I committed to learning Japanese mid January 2025.

Five years earlier, I had taken a Japanese class in college but I barely survived it. I didn’t build a foundation, didn’t retain anything useful, and forgot almost all of it. By 2025, I couldn’t even confidently read kana.

The reason I took it seriously this time was that I was offered a job opportunity that would require me to move to Japan. The timeline depends on how fast I can get my Japanese to a functional level, somewhere between a year and two. 

So I started from zero.

Kana first. No rushing. I made sure I could read comfortably before touching anything else. After that, I worked through Genki I for structure, and I used いろどり 生活の日本語 alongside it because it focuses on real-life situations. Irodori felt different from normal textbooks. It’s about things you’d actually say at work, in a store, or when asking someone to repeat something. That made it feel practical and more easy to remember.

This time, I didn’t push kanji off like I used to. I started learning them right away and focused on recognizing and understanding them instead of worrying about writing them perfectly.

Around the middle of the year, I started adding more real input like games, short readings, and videos. It was painfully slow because I was looking up words nonstop, but around September I noticed I was recognizing a lot more vocabulary without checking it first and recalling words I’d already seen instead of feeling completely lost.

By the end of 2025, I was reading beginner manga without feeling overwhelmed. That was a big moment for me. I also started watching simple YouTube videos in Japanese and could follow along if the topic was familiar.

Later in the year, I started taking weekly Italki lessons with a native tutor. Actually having to speak made it obvious where my gaps were. We worked on pronunciation and sounding more natural, and we read manga together so she could explain unknown words, how they’re used, and what was really going on in certain scenes. It helped a lot to have someone clarify things in real time instead of guessing on my own.

By the end of 2025, I had:

• A solid N5 base
• Most of N4 grammar covered
• A growing chunk of N4 kanji
• Several manga volumes read
• Regular speaking practice with corrections

I’d call myself a strong beginner now, somewhere around N4. I can handle simple conversations, read beginner material with effort and I can follow slower speech if I stay focused.

I studied roughly 2 hours at a time, around 3 to 5 days a week. That pace feels realistic for me, and I plan to stick with it in 2026 since it keeps me progressing without burning out.

2026 Goals

2025 I built a foundation.

2026 I want to be as close to ready for the new job as possible.

I plan to:

• Fully finish N4
• Get comfortable with N3 material
• Keep weekly Italki lessons, with a focus on workplace conversations
• Read more manga without stopping every page
• Read light novels all the way through
• Get my listening to the point where casual office conversations don’t feel intimidating

If anyone has advice on how to speed things up without burning out, especially when it comes to speaking and workplace Japanese, I’d love to hear it. My goal is to make sure that by the end of 2026, I’m actually ready to make the move and function confidently once I’m there.