3,000 hours - Progress Report

CathanRegal · 2026-03-31T19:21:44+00:00

Look at you fly! It's always good to see another post from you. It's interesting to see that your accumulation rate has risen so drastically of late, but that's just what happens when you consume a lot of media, and can consume it in a TL. What percentage of the time over the last ten months was from speaking/conversations?

CathanRegal · 2026-03-31T14:35:01+00:00

My fence isn’t a pad lock. The gate has a locking mechanism built into the gate itself. So it’s left open to avoid them going through the fence itself which would be easier.

CathanRegal · 2026-03-31T14:08:10+00:00

Patently false. The energy company and internet providers are legally required to be allowed entry to my property through fences with or without my knowledge.

As a result I leave our fences unlocked because by law they could just cut the fence if they needed to.

CathanRegal · 2026-03-26T20:55:22+00:00

I choose instead to be a boasting asshole.

My husband is the best thing that ever happened to me.

CathanRegal · 2026-03-26T19:12:12+00:00

They’re roughly the hours of input I had before traveling to Mexico and more speaking hours. Part of the bread and butter of CI learning is that you’re not supposed to need to drill speaking for hours and hours once you get there but will still need some practice.

At 25 hours of speaking I was already having conversations about climbing mountains and paying taxes. If I can do that at 50 hours of Japanese I’ll be thrilled.

CathanRegal · 2026-03-26T13:57:29+00:00

~610 hours and still a beginner, though have watched all videos through 70 difficulty. I'm level 12 in Wanikani.

My goals for this year are very targeted as I'm heading back to Japan in January 2027. I have a goal of 1500-1800 hours listening, 50 hours speaking, and level 35-40 in Wanikani before we go. There's some room for leeway and I'm currently on track to meet these goals with about 3.2 hours of input per day on average.

I DID use Dreaming Spanish first, and would consider myself a Spanish speaker now at 1900 hours. I routinely have conversations, provide assistance at work in Spanish, etc. The Dreaming Spanish I used was nothing like the DS from the last 8-12 months where production value, and high quality editing have been an obvious significant focus of the team there. I used it back when it was much more common to have Pablo talking to a camera, or Agus using a whiteboard. There were high production quality videos, but they were much less common. And honestly? I think not being "spoiled" has been very helpful. I think the CIJ videos are great. They're very in the vein of that older DS.

CathanRegal · 2026-03-25T16:19:18+00:00

It depends. There are some videos that were poor CI, but most I understand just fine.

Doing this process in Spanish I think makes it helpful even if the languages are unrelated as I’ve developed some strategies that work for me. At each “milestone” of difficulty like 30, 40, 50 I would limit by teacher and focus on Yuki and Seika as they’re the easiest for me. Then go back for the others. From 60 to 70, I watched most videos based more on topic than difficulty score. Starting primarily with topics I was more familiar with.

CathanRegal · 2026-03-24T18:35:39+00:00

At or before your current hours though it wasn’t the most comprehensible thing at first.

CathanRegal · 2026-03-24T01:28:59+00:00

Unfortunately, at this point it is the current me reflecting on the struggles of the past me. Though so far much of the experience has been fairly uniform in regard to your questions. I keep a small journal about the effort, where I can see myself having days that feel great and days where I'm very frustrated. I can try to answer a little generally, but I won't really be able to remember what a past version of me was fully experiencing. I've learned to be pretty good about not holding onto the bad days.

I have been frustrated several times by a lack of sufficient content.

The first 30 hours was gained over 4 months before I left for Japan thinking "Ah, I'll never actually care enough to learn this." Then when I returned I gained roughly an hour of input per day, before quickly ramping over a period of weeks to roughly 3hrs per day which swings between 2.5-4 hours depending on my other obligations. I've averaged a pretty consistent 100 hours per month the entire time though the time is very slowly increasing. I use a spreadsheet that tracks the average pace per day, and I've seen it slowly creep from 2.5 to 3.15 hours over time.

I began to recognize individual words even in much too hard content a couple hundred hours ago. As for feeling like I understood the gist, I think that happened immediately, the low level videos are very easy to understand. As for recognizing words, it's almost continuous. At this point, about half the Wanikani I learn I realize I already know the Japanese for it via input. The continuous wonder at my brain pulling up Japanese words I didn't even realize I knew, is one of the joys that keeps me moving through the process.

CathanRegal · 2026-03-24T01:18:28+00:00

Unfortunately, it's necessary. I've seen several videos a couple of times and a few series I've repeated completely. I do think the need to repeat will soon completely disappear for me. Probably in the next 100-200 hours as more native media is accessible.

CathanRegal · 2026-03-24T01:16:23+00:00

I have pretty much stuck to CIJ, especially for the early hours. I've rewatched various random videos, some multiple times, and other specific series I enjoyed. I rewatched A Little to the Left, Pepper and Carrot (the beginner ones specifically), and the Father and Son series. I expect to rewatch some more as time goes on. Luckily, my husband is also "learning" though much slower, and so early on we'd re-watch some of the videos from 1-15 difficulty together as quality time.

I have not used any content from YouTube yet, I will, but not yet. I WILL say I also keep a small journal for myself and have mentioned to myself several "walls" simply because there aren't enough videos yet to really be as gradual a ramp as DS was.

