Q&A for all 日本語 LingQ Users 2025 EDITION!

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Back in 2020 i posted this question: https://forum.lingq.com/t/question-for-veteran-lingq-users-japanese-preferably/67341 that sadly didn’t get any answers :joy:

Well, since 2023 i have been using LingQ as my primary way to learn Japanese and as of now i have 21814 known words on lingQ & have read 5.250M words as of today.

I think i can safely say that LingQ works for learning a language but i still feel like i have so far to go. I’m speculating that i may consider myself “fluent” at least in terms of being able to easily read anything i pick up that interests me in the 60k-80k range of known words, naturally because we all know that “known words” on LingQ doesn’t actually mean you KNOW that many words.

Now for the Questions…
#1: Do you use LingQ as your primary source of study?
#2: How many Known words and words read do you have?
#3: Do you consider yourself fluent?
#4: How has your use of LingQ translated to Speaking?
#5: How many total hours have you spent studying Japanese on LingQ?

(Mine on lingQ is 1700 hours. If i had to guess in total including outside of lingQ its probably 2.5k hours all together.)

I look forward to hearing from fellow 日本語 LingQ users about how LingQ has served you personally and especially the ones that are way ahead of me in known words. I plan on doing this every year so please leave a comment!

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#1: Do you use LingQ as your primary source of study?

Yes, especially now that I’ve mostly stopped using Anki (which I now only use for Kanji writing practice, not grammar and vocab).

With LingQ, I’m now focusing on reading novels in Japanese. I have a small library of physical novels in Japanese (mostly familiar American and British novels translated into Japanese) and my goal is to be able to read them with relative ease and comfort. I consider the ability to read an adult novel the peak of reading comprehension. I also believe reading is by far the most important skill to master, as it helps you progress in writing, speaking, and listening by reinforcing your intuition of how the language operates. I’ve been importing physical text into LingQ with the assistance of Microsoft Lens (for text scanning with a smartphone) and Google Gemini (for turning the scanned text into Japanese text that can then be copied and pasted into LinqQ).

I also use Google Notebook LM to review online Japanese articles and generate natural sounding audio podcasts on interesting and complex topics. I import the text and audio into LinqQ to track known words and avoid having to consult an outside dictionary.

So, LingQ is my primary source of study, but I import materials I find interesting from outside rather than rely on what other users have shared.

#2: How many Known words and words read do you have?

Over 50,600 known words in Japanese, with nearly 2M words read (note that I had reset my progress in ~2020; this would be higher if i hadn’t, since I started using LingQ in 2018).

#3: Do you consider yourself fluent?

Yes, but fluency is a spectrum rather than an end state. I can survive in Japanese but I’m very conscious of where I lack fluency or competence (technical materials, improvising in spontaneous situations, comprehending store clerks who speak both quickly and softly, etc.). The fun now is seeing my fluency increase so that I can use my Japanese with greater ease and in more circumstances.

I’ll note that I passed JLPT N2 in 2022 (having failed it in 2018 or 2019) and am attempting N1 for the first time this year. LingQ was absolutely essential in getting to the point where I could pass that test.

#4: How has your use of LingQ translated to Speaking?

LingQ is a necessary but insufficient condition to being a fluent speaker. You need the training that LingQ (or, hypothetically, anything comparable to it) provides to be a competent speaker, but that alone is not enough. You need to put yourself in positions where you are forced to speak in Japanese and try to manage without outside tools. There’s no substitute for real life. Think of LingQ as being like going to school, whereas practicing in the real world is like getting on-the-job experience after you graduate.

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1: Yes. Apart from LingQ I only listen to podcasts throughout the day. I do some anki, but it’s more to pass time and I feel it’s more like a test than actual study. I guess the Japanese content I may consume leisurely is also a form of learning.

2: Around 54500 known words and 2,3 million read words.

3: No, not to the extent of how I’m naturally writing English here, or the ease with which I read in English. I still read much slower and need much more dictionary assistance with Japanese.

4: I have never spoken Japanese in person with anyone, but neither have I done it with English. I do believe that in Japanese I’d likely be able to interact on common daily situations, but wouldn’t yet be capable of approaching specific topics or advanced discussions. I don’t ever intend on making specific output practice or study.

