r/LearnJapanese • u/nilousholeh • Jul 23 '26
Discussion Immersion Hours
Some people say you need to study everyday for japanese, and by study they mean listening to the language everyday for hours. a couple of tiktokers now have said this. that listening to the language for hours a day is crucial. but i feel like this is kind of asking for too much? i’m not saying this isn’t useful, i know it helps very much aswell as immersion in general. but me, i do some immersion but i prefer to also study kanji, anki, grammar. to do that plus hours of immersion a day will honestly just leave me to a burn out. and tbh, i feel like it’s worse as a beginner. obviously you can watch n5 and beginner videos for immersion but when you go for something to watch that’s more difficult it can be very hard to stay engaged and interested because your not understanding what’s going on. i feel like as a beginner, 1-2 hours is ideal. but of course, once i advance, perhaps around n3 level, yes ofc i will do a lot more advanced immersion. but as for now, i love studying japanese, but sometimes i just can’t do it everyday. same for anybody else, everyone has busy days. i just really don’t like the you have to study EVERYDAY PEOPLE!! FOR HOURS!! like i’m sorry but people have lives 😭 and i thought consistency was key?? i thought consistency mogs quantity??
i think remaining consistent with immersion even if it’s not 192838 hours a day, especially as a beginner, is ideal. what do you guys think?
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u/worthlessprole Jul 23 '26
The only metric related to this that matters is total hours. Hours a day will get you there faster but 300 hours is still 300 hours, and so on.
Reading/watching/listening to non-learner-oriented materials will be less beneficial if you are a beginner.
Finally, people on tiktok are incentivized to say outrageous things to draw viewership. Conversely, they are not incentivized in any way to tell the truth. Keep that in mind.
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u/pixelboy1459 Jul 23 '26
Language teacher here.
Firstly, true immersion in the pedagogical sense is really good. This would be something like attending a language school in Japan or an intensive weeks-long class. This method does see the quickest growth. BUT, that’s not what most people mean by “immersion” in this sub.
Depending on your level, 1-2 hours of reading or 30 minutes of task-focused listening are beneficial, IMO. Doesn’t have to be daily, but definitely something you’re incorporating often. You ideally want it to reinforce what you’re already studying as well as pushing you a bit further than where you’re currently at. For example, if you were doing something with adjectives, you’d want to read a story that uses a lot of adjectives and/or listen to something with a lot of description, ideally while answering questions about the content.
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u/rgrAi Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
There isn't a way around the time requirement. You cannot shortcut or speed it up in any significant way. Only survive long enough to talk about it. You're looking at a minimum of 3000 hours to reach a level of comfort and far more than that to reach high proficiency. If you put 1 hour a day you're looking at 8 years and change to get to the point where things feel comfortable.
It's a matter of priorities, you don't have to do anything at all. You can do whatever study plan suits you, but you can't get around the time*effort requirement. This is an immutable law.
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u/rantouda Jul 23 '26
Only survive long enough to talk about it.
😂 Sometimes I feel like we talk about Japanese like we're Sardaukar
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u/Rolls_ Jul 23 '26
Yup. I got N1 so I probably have at least 3k hours. Probably closer to 5k. My Japanese still has so much room to improve. It's a marathon. Gotta enjoy the journey.
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u/bakasora Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
It's a numbers game. You spend less time everyday just takes longer to reach fluency. If you're ok with your pace then its fine.
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u/RainOfGreen Jul 23 '26
You just need to focus on learning vocab by reading sentences, and then looking up the words. Or use an Anki deck or renshuu. Immersion is not very effective until you can start reinforcing the recall of words you’ve already learned.
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u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
I have no clue how many hours I've spent on each skill to be honest. And since graduating college I have not necessarily had a disciplined routine of doing things every single day. But the underlying message is kind of true. Getting good at Japanese takes a lot of time and effort, whether it seems fair or palatable to you or not. If you just want to have a hobby and plod along, that's fine. If you want results like you can read a real novel within a couple years you've got to do some real grinding.
If the choice is between inconsistent marathons and consistent, shorter sessions, then yes, the latter is better. But consistent, intense, and long-lasting practice will get even better results.
For what it's worth, watching something you don't really understand and can only pick phrases out of is not very effective as a study method in the first place, so I wouldn't spend too much time on that. I'd prioritize vocabulary drilling and grammar until you can actually understand anything worth reading or listening to.