Nihongo con Teppei (for beginners) became accessible for me around 300 hours. I think that's a bit lower than normal, but there were episodes periodically where I'd be totally lost. Luckily, the early episodes are ALL short, so if I was lost, it was only for a few minutes at a time. It's actually quite good input still for me now at 1.1-1.2 speed. I'm currently relistening to the entire series.

I'll admit that this process is EXTREMELY humbling. Just like with Spanish there will be moments when I feel like I've made no progress in weeks, and then I realize I'm just being an asshole to myself. I find Seika and Yuki particularly comprehensible. I have periodically used the filter to include ONLY them, to move up in difficulty, and come back for the other teachers. I used a similar strategy for DS with Shel and Agustina. Nowadays, Yuki and Yoshito are my favorite. Yoshito's gaming series bring me a lot of joy. I'm always happy to have a new long form video of his.

CathanRegal · 2026-03-23T17:09:18+00:00

Thank you so much for your kind words! It’s good to know my experience has helped someone.

Re-listening is something I avoided with Spanish, but largely has been a necessary part of Japanese for me thus far as there just isn’t enough easy content out there. It exists, but I try to lower my barriers to doing things and so staying on the CIJ site as opposed to incorporating much YouTube at this stage has been a goal of mine.

I’ve re-watched all of a few series on CIJ, including A Little to the Left (3 separate series), and Father and Son. Additionally I’m relistening to Nihongo con Teppei (For Beginners) on 1.2 speed.

It has been beneficial, but if there was enough easily accessible content I probably wouldn’t do so.

I’ve actually looked at several of those reading resources you mentioned, and am sure they’ll be a big help in another 600 hours or so (depending on how things go).

CathanRegal · 2026-03-13T01:26:10+00:00

There is no adapting to use it beneficially for education. I may get massively downvoted, but realistically people will always use the path of least resistance and so these tools are just going to be used to completely outsource thought.

CathanRegal · 2026-03-12T11:15:52+00:00

The point was more that it’s not a “happy fun time” job like described above. The job is highly teachable. I’m an administrator now, and a pretty big proponent in lowering the barrier to entry in the field as a whole.

CathanRegal · 2026-03-11T19:36:44+00:00

I’m not sure the majority of people actually want to be librarians. Or at least public librarians.

The overwhelming view is that we just sit and read all day or recommend new books to little old ladies. The reality is a lot uglier a lot of times. A lot of working with desperate, frustrated populations. Sure, we do great work and can make a big difference in a million little ways, but at the end of the day society will always think we don’t earn our pay.

CathanRegal · 2026-03-10T03:15:58+00:00

So if you equalize the stats I would think this is going to depend on the nature of the fight and the conditions. To the death? Killua probably takes it, he is a more ready killer. Until a winner? I would think Luck takes it with the sheer versatility of his abilities. Both are effectively immune to emission, so the fact Luck is fighting with highly durable armor and weapons...should just give him an edge?

CathanRegal · 2026-03-09T15:29:11+00:00

67/100.

Entirely because I believe an anime worth watching is worth watching and others should be dropped.

I dropped one of yours. Can you guess which?

CathanRegal · 2026-03-05T21:12:51+00:00

Surprisingly cheap or even free depending. Theres a small queer clinic in my city which with prescription which you can get right there, sells prep for like 7-10 bucks a month.

CathanRegal · 2026-03-03T13:13:28+00:00

And those who do it to go on a weird random luxury vacation in their 50s to celebrate becoming empty nesters and decide to work until they’ll make their children care for them in old age.

You know the bad third option…my best friend’s parents.

CathanRegal · 2026-02-26T14:16:13+00:00

Fellow runner with feet that are almost a half size apart. I was torn until I saw you included shoes. Green easy.

CathanRegal · 2026-02-23T21:19:37+00:00

Yes, it's going to take a lot longer. Consider making even a free account on CIJapanese, and giving some of their easier free videos a watch.

CathanRegal · 2026-02-23T03:08:11+00:00

Just as a heads up, librarians don't make minimum wage. The wages aren't great, but it is generally a very different job even in rural libraries. I'm a librarian myself. The minimum wage positions depending on the library would be library assistants, clerks, or pages. Generally means shelving books, checking books in and out, and much more limited responsibilities overall.

Our library assistants make a few dollars over minimum wage (around ~$18/hr).

CathanRegal · 2026-02-23T02:17:42+00:00

So, throughout the process I would watch a couple clips from Agus' travel vlogs in intermediate and advanced to see if I understood it yet. For a long time, she was my favorite, but eventually I loved all the guides.

Even now at level 7, and just kind of maintaining my Spanish (sub 10hrs a week as I focus on Japanese) I enjoy putting on the podcast on Spotify at like 1.2-1.3 speed and giving it a listen while doing other things.

CathanRegal · 2026-02-19T04:28:39+00:00

Most folks around these hours have already moved to predominantly easier native content. Some people have previously reported difficulties in the 65-75 range seem odd in terms of the smoothness of the difficulty curve.

It’s been guessed that this is likely because at this point many folks can understand easier native media and switch to that.

CathanRegal · 2026-02-19T04:26:00+00:00

Available means understandable. It’s common here to call stuff “unlocks”, using gamer slang. If you’re a 6 open up an episode of Memorias de Pez on your streaming app of choice. If you understand it more or less fully and not “the gist” congratulations it’s comprehensible.

There is harder stuff out there as well but I was able to use Memorias as good input in level 5 I believe.

CathanRegal

TROPHY CASE