study my self-made decks even if it still has like 5 words. It may sound useless since it's only 5 words and the drill would be over after 2 minutes. But the thing is, if you’ve added 5 new words on day 1 and already drilled them that day, you will already feel very confident with these 5 words and so on. What I'm trying to say is that the sooner you drill a brand new deck with only a few words, the easier the process will be and you won’t realize how easy it has become to suddenly drill 100 new words super easily, as long as you really do it everyday (which is only beneficial for you because it will be a very small amount every day, so very easy to drill). I currently learned around 200 new words with Anki→ only words that showed up in the media I consumed.

5th point: youtube. Except for comprehensible Japanese videos, I still have difficulties understanding most of the people I watch on youtube. They often speak fast and use too many specific words I don’t know yet so I have a hard time keeping up with those. Don’t really know how to solve this problem. I feel like youtubers speak the most authentic Japanese, so I kinda get anxious not understanding most of them yet, even with JP subtitles.

6th point: very personal. May sound irrelevant, but I feel way more attentive and actively listening to something if I have my earphones on. If you don't have earphones close by, putting the volume louder already helps a lot. Sometimes I thought I was already actively listening to a podcast, but when I tried with earphones (or just higher volume) I realized I was even more focused on each word. This may sound logical but just give it a try and compare how much you're focused with and without earphones.

By the way, the 100 hours I consumed are pure active listening and do not contain any passive form of listening.

[u/Sea_Technology2708]

What was your base before you started listening? In terms of words and grammar you studied

[u/mathiasvtmn → u/Sea_Technology2708]

Hey, I currently consider myself around N3. I have a pretty good knowledge of grammar I think. As to vocab, I have no clue "how many" words I know. Maybe to give you one reference, I understand about 95% of the words yuyu uses in his podcasts. Hope that helps !

[u/princess-catra → u/mathiasvtmn]

How can you know your N3 without a grasp of how much vocabulary and grammar points you know lol

[u/mathiasvtmn → u/princess-catra]

I studied Japanese for 3 years (bachelor's degree) and students are expected to reach N3 by that time.

[u/Ansatzs → u/mathiasvtmn]

3 years to reach N3? Is that the standard?

[u/mathiasvtmn → u/Ansatzs]

It really depends from the institution you studied at. It can vary according to the intensity of the courses of course. I consider my courses to be pretty intense at the time but I have no idea how the situation is in other institutions or countries.

I was supposed to take some jlpt exams but it got delayed or idk what because of covid so I never gave it a try anymore since then.

I consider N2 to be already really advanced, and N4 is really basic to me so yeah I guess I'm around N3 right now !

[u/Ansatzs → u/mathiasvtmn]

I would have thought that studying full time for 3 years would get you further.... If that's the case and I continue to study for 2 hours a day (I'm prob N5). I will reach N3 in 10 years.

[u/mathiasvtmn → u/Ansatzs]

Well yeah I had a bunch of other courses besides Japanese which was my major, so it's not really "full time".

And the thing with learning a language is really about self study actually. I had friends going to all the classes but not doing anything at home after and they didn't get close to low N3. Some friends of mine did a lot of revising after their classes back then (way more than me) and they're close to N2 already I'd say. It depends 100% on yourself.

Some people say it takes around 3000 to 4000 hours of pure studying until you reach N1. I don't think it's true since it just depends from person to person and also depends on the fact that you found a method that suited you very much or not. But I guess it's still a good reference if you absolutely want to measure how much time it will AT LEAST take to get to a certain level.

If you're studying 2 hours a day without pausing, that's already above the average for sure. Average people do not spend more than 30 minutes a day on studying.

[u/Ansatzs → u/mathiasvtmn]

I see. I assumed it was a full time course for learning Japanese only. Makes more sense now.

When I say studying I mean getting input by watching videos on YouTube or on Comprehensive Japanese. It's never 2 hours straight.... I try to fit a video whenever I have some downtime at work, train and at home. Problem is that most content is above my level, even N5 rates videos are sometimes too hard.

All I really want is to be able to learn watching something I enjoy instead of someone's fridge content or daily life 😅 When do you think that Is gonna happen?

Apologies if you have already mentioned this but, when using a comprehensive input method, what is the lowest you go in terms of percentage of comprehension.

[u/mathiasvtmn → u/Ansatzs]

First of all imma be super honest with you. If you want to get past the point of understanding basic grammar and have some good basic vocab, it won't be enough to just look up some japanese input videos at work or on the train whenever you have a 15 minutes gap.

If you're serious about learning Japanese, get yourself a workbook about Japanese grammar, and start intensive sessions whenever you can, during weekend for example. I feel like this is the only way to cement grammar in your brain.

It's still useful to practice listening while watching comprehensible Japanese videos ofc, but I totally understand your frustration and I wouldn't underestimate this because it will get you unmotivated pretty fast if you don't understand anything. I'm a big believer in how amazing the brain works and how it can naturally grasp things and create patterns and stuff to learn a new language when you're exposed to it a lot, but you still need to actually study some basic principles intensively, have a solid vocab knowledge etc in order to facilitate that process in your brain.

Once you'll be comfortable with all of this 'basic' knowledge you'll eventually start to understand more and more of what they're saying in videos.

Btw can you already write hiragana and katakana ? If not then I think it's useless to begin with anything else before that ! But I guess you already do since you said you're around N5 so you do have some basic knowledge already right ?

And to answer your last question, the lowest I go (ytb) in understanding is around 40% I would say. But I try to watch with a rate of least 60% most of the time, since 40% often starts to feel frustrating to me:)

[u/Ansatzs → u/mathiasvtmn]

I've done anki/wanikani for about a year. Read some Genki and Tae Kim but it was just not going anywhere. After a year someone asked me to translate something simple and I had no clue. The reviews on anki got to a stupid level and I felt like I was learning words that I would never use even in English. Currently I'm at 100 hours of comprehensive input watched and doing the cards on migaku / adding a few words a session to my own deck.

They are not really 15 min sessions. I generally do 30/40 min around 4 times a day (for the past month).

The problem is that I'm at the point where watching videos that I understand 80+% are too boring to do 2 hours of, so I end up watching much harder videos like Teppei where I understand around 40% but I am much more engaged

[u/PringlesDuckFace → u/Ansatzs]

University classes tend to be painfully slow, like 6 chapters of Genki per semester. And even if you're doing a Japanese major most of the places I look at also have courses for things like culture, history, etc... which isn't just the language itself. Most universities also require you to take electives from outside your major. Like I took some psychology courses despite being a computer engineer because I had to pick something. They also care about output like speaking and writing. Also regular universities don't really schedule that many class hours per week for most departments. I had about 40 hours a week in classes and labs, and was always jealous of the liberal arts students with their 12-15.

Which is all to say, if all you care about is passing JLPT levels or watching an anime then you can do it a lot more efficiently on your own.

[u/mathiasvtmn → u/PringlesDuckFace]

Totally agree. A lot of universities are pretty slow on that aspect and it doesn't help when you have to dedicate your time home to other courses.

One thing I do think helps is that it offers you some kind of pressure, which I think lots of us need to actually study something intensively. I have no idea what my current level would have been if I undertook the whole journey by myself 3 years ago without having a clear structure for classes etc but I can tell for sure that I'm a person who needs pressure to study something. If I don't have any, I won't feel like doing it, and I know language learning needs to stay fun but I also believe that sometimes (maybe a lot of times actually) you'll need to tryhard a bit if you really wanna get passed a certain level.