One Year of Tracked Japanese: 412 Hours, the JLPT N5 Path

Spanish at 367 hours = solid B1. Japanese at 412 hours = JLPT N5 with shaky N4 listening. Same effort, very different results — because Japanese is FSI Category IV.

Here's the tracked breakdown.

On this page

The headline numbers

• Total hours: 412
• Days studied: 298 / 365 (82%)
• Average minutes per study day: 83
• Longest streak: 64 days
• Final outcome: passed JLPT N5 (~150 hours equivalent), partway to N4 (~300 hours equivalent)

The activity breakdown

• Kanji study: 102 hours (25%)
• Vocabulary / SRS: 89 hours (22%)
• Grammar / textbook: 72 hours (17%)
• Listening (active): 51 hours (12%)
• Reading (graded): 38 hours (9%)
• Speaking (italki): 29 hours (7%)
• Anime / shows: 31 hours (8%)

The kanji elephant

25% of total hours went to kanji. Without it, comprehension stays at near-zero past A1. With it, reading slowly opens up.

Around hour 200, kanji recognition crossed 1000 characters. Reading became possible. The first 200 hours felt like nothing was working — the breakthrough came late.

The speaking lag

7% speaking is too low — but for Japanese specifically, the lag is somewhat structural. Producing accurate sentences with particles, verb conjugations, and politeness levels is hard before you've heard a lot.

The honest takeaway: for Cat IV languages, planning to speak fluently at year-end is unrealistic. Plan for confident comprehension; speech catches up year 2.

The plateau zone

Months 5-9 felt like nothing was moving. Hours kept piling on; comprehension creeped. The plateau was the kanji wall.

Lesson: at hour 150 in Japanese, you'll feel less progress than at hour 80. This is normal. Trust the curve.

Trusting the curve is easier when the hours stay in view. LangTrack's level goal estimates hours from FSI-based figures, so for Japanese it already expects a long haul; set A2 as a first target and the flat months still register as hours toward it.

Hours to JLPT levels (rough)

• JLPT N5: 150 hours
• JLPT N4: 300 hours
• JLPT N3: 600 hours
• JLPT N2: 1100 hours
• JLPT N1: 1900+ hours

These are with focused study. Casual study takes 1.5-2×.

What I'd do differently

• Start with the kana script (hiragana + katakana) before any romaji-based course (10 hours upfront, saves 50 hours later)
• Less anime, more graded readers (anime is hard input; the dialogue is colloquial)
• Native vocabulary deck from month 1 (Genki vocabulary first, then JLPT N5 deck, then N4)
• iTalki tutor from hour 30 (I waited too long)

The Spanish vs Japanese comparison

Same year, comparable effort:

• Spanish: 367 hours → B1
• Japanese: 412 hours → high N5 / low N4 (roughly A2)

Roughly a 2× difference in level reached for similar effort. Match expectations to category. FSI categories covers this in detail.