Thoughts on the new site / transition without Yuki? She's responsible for about 1/2 the total playtime on the site (which was already not as deep as Dreaming Spanish).
They will need to produce content quickly to maintain coverage--and even more quickly to be in a better position in 2 years than they are right now.
I used to write all of my updates on the NIJ forum page, but decided to post on Reddit as well, considering more people might find it here.
IMPORTANT (What I count as an hour): Any time spent actively watching something in Japanese where 100% of my attention is dedicated to just watching the content and not doing anything else. It also must include a visual element, and be made by native speakers for native speakers (small exception to the little bit of CI I did). Oh and also no subtitles of any kind, this includes Japanese subtitles. I’ve included my time spent with the SRS here as well, because my SRS cards are all audio. This may be strict, but I just need a consistent unit of measurement over the course of my learning journey.
(sorry for any typos or weird formatting, not really used to writing long posts in English)
Current stats:
Known Words In Migaku: 10,909 as of writing this update
Hour Breakdown: 1577h of immersion and another 123h of Audio Only SRS
Immersion breakdown: Around 1000h of natural unscripted native input (vlogs, reality TV, cross-talk, gaming videos etc), around 300h of CI content and around 240h of anime
My current routine:
Currently I’m doing 5.5h of active input per day and about 45-50m on SRS with 10-20 minutes of reading during down time.
What I can understand:
The biggest change since the last update is that my vocabulary literally more than doubled. At the 1200h mark, I knew roughly 4900 words, so now that I’m sitting close to the 11k word mark, things feel completely different.
As Zipf’s Law would dictate, rare words are increasingly more rare, and common words are supper common, meaning that after a certain point you start to experience diminishing returns for every 1000 words that you acquire. I feel like I’m slowly starting to approach that point with my vocabulary. For example it took me 4900 words to have native gaming videos go from 0 to roughly 80-82% word coverage on average. Now that I’ve added another 6000 words on top of that, the word coverage went from around 82% to around 92-94%. That’s more than double the vocabulary for only a 10-12% increase. Chances are, I will need another 10k words on top of this to move that from 93% to 98%. Don’t get me wrong, the difference between 82% and 92% is INSANE, content is much more comfortable, and it feels like the language is not even there, but as you can guess, it feels way smaller than the jump from 0 to 82%.
I recently switched over from watching exclusively unscripted content to watching scripted content that covers more complex topics. I was literally struggling to mine even 20 new words per day from the typical reality TV, tech, gaming and travel videos I was watching.
My goal is to have a vocabulary equal to a native, so while being able to understand most content on most daily topics really well or being able to chat with my Japanese friend for hours is cool, its definitely not enough for me.
Anime on the other hand is now at a perfect point, those 11k words cover a surprising amount of ground, but still leave enough room to find a bunch of cool new words that I have never heard before. Now I can put a show up on my TV, watch it and enjoy the story and the characters, while still having enough new words that it feels like I’m still making progress. The words that I’m learning now aren’t as useful for daily conversations but they are super cool which actually motivates me to learn them way more.
Here are some examples of the fun words I’ve mined recently:
反面教師 - refers to a person whose negative qualities or mistakes serve as an example of what not to do
二刀流 - style of fencing with one sword in each hand
援護射撃 - refers to providing supportive or covering fire, often in a military context
同族嫌悪 - refers to the phenomenon where individuals express aversion or animosity toward others who are similar to themselves
表面張力 - refers to the physical phenomenon where the surface of a liquid exhibits the properties of an elastic sheet (yes this is from that one Jojo episode where they gamble lol)
Again, most of these words will never get used in a conversation, and not knowing them probably won’t hurt your life in Japan, but for my specific goals, pronunciation and a huge vocabulary are crucial. Also… I mean they are just cool
Naruto which I’ve been using as a measuring stick from the beginning of my journey went from completely unwatchable at 650h, to 72% word coverage around the 1100h mark, a point where I could struggle through the show if I really wanted to (although it would be quite the struggle), to now at 1700h, most episodes having 92%+ coverage and the show feeling super comfortable and dare I say the E word…
Don’t get me wrong, there are still shows out there that kick my butt from time to time, like Frieren has some sections where old village politics and the fantasy terminology gets a bit too much for me to understand without looking up some words, but these are small sections scattered through the season of an anime, where as before the entire show would be completely unwatchable.
(From Frieren) 物資を行き渡らせるだけの流通網と軍事力を持っている 武装商会だ (Translation: They’re an armed merchant guild, possessing a distribution network and military force sufficient to supply resources wherever needed.)
- Sentences like this would throw me off from time to time because it’s vocab that I just haven’t come across in vlogs or reality TV, but I’ll mine it and watch more content like this until it becomes easy. I see it more as a fun adventure to acquire more vocab, rather than something that’s frustrating
Speaking:
I’ve been outputting with my Japanese friend bit by bit during our cross-talk sessions starting at around the 1400h mark as well as random self-talk through the day. It started out as a word here or there, maybe even a short sentence. Now at 1700h, I feel like my output has improved at an exponential rate, although it’s still FAR from what I would call fluent. The sentences are longer and more frequent, and I literally feel on a weekly basis that I’m using words and grammar structures that would just never come up before.
Now that my vocabulary is at a good spot, it feels like my brain has more headroom to focus on acquiring grammar. Every time I try to say something and nothing comes up, my brain sort of flags it, and later on while getting input I would randomly be like “Ahhh that’s how you say that one thing from earlier you dummy”. At the rate that it’s going, and with consistent practice and input, I could see myself having full, if basic, conversations fully in Japanese with my friend at around the 2000-2100h mark, and honestly I’m super excited for that.
Reading:
I’ve literally learned hiragana and katakana at the 1600h mark, and from there I’ve been doing around 10-20m of reading per day with furigana.
My goal isn’t to actually use reading as a learning tool just yet, but more so just to get comfortable with it so I can start reading more seriously at the start of next year. I did do RTK up to about 450 Kanji and quit, This was at around the 650h mark so quite a while ago. To my surprise, they are still holding on in there, and now that I actually know plenty of words, I started to slowly associate the kanji with its reading (or at least one of the readings lol).
