When did it start clicking for you?

[Vick_Viper]

Hey there!

I’m just starting out in this Japanese language journey and its so daunting the amount of difference the language has to English, every step forward I take seems like nothing to the monolithic task of learning such an objectively difficult language and every step i do take feels slow.

Of course I never expected it to easy but I think I would just like to get a feel for the collective consensus of when it starts to “Click” for people, how far did you get into this process before you started to feel even remotely comfortable listening to people speaking the language or reading/watching basic, low level language Japanese media. When did it start to change from “I’m getting nowhere with this” to “Oh damn! I’m actually doing this”

I guess I’m just wanting to hear some confirmation that the pieces will eventually start to fit into place and that the point where the effort feels worth it isn’t years away.

[Flandre5carlet]

There’s no one specific moment where things clicked for me, but it’s always the occasional moment when watching an anime or listening to a song and hearing/seeing a word/series of words/grammatical structure where I just kind of naturally/instinctively understand it, then my brain just goes “wait a minute, I actually understood that” right afterwards.

As a tiny example, I was watching Godzilla Minus One and at some point one of the characters says 元海軍もとかいぐん. Now this isn’t a word I learned by itself at all, but I did learn 元 and 海軍 separately, and my brain just kind of made the association on its own that yeah, 元海軍 obviously means ex-navy, duh, and I just instinctively understood it.
As another example, I visited Japan a couple months back with a friend who does not speak nor study Japanese, and at some point he was looking for the exit to the place we were at, and I just kind of pointed him at the sign that said 出口 like “dude, right there” as if it was the most obvious thing in the world to understand because my brain saw 出口 and just instinctively interpreted it as exit.

It’s these kinds of moments that cement the idea that yeah, you’re actually making tons of progress even if you don’t feel it while studying.

[11441]

The absolute best thing you can do is to USE the language! It would be best if you conversed with other learners and natives of Japanese—meetups (the app and in-person events) of any kind. Check your local library, universities, etc., for opportunities to speak and listen to others. It is pretty embarrassing at first, and some Japanese people will giggle when you mispronounce a word or grammar point, but they do not intend to cause you grief when they do. It is pretty standard. They have so much respect for you learning the language. The giggles are just a cultural trait, I’m told. Just use technology to talk live with people, and things will slowly come together. Of course, BP is excellent, but I think it should supplement speaking and listening. Best of luck to you, my friend! Some tech you may find helpful: MeetUp, iTalki, Podcasts (there are many!), and AI interfaces you can interact with. Use your money wisely.

[thworthwar]

@Vick_Viper
I think we all get how you feel, man. As a native English speaker I am fluent in Russian because I lived and studied there for several years and I can say from that experience there are two ‘click’ moments, or at least there was for me.

First, the moment where it stops looking like just a gobbledygook and you can suddenly start parsing everything out (words, grammar, and even ideas and concepts). This takes a little while with languages with new alphabets, and of course that means even longer in Japanese. In Russian that took me about 6 months, and in Japanese I feel as though I hit it a month or two ago (I am in month 11 of study)

The second ‘click’ is when it goes from being work to feeling ‘natural’. This is hard to explain, but I think it is what you are really talking about here, where you all of the sudden you just understand a lot of things. You might not know all of the words used, or certain terminology, but you can see most of the picture, with occasionally some puzzle pieces missing (depending on the context, of course!). This took about 1 year in Russian, and I think it will take me longer than that in Japanese, but according to my self tracked ‘stats’ I assume it will happen at about the 16-18 month mark.

While that may sound like a depressingly long time, it really isn’t. Well, as long as you can make it fun and interesting along the way. Goals really help me make sure that I am putting forth everything I can.

[steverogne]

It started clicking for me with N3 grammar plus reading The Jam Maker on Satori Reader. I feel like I can grasp pretty complex expressions and tenses in that story and that feels pretty satisfying. I also find Satori Reader’s inline aids are a huge help to keeping my reading rhythm going. But there is not much there that is readable until you’re well into N3 grammar.

[jrmr50]

What surprised me most about learning Japanese was the mental battle with yourself. It’s really a rollercoaster of emotions. Some highs, a lot of lows. Lots of self-doubt, “I’m too slow”, “I can’t do this”, “Why aren’t I gettting this”, “When will I get good at this, will it suddenly click”.

Make a routine, keep to the routine. One foot in front of the other. As long as you keep walking you’ll get somewhere. Keep your head down and focus on the routine and try to ignore all the noise inside your head.

Then, now and again, you’ll realise how far you’ve come.

[Minori6Kaemon]

I recommend picking up some of the comprehensible input complete beginner content on YouTube (I like 色々な日本語 Iroirona Nihongo and Comprehensible Japanese). Listening will start clicking as you find content you intuitively understand or can break down and process (though the goal is getting to automatic understanding).

[Cycle]

Thinking that a language ever “clicks” IMHO is setting oneself up for disappointment. If a learner needs to verify progress - as mentioned above - recall how easy some stuff is now versus how hard it seemed to be when you first “learned” (and then, of course, relearned) it.

[caraage]

Admittedly, I still don’t feel like things have really ‘clicked’ for me yet. I read manga and novels really slow, and I get tripped up while speaking a lot.

However, there were a lot of moments I had spending a year in Japan for school that really made me feel proud of what I can do with Japanese or reminded me that learning this language is something unimaginable to so many others. I made friends with a group of baristas at a local coffee shop, and many times even if I didn’t know how to say exactly what I wanted to say, I could talk around it enough for them to understand me. When family visited, I could take them to restaurants with only Japanese menus and they would be so impressed that I could order for all of us without translation apps. At karaoke, I could keep up with a fair amount of the Japanese songs chosen.

