According to the US Department of State, Japanese is one of the hardest languages for English natives to learn. It doesn’t have many similarities in structure to English. They estimate it takes 88 weeks of learning, or 2200 hours, to reach fluency. That’s about a B2 level on the CEFR charts, or JLPT N2 level (conversational).
In an honest opinion, learning Japanese takes as little as 90 days. We’ve seen plenty of learners start having in-depth conversations in Japanese at this time. Follow the right methods, and you’ll get there fast. The difference here are the goals you set. How long it takes to learn Japanese on average depends on if you want to learn Japanese for anime. Or are you learning to speak conversationally? Or to speak Japanese fluently? Reliable public forums have users’ claim that it took about 800 hours of study time to be able to watch anime with full comprehension. Others said it takes 2-5 years of effort to reach mastery, adding that you could survive in the language after one year.
Multiple people have shown that it’s possible to survive in Japanese with as little as 6 months of studying; sometimes even in 3 months to a conversational level (around A2-B1).
While speaking may not be all that tough, writing can take your life away. Mastering Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji isn’t child’s play. It takes much dedication and time. Learning the Kana and how to pronounce the syllables is relatively easy, the grammar is about in the middle between easy and difficult, and the Kanji is very hard. The finer points of the language are easy to learn but difficult to come by.
Rather than alphabets, Hiragana and Katakana are more correctly called syllabaries. A way to kill two birds with one stone is to memorize each sound with the written component. Get a good hiragana chart and a good katakana chart, practice writing, and saying each of the sounds aloud.
Hiragana and Katakana can more accurately be referred to, as syllabaries than alphabets. Memorizing each sound with the written component would give an edge to a learner against a hard language, with good hiragana and katakana charts. Practising writing and saying the sounds aloud would further drive fear away.
The Kana (a way to collectively refer to the hiragana and katakana together) is rather systematic. If it sounds scary, know that it is rather easy to learn this. Katakana is just a different way of writing hiragana, and they are fairly similar. The difference is that katakana is used for more foreign words or to provide emphasis for what is written. You should be able to learn this in the span of a couple of weeks to maybe a month. In contrast to these rather easy writing systems is the much more difficult-to-learn third writing system.
The Kana (a term used to refer to the hiragana and katakana as a whole) is rather systematic. It may seem intimidating, but it is actually quite simple. Katakana and Hiragana are very similar; actually, Katakana is simply another way of writing Hiragana! The distinction is that Katakana is used for more foreign words or to emphasise what is written, that shouldn’t take more than a couple of weeks to a month. In contrast to these relatively simple writing systems, the third writing system is far more difficult to master.
The Kanji writing system is similar to Chinese, and as such, it would be much easier for a learner who has knowledge of some form of Chinese or another language with a similar writing system to learn it as compared to a native English speaker. There are thousands of Kanji, however, the exact number is unknown. However, there are 2,136 (jouyou kanji), which are the kanji learned by Japanese students in junior high. An adult should know about a thousand more kanji to be able to read properly.
The key, as in learning any language, is to put in the effort required. Don’t be discouraged, and charge forward in learning!
