Visual timeline

Here's a timeline of what I did

Personal background

• American-born Chinese, spoke Mandarin at home. I didn't speak a word of English when I started preschool, but I think I more or less caught up by Kindergarten, and then sadly got worse at Chinese over time. I consider English my "native" language.
• Went to Chinese school for a few years as a kid, learned maybe 1000 hanzi, though I only remembered about 200 when I started JP.
• I had watched a little over 100 days of anime (in runtime) before starting.
• I'd estimate that all of the above gave me a pretty decent head start. I would say anime was the most helpful thing, then the dregs of my Chinese, then English (which is underrated btw, imagine if all the loanwords were stuff like シャーレ, ランドセル, etc. it would be hell).
• Also the simple fact of not being monolingual helped. I never got stuck trying to relate everything back to English.
• Without all that I estimate that it would've taken me an extra 1000 hours or so to get to this point, but who knows.
• STEM PhD student
• I think my memory is fairly average, but I have very fast information processing.

Time spent

• I didn't keep precise records, but it was 2-3 hours a day for 16 months, and then 7.5 hours a day in the month leading up to the test, so somewhere in the neighborhood of 1400 hours.

Starting point (July 2023)

• Started out with Genki I, as one does. My initial idea was to take Japanese I in the upcoming school year, so I wanted to get a bit of a head start.
• As soon as I got through hiragana and katakana (I think it took a couple days of writing the tables), I started Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course. This also served as hiragana/katakana practice initially.
  • My approach to KKLC was to handwrite all the vocab. This is what that looked like. Then, I used a pre-built KKLC Anki deck. One type of card has multiple vocab words containing that kanji on the front, with readings and meanings on the back. For these I just hit Again if I got anything wrong. The other type of card was an English keyword on the front, and then you write the kanji. I did this as well, but it became annoying because there's so much ambiguity to the keywords, so I suspended all of them at some point (had gotten the deck to like 99% mature by then though).
  • On the kanji list, I thought the order was a bit inconvenient as there's some common ones buried more than halfway through the book, but in the long run it doesn't matter. It's also designed to ease you into knowing the components, which I don't have a right to speak on due to knowing most of them from Chinese. Also there are some that are in there just for being 常用, and I rolled my eyes at that at first, but I've now seen everything character in the book multiple times, even 匁 and 朕. It has a bunch of common non-jouyou kanji as well, but there are some questionable exclusions like 躊躇, 怯, 咄嗟, 儚, etc.
  • Introduced ~10 kanji a day, on average, into the Anki review pile (so 20 cards). At peak usage I was going at around 15 kanji/day, but found this unsustainable.
  • By the time of the test, I was only spending a minute a day on the Anki deck. I stopped doing it in December since I have my mining deck now.
  • For a while, I tracked new kanji post-completion of KKLC. As you can see, you can expect to see new ones for a while, though at some point the bulk of these contributions is from reading pre-war stuff. It seems to me that with 3-4k, you should be pretty comfortable in most situations.

First steps (August 2023)

• I ended up just speeding through Genki I, honestly without mastering any of it. I think this is fine and would do the exact same thing again.
• By the end of August, I had finished Genki II, again just blitzing through it without reviewing, doing practice problems, etc.
• I took the TTBJ on 8/24 to determine what JP class I'd be in for the Fall. Results here, but basically I got "N2 level" on the listening section (because it just tests whether you can identify the sound and I was used to hearing the language already) and N4 on grammar and kanji. In other words, more or less where you're expected to be after Genki II.
• After sending the results in, I had a Zoom interview with a Professor to confirm the placement. This was my first conversation in Japanese. She said I should join Japanese 5 (the third year fall course, which uses Tobira). I was a bit reluctant because I really hadn't mastered anything in Genki II, but I agreed, thinking I'd just catch up on that stuff on my own. But because of a scheduling conflict, I ended up taking Japanese 3 anyway. It turned out to be much-needed practice with the fundamentals.