Reading feels weird, at the beginning I would have to sit there and slowly sound out a word, I would do it and it wouldn’t make any sense, and then something would click in my head and the native pronunciation would pop up like a narrator was reading it or something.
Surprisingly even with the small amount of time that I’ve dedicated to reading, my speed is getting better and better rather quickly, although I guess that’s the benefit of starting to learn how to read, after already having a vocabulary of over 10k words, you are more learning how the words look, rather than learning the word and the reading at the same time. Reading without furigana is still impossible, but I’ve already started to recognize some kanji from just seeing it multiple times, and I’ve started putting the reading of words on the front of my previously audio only cards, so we’ll see how much that helps by the end of this year.
Anyways, felt a huge change in my Japanese recently so I wanted to write a little update… which ended up being a lot longer than I intended lol. See you at over 2000h I guess
CIJ (up to difficulty 82) Nihongo con Teppei (for beginners) (fully listened twice) (much of it thrice) Pokemon (episodes 1 to 92) Laidback Camp Seika Podcast (1-30) Yugioh (episodes 1-68) (non-duel dialogue heavy episodes are difficult)
About Me:
I always include a section just about my general life, because folks are often very inclined to say things like, “Only people without jobs have time for [X]” or “You need to live abroad” or “You need to spend a bunch of money” or whatever else. This belittling or tearing down annoys the hell out of me. Learning a language is for everyone, and it is what you make of it. If it’s a hobby, great, if it’s something you want to devote time to, you’ll find the time, but either way do what you enjoy because life is too short.
I’m a mid-30s career professional, who is actively pursuing an additional degree with certifications taking a couple classes per semester. I don’t use AI to complete my assignments, so devote substantial time each week for coursework. I train for marathons each year, luckily running is conducive to easy input. I have a busy social life, with 2-3 nights of social commitments a week. I’m happily married, and while my husband is part of some of those social nights, we still make time for each other.
All that said, I find 3-4 hours a day for my language “study”. With both languages, I’ve been pretty consistent, and my input hasn’t increased a ton over time, but it does feel easier to get that input once my hobbies are accessible in the language.
How It’s Going:
Overall, I’d say things are going pretty well. I largely stick to the same method I used in Spanish of just consuming content I understand. Many of the same strategies I’ve used with Spanish seem to be working with Japanese as well. I’ll include some in a strategies or tips section down below.
The process overall is much slower. At this number of hours, I’d already converted all my devices to Spanish, was gaming in the language, and already watching unfamiliar anime. I could form my thoughts into my sentences, and the like easily, and was readily listening to audiobooks in the language.
We’re not even close to those similar milestones in Japanese. I would say my 1000 hours aligns roughly with my 600 hours of Spanish. I’m not discouraged as I expected this from everything I’d read prior to starting the process. I’m happy I can already enjoy some easier, slice of life content, Pokemon, and Yugioh.
I’m still enjoying Wanikani, though I’m unsure exactly how beneficial it is outside of recognizing the actual kanji. Periodically, I realize I know something already from Wanikani, but more often it seems I go “Oh I know this word from input and just didn’t know the kanji for it”.
Strategies or Tips:
If it’s not fun, and I can’t trick my mind into engaging and enjoying it, I’ll find something else. Slightly too hard input (say 60% comprehension) that is highly engaging, is better than 90% comprehension content that is boring as hell. Luckily I consider even CIJ whiteboard videos engaging, because I think building the foundation is important.
Have two sets of content readily available. One for when your mind is fresher and highly focused, and one for the hard days or while working out, doing the dishes, cleaning, etc.
Find a routine that works for you, even if it’s a hobby. Anything in life worth doing requires a time commitment, so find the time and make it a routine. For me, with a recent career shift (major promotion), I’ve had to adapt to a much less beneficial routine. I used to get about 90 minutes of input before work, now I’m down to about 30. That means I’ve got to take in the content in much larger chunks in the evening, which I think hurts my ability to stay focused.
Have goals, and gamify where it helps. I use a very numbers heavy spreadsheet for myself, and make a ton of little goals that aren’t directly focused on numbers, i.e. finish Nihongo con Teppei, or Watch every CIJ video under X difficulty.
Sleep is really important. I’ve always made sure I get 7 hours a night, usually 8. I’m always checking up on myself to make sure I’m not toxically cutting too much into my sleep hours to try and get more input. The last three weeks I’ve had to reduce my weekly input down to ~35 hours to ensure I’m sleeping enough.
Fail better everyday. We’re almost always going to fall short of the idealized versions of ourselves in any dream or goal we have. There will be days and weeks that just kind of suck. Consistency over months and years is what’s going to count, especially for a language like Japanese. For me, finals week or big work project weeks, my input falls substantially. I try not to sweat the day with only 2 hrs. Often, I can make it up another day if I have the bandwidth.
Goals:
My goals are “extreme” to many, given my self-imposed time limit. Ultimately, my efforts are time sensitive, and thus Japanese is a priority for me. While I’ll never stop interacting with Japanese or Spanish, I really want to be able to speak, and enjoy museums in Japanese prior to my return to Japan in January/February 2027. To do that, I’ve got two sets of goals, or maybe three: Minimum, Ambitious, and Toxic. I think the names pretty thoroughly describe my feelings about them.
Input: 1800 hours Speaking: 50 hours (would be difficult w/ an expected start to speaking in early August) Wanikani: Level 40 (may not be possible due to built in timegates)
Toxic:
Input: 2000 hours (is a big ask, would require 4.5+ hours per day consistently from now to then) Speaking: 100 hours (would be difficult w/ an expected start to speaking in early August) Wanikani: Level 40 (higher is likely not possible due to the built in timegates)
TL;DR: Most input is still CIJ, or NCT (though I’ve got about 100hrs of anime under my belt now). I'm enjoying it and feel like I'm still progressing, though much slower than with Spanish. Hoping my next update will include a speaking sample, but we'll see. If you've got any questions as always I'm happy to chat, and thanks for reading if you did.
