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Persistence Is Power: How Long Does It Take To Learn Japanese

Know How Difficult Japanese and How Long Does It Take To Learn Japanese

Learning a language is a hard and long road.

No matter how many words and expressions you study, there will always still be many you don’t know, and the words and expressions used in actual conversations and sentences are constantly changing.

But still, if you are able to paraphrase an unfamiliar word in another language or follow a changing expression, you will have mastered the language to a certain point.

Even in your native language, there are probably more words you don’t know and expressions you have never used than words you do know. Ideally, we would like to reach that level of proficiency in a foreign language as well.

This article describes how long it takes to study Japanese and how many kanji you will need to learn.

Of course, the effort required may vary depending on your learning objectives, but it will be helpful to know how difficult it is generally considered to be.

How Long Does It Take To Learn Japanese || How Difficult Is Japanese?

How Long Does It Take To Learn Japanese || How Japanese Learn Japanese

How Long Does It Take To Learn Japanese || Why Japanese Isn’t as Hard as You Think

How Long Does It Take To Learn Japanese || FAQs

How Long Does It Take To Learn Japanese || How Difficult Is Japanese?

If you are learninging Japanese, how long will you need to study?

FSI, an American language information service, ranks the difficulty of foreign languages for English speakers.

According to the report, French and Spanish are classified in Category 1, which is considered the easiest.

The time period to learn all the basics is considered to be 24 to 30 weeks. This is due to the fact that they use an alphabet and the grammatical structure and vocabulary are relatively similar to English, so the cost of learning them is not very high. It is estimated that approximately 600 hours are required to learn the basics of these languages.

Category 2, a step up in terms of difficulty and time needed to master the languages in the group, includes German.

German is considered more complex than French in terms of grammar. Around 750 hours are required to handle the basics.

Indonesian and Swahili are classified in Category 3, which requires 36 weeks to learn all the basics. It is estimated that 900 hours are required to learn the basics of these languages.

Category 4 includes Russian, Vietnamese, and Turkish.

Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which requires learning a different alphabet than the Latin alphabet, and has a very complex grammar. This category requires 44 weeks or 1,100 hours of study to learn the basics.

Now, Japanese is classified in Category 5, which is considered the highest difficulty level.

Other languages in this category include Chinese, Korean, and Arabic. What these four languages have in common is the use of complex scripts, such as Kanji and Arabic, rather than the Latin alphabet.

In particular, Japanese and Korean have their own unique characters such as hiragana, katakana, and hangeul, in addition to kanji.

In Chinese, there is basically one way to read a given kanji, but in Japanese, the same kanji can be read in different ways, and the meaning can change accordingly.

 It is estimated that a Category 5 language takes 88 weeks or 2,200 hours to learn all the basics.

In other words, it simply takes twice as long as the languages in Category 4. You may realize how difficult Japanese is from this point of view.

How To Learn Kanji // The Ultimate Tips & Tricks You Should Know Thumbnail

How To Learn Kanji // The Ultimate Tips & Tricks You Should Know

How to learn Kanji? Generally, you’ll need to learn about 1,000-2,000 Chinese characters in Japanese. Here’s the best way to go about learning them.

How Long Does It Take To Learn Japanese || How Japanese Learn Japanese

How do Japanese people learn Japanese?

Of course, if you are born and raised in Japan, you are surrounded by Japanese speakers 24 hours a day, and everything you see and hear is in Japanese, so you have the advantage of being immersed in Japanese without ever giving it a second thought.

However, kanji is one of the things that Japanese people need to take the time to learn.

At what age do Japanese people learn how many kanji?

The curriculum of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) defines the number of kanji that Japanese students should learn. Elementary school in Japan is a six-year course.

According to this, 80 in the first grade, 160 in the second grade, 200 in the third grade, 202 in the fourth grade, 193 in the fifth grade, and 191 in the sixth grade. In other words, 1,026 kanji are to be learned in six years of elementary school.

 Japanese students graduate from elementary school at the age of 12, which means they have learned approximately 1,000 kanji at the age of 12.