Building momentum (end of 2023)

• I took JP3 (first half of Genki II) and read Tobira on my own.
• By the way, I started out with pretty good pronunciation/pitch. I attribute this to anime, pretty much.
• I think I started to do rewatches of anime I like using JP subs at this time, starting with my favorite, K-On! I was still using EN subs for anything I hadn't seen yet, as I felt it would be "unfair" to those shows lol.
• On 10/23, I took the TTBJ again. I didn't know that the questions are the same. But it doesn't tell you the correct answer if you get something wrong, so I think the results are more or less accurate. Moved up to about N3 level in grammar and kanji.
• Finished Tobira with one week left on the year.

Turning Point (first half of 2024)

• At this point, I started reading real texts in earnest (before this, my exposure to real Japanese was pretty much just Tweets)
• Started with 銀河鉄道の夜 (Night on the Galactic Railroad). I roughly remembered the story from watching the Sugii anime, but it was still very difficult, more like stumbling around the page than reading really. Consulted the English translation often. This was just on a pdf, no yomitan, no mining, etc. Took me almost the whole month to finish. In hindsight, this book is a bit difficult as a starter due to its age and having a bunch of strange imagery. Not necessarily a bad thing.
• After that, コンビニ人間 (Convenience Store Human). This was, again, more like stumbling around than anything. I think I had around 1000 kanji by then? There were a ton of lookups, all of which I did by handwriting input into a translation app. I'm not sure why it didn't occur to me to just use a dictionary. I did understand what was happening though, as the book's style is straightforward. I enjoyed it a lot.
• Also, I skipped to Japanese 6 (covers Ch. 6-10 of Tobira). By this point, none of the content of the course was new or anything; I just wanted speaking practice.
• Generally, I tried to keep ramping up the difficulty of the books I was reading. Next, I read the fifth and sixth installments of the 古典部 series (adapted as Hyouka). This was still quite the struggle. So many lookups. I did have yomitan at this point though, which helped. Enjoyed it immensely. Loved Oohinata in 5, and 6 deepened my love for Mayaka. Of course Hoteru are really good as always.
• Around the same time I was reading Hyouka, I started 新完全マスターN2文法 as it was clear that grammar was blocking my understanding a lot. I finished it in the end of March (took about a month or so). It helped immensely; I feel like a switch flipped and I went from not getting it to getting it. I still didn't actually get it, of course, but it felt like some threshold had been crossed. I started the N1 book immediately.
• In March, I finished KKLC, though I continued to do the Anki deck.
• In late April, I started 化物語 (Bakemonogatari) and have been reading it since. I'm on 黒猫 now. This had been a long-term goal, like I thought it'd be nice if I could get to it by year 3 or 4 of studying or something (and I thought this was pretty ambitious!), so it was pretty encouraging to get to it before a year had even passed. Bake was very difficult at first, but by the time I got to Kizu I was reading quite comfortably, relatively speaking.
• Finished 新完全マスターN1文法 in early May. At this point, I feel like I could have passed N1 with a fairly comfortable margin due to how low they set the pass threshold.

Final stretch (2nd half of 2024)

• At this point, I was pretty much done with the studying studying.
• I had reached a point where I was reading more difficult literature, far beyond what you'd see on N1.
  • June: 羅生門、人間失格
  • July: こころ、Vita Sexualis、四畳半神話大系
  • Aug: 仮面の告白
  • Sep: 吾輩は猫である (haven't finished this one, it's long. It's very good though, Soseki is so good.)
  • None of these are really "efficient" if you just want to pass the JLPT. Also, I was printing them out and looking up vocab by handwriting input into the dictionary search, so it really took a while. But you're really doing yourself a disservice if you get this far and don't read Soseki, Dazai, etc.
  • This is basically the only way to see non-trivial sentences (lots of long subordinate clauses, relative pronouns, subject dropping, metaphors, etc.). I personally don't think you're truly literate until you can handle these kinds of sentences. The good thing is that after reading prose from the likes of Ogai and Mishima, anything you'll see in anime, most LNs, the N1 reading section, etc. becomes completely trivial to parse. In my case, there wasn't a single sentence in the N1 reading section that required conscious effort to understand.
• I also read a bunch of LNs on the side for some lighter reading (Eupho, Boogiepop, Spice and Wolf, OreImo). By the way, I think the average LN is around N1 level, so they're good if you want to optimize for the test.
• I was in a Japanese project class, for which I researched (1) 吾輩は猫である and the literary significance of cat-ness and (2) steelmaking and katana. For both of these I read some pretty involved academic papers, transcripts of lectures, etc. Btw, science papers are definitely much easier. They're pretty much written in the exact same style as ones published in English.
• For viewing material, I was basically just watching whatever I wanted. The 朝ドラ was 虎に翼, which is a legal drama, so it has a lot of nice complicated discussions. By the end, it was a pretty comfortable watch.

