I've been studying Japanese full time for just under 2 years, around May 2024. Started on Duolingo, then migrated to MaruMori September that year.
Tried out Spanish later that year, tried various other apps besides Duolingo, but nothing really ever felt like it was really getting me far, so I ended up just giving up on apps for the most part and just stuck to Busuu and Duolingo.
Irish I started just a few months ago, and using Irish with Mollie alongside Rosetta Stone from my Spanish purchase a few years back.
My goal at the start was to just be more supportive of my family, and also join in on my friends, as they said they were going to pick up Japanese also. All my friends eventually gave up, but my family didn't, so I stuck with the Japanese, and I still see myself continuing far into the future sticking to it.
I started off the journey just on Duolingo doing 5 minutes a day on Japanese. Eventually was doing 30 mins of Japanese. Then added Spanish and was doing 30 mins of Spanish as well, or sometimes hours depending on motivation. At some point in the journey after that it was down to 15 minutes each.
Sometime in 2025, I had a lull, where I felt I wasn't getting anywhere in my Japanese, or my Spanish, so I ended up retaking all of MaruMori again from the very start, and my Spanish also suffered from lack of effort. 2024 and early 2025 were a very stressful time to me too.
At some point down that line, I was maintaining a 30 minute upkeep of both JP and SP, and later still, I realised I was actually getting nowhere. Japanese flashcards alone would take the vast majority of those 30 minutes, so if I actually wanted to progress I'd have to do at least an hour, nevermind the listening practise you also need to do. So sometime late 2025 and early 2026, I really ramped up the time I spent on my languages. And despite the 2 odd years at learning my languages, it only feels like now I'm actually making progress. Which is weird, because I still feel like I'm at a level where I've only just begun to learn, I can read a fair amount of Spanish, but can't manage to do any decent output. Japanese is the same for only basic videos, but I routinely get sentences wrong, despite knowing all the words.
My Irish is very recent, but I have the added benefit of growing up and living in Ireland, so there's a few words I never had to study recently where I just know from exposure.
I know right now, I dedicate an hour to my languages, and then only 30 mins to immersion, but my goal is to reach B2 levels of JP,SP,IE and then reduce the dedicated studies while I'm in C1+ territory and just indulge in content more instead. So I feel like at some more advanced state, I can just stop dedicated study, and free up my day more. I'm sort of naive in thinking this though, as I'm not sure if that will ever happen, or I'll always have to dedicate large chunks to more advanced grammar points.
I've been doing this for a while now, but sort of don't want to tell anyone new to me I study languages, as I feel I have nothing to show for it. Which, I know isn't the case, but it sure feels that way.
So how has your progress been since you started? Any ups or downs or warnings you can give other users? My own piece of advice would be if you're doing something very difficult like Japanese, you'd really need to spend at least an hour a day if you want to get anywhere. Apps like Duolingo can advertise 5 minutes a day is enough, when it's really not, if you want to learn in any sane liveable amount of time.
TLDR:
I'm interested in hearing everyone in their language learning journey. Where/why you started, how it's been for you and what you plan to do in the future.
Do you feel there's a station you'll get off at and just enjoy the scenery, or will you keep chugging ahead aiming for that obscure goal of "fluent"?
Your thoughts?
Only working on Japanese currently. Technically I started in 2000 with undergrad classes, kept studying very part-time until a semester in Osaka a few years later. After, I almost entirely dropped it, just very light immersion here and there through media.
Why did I start? A friend asked me to do it with him and I needed to fill out my full-time course load. Always had an interest in the culture but languages have always been one of my weaker subjects, so I had to be talked into it. He ended up dropping the class halfway through the term, of course.
Around five-ish years ago I learned about SRS and picked up a program to start getting some of the vocab and kanji back. Also flipped through some old grammar. I started feeling how much I'd lost. Really demoralizing, and didn't have much motivation to push past it.
About three years ago I started getting more serious about it, once I heard about Seth Clydesdale's amazing Genki resources site. Genki is the popular beginner's textbook, and his site let you do the book's exercises online with some nice features. Sadly, the site got a takedown request, but before that, I revisited the last six chapters of Genki II with it. Ended up taking some time off when I went back to college for a short stint, but last year is when I really started to take it seriously. I finally switched to Anki and started doing 2+ hours a day of study and immersion.
Around the same time, I started developing an AI workflow for career development, and it was a complete game changer for my language learning. I use it mostly for planning and research, especially self-teaching pedagogy. That's how I discovered i+1 language learning (huge), a better way to manage my time, motivate me, make accommodations for ADHD, etc. While it's tempting to rely on AI heavily for questions, it's definitely not a replacement for asking a native user of the language. If you do, stick to stuff within your i+1 range so you have a good idea of when it's hallucinating an answer. While hallucination rates are better these days, it still happens. And follow up on the sources it gives you!
Once I started my new workflow, I went back to Seth's site for Tobira (it's still active!), an intermediate textbook. I went through it all over last summer, fall, and winter, just finishing it a few weeks ago. Now I'm doing planning for focused study on the JLPT N2 exam, and I'm feeling pretty good about taking it in December.
What are my future plans? N2 is the big goal, for a lot of reasons not entirely related to language learning itself, but my overall goal is to have the language be self-reinforcing. I want to get to a point where I can just pull up Bluesky or an NHK article and sustain the language. It'd be a disaster to lose progress again like I did last decade. I think I'm pretty close to this point, actually. I do have production work to do--the JLPT doesn't test English-to-Japanese production, so I've let it lag--but after that, I don't know! Where I go with the language will depend on other life factors at that point.
I have heard about Genki, but feel it's rather quite the shame a website like that got taken down. I know Genki has an app to use for flashcards, but afaik it's basically doing something you could have gotten for free from Anki, (I could be wrong though).
My family tells me that if you want more accurate responses from AI, you have to ask about the language, while speaking to the AI in that language. A lot of LLMs are fed on random user data from reddit and the like, so there's a lot of misinformation being generated based on that. So you get farther when talking about the language you're already speaking it to it. Anytime I phrase a question to an LLM about language I phrase it like "X..." is wrong, and "Y..." is right, explain the differences as to why. I'm hoping at that point because you've already told it the good and bad answer, it would explain it better. But honestly I've found a lot better personal growth from just read grammar books on those points than I did with a quicker reply from an LLM. A lot more effort though, I'll say.
Someone in my family is aiming for N2 this year too actually. It's honestly amazing how much a difference there is between N2 and N5. I'm always amazed at people getting that high, because it does require a very extensive amount of dedication. I do wish you the best luck with your tests, I'm sure if you study diligently you'll pass, no problems!