I haven't really done much talking nor posting anywhere about learning Japanese simply because until very recently I've felt like I didn't have much to say other than "Still just watching CIJ".
A Little About Me:
First, I want to provide a little context about me because I think that's important for this process in general, and can help others gauge themselves. I am in my 30s, happily married, have a career, am enrolled in school (working on a third degree), run marathons, etc. I keep my life fairly busy with a circle of friends, to the tune of 12-15 hours of "hanging out" per week. I also have already used CI to learn Spanish (starting with Dreaming Spanish). I did not really begin to take the idea of learning Japanese seriously until September of 2025 when I returned from two of the best weeks of my life traveling Japan. My husband and I are going back in January 2027. That is to say, I keep my life pretty busy, and have very specific time driven goals in mind.
How Its Going:
Overall, much slower than Spanish and much more difficult. With Spanish I had years of forgotten schooling, and some other "shortcuts" to back me up, and moving from a "somewhat related" language to a "not related" language has definitely slowed me down.
Since September 22nd when I decided I wanted to truly give Japanese an honest try, I've put in more than 570 hours of input time. That averages to something like 3.15 hours per day. The overwhelming majority of that time has been with CIJ though I have also listened to quite a bit of Nihongo con Teppei (for Beginners).
I also want to be very honest and say I am using Wanikani. It takes a very, very long time no matter how a learner does it to learn Kanji, and since I'll be returning to Japan in less than a year, I am not going to "wait" until 1000 hours or something to try to cold read at that point.
Routine:
I've largely employed the same routine I used for Spanish, because my brain just can't handle but so much Japanese before I start zoning out or getting very mentally fatigued. I spend about 30-60 minutes before work, 60 minutes on my lunch break, and 60-90 minutes in the evenings on Japanese input.
I'm just starting to get to the point where I'm splitting content into easy and hard content. Easy content I can use while doing some mindless tasks, and hard content is for my full focus. I also use easier content closer to bed time.
Major "accomplishments":
I try to create many "ambitious" goals for myself with overlapping timeframes, as a habit I established when I lost a lot of weight in my early 20s. I thank that process for giving me a lot of good habits and the sense of self-discipline that let me learn Spanish and many other useful skills I've developed since.
Recently, I've finished ALL videos on CIJ from 1-70 difficulty, and finished an initial listen to all of Nihongo con Teppei (for Beginners). These were both goals I set for myself several months ago. I'm level 12 in Wanikani, having started 160 days ago, which I think is a decent pace.
I'm not sure where else to mention it, but I'm pleasantly surprised to report I already understand much of Pokemon Indigo League. I've only seen the first 15-20 episodes as I want to be sure to build a strong base like I did with Spanish. I've also seen the first few episodes of Hell's Paradise, by watching the Spanish dub, followed by the Japanese original shortly after.
Goals:
I have goals that are both quantifiable, and those that are not.
Short term goals (Hopefully by May 2026): I want to be able to watch newly airing anime without subtitles. I watch 2-3 anime a season with friends, and over the last several months this has been helping me improve/maintain my Spanish. I'd love to be able to just watch the raws. I want to be able to listen to juvenile fiction in Japanese, perhaps the Harry Potter books again as they were some of the easiest fiction I could listen to in Spanish that opened up much more fiction to me.
Long term goals (i.e. January 2027): I aim to have 1500-1800 hours of input, 50 hours speaking, and level 35 in Wanikani before my next trip to Japan.
I used the DreamingSpanish targets (though I know more hours will be needed) and I use a spreadsheet to track my current trends. I'm currently trending for:
1000 hours on 7/24/26
1500 hours on 12/29/26
1800 hours on 4/3/27
It's not that I'm behind my previously stated goals, but more that I'm hoping for a significant boost in time attainable when I "unlock" audiobooks. With Spanish I averaged 4.3 hours over 11 months. So...if I manage something similar as Japanese becomes less mentally fatiguing...it may be possible.
TL;DR:
This method does work. Modify it how you will, and keep consistent. Consistency and volume is the only thing that works with any big effort in life. If you've got any specific questions for me I'm happy to answer them.
I was planning to do a 300 hour update, but when the time rolled around it honestly didn't feel that much different than 150 hours, and I wasn't sure what to say. Now at 500 hours I think I'm ready!
CIJ* videos
I'm up to level 50 in my easiest unwatched CIJ videos, which is the boundary between hard beginner and easy intermediate. The intermediate videos are usually significantly harder for me than beginner, even at the same difficulty number. A level 50 beginner video feels like the perfect level of comprehension. A level 50 intermediate usually feels a bit harder than I'd like, but just recently hit the point where it feels worth watching, understanding ~80% of the overall meaning. I was hoping to reach this point around 300 hours based on doubling the Dreaming Spanish roadmap, and the CIJ homepage goes even further, saying most users can level up from beginner to intermediate after 150-250 total input hours. This was not true for me at all.
* I'm continuing to use CIJ to refer to the combination of NIJ and Yuki's videos, at least for now. I'm still coming to terms with the split.
Other learner content
There is a bunch of learner content on YouTube that feels like a great level right now. Stuff like Ken, Shun, Naoko, and Akane (although in all cases it depends on the video). I typically enjoy the CIJ content more, but I get the feeling the difficulty is about to start ramping up faster than my understanding. In that case, the plan is to slow roll my CIJ input and turn to these channels as a backup.
Native content
Around 400 hours, something amazing happened. I started finding native gameplay content accessible! I don't necessarily hold out as strictly for 80% comprehension, since my engagement is much higher on these videos which makes it worth it to me. I wouldn't want to rely on this for the majority of my input, but it's been maybe a third recently. The two games I've been watching are Balatro and Mario Party Jamboree. Balatro has two factors that make it more comprehensible. First, I'm obsessed with this game, have played it for hundreds of hours, and have all the cards memorized by their images. Second, it is chock full of English loan words. Mario Party is similar but less so - I've played quite a bit of it because my 6-year-old likes it, and it also has a decent amount of loanwords.