"Pure" listening

• I don't have as detailed records on my listening practice, but it was basically just podcasts. Started with Yu Yu's Nihongo Podcast, then Sokoani and Toroani. For more advanced listening, I moved to COTEN radio and yuru gengogaku radio. I think the majority of my listening was COTEN. They have a bunch of deep-dives into Japanese and world history, famous for being thorough about setting up the historical background to the point that the main topic only comes in halfway through.
• I also watched raw Shin-chan and some solid state physics lectures, so I guess that counts.

Output

• Pretty comfortable speaking on whatever. I did an interview in Japanese for a Summer program before the test and it was fine.
• Pronunciation/pitch is pretty good, I'd say. At least, I haven't met anybody better in person. But people that specifically train that stuff sound better than me. I'll probably start doing that.
• I think I write decently. Make mistakes here and there. I have some samples if you want.

Test Prep

Here are my thoughts on the JLPT-specific resources:

• SKM Grammar (N2, N1)
  • No doubt the most helpful thing I used
  • My basic attitude towards these was: go through the book as fast as possible, just putting the grammar patterns into your head so that you'll recognize and master them when you see them in the wild. More or less worked; grammar doesn't give me much trouble these days.
• Sou Matome N1 Vocab
  • In the months leading up to the test, I realized that my vocabulary was my weakest area, so I tried to address it with this book. It wasn't useless, but they really didn't stick.
• SKM N1 Vocab
  • This wasn't much help either.
  • Official practice test (taken 9/22)
  • Words/vocab/grammar section: 34/40
  • Reading comprehension: 27/30
  • Time to complete part 1: 87 minutes (23 min. to spare)
  • Listening: 34/37
  • Nihongo power drill (日本語パワードリル) N1 grammar
  • This was pretty helpful
• 20 days to pass the JLPT N1 characters, vocab, grammar (日本語能力試験20日で合格N1文字・語彙・文法)
  • Pretty difficult, really gets at the nuance of stuff.

• N1 Grammar lectures from Deguchi Japanese

  • Here. Pretty nice explanations of stuff and goes a bit deeper than other resources do.

Test

• First part (kanji readings, vocab, grammar, reading comprehension)

  • As expected, vocab was the biggest problem area. I simply don't know enough words. Funnily enough I've seen 踏襲 like a dozen times since, and ありきたり like a million times. Baader–Meinhof is real lol.
  • Finished with about 30 min left, reading every passage and question to completion. For reference, I go at about half native speed (according to the estimated reading times for some Pixiv kumirei fanfics I read once).
  • I used the remaining time to check, but I didn’t end up changing anything. I mean you know it or you don’t, and if you don’t know it you just guess, right?
  • There were around 11 questions I put a star on; these were basically 50/50s so maybe I got 6 wrong or so in this part.

• Break: ate a clif bar and an apple. There was no water fountain near me so that was a little annoying.

