Don’t take those number too seriously. There is no way to time yourself so it is hard to say what 1h even means. For example: does watching anime count as study time or not? Or us right now having studying related discussion?
What is interesting really is the difference between people with kanji and without. It look like it make a lot of difference.
Wow. Holy Crap! This chart is really informative and confirms my original theory… Get a firm grasp of Kanji and vocabulary BEFORE learning grammar and sentence structure. Which is precisely why I completed a year of WaniKani.com BEFORE even attempting to find an equivalent Japanese grammar app. Enter Bunpro.
How much Kanji have you mastered? I am 35 Kanji away from completing the N3. A year of Bunpro sounds like a reasonable expectation from this point, but I have other studies… Russian…Neurology…microbiology…advanced Statistical Analysis…Coding… And an obsession with physical fitness (I am trying to perfect a middle split handstand this year having zero flexibility and slightly above average upper body strength to start!)
I am goal oriented. Setting goals and failing is much better than not trying at all. I noticed doing 1 Lesson a day is a reasonable pace for me without being overwhelming, completing 5 Lessons a week. But what pace would that be?
Heck yeah! I noticed for me, doing a Lesson a day is a reasonable pace without becoming overwhelmed. But I tend to have a review correct rate of 85% because frankly… I havent figured out a useful way for memorizing this…crap… I go through and read all the examples in English and then try to construct a sentence utilizing the new grammar point, but rarely does my version match up 
I have a photographic memory, so I find myself slipping into that handicap rather than learning WHY something is written one way over another. (This happens with Russian all the time…don’t get me started on Russian grammar. Makes Japanese look like a cakewalk).
Do you use mnemonics? What memory method works best for this stuff? You can DM me [email protected]. but be warned…I only check my email every three days. I dont use social media and I dont turn on notifications for anything.
Ha! Yes! I started Jan. Lost my phone in March. Restarted in May 2020. Got to Level 30 a week ago. I’m on Level 31 right now. Will be on Level 32 in…5 days? I tried to slow down and do a Level every 10 days…buts very very hard for me. 8 days is my average.
So do you think a Lesson a day is a good pace? Like… 5 Lessons a week? How much ground would I cover?
OMG… so true! This all started when I read 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami in English translation. I really love This author and I said to myself “I want to read this in Japanese. I want to experience this book how he intended.”
First expectation? 5 years.
But I have a photographic memory and found wanikani…
New Expectation? 2 years
But whoever said they completed WaniKani in just over a year is a sadistic jerk!
Latest Expectation? 2.5 years
All your advice is great. Thank you so much for your time!
I don’t know if this information is helpful, and honestly I have never used wanikani so I don’t know how it works. But this is my progress with kanji (262) consecutive days studied. In that time memorized the drawing, all kunyomi and onyomi for each of those 1200 or so kanji. I guess by 1 year I would be at 1800ish.
Before this my kanji was… Meh. I know a lot more kanji than those 1200, but only those I can say that I can read correctly 100% of the time. So I guess 1 year for only remembering the English meaning and one or two readings for all of Jouyou is definitely doable. Just depends how much time you put in.
Hmmm… Where to start… I was an English & Comparitive Literature major. I scored a perfect score on the Essay Writing & Grammar SAT in high school back when I studied Latin and participated in Debate. I lived in Paris as a teen and passed the French Profiency exam when I worked in intelligence for the United States. I taught myself Russian which is ranked one of the top 5 hardest languages to learn. (Mainly because of grammar). I taught myself how to read & write Korean just this month but I understand zero. (Did it for karaoke purposes…love KPop) I tested intermediate in Spanish even Though I NEVER studied it. I understand a great deal and I can speak Spanish after living in Mexico a few months.
About Japanese. I began studying seriously back in January 2020. Lost my phone in the gulf of Mexico in a fishing exibition…restarted May 2020. I am on Level 31 since I started this post a week ago and was on Level 30. I will be on Level 32 in 5 days.
But all of this may be for naught. I’m married to a very demanding Chess Master who is training to beat ---------- and was just invited to -----I find reviewing chess games to be eating up more and more of my time these days. Sigh.
But one must dare to dream…set goals. A lesson a day sounds reasonable enough. If I can master 5 Lessons a week I will be very very content.
I can tell Haruki Murakami to give me a little more time before we can talk literature and running one day…
Actually Russian is only a category IV language, estimated to take around 1100 classroom hours to reach proficiency. So it’s equal to about 40 other languages in the same cetegory. Category V languages are Japanese, Arabic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean. Each estimated to take at least 2200 hours to reach proficiency.
You do have big goals though. Best of luck!
My own advanced statistical analysis degree enabled me to deliver you the most precise calculations
5 (lessons / week) * 26 weeks = 130 lessons
By using a specialized machine learning model I was able to determine you’d be able to finish the N5 grammar points and even do some N4 grammar points. However, you could just skip N5 to N2 and only do the available N1 grammar points if you want to succeed with your original goal stated in the thread title
I did some advance dimensional analysis using a pine cone and straw and determined that if I do 2 lessons per day, that I can complete up to N1 before December.
I don’t have a photographic memory tho.
There’s actually this really useful wanikani statistics website made by rfindley, which read your API key and can show what percentage of N3 wanikani you have learned, and what you might still miss at the end of Wanikani in certain N-levels.
Have a look! https://www.wkstats.com/charts/jlpt
I am sorry to bring it up, but without knowing some basic structure you will not understand how vocabulary works. And even that is not much. You need a lot of reading to get “firm grasp” of vocabulary.