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Congrats on all your effort @scrubtaku! 5.25M words read is super impressive!

#1: Do you use LingQ as your primary source of study?
I already “learned” Japanese before LingQ, but I have found LingQ useful for occasionally refreshing my Japanese reading and vocabulary since I’m not surrounded by the written language anymore. I should use it more often. I just imported コンビニ人間, which I’m looking forward to reading.

#2: How many Known Words and Words Read do you have?
I have 1M Words Read and 31k Known Words on LingQ, but since I already knew Japanese before using the platform, I’m not sure these numbers mean much.

#3: Do you consider yourself fluent?
Yes, though with strengths and weaknesses. I can handle everyday conversations, written communication, and even public speaking in Japanese. However, I rarely read novels, newspapers, or manga, so my reading isn’t as strong. I’m also rusty, since I no longer have the same exposure to the language, especially the written side.

#4: How has your use of LingQ translated to speaking?
Not directly applicable for me, since I already spoke Japanese before using LingQ.

I have used LingQ to learn Spanish. After 1M words read and essentially no practice, I found that I could speak at a B1 level after only a few hours of speaking practice (per the Emmersion test on italki and tutor feedback). RWL with LingQ really shines in building comprehension for conversation and laying the foundation for speech. My Spanish is much better now, though I still make mistakes. After more than 4M words read and 1000 hrs of listening, I don’t believe additional input will fix these mistakes, so I’ve started to do some deliberate practice to address them.

What would your answers to these questions be @scrubtaku ？

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Thank you for the well detailed answer!

Its very helpful to see other journeys and compare them to mine since there is not a lot of talk about Japanese progress using LingQ.

I stopped Anki pretty much cold turkey in 2023, at what point did you stop adding new words to Anki?

I agree with your speaking answer. Speaking is the worst part of my Japanese but my understanding keeps getting better and better which is essential in conversation at the end of the day.

Oh lastly how many hours if you had to guess, do you think you have spent altogether in Japanese? On LingQ, which i have spent most of my total time, i have 1700 hours total time spent studying

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Very interesting, Thank you for the reply!

What about your comprehension? After 54k words known, do you feel that you understand most the things that you enjoy like watching tv/movies compared to when you were at 20k known words or do you notice much of a difference at all would you say?

That is very interesting, assuming you typed this out without help, then your English is fantastic. There is absolutely nothing wrong with not ever wanting to speak but i do wonder after a certain point, would you be able to speak from getting so much input. If you don’t mind me asking, what is your total time spent studying on LingQ in total? Mine is 1700 hours roughly.

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I wouldn’t say anything. My account is from 2018 when I was studying Spanish, but I only started Japanese here in 2024 when I finally had money to pay for premium. I was studying before, but I feel I committed every possible mistake, and almost everything I’ve learned was using LingQ. I’d say I still struggle with some types of content, particularly traditional, bureaucratic and scientific terms. I guess if it’s too informal or regional it also trips me up. But I do understand most of it, though I can’t really pinpoint milestones by the thousands.

Thanks. Unpopular opinion here, but it seems to me that apart from muscle training, enough input will inevitably lead to being able to communicate. I noticed I can recall most kana to mind despite not practicing writing, if that matters.

Mine is 752 hours here. I spend 90 minutes a day on LingQ reading while listening, and I listen to podcasts on another app, I’d say at least 5 hours a day while going through my day. I’m not sure if passive listening is much effective, but I do think that it gets increasingly more active as you advance. I read mostly classic literature here, there’s a big culture of reading public domain texts in Japan, and youtube has a ton of channels dedicated to that. I know not everyone is into that, but it’s what I do.

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Thanks for replying!

What was your primary method of learning before LingQ?

EDIT(i just realized the 800 hours probably is about Spanish, not Japanese) I noticed on your profile you said you had 800 hours of speaking. At what point did you start to feel more confident in your speaking? For me its my worst part of my Japanese mainly because i just simply have not done very much of it. Just a little.

that is super interesting. It just goes to show how much easier other languages are compared to Japanese lol

#1: Do you use LingQ as your primary source of study?
Yes, i have since 2023. From 2019-2023 i used mostly anki flash cards with a little bit of Wani Kani and VERY little Genki. For me the bulk of my progress didn’t really start until i started taking things more seriously in 2023 with just tons of reading on LingQ.