I don’t know if things will ever ‘click’ but I can always find joy in being able to do something new or fun or impressive to others (even if it feels so simple.) Finding small wins is the best way to keep motivation going for me. (Something I need to remind myself of sometimes too!)

[Brand_S]

I had a long reply written, but I’ll relate an anecdote instead.

The year before I started learning Japanese, my friend bought me Ultima VII: Serpent Isle for my birthday (by the way, I’m old). He asked me later what I thought of it. I told him I kept getting lost. He said something I’ll never forget: “It’s an RPG. You’re supposed to get lost.”

It took me years to realize but there was a broader point here: if you’re struggling, you’re doing it right.

Your brain learns information that it has to work for. Making mistakes causes your brain to grow.

I first started learning Japanese ⅔ of my life ago. I’ll still take an L one day and a W the next. There’s no right or wrong speed. Take pride when you understand, accept the process when you don’t, and you’ll be fine.

[Erz]

when i finally switched from bruteforce memorisation of vocab, grammar and kanji to consuming japanese content (youtube, kindle, easynews).

if i could give an advice to my beginner self it would be:
“interact with the language” and dont play “pacman”.

[mersadajan]

I saw this thread a while ago and have since kept thinking about it. For someone like me who is learning, practicing, and immersing every day there probably never will be a distinct “clicking” moment but a thousand micro clicks.

I was walking back from the gym while listening to a Japanese audiobook and noticed that I was understanding more words, more grammar points, and more of what was going on. With every level on Wanikani and new grammar point on Bunpro I know a bit more and hear it every day while listening to audiobooks or watching anime. Like “Oh that is the past form of that word”, “ah he is using that grammar point” and so on. I sometimes understand whole sentences as long as they are short and contain the words I already know and the grammar points I already learned.

The progress is so slow that I barely notice how far I have come.

[quufer]

Thank you for this. I’m halfway through N3 here, finished WK etc, and I still struggle sometimes with the Easy stories on SR. I’m making progress, but The Jam Maker still befuddles me for the last third. I’ve just accepted that everything there is N3 to N2.

[Warrie]

Finished WK, halfway through N3. Currently redoing N4 before continuing with N3 because some N4 things just won’t stick

The Jam Maker does have some pretty complex sentences and I really need the Satori explanations to really understand them.
But that also makes the learning process so great - reading a bit easier stories like Spring or Mouse in the Hole become much easier.

Also I found the ‘beginner, advanced, expert’ categories a bit vague. I read parts of some advanced stories and found those much easier than the Jam Maker, which is marked as a beginner story.

But I was also hoping for a ‘click’ moment and sometimes I do get a tad depressed when there’s another sentence that just doesn’t make sense to me, until Satori explains the structure to me. Seems like there is just an endless amount of learning to do.

[LittleBlueStar]

For me it’s never really “clicked”, it’s just gotten progressively easier over time to speak and understand things.

If I stop and look back at certain points, then I can see “wow, I improved so much”, but I’ve never really had a moment when I felt like there was a big change.

[zerohbeat]

I think its more the little wins.
Like: Ohh I understood some words in this song. I just understood this sentence in the anime! When I was able to look up every word in the manga volume that I wanted to read haha…

Then it changed to: I can write a simple essay about my day in Japanese. I can understand some parts in this manga.

Leading to: Ohh I somehow read this manga! I did not understand every word but I got the main point.

In another way, learning the foundation N5 and N4 really helped and from N3 doors really started to open. I still struggle and make mistakes but at least I enjoy the manga / light novels that I want to read haha.

[drunkgome]

heading into my third year living in Japan and I can honestly say that it hasn’t yet T_T

[leoxs]

I’ve been learning for 6 years, at a slow pace. It has clicked for me several times, it’s not just once.

Kanji at first seems very daunting, but after a few levels of wanikani it clicked and now I find it a lot easier to read text with Kanji that in full hiragana.

There are a lot of small grammar points that when you understand it is beautiful. For example, a low level one, in one of my first classes I learned that you use “karakimashitaka” to ask someone where is he from. Later I learned the verb “kimasu”, how to conjugate it to past, and then “kara” that means from, and then my brain just connected the dots to explain that previously learned construction.

I still can’t read manga, or play a game without a dictionary and searching a few words in every sentence, and it’s extremely frustrating. Also I’m 30 years old and I already feel that my rate of learning is not as good as when I was a teenager and I was learning English on my own, and yeah, it made me wanna quit a lot of times. But each time it happened I posted in a forum and the community encouraged me to continue.

Is sometimes hard to see, but each day you understand more, and if you go back to previous content you’ll see that things that were hard to understand are now completely natural.

I would recommend to grind bunpro n5 grammar and vocab, and then go try reading some media you are very passionate about, it might be manga, anime, videogames, whatever. Don’t try to find media specially crafted for learners, is boring. It could also happen with media for kids. You love drabonball? go try read the manga or the anime, is going to be difficult but you will probably enjoy it more.

[JCalandr]

Been there for a year (language school), hasn’t clicked a single time either.

[jbrat96]

I’m not sure where this myth came from that it just suddenly “clicks” one day. I guess what that means is very subjective, too. I mean I can grasp the concept of most things I read and watch, but it doesn’t mean I’m picking up on the nuance of it. At the end of the day, content in Japanese is never as enjoyable as it is in English.
I’m over 3 years and thousands of hours in and it I still feel like a fish out of water when Japanesing.
I tend to be a little more “realistic” and some may say that’s negative, but the reality of it is, your Japanese will probably, and I say probably because everyone is different, never be the level you want it to be. The good news is, you’ll always have motivation to get better!