Simple analogy to make it easier to understand: remembering new word is like meeting new girl and remembering her name. But if you want to get to really know her and do some interesting stuff from biological perspective with her, you need to meet her tones of time in different situation and try to get “a feel” of her. Her name will not be enough.
To put it into simple english again: Sorry, no reading = no firm grasp of vocabulary.
Mastered? Zero.
But I started process of mastering them with over 1200 already. I got some problems with my usage of anki so I had to slow down, but I just started to add 20 per day again and I want to keep that pace for 2-3 weeks before slowing down again. I am aiming at about 3000 kanji in 6-9 month. But there still will be not even one mastered.
It is even possible to master single kanji? There is undefined among of knowledge associated with any given kanji, so you could spend whole life trying to “master” one kanji and fail.
I got them all plus all kanji they are build with, and then some. I am pretty sure there is no a single kanji at that lvl I don’t know at least 2 words with.
Lesson on GunPro? That very strong pace. Are you getting why grammar works how it works or try to just memorise it? If not the former you will get stuck soon.
I don’t do mnemonics with grammar. Waste of time. I try to understand how it works and then it is hard to forget anyway.
Best of luck with your studies. We’re all rooting for you.
Not to make fun of you but that not an achievement at all. They claim that even stupid person can learn how to write their language in 10 days xD
They made it ridiculously easy. To learn, but hard to read fast. If they would still use Chinese characters I would be tempted to learn that language after getting good enough with Japanese.
He meant “lesson” or “grammar points”? There is only 50 “lessons” on BunPro.
My bad, I saw them as the same thing (probably since WaniKani calls every new item you learn a lesson, so you’d usually do multiple lessons at once). Doesn’t change the fact that it’s just as easily calculated, though I would be very impressed if somebody actually managed to do one lesson consisting of ~20 grammar points every day and keep up with it
We’re not all in America, man 
Depending on background it should be doable up to n2 I guess. In N4 and N3 grammar is not getting any harder. There is just more of it.
My bad xD
Sorry guys, I think you’re all giving this person wayyyyy too much credence. There are many red flags, and I don’t think we should be propping up this sort of attitude with unconditional helpfulness. Sometimes, people need to be brought back to planet Earth.
Let’s put it simply:
She came here saying “I’ll go from zero to N1 in 6 months!!!” without even knowing when the exam would be. Due to logistical considerations, now the goal is 1 year, still incredibly unrealistic. Even @Asher, one of the most dedicated learners I’ve ever seen wouldn’t say he’s reached that level currently (though I think it’s possible that he has). So the plan in itself has no precedent in even our most dedicated users, and there’s already reason to believe she makes goals without knowing the full implications of what’s required.
She took a perfectly respectful post from @jelyk and put them down. Her comment was flagged, but she basically said, “I could beat your measly level in a month, but I won’t though because I wanna take it slow.” At the same time, she’s saying she wants N1 in a year. Completely incongruent. It sounds like a gamer saying “I could beat you, but I’m not gonna, just trust me bro I’m better than you.”
It’s been a little over 2 weeks since the start of this thread, and anyone here can observe from her level she hasn’t even put in a proper day’s effort since starting this thread. In the same rude comment she made to @jelyk, she said it was because she was playing around with the settings on BunPro. I’m sorry, but if it takes you 2 weeks to figure out how to use BunPro, I can guarantee you that it’ll take you more than a year to reach N1. It shows either a lack of ability or a lack of drive for actually carrying out your goals. Anyone serious about reaching N1 in a year wouldn’t initially take more than a few hours, AT MOST, to figure out how to get started with BunPro. (And it’s also not rocket science.)
Everyone is pretty much in agreement that if she is to actually accomplish the goal, she needs to do nothing but Japanese every day. She’s already admitted she’s involved in so many other pursuits that she’s unwilling to yield. I’m sorry, but such an ambitious goal will require sacrifice. It just rubs me off as already giving premature reasons for why she can’t achieve this unrealistic goal. If it comes to a year from now and she hasn’t even gotten to N3, she could easily use what she’s already said in this thread to justify herself: “Ah, well, you know, I need you to be impressed with this other stuff that took precedence over Japanese, and that took away the time I would’ve needed to actually accomplish what I set out to in this time frame.”
There are several other things that rub me off in a really wrong way. She says, “I have perfect memory” and then asks “anyone got mnemonics for grammar?”. Someone with perfect memory wouldn’t need mnemonics. She says, “Russian grammar makes Japanese look like a cakewalk” without even having gotten deep enough into Japanese to make that determination. She unironically touts learning the Korean alphabet as a major accomplishment. And then lines that up with a bunch of other unrelated life accomplishments to say “I know it’s impossible for a normal person, but you don’t get it, I’m special, trust me.” Allthewhile, when she lost her phone in January of 2020, she let that be enough cause for stopping her Japanese learning for FOUR MONTHS!
All in all, is this the behavior we would expect from someone who is actually intent in carrying out their ambitious goals? Or is this just someone who wants to be recognized as special, even if it means wasting everyone’s time with fantastical goals and humble-bragging about a goal they have no means of accomplishing?
I would rather not play dr Freud game if possible. It is pointless. And regardless of motivation and lvl of knowledge of person starting it, we can have meaningful discussion anyway.
I believe there is nobody saying “yes! you will do it for sure!”
Edit:
Damn you! 
There is a few points about languages I would like to respectfully disagree with you and have discussion, but because you frame it this way I can’t do it with defending @Lorenswan. And I don’t want to really do that after that one comment -,-