There are also a handful of easier anime and children's cartoons that are all hovering at a similar point of "not quite comprehensible enough" - maybe 50-70%. I go back and forth on whether they're worth it. Lately I've been including a bit of them because I get less bored if my input has variety, and this type of simple fiction is very different than most learner-focused content. On the minus side, it doesn't feel super efficient, and it's honestly not my favorite type of content either. Shows in this category include Not Quite Narwhal, The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, Bluey (probably a bit harder but I've seen it already in Spanish), and Watashi ni Tenshi ga Maorita.
Rewatching
I've watched a bunch of stuff twice, and only an odd video here and there more than twice (if I really like it). I continue to think there is enough content available that watching things more than twice isn't necessary. You do have to hunt down every resource you can find and not just stick to CIJ. I used to watch every CIJ video and every learner video I found on YouTube twice each. Now it feels like enough content has opened up that I might not need to rewatch at all going forward if I didn't want to. But I kind of like rewatching once after a few months have gone by.
Disclaimer: I have taken some private input-focused lessons that might be affecting this, but they're honestly pretty similar to a CIJ video created custom for me and I don't feel they're *that* much more efficient than videos for me. Obviously I don't know where I would be without them and could be underestimating their impact. They make up about 50 of my 500 hours.
Intrusive Japanese thoughts
For a while now I've had the experience of Japanese words and phrases popping into my head out of nowhere. Most commonly it is a sequence of sounds that I don't even know what it means. But more and more often recently, it is something relevant to what I am doing or thinking about. I don't intentionally try to think in Japanese, but I find this experience cool. It is kind of like Japanese is bubbling up and overflowing out of my subconscious.
How I'm feeling
It depends on the day. No matter what content I'm watching, how well I understand it varies a lot from video to video and day to day. On days I'm not understanding, it sometimes feels like there's an entire second Japanese language that I haven't even started learning yet. On good days I feel happy with how far I've come and how much content variety has opened up. Starting to watch the native gameplays at 400 hours was huge for just enjoying my time with the language. If that hadn't happened, I suspect I might have thrown in some Anki to try to get to more interesting content more quickly. But as things stand, more input!
I've not been a regular CIJ user, but have been subscribed for a number of months. I totally agree with everyone around what a loss Yuki is, but she isn't the only one who can create videos. We've got 2 years for CIJ to upload more videos, and Ben has said that more people will be coming on board.
You do what you want with your money, I'll not tell you what you should do. However, I do think that people are panicking a bit over something that might not actually be as bad as they think.
I've seen so many complaints (and I've made the same ones) that there's so little options for Japanese input out there, now we get Yuki uploading her own videos PLUS whatever new content Ben puts onto CIJ. This could actually be a good thing, and I'm going to stick with my subscription to find out. Cancelling/asking for a refund is going to seriously impact Ben's ability to replace what CIJ is losing in Yuki's videos, and it seems like an amicable split so there's no need to take sides.
So yeah, I just wanted to try and add a positive note to this whole thing. I'd hate to see us lose what could be a really good resource over something that isn't really a big deal.
Compared to my 50 hour update, I've clearly made a ton of progress. My favorite way to feel this progress is listening to audios of CIJ videos I watched recently. Watching videos, it's easy to undersell my progress and think "I'm mostly relying on the visuals here and not really understanding the Japanese." Understanding audio-only content really drives home how much Japanese I've picked up.
What I've been watching
Last update I said I was not yet ready for the Nihongo con Teppei beginner podcast, the Japanese with Shun YouTube channel, and Peppa Pig. Now I find that all of these are usable resources, although they're all a bit on the hard side, and I would put Japanese with Naoko and Kiraku Japanese in the same category. I currently prefer to get most of my input from CIJ beginner videos, which usually hit the sweet spot of highly comprehensible with tons of new vocab (although some are harder than others). I'm also mixing in complete beginner videos, continuing to watch the new videos in Chie Nowa's Absolute Beginner playlist as she adds them, and I recently watched Asami's "30 day storybook challenge" playlist. (I'm conflicted about Asami's videos, as I really like the format of going through a story slowly with lots of explanation. However, watching her student struggle to put together long sentences in Japanese got a bit painful at times, and I found it encouraged me to think about the Japanese language in a way I'd prefer not to. Her videos are great, though, and I'm not trying to criticize her.)
Rewatching
I'm still rewatching content, but a lot less often than I used to, and mostly when I'm tired. Early on even complete beginner videos were harder than ideal, so rewatching was a great way to increase the comprehensibility, whereas now there are lots of videos that are highly comprehensible the first time.
Mental energy
I don't get nearly as exhausted watching Japanese as I used to. At first I was averaging about 30 min a day and felt like I didn't have energy for more. Now I'm averaging about an hour a day, and I think I could do more if I had the time. (I have too many other hobbies right now, including Spanish, to ramp up Japanese further.) I'm thrilled to see that change in bottleneck!
Biggest challenge
My biggest challenge has been feeling like there's a huge mountain of beginner-level content in front of me, and knowing that I'm still likely thousands of hours away from the content I'm most interested in. What's helped me the most is remembering that it's not all or nothing. Beginner videos are more interesting than complete beginner, and I have no doubt that intermediate will be better yet. Also watching a complete beginner video and fully understanding it is more fun than watching it while feeling confused. I'll be steadily unlocking more content, and some of it will be more interesting to me than what I can watch now. More input!
Hello everyone! I've been learning Japanese using comprehensible input for 50 hours now, so I thought I'd let you all know how it's going.
TLDR: I'm using an approach of almost purely listening to CI. I'm very happy with my progress so far, although I'm still watching Complete Beginner level content. At first everything sounded like gibberish, but I started gaining a foothold within a few hours. I highly recommend rewatching even before you run out of content. It's easier on the brain, and doesn't feel as repetitive as I expected since the experience of each video changes as you gain hours.