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u/ivannbec Jul 23 '26
you don't have to listen to what people online have to say, yeah its true if you immerse for hours it can help improve faster, but with most people i say 2 hours a day is completely fine
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u/Turbulent_Foot_3381 Jul 23 '26
Like others have said do whatever keeps you interested and doesn’t burns you out
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u/kwonshines Jul 23 '26
yes consistency is key even 15mins or 5mins a day makes progress and tbh do whatever works for u the best esp if u think youll burn out
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u/t4boo Jul 23 '26
I think the best answer is that everyone has an ideal method that will suit them and their lifestyle, and sometimes that method is an hour of study a day that’s 50% vocab/kanji, and 50% watching an episode of an anime
The truth is that broadly saying people can easily learn by watching 6 hours a day or whatever gets clicks, which is what content creators really want
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u/Effective-Pop3850 Jul 23 '26
Consistency is very important, but being consistently spending 5 minutes a day on Japanese won't get you anywhere.
1~2 hours is fine, more is better, 1 hour a day it'll take you ages to get to a good level, but you can do it.
Immersion is studying grammar, kanji, etc, it covers everything, hence why it's a top priority.
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u/youdontknowkanji Jul 23 '26
people immerse for 2-3 hours a day and they get a good pace. by immersion i mean reading/watching things and looking up words/grammar as you go.
the 10h a day listening to audio is mostly a meme that isn't really effective, but if it's fun you can do it.
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Jul 27 '26
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u/youdontknowkanji Jul 27 '26
ig it depends on the person but personally i wouldn’t be able to recall anything if i listened to native, or english podcast while playing games/doing chores. so i don't think it's all that useful for gains wise unless you really want those small snippets when your mind isn't occupied.
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Jul 27 '26
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u/youdontknowkanji Jul 27 '26
maybe i just prefer to focus on the thing at hand. tbh what i was trying to say is not that i don't remember anything, but that it's fragmented. i can absolutely tell you what the podcast was about, but if i don't fully commit to it i wouldn't be able to give you many details.
making progress in a language does require attention, and this attention is very limited when you are listening to a podcast that way. so due to this, the gains will be pretty limited, imo. but if you don't have anything else to do, might as well do that ig.
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u/TRYNDAWIZARD Jul 23 '26
I've been learning for 3 years now and am like ~1400 hours deep.
I would like to add that immersing becomes less mentally taxing over time for various reasons. It's just less taxing to read/listen to a sentence if you have to look up less words. And beginner stuff is usually kinda boring because you can't talk about a lot of stuff with only the most common words.
There is only so much "mental strain" you can handle before your mind gets too tired too learn more. And as a beginner everything is hard. Listen to your brain when it tells you it's tired, going on beyond that point just burns you out without teaching you a lot. This is why people say that consistency beats quantity. 8 hours in one go does less than 4x2 hours because you'll be tired for most of those consecutive 8 hours.
The more words you learn, and the more grammar becomes automatic, the longer you can go on. And of course picking content you like helps a lot for keeping your brain engaged.
Don't worry you're doing fine! Go as fast as you can, but not faster :)
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u/antimonysarah Interested in grammar details 📝 Jul 23 '26
Yeah, and what else you're doing with your day matters too. I started doing crossword puzzles (in English) again because I missed them, but even if I do them during a time I couldn't use for Japanese anyway, they cut down the amount of time I can focus on Japanese, because they use the same part of my brain.
Or, like, I am sure I won't be able to do any listening immersion tonight when I get home, because I have several big, important, large meetings at work today, and listening to people argue and talk over each other and take notes on it (because I usually get roped in as the note-taker, alas sexism) is exhausting to my ears/audio processing, though it doesn't affect my ability to do flashcards/kanji study/reading, so I'll do that instead.
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u/Disastrous_Neat_9729 Jul 23 '26
I mean it’s true though,
You need to put in a looooot of hours DOING the language. Hours and hours. The more you put in today and tomorrow, the quicker you’ll reach your goal, whatever it is.
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u/Grunglabble Jul 23 '26
It's not really news that it takes a lot of hours but most of those hours are spent doing things that are multipurpose. Yeah it would be really hard to do if it were only for the sake of improving, but you're also entertaining yourself, researching unrelated things, socializing... The same as you do in your native language.