Ever since then i haven’t used much of anything else other than a little bit of bunpro for grammar but i never stuck with that lol

#2: How many Known words and words read do you have?
21814 known words on lingQ & have read 5.250M

#3: Do you consider yourself fluent?
No haha. My comprehension has gone WAY up across the board though since i started going hard on LingQ though which is helpful for when people speak to me or just consuming content. I go to Japan yearly or so and every time i return since 2023 i can understand and read so much more than when i first went in 2017.

#4: How has your use of LingQ translated to Speaking?
This is a tough one for me since speaking is my worst subject. Im now just barely doing some speaking practice with Tutors and i do struggle a bit in forming correct sentences. I can def get my point across though with my vocabulary but i just simply do not have enough speaking practice that i need. I think i have like 30 hours in total speaking MAYBE.

I will say though, that especially the more i listen and read the transcripts to podcasts or just people speaking to each other, i will surprise myself with the words i pick up from that and use during the little speaking that i do have. I can understand the teachers though like 90% of the time which is just frustrating when i want to reply to them.

If you have any speaking tips please leave them lol

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  1. By hours, LingQ is the most. Recently, I have been buying audible books, transcribing them (I wrote a python script after hitting the transcription max), and reading them while listening. Started 2 years ago, prior to that had studied with other methods.
  2. My known words is 21k, total read words is 3.5M. However, I’m fairly strict about marking a word as known and trash most grammatically marginal variants and proper names. Many transcribed texts will combine particles with words for example and I just trash things like that.
  3. No, though I can hold a conversation and do Italki lessons once a week. I believe I’m around a B2 level. Listening I’m pretty decent, but still have trouble talking or remembering words to say them (but would recognize them if spoken). As part of my Italki lessons, I do a written Japanese homework assignment each week (just a few paragraph essay), which I highly recommend.
  4. It’s helpful, but my analogy it’s more like going to Flight School, knowing how to fly the plane and everything you are supposed to do, but you also just need time in the air. My current suspicion is you need about 1 hour of speaking practice to every 10 to 20 hours of listening to maintain parity. But I don’t have quite that much speaking practice.
  5. 720 hours.

Some final random thoughts:

  1. One thing I wish I had done sooner is spend more time learning Kanji. The reason is counter-intuitive, but if you can recognize the Kanji, then you can read along while listening much easier, and do things like watch a Netflix show with Japanese subtitles. My current knowledge of Kanji is ~1000 or so, but I’m really pushing hard to get it to the 2200 standard Kanji.

  2. Reading/Listening books is much harder than listening to podcasts. The vocabulary and grammar are consistently at a much higher level. I still listen to podcasts, but books have far more unknown words that I can learn.

  3. Doing weekly writing assignments is surprisingly effective. I’d recommend doing this to compliment any Italki lessons (my teacher corrects them for me each week). Spending time without pressure trying to figure out how you might say something has taught me a substantial amount of grammar and vocabulary. Sometimes a few paragraphs can take many hours because I end up reading up on a subtle vocabulary and grammar. I often try to use a bit unfamiliar grammar to see if I can get it right.

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1，是的lingq是我的主要学习资源平台，我接触过非常多的是软件，还是选择了lingq,可以导入很多的各种我非常感兴趣的内容，尽管它有很多bug，但是随着反馈，也会修复解决，但是我永远会发现新错误。

2，我在日语中，系统记录的已知词汇为43000，这并不是实际掌握的数量。

3，我学习的目标是看漫画，玩游戏，以及看日本轻小说，很多基础词汇已经很熟练了，可以识别，但是永远有不认识的词汇，这很正常，我看我的母语中文的书籍，都有很多不认识的词汇，只要在我感兴趣的领域能够流畅阅读，这门语言的就发挥该有的作用了，即便系统记录43000词汇，我需要学习的还是很多很多。

4，口语方面没什么变化，口语需要练习输出，精炼常用的词汇以及语法，最后通过实践达到熟练，但是我没有和人对话的需求，也没有日语写作的需求，所以我没有在这方面训练，但是应该不难，和gpt对话以及写作批改完全可以训练至熟练。

5，我也使用了1700小时来学习日语，这是软件记录的数据，现在英语也开始学习，大概有二百小时吧，可以说我为了学习语言，放弃了很多娱乐的时间，但是最后的成果是值得的

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My university had an excellent program. We had eight classes a week, which included five conversation classes conducted entirely in Japanese right from the start. The teachers did an i+1 kind of thing and built our confidence in speaking. There were also opportunities to speak and connect with conversation groups and language partners.