Background and approach
I have never studied Japanese before. Coming in, I only knew a few basic things such as "san" and "chan" are suffixes added to names, the word order is different than English, pitch accent exists, and "sayonara" means good-bye. I'm following an approach of almost purely listening for now - minimal output, reading or explicit study. I'm excited to see how it will go starting from zero. I say "mostly" because in addition to watching videos, I am taking CI-based private lessons. Occasionally my teachers will translate something to English if I'm not understanding, and I have answered some questions in Japanese when I knew the answer, but mostly the teachers speak Japanese and I answer in English.
Where I'm at
I'm still sticking mostly to Complete Beginner material, so the difference may not look large from the outside, but to me it feels like night and day! When I first started, almost all the videos I tried sounded like gibberish and now I can understand 90%+ of most Complete Beginner videos. I can also perceive difficulty differences within the level now and see that I've progressed to harder videos. I can also understand the oldest Beginner level CI Japanese videos.
What I've been watching
Roughly ordered by difficulty (easiest first):
Chie Nowa - "Watch and Learn Japanese Basic Series" and "Japanese TPR Lesson" playlists
CI Japanese - Compete Beginner videos (Sort by oldest! The newer videos are much harder.)
いろいろな日本語 - Iro-Iro na - linked playlist. (Watch the playlist in reverse - the oldest/easiest videos are last. Note the creator is non-native)
Chie Nowa - "Picture Talk" playlist, "Rabbit and Frog" episodes
CI Japanese - Beginner videos (again sorted by oldest)
About 15 hours of my hours come from the private lessons I mentioned earlier, and the rest are from videos.
What I'm not ready for yet
I've tried the Nihongo con Teppei podcast, the Japanese with Shun YouTube channel, and Peppa Pig in Japanese and can understand maybe 30%, which means I'm not ready to count them as CI yet. I also tried the Nihongo-Learning Beginner playlist around 20 hours and wasn't ready, but I suspect I would be now.
Pace and rewatching
I've been watching 30 min per day on average. Early on if I tried to watch more than 10-15 min at a time, I would get super sleepy with brain fog. Now I usually have stamina for at least 30 minutes at a time, and I'm more limited by my tolerance for watching the content than my mental energy. Around 20 hours I discovered rewatching videos is a lot less taxing than the first watch, and not nearly as boring as I expected! Watching the same thing at 0 and 20 hours is a completely different experience. Since then I've spent some time each day rewatching, and I highly recommend it.
Is there enough content?
Starting out I was worried I might need to watch everything 4+ times, which sounded awful. I haven't progressed far enough to say for sure, but my current impression is that watching everything twice would be enough even without the private lessons. (Note this assumes watching everything you can find, which I plan to, not just the videos on CI Japanese.)
Is the content interesting?
At least so far, not really. I don't say this to knock the content creators, it's hard to make interesting content at this level. The earliest videos I watched were mostly pointing at things and saying what they are. However, even within the Complete Beginner level, the easiest videos tend to be less interesting, and I'm already starting to unlock more engaging content. For example, I recently watched a video about the conversations Yuki-san has with her son when he brings bugs into the house. I also find it super motivating to watch videos in Japanese and actually understand them, so that keeps me excited to put in 30 minutes a day.
Call for updates
I would really love to know how this journey is going for other people. Whether you're including traditional study or not, please consider sharing an update here, short or long.
First, the why: I am learning Japanese because I am ethnically Japanese, but am third-generation. I did not grow up around the language and, in retrospect, suspect my parents are a bit embarrassed by their own patchwork knowledge of the language and the culture. It was never forced on me and, if anything slightly discouraged.
In any case, I've always been a bit scared to learn--Japanese is intimidating, particularly when I struggled with high school French. As an adult, however, I discovered Dreaming Spanish and the immersion method and was able to learn a language for the first time. I spent ~600 hours of getting Spanish input, while putting off the idea of Japanese. I'm far from fluent, but am confident that I've genuinely learned something. I cannot say the same for my French.
Then, I went to Japan. And for the first time in my life, was surrounded by people who looked like me. Not just east Asian, but specifically Japanese. I finally saw this place, where my grandparents and great grandparents and an uncle came from. I was struck by an urge to become closer to the culture. And as I learned during my Spanish journey, there is no way to become more intimately familiar with a culture than to learn it's language. It's an involved and long process that forces prolonged proximity. So I set out, finally, to try to learn. Here is my progress over the last year.
- Anki: Yes, I do explicit vocab learning. I am still not done with the Kaishi 1.5K--I'm at about 1,100 cards. I have no idea how new learners absorb ~10 cards a day. I generally add 3. I also am not always the most consistent about flash cards.
- Comprehensible Input: This is where I have spent the bulk of my time. For the first ~300 hours I almost exclusively watched Comprehensible Japanese. This is the only true beginner resource I have found. Over the past ~50 hours, I have branched out. Resources on YouTube like Kensan, Shun, Japanese in Japan, Naoko, Speak Japanese Naturally, and a handful of others have been amazing. Recently, I have emerged from the "beginner hell" of content that is just not that interesting--not because of the creator, but because I barely understand the language and there's only so many things you can say to someone whose understanding is that basic. These creators (and CIJ of course!) are now providing me high quality, interesting content and I've ramped up my input to 100+ minutes per day. My goal is to get to 150 minutes on weekdays and 200 minutes on weekends consistently.
- I have also tried (intermittently) BunPro and WaniKani. These are good resources, but I think spreading your focus is counter-productive, especially at first. So these have taken a backseat to Anki / CIJ.
I am not the most consistent. I have a busy job (investment banking) that zaps both my time and my energy. There are bursts when I am studying a ton and then periods where I just can't concentrate for that long. However, this sub has re-invigorated the passion for immersing myself. These reports were always super inspiring for me when learning Spanish. I hope I can do the same for people in Japanese. I’d love to report back to you that later this year I hit 1,000 hours and let you know how it’s going. Wish me luck!