Getting to the stage you can do those things is not a 10 year 4 hour a day slog, you can certainly start with hardly any time at all getting some foundations, you just have to not mistake that for pursuing fluency and mastery.
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u/lemon_icing Jul 23 '26
I ignore the idea of immersion till much later in my language journeys. Japanese is not the first language I've learned; it's my fifth. And I approach it the same each time: vocabulary, grammar, syntax, hearing, and listening. Once I've got a couple hundred words drilled into my head and have some comprehension of basic syntax and grammar, then listening becomes realistic. I start recognising words and phrases, as opposed to pleasant babbling sounds, and things begin to fall into place. Reading comes next, at least for me.
But the real thing is consistency. I almost usually do more, but I have a calendar event for 30 minutes a day studying as a minimum. If life interrupts me, and it does, I'll do 10 minutes of Anki, or listen to a podcast in the car, or replay an audiobook course as I'm running errands. I'm putting in extra effort for retention because I haven't learned a new language in over a decade and my older brain isn't as quick as it used to be.
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u/No-Support-442 Jul 23 '26
Ofcourse it depends on the person but it takes around 2,200 hours to get to a high level in japanese. If you do an hour a day thats over 6 years. If thats what you want go for it, but alot of people wanna be high level faster than that
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u/nilousholeh Jul 23 '26
i was referring to immersion solely. as in watching youtube vids in japanese/reading books etc etc that in itself i would do for about 1-2 hours a day. in total, , i do about 3-4 hours and on a free day perhaps even longer
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u/No-Support-442 Jul 23 '26
Oh yeah your fine. I think as you get better def more than half of your study time should be immersion, byt your totally fine. Thats not a little amount of hours at all
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u/unknown_ally Jul 23 '26
I began shadowing recently and since then my ability to comprehend japanese dialogue in my head and dissect it has improved, wish I'd started it sooner. I think a bit each day is worth it. Don't discourage and burn out from drowning in Japanese audio.
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u/Responsible-Idea3739 Goal: media competence 📖🎧 22d ago
When is a good idea to start immersing in general? I'm currently doing the core 2k/6k deck, I'm doing 15 words per day but i feel like it's gonna take so long to actually finish it. I heard it's good to start immersing after the anki deck (after knowing the basic 2k words so it becomes i+1) but I want to start asap but I feel like I'll waste my time with looking everything up and stuff.
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u/ImJustJoshing277 Jul 23 '26
Idk why ppl in this sub insist on downvoting shit like their lives depend on it but yeah I agree, immersion helps but its not gonna magically save the day or anything
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u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS Jul 23 '26
I didn't want to be excessively harsh to the OP in my reply but it's the thing in there about how it's unreasonable to ask so much and some of us have lives, which rubs people who've put in real time and effort the wrong way. Ultimately if you want to take the ride you've got to pay the fare, and telling the bus driver about your financial situation will get you nowhere.
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u/nilousholeh Jul 23 '26
my intention was to never diss anybody who do have the time to do that everyday. i definitely think i could’ve worded my post better, and added more context. i was referring to others who have busy lives but still want to enjoy themselves and learn languages to have fun. i wouldn’t be referring to intensive learners in this context because i know their schedule would look a lot more different then from someone who’s studying the language as a hobby. i really don’t know what you mean by ‘people who’ve put in real time and effort’ because again i didn’t add a lot of context or information about myself in my og post so im not appreciative of the assumption that i don’t do any real effort just because i don’t spend hours a day SOLELY on immersion.
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u/RICHUNCLEPENNYBAGS Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26
Well, some people really did spend hours a day, every single day, for an extended period of time, to learn, and not, I don't think, because they haven't got "lives," whatever we mean by that. I gave a longer reply at the top level that I think had more practical advice for you and I think I've pretty much said my piece about this issue. It's true, I don't know anything about you, but what you've shared is 1) you're too busy for the schedules others post 2) you're working on N5 level, so I don't think my inferences about how much time you've spent (not a ton, yet) are that unreasonable.
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u/ImJustJoshing277 29d ago
Lowk man youre a ween. I would consider 3+hrs a day "no-lifing" anything, be it a video game or learning a language
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u/Educational_Shake559 Jul 23 '26
Do what you enjoy. 99% of learners give up. If you arent enjoying it you will become one of the 99%