• Second part (listening)

  • 3 or 4 I was unsure on? It goes too fast to keep track.
  • I took notes in English. Seems like an extra step but I found that it forced me to pay attention to the content.
  • People often say that this section is about focus/memory. That’s true, but that stuff is a function of your Japanese ability. You can listen to an N1-equivalent conversation in your native language and have zero problem recalling small details if asked right after. (Well, unless you have an attention disorder, ig.)
  • One thing that that threw me off once: it took me a moment—a split second—to process a word. I figured out what it was, but in the time that it took me to do that the next couple words had passed right through my ears, so the question turned into a 50/50. That’s the kind of thing that wouldn’t happen in your native language, because you’d just know the word automatically.
  • Another thing that threw me off a couple times was that I just stopped paying attention. It’s boring lol. But the thing is, in your native language you don’t even have to pay attention and you’ll still understand everything (again, for the level of content that N1 is at).

• Overall, content was pretty boring, but very practical Japanese. Do not let people tell you N1 content is obscure stuff even natives don’t know or something that’s pure cope. I find the test to be a fair assessment of the abilities it actually tests for.

Results

Scoring breakdown here (definitely lost the point on vocab)

Expected a 160 or so based on just taking the raw percentage, but it looks like the grading lets you get a few wrong before losing points. I don't really feel bad about being so close to manten. There's definitely a significant gap in vocab size between me and manten people and it's good that the result reflects this properly. I also think losing one point is fitting and symbolic and stuff.

Regrets (, I’ve had a few)

• Didn’t sentence mine. I was just too lazy to do it, and also I thought I'd have to buy software for it. But it turns out you can set up a good mining system in like an afternoon, and then a card takes like one second to add. It’s really too bad. I could be a lot better with not much more time spent.

• Didn’t get into VNs. It seems like VNs are the best immersion content, as all the most successful speedruns seem to use them.

Further study plan

• Classical Japanese

  • In the last week of December, I read through Haruo Shirane's Classical Japanese: A Grammar. It's really a good textbook, and the historical notes linking classical forms to modern constructions are always interesting.
  • I finished reading 方丈記 on January 4th
  • Going to read the entirety of 平家物語 this year

• Vocab

  • There's no way around the fact that I simply do not have as large of a vocabulary as people that sentence mined VNs. So I started my first VN, 素晴らしき日々, and finished with around 1600 cards mined. By the way, a typical speed for a session would be at like 15k/hr, but that includes a lot of time waiting for voice lines to finish. I mine everything I look up, since I have a high Anki tolerance. Now I'm playing ひぐらしのなく頃に.
  • I was pleased with my subahibi mining results so now I mine anime and books too. Almost everything I look up I mine mine mine. This comes out to around 50 cards a day. I've got around 90% retention on mature cards so far. I'm spending much less time on Japanese overall but I'm probably acquiring vocab at double the previous rate (yes, a lot of those words are stuff like 衛府督, but most of them are fairly common/useful).
  • Kanji
    • I always add stuff to the deck in kanji form, if there is one. Should get pretty good coverage.
    • I'm (re)learning Chinese now, so once that's squared away there shouldn't be too many unrecognizable kanji.

Final thoughts

So what does Japanese feel like at N1 level? I would describe it as basic fluency. If someone asks whether I know Japanese, I would say yes. If they ask if I'm good, I would waffle about how fluency is a spectrum. I can read whatever I want, but slowly, and I still have to "turn on" reading mode. I still look things up constantly, but I could get away with just guessing the meaning for most of them if I wanted to. If a sentence is long (I've seen some in Dazai and Mishima that are literally like half a page long when written vertically) I have to sit down and figure out what pronouns point to what, who's doing what to what or whom, and so on. When I'm talking, I always know one way to say what I want to, but I don't necessarily know the "best" way to say it. I will sometimes flub transitivity, use the wrong level of politeness, add -的 or -感 to words when you're not supposed to, etc. I don't use enough keigo in speaking situations that call for keigo, but I can understand it fine and use it in emails. It's difficult to follow a conversation where multiple people are talking at once. It's hard to read something while listening to something different. Dialects are difficult (tho 関西弁 isn't as hard to understand for me). The way people mumble, slur words, etc. in a conversational setting is difficult (they usually make an effort not to do this if they're talking to foreigners though). I don't say any of this to be a downer or to be humble, it's just what it is.

Overall though, I feel that I've been richly rewarded for my efforts and that this has been a very fun time. I also feel like going fast made it easier and more fun.