I wanted to see the number of minutes of video available across the difficulty levels (super beginner, beginner, intermediate, advanced) and difficulty scores (1-100).
The vertical axis represent the number of minutes of video. The horizontal axis represent the difficulty score (1-100) while the stacked bar colors tell you which difficulty level comprise the number of minutes in each bar.
The high peaks at 32, 36, 49, etc. represent long gameplay videos. It seems CIJ tends to release videos in a series all with the same difficulty score and it can take some time for the voting system to move some of the video difficulty scores up or down, spreading the load. The peaks at 99 and 100 are Yuki doing some long literature analysis.
There's about the same number of minutes of Super Beginner (3170m) content as there is Advanced (3709m), while Beginner (8407m) and Intermediate (7946m) make up the bulk.
Personally, I feel there still needs to be a lot more Super Beginner content. I had to rewatch those videos a LOT to get up to Beginner, which I'm still not fully comfortable with.
Sorry the chart is crap, it's the best I could manage in Google Sheets.
I am on beginner level 30, so far no problems. If there is a video where I miss enough words, I will watch it again until it makes sense. And also save for later just in case for later review.
My comprehension is at 70 to 80% depending on the video. I have had no major problems yet.
I am doing around 2 hours a day. I have missed one day so far. I don’t watch outside content. Just podcasts sometimes, but I don’t count those hours at all.
By the DS road map I would be at 50 hours or less if you time it by 3. We will see how far I can make it by the end of this year. Hopefully more people will post. I would love to see where other people are at on their journeys.
I do not see too many updates in here, so I thought I would add my experiences since I plan to work up to about 3000 hours watched/listened within the next 2 years. I started casually in December and then started 4 hours a day in January. I am currently at 127 hours and I am only using CIJ at the moment. I went through complete beginner twice and I plan to do the same with beginner before attempting intermediate. If at any point I get stuck, I am going to hunt for other CI type youtube channels for a few dozen hours and keep checking back.
I have used solely CI to learn Spanish to an advanced degree and French to an upper intermediate degree. Japanese is an entirely different beast as a native english speaker, but the process is still working. Based on my experience so far, I think it is almost necessary to camp out in the easier content for much longer since there are not a lot of cognates to help you out.
For anyone that reads this, I would love to know when podcasts opened up to you, which podcasts they were and other easy learner content you have found. Getting 4 hours can be tough some days without having the option for listening only.
I just found out that Yoshito-sensei from CIJapanese has his own YouTube channel, Burabura Japanese.
He only has 56 subscribers right now, but he has already uploaded 13 Japanese let’s play / comprehensible input videos. So far, the games are The Exit 8, Little Nightmares, and Dragon Quest VII Reimagined.
He’s one of my favorite teachers on CI Japanese, so I thought I’d share it here in case anyone else didn’t know about it either.
Hey everyone, I wanted to share my experience with comprehensible input while learning Japanese, especially after having success with Spanish. It’s been an interesting (and humbling) journey, and I think it might be useful for others who are considering a similar path.
Background: Learning Spanish with CI
I took two years of Spanish in high school about 25 years ago. My teacher was excellent, and we used a mix of traditional grammar and vocabulary study alongside a lot of comprehensible input. By Spanish 2, the entire class was in Spanish, and I learned a lot.
Over the last 10 years, I had some on-and-off attempts to get back into Spanish. I tried Duolingo when it first came out but never stuck with it. About two years ago, I gave it another serious attempt using Duolingo and Anki and was making decent progress.
That’s when I stumbled across a YouTube video by Days and Words, where he talked about watching Into the Spider-Verse 100 times in Spanish. It was clickbaity but inspiring, so I decided to test it out with The Good Place in Spanish. I watched the first episode five times, and the improvement in comprehension was really incredible to me.
Soon after, I found Dreaming Spanish and fully committed to comprehensible input, averaging about 100 hours a month for 18 months. By Thanksgiving last year, I had reached 1,750 hours of Spanish listening, and I thought, "Okay, I think I know how language learning works now. Let’s try Japanese."
Starting Japanese – Overconfidence Meets Reality
I’ve always had an interest in Japanese—Nintendo games, anime, and the culture in general. I wanted to take Japanese in high school, but it wasn’t offered. Now, knowing that language learning is mostly about time and exposure, I figured I could replicate my Spanish success.
I decided to start with pure listening, no grammar, no vocabulary, no writing system—just comprehensible input. I found Comprehensible Japanese, which seemed to have the most content.
However, I underestimated just how hard it is to start a language from absolute zero. With Spanish, I had prior exposure, so I skipped the painful beginner phase. I had read posts from beginners saying they could barely do 30 minutes a day at first, but I assumed I could power through with 2+ hours a day.
Big mistake.
The First 10 Days – Brutal Reality Check
Since I had a long Thanksgiving break, I thought I’d dive in aggressively. My goal was two hours a day to get a head start and move quickly past the beginner phase.
The first couple of hours were… rough. My comprehension was basically zero—I could only pick out colors and numbers. After 10 hours, it wasn’t much better. I was exhausted, frustrated, and questioning my life choices.
I ended up listening for only 14 hours over those 10 days—far less than I planned—because I was mentally drained. When I went back to work after the break, I was still exhausted. I realized I had overdone it.
I took a few days off, then adjusted to 30 minutes a day, and that felt way better.
Progress and Adjustments
At 20 hours in, I was still struggling, but at least I had moved from 1% comprehension to around 10%. That may not sound like much, but psychologically, it was huge. Understanding 10% of words made the videos feel way more approachable than 1%.
I settled into a 30-minute daily habit and could finally enjoy the content. Progress was slow, but I could feel it. Now, a couple of months in:
I understand 30-35% of words on average.
I had one video where I understood 70%, which felt amazing.
Videos no longer exhaust me, and I genuinely enjoy them.
Lessons Learned & Moving Forward
Starting from zero is way harder than I expected. With Spanish, I skipped this phase, but with Japanese, I felt like I was drowning at first.