The next stage of junior high school is a three-year course, and students are expected to learn 1,110 kanji in three years. This means that a Japanese has learned more than 2,000 kanji by the age of 15.

 In Japan, there are 2,136 kanji characters called “Jyouyo-kanji” 常用漢字 じょうようかんじ that are commonly used in daily life. Therefore, if you have mastered all the kanji learned in elementary and junior high school, you have acquired a sufficient amount of kanji for general use.

 The number of kanji is not limitless. Even the kanji dictionaries used in Japan generally contain only about 10,000 characters. In reality, 10,000 characters seems to be the upper limit, since kanji are created as needed, and many of them are created but never take root and fall into disuse.

The oldest Chinese character dictionary in China, the “Explanatory Text Dictionary 説文解字 せつもんかいじ ,” which was established in 100 A.D., seems to have contained about 9,000 characters.

👉 This was true even 1900 years ago, so the number of kanji actually used in living language is probably 10,000 at most. If you know about one-fifth of them, you can say that you are an expert in kanji.

Lex in Japan

Even among Japanese, the number of people who do not know kanji well is increasing these days due to the influence of digitalization!

For reference, let’s take a look at the tests related to kanji proficiency conducted in Japan:

The highest difficulty level of the Kanji Proficiency Test requires the candidate to know approximately 6,000 Kanji characters.

The actual amount of knowledge required will be even greater since you will not only be required to memorize 6,000 characters, but also multiple readings for each and the use of similar ones too.

The HSK, the universal Chinese proficiency test, also has a target of 5,000 words at the highest level.

 Of course, the number of kanji you know is not necessarily proportional to your Japanese language ability. However, even if you learn one kanji a day, it will take you 2,000 days, or more than five years, to learn all the common kanji!

Learning Japanese is hard work, but breakthroughs often occur as you continue to work diligently. Take the long view and take your time in learning.

🌎 Why not compare Japanese with How Long it Takes to Learn Korean and How Long it Takes to Learn Spanish?

How Long Does It Take To Learn Japanese || Why Japanese Isn’t as Hard as You Think

However, studying Japanese is actually not that difficult. There are many kanji characters, but they are added furigana for foreigners, and it is not necessary to memorize all of them.

What is furigana?

Furigana are hiragana and katakana written beside the kanji characters to show how to read those kanji.

There are 46 types of hiragana and katakana each, but once you learn how to read them, you will basically be able to read literally.

In addition, many modern words come from English, so if you are familiar with the pronunciation, you can often guess the original English.

Since a lot of visual content, including anime, is available on the Internet, it is not so difficult to get used to the pronunciation and characters.

 If you wish, you can also speak with native speakers online. The hurdle to learning Japanese is much lower than it used to be.

Don’t be afraid to take your first step into the world of the Japanese language!

How is your Japanese language journey going? Let us know here!

A Guide to the JLPT // Everything You Need to Know Thumbnail

A Guide to the JLPT // Everything You Need to Know

Need a complete guide to the JLPT? This post will answer the questions such as “what is the JLPT?”, “when should I take it?” and “why should I take it?”

How Long Does It Take to Learn Japanese || FAQs

How difficult is Japanese?

Japanese is classified as Category 5 according to FSI criteria. This requires 2,200 hours of basic learning, and Chinese and Arabic are also classified in this category.

Why is Japanese so difficult?

The Japanese language uses a different script than the Latin alphabet, requiring the learning of hiragana, katakana, and a myriad of kanji characters. Word changes are also complex, and honorifics are difficult to learn.

How many kanji do Japanese people know?

Japanese learn about 2,000 kanji by the age of 15. This is generally considered a sufficient number of kanji for daily use.

What is the maximum number of Kanji characters?

Theoretically, the number of Kanji characters is infinite. However, only a few of them are actually used and established, and approximately 10,000 types seem to be the upper limit of the number of kanji in common use.

Can I master Japanese if I know Kanji?

No. Although it is important to know many kanji, there are many words in Japanese that are expressed not only in kanji but also in hiragana and katakana, and it is necessary to learn these as well.

Want More From LTL?

WANT TO LEARN JAPANESE? Check out our online Japanese courses here.

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