After three semesters, including about 240 hours of conversation classes, I went to Japan for an exchange. I was already comfortable with basic communication in clear, standard Japanese. My vocabulary was limited, and comprehension of natural spoken language was still developing, but by the end of eight months there, I was comfortable with casual conversation.

The following summer I did an internship at a factory in Japan in what was essentially a no English environment. Those three months pushed me to functional fluency (after about 3 years total).

This all took place before YouTube, streaming, podcasts, or italki. My listening and speaking practice came almost exclusively through live interaction, while my reading focused on what I encountered in my daily life (assignments, correspondence, signs, labels, menus, manuals, documentation, articles, forms, reports, etc).These areas became my strengths.

Reading novels, manga, and newspapers, remained difficult for much longer. However, there is a great deal of this written language that is just not used in everyday interpersonal communication. In hindsight, I think this focus helped me achieve spoken fluency faster, and I expanded from there.

Oh boy, I see what you are seeing. The formatting is not great on that forum profile. I’ll have to fix that. Sorry. It is for Spanish, but my goals for 2025 were to reach 200 hrs of speaking and 800 hours of listening

I had hundreds of hours of conversation classes before I was conversational or fluent. However, I didn’t have a significant amount of input outside of those hours, so I think someone with your background would progress faster. Ultimately you will have to practice and go through those steps to build confidence. Based on my experience with Spanish, which was more CI first, I’d say it can feel more frustrating because of the big gap between comprehension and output levels. Don’t let it deter you!

Yes, and also I think I have some benefit as Japanese and Spanish phonetics overlap a lot. I probably would have had a much harder time with French.

My opinions :

  1. See above. The only way out is through. You need lots of hours of conversation. It can be frustrating. Keep going.
  2. Work on some monologues on topics you want to talk about (language islands) Use AI to help develop them. Ask for words phrases and how a native speaker would express the ideas. Practice those so they roll off the tongue, and reinforce by bringing up the topics in conversations with the tutor and ask for their feedback. Go for communication not perfection and move on to the next language island before too long. You can revisit later.
  3. You can do similar things with grammar points that trip you up. I often have chat GPT run drills me for those.
  4. If there is a Japanese language group or conversation partner in your area, personal relationships are a great way to learn and connect.
  5. Keep going!
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Noticed you seem familiar with AI. Do you have any experience in AI conversation tools like Languatalk for practicing additional speaking ?

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I’m definitely no expert with AI. I need to learn more about them.

I’ve heard good things about languatalk. I tried it and liked it, but not enough to get a subscription. I already have a subscription here at LingQ for reading & listening, one at WorldsAcross (kind of like a Spanish only italki) for conversation practice, and I use ChatGPT and Whisper to assist outside of that. I think that covers my needs.

Currently, I use chat GPT for defintions, explanations, and for drills to help with recall and automatization. I use WhisperTranscription to transcribe my audio lessons by speaker, and I have ChatGPT review the conversation, note and explain my errors and awkward expressions and provide the original and corrected phrases for import into LingQ where I LingQ and reverse flashcard them.

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I stopped adding words only in 2024, when I was adding highly specialized vocabulary and sentences (political science, philosophy, etc.) and then deleted the decks only a few months ago. I liked Anki but I realized it’s only useful for getting to an intermediate level. Once there, it’s counterproductive since it takes time away from more useful activities like reading books.

I started in late 2013, so nearly 12 years. Assuming 1-2 hours per day, let’s say about 4,000-8,000 hours. Probably closer to 8,000, especially after factoring in travel to Japan, conversing with Japanese friends and family, etc. Maybe even the legendary 10,000 hours! LingQ says I’ve studied for 277 hours, which seems way too low.

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Thank you so much again for the detailed answer. It sounds like your college had a great program and it sounded like an amazing opportunity.

Thank you for the tips and the motivation about speaking as well, it def helps. I just gotta keep practicing speaking!

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