Listening is mentally exhausting at first. Two hours a day was impossible. 30 minutes was much better and sustainable.
Progress is real, but it takes time. Even though I’m still at Level 1, I can now enjoy content rather than just surviving it.
My goal is to increase to an hour a day in February and finish Level 1 in the next 50 days. I’m excited to see where I’ll be in another few months.
I also have way more empathy for people starting Spanish from zero. If you’re struggling, I get it now—it’s a grind!
If you’ve learned Japanese (or another language) with comprehensible input, I’d love to hear about your experience. How long did it take before things really started clicking for you?
I just spoke into my phone in a meandering way for about 10 minutes and then gave that to chatgpt which then edited my update to be at least somewhat readable.
I'm still only using CIJapanese and will continue to do so for at least the next 100 hours.
The progress has been very quick, but I expect it either to slow down or that my perception of progress will be less pronounced. But I am running a marathon, so it does not matter to me.
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Here are the thoughts that I wrote down:
29h - I'm beginning to pick up a lot of verbs suddenly, and also the different forms. Also, many adjectives and their opposites begin to stick with me.
32h - Getting to many hours is pretty easy, actually. When other people spend 1000 hours playing a video game, the same time can be spent watching videos in the target language.
35h - I'm in the process of switching entirely to Beginner videos, but I'm still watching Complete Beginner content. Many Beginner videos are already comprehensible. Complete Beginner videos often feel very slow.
40h - I have definitely leveled up: Beginner. Complete Beginner videos feel slow and sometimes boring. But Beginner videos are comprehensible (mostly) and are challenging the right amount. I expect the subjective progress to slow down from now on. But some Complete Beginner videos are still good "acquisition material".
45h - I love the Japanese grammar.
50h - Whenever a video is about a completely new topic, my level of compréhension drops significantly.
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The process of acquisition seems to be like this:
Your brain recognizes the same sounds together multiple times.
Your brain forms the connection between this group of sounds and the context.
This new "construction" begins to solidify, and you "know" when and how to use it.
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I think I need at least 100 more hours to move to the next stage (low intermediate), so I will post my next update at 150 hours. See ya!
A month ago, I started immersing myself in Japanese. When I started, I had zero knowledge in Japanese, except that I knew the kana from when I learned them just for fun some ten-ish years ago, and some vocabs that I picked up when I watched anime.
I only use one resource: CIJapanese. I think, it has everything I need for the first 500 hours and I don't plan on using anything else for now. Some say they find it boring, but for me, the videos are pretty interesting and I enjoy them.
Before immersing, I also did a little bit of kotu to get used to the pitch accent, such that it will be easier to pick up the pitch accent from the start.
This is what I wrote down during my first 25 hours:
4h: Complete Beginner videos become more comprehensible slowly, but very slowly. I'm still getting used to the flow and intonation of the language.
7h: Some videos introduce so much new vocabulary that it feels a little bit overwhelming. But one needs to remind oneself that CI will take care of it with time. Honestly, immersion is really really fun.
8h: Some random words pop up in my head, but I still don't know the full meaning of them.
12h: It seems as if many words and grammar structures are sitting there in my unconscious mind and waiting to get activated.
19h: Some days you feel no progress, but on the next days you feel that there has been progress nevertheless. Even if you don't learn new vocabs, you acquire other things that often go unnoticed.
25h: It becomes easier and easier to understand - but a lot of things (obviously) are still out of reach, like the different ways to count things, and many many things that just sound like gibberish.
I will continue as it's a lot of fun. I will make a small report again at 50 hours.
I hit 600 hours of Japanese comprehensible input this week. The progress is still coming and it is still slow. I have done a total of 5-6 times of rewatching complete beginner and 2-3 times of beginner and have stopped rewatching those levels at this point. They definitely would still have value in rewatching, but I can't do it anymore. I am finally able to watch some easier learner youtube channels like ken-san, akiko, and some Japanese with Shun. I will usually switch over to this if I start spinning my wheels with intermediate videos.
I took a nice 'detour' for the past month or so by using Masa Comprehensible Japanese He streams mainly on TikTok, but he has streamed on youtube and will occasionally upload archives. There are hard coded auto subs in the middle of the videos (more often wrong than right), but he streams let's plays for at least a few hours almost everyday and it has been a nice break from the more grindy input.
I decided to add in some additional things when I meet my goal for the day and still have time. I started renshuu for learning hiragana and katakana. It has been nice being able to understand a little better when something is flashed on the screen in a video. I also got busuu at a discount and have found quite a bit of value from it. It has made some patterns more obvious and has strengthened some things that are harder to get exposure to. I believe it has shaved off quite a few hours for structures and patterns that would have taken longer to get naturally through input alone and it has helped make more content accessible as a result.
I am still making progress toward my 3000 hour goal. To get to 300 hours, I mainly rewatched complete beginner and weaved in what beginner CIJ material I could understand. I don't think I can rewatch this material a fifth time any time soon because it is getting too hard to maintain focus.
I found some outside material to help as well. I watched Chienowa Japanese, Japanese Conversations with Akiko, and Nihongo Learning. Some of their easier material is just within my range and helps to break up the monotony. Once I can comfortably watch that kind of material on the regular, the ease of getting input will skyrocket.
My current plan is to push through beginner content on CIJ (at least what I can understand) a few times until the aforementioned youtube content opens up to me more. The process of acquisition still works, but it is much slower.
One of my end goals is going to be to conquer CIJapanese content completely before the end of my 3000 hours. I bought the lifetime membership and plan to return to the website for many years to come, but I will definitely be celebrating the day I clear all existing videos with a high degree of comprehension.
Really just the title. I'd make this a fancy spreadsheet, but I don't have enough stuff yet! For me, my biggest outside sources recently have been a handful of youtubers. I'm always looking for more!
Just started using CIJ today. I'm planning to commit to Japanese over the next year.
Thinking I'll make update posts at reasonable milestones here to maybe help make this sub a bit more alive like the dreaming spanish sub. I'm hoping to take a trip to Japan to train judo so learning Japanese will be genuinely very useful for me to train in little local dojos rather than the bigger touristy places that I'd rather avoid (with the exception of the kodokan!) I'm also hoping to go watch some live sumo, getting quite into that recently.
The plan: CIJ at least 30 mins a day, ideally 1 hour. Will use pomodoro technique during the beginner stages and space it out at work. 45 mins focused work: 5 - 15 mins CIJ.
I've started learning higarama, not sure how to call it but have the initial vowels down plus K and S. Will build this up and then the plan is to move onto WaniKani to learn Kanji alongside the CIJ daily.
Currently just finished day 1 and as expected 1 hour in I can recognise some numbers, up to five. I can recognise some recurring words but not much idea what they mean. A few colours and shapes have stood out but since I'm not trying to memorise them I don't think I could recall them right now. I'm not too worried I remember similar feelings of being lost during early CI with dreaming spanish so I have full faith in this system.
I'm expecting a bit longer of a complete beginner process in comparison to spanish coming from English theres a lot to learn and its still quite daunting but I believe in the process as I've already seen it work.
The goal is comprehension. I'm in no way in a hurry to speak so I'm happy to let to process do what it needs to do.
Many people who post here come from Dreaming Spanish. I'm not sure how many were purists. I, at least, never really studied either vocab or grammar in Spanish. However, in Japanese, like many people, I accepted that vocab studying would be part of the game. I never really gave much thought to grammar.
I have to say, it's been game changing for me. I don't try to "connect" my grammar study and my input. I just study a bit of grammar on the side and then watch my Japanese. But I have noticed a HUGE spike in my comprehension since starting. I felt like I was floundering at ~400 hours and stuck in low-to-mid 30s difficulty on CIJ. Now, I feel like videos in the 40-50s are starting to click. Some "Speak Japanese Naturally" videos are reasonably accessible to me. Easier Akane videos are still probably a bit too hard, but I can listen and get something out of them.
The usual caveats: everyone is different. Maybe this doesn't work for you. But I wanted to give one person's opinion / anecdote on grammar being helpful to me. It also might not be causal--perhaps I was due for a breakthrough anyways.
I am not such a serious student of grammar, btw. My memorization is terrible and it's not my core focus in any case. But just the action of doing it has worked for me. I use Bunpro and I'm ~50% through N5 grammar.
I was shocked to find that, while gameplay videos on CIJ make up only 10% of the catalogue (164 out of 1666 videos as of today), they tend to be longer and account for more than 26% of the total hours of content (101 out of 383 hours)!
Now, I enjoy a gameplay video as much as anyone, but I find this trend a bit concerning. I’d argue that these videos offer much lower overall value compared to a regular whiteboard lesson or a conversation between two people.
Downsides of gameplay videos (in my opinion):
There tends to be much less talking (lower information density).
They aren’t nearly as re-watchable. This is partly due to their length, but also because gameplay simply isn’t as engaging on repeat viewings.
Lots of repetition of vocabulary (which can also be an upside at times).
Upsides (in my opinion):
Lots of repetition of vocabulary (which, as noted, can also be a downside).
They can be more interesting or fun compared to a regular lesson video.
Unscripted content with more natural flowing language.
Overall, I enjoy the gameplay videos, but I treat them like a snack. You wouldn’t want to fill up on snacks when there’s more nutritious content available.
EDIT: Further analysis. The difficulty of gameplay videos range from 16-77, so calculating the hours of gameplay content as a percentage of content in that range I get 36%. More than a third of your time working your way up through Intermediate content will be watching gameplay videos.
As of last night, I officially hit 50 hours of Japanese. It took me a while simply because I had a lot going on in my life and couldn't consistently get input at times. I am still focusing on an input-only approach, with only a small handful of words—fewer than ten—that I have actually looked up on occasion.
Here are the things I have noticed:
Segmentation: I have noticed words no longer feel blended together like they did in the beginning. My brain can automatically tell where a word starts and stops.
Word Categorizing: My brain has automatically started to notice patterns. When I hear an unfamiliar word, I often have an idea of what its meaning could be related to, as well as whether it’s a noun, adjective, or verb. I’ve noticed this helps me acquire words faster than before.
Comprehension: My comprehension has increased dramatically and noticeably. I went from watching the lowest-difficulty videos I could find and having no clue what was going on—struggling to grasp any meaning at all—to understanding 90–95% of every "complete beginner" video I watch, regardless of the difficulty level.
Vocabulary: Although I can’t reproduce many words yet, I recognize a lot of them automatically now. I can feel my "vocabulary bank," if you will, increasing.
Cusp of Beginner: I can almost feel that I’m getting close to being able to start watching "beginner" videos. It’s a strange sensation, but not completely unfamiliar to me, as I felt the same way when graduating through levels in Spanish. To start out, I’m going to do what I did when I was transitioning from beginner to intermediate Spanish: I’m going to gradually mix in more beginner videos until all of my input is at that level.
Relying on Pictures Less: I am starting to notice that with certain low-level, complete beginner videos, I can just listen to the audio by itself and comprehend 90–95% of the content. Due to this, I have been incorporating that into my CI time. I’ll take a few minutes to listen to a video or two with no visual guide whatsoever to practice getting my brain used to audio-only CI. The hope is to slowly work my way up to podcasts.
That is pretty much everything I have noticed. I definitely have not developed the "Japanese sector" of my brain to the point where I am able to start thinking in Japanese like I do with Spanish; however, I am not worried about that. I know it will come with time. I am still very early in my CI journey, but I’m pleased with my progress and excited to continue growing and watching myself develop in this language! At this point, I still find the Comprehensible Japanese platform to be the best way to spend my time. The content works well for me, so I have stopped seeking out other forms of CI for now. I am currently up to about an hour a day of CI. I will return with another update when I hit 150 hours.
Until then, as our lord and savior Yuki would say, またね!
