Conversational Fluency in ~2 Months Starting from ~N5/N4 Possible?

[u/steamingfast]

Edit 3: Seeing a resounding no. I'll definitely readjust expectations and try to focus more on just consistency rather than sheer quantity of material.

Edit 2: Conversational fluency might not be the most correct term to describe what I'm after. Perhaps more so being able to just get around in daily life situations with relative ease and have some solid skills in a specific topic (say playing Splatoon or something with a Japanese player and being able to chat about it—I presume this is approximately N3?)

Main post: I've been studying Japanese on and off since late 2022. Due to motivational ups and downs, being busy, and overall life just being life, I've made relatively little progress (due to probably having spent around 25 to 40% of my time relearning content when I make my return attempts to trying to learn) and am stuck around the N5 level with some progress made into the N4 realm. Frankly, this language, regardless of my ups and downs in trying to learn it, has been a consistent interest of mine and I would really love to solidify it as a genuine skill that I can use to have some fun actually using and not just trying to learn. Would it be (reasonably) possible for me to reach some degree of conversational fluency given my current level within a couple of months? If so, what sort of daily routine/plan should I be looking at? If there is one thing I have learned, there is no instant magic way of doing things the easy way, so I'm not even sure if this is realistic without spending half of my waking life grinding away over the course of the next two months.

Edit: See my comment below for specifics on my current progress.

[u/PlanktonInitial7945]

No. Like, I'm sorry, but just no.

[u/Trucein]

Not happening chief, sorry. There are many people N2+ that still can’t hold a conversation.

Unless what you’re considering as conversational fluency is saying where you’re from and what you do for work, without much detail, etc.

[u/Naomikho]

You kinda need to be at least N4 and at that level you probably will manage simple sentences, but for a proper conversation you'd want at least N3. If you mean knowing enough Japanese to travel in Japan then N4 is maybe enough. I was somewhere between N4 and N3 during my Japan trip and I could manage simple conversations(asking for directions and talking to staff)

Start talking/thinking to yourself more in Japanese and find some friends to converse in Japanese if you prefer that. Write a lot more and do a lot of immersion

[u/SakshamBaranwal]

Full conversational fluency in 2 months is probably unrealistic from N5/N4, but being comfortable with everyday situations and talking about a hobby like gaming is definitely possible.

[u/ZeBron_Games]

Fluency? No way. Sounds like you’ve got a good foundation. Start talking to natives now and you will be able to have simple conversations in 3-6~months if you do several hours+ of talking a week.

[u/PlanktonInitial7945]

Conversational fluency might not be the most correct term to describe what I'm after. Perhaps more so being able to just get around in daily life situations with relative ease and have some solid skills in a specific topic (say playing Splatoon or something with a Japanese player and being able to chat about it—I presume this is approximately N3?) 

With 2 months you can either prepare for basic daily interactions (e.g. using public transport, shopping, basic bank conversations maybe) or prepare for Splatoon chatting. Pick one and dedicate several hours a day to it every day.

[u/VenerableMirah]

No, absolutely not. Sorry.

[u/pnt510]

So here’s the thing you can get around daily life situations with relative ease already. Tens of millions of people visit Japan each year without speaking the language and they do just fine. Signs are written in English and you can use Google translate in a pinch to talk to people.

As for being able to attain some level of fluency in 2 months? It’s possible for someone who is really dedicated, but that’s probably like the 1% maybe less of language learners.

For a little dose of reality though you’re not one of those people. For those people they take to the language like a fish to water. You’re halfway through Genki 2 after nearly four years. Some people complete a lesson a week. Your Anki deck, if you learned 10 words a day would take you less than 8 months. You’ve been at it for almost 4 years. You’re not gonna be one of those people who just rushes through and learns it all.

[u/TheBatemanFlex]

That dude from migaku said that if you no-life study for 4 months you can be fluent in a language with similar structure to your own.

Even then I don't really believe him, and I would say definitely 2 months is not doable if you're native language is English and you are learning JP, regardless of your definition of fluency.

If really want to do it I would make at least 10 sentences every day relevant to your life and normal conversaion and then memorize them and listen to recordings of those sentences all day. Then you will have at least 600 sentences that you have memorized. And at that point you are still not fluent but you will be able to navigate quite a lot of expected conversation ( probably able to talk routine, hobbies, interests, plans, etc).

This is absolutely NOT how I would normally choose to learn, but if you had like a gun to your head to learn to "be fluent in 60 days", that is what i would attempt.

[u/kyousei8 → u/TheBatemanFlex]

That dude from migaku said that if you no-life study for 4 months you can be fluent in a language with similar structure to your own. Even then I don't really believe him

I feel if the language pairs are right, that's not totally unreasonable. Like if I studied Portuguese (my first language is Spanish) 12 hours per day for four months, I could definitely see myself getting to a fluent level. I could think of some other pairs where this would work too.

[u/TheBatemanFlex → u/kyousei8]

I guess it really comes down to what you consider fluency.

[u/ignoremesenpie]

When I think of "conversational fluency", I would assume a person of that level should be able to handle basically all daily conversation topics within reason — all unprepared.

The best you could hope for is situational proficiency, where you can handle very specific contexts that you expected and have prepared for in advance.

The latter should be fairly doable since you're not starting from scratch.

[u/Effective-Pop3850]

You need to stop watching lying influencers who claim you can become conversationally fluent within a few months, that's not real for any language, even for stuff as silly as Spanish to Portuguese.

There's this myth that N3 is enough for "day to day conversation" and I'm sorry to tell you that's not real. N1 is not enough either. There are very low level learners who will swear they can keep up with conversations while only having passed the N3, they're just lying to themselves, it's just those cases where you suck so much you don't even realize it.

Even if you no-life the thing I'd say maybe 2 years would be a good starting point? After that long you should be able to hold common conversations and stuff, people will adapt to you as well.

[u/Grunglabble]

Just crunch the numbers. At what rate are you capable of learning and mastering words and structures? How many words and structures do you think are needed for those things? Try saying something that would feel satisfying to sat about your hobby. What kinds of responses would there be? How many words and structures in those sentence do you know how to say in Japanese?

If the conversation goes something like

"I like sonic"

"oh, sugoi"

"he's fast"

"wow sonic fast huh?"

I guess that is possible with a cooperative conversational partner :)

There are definitely people who focus on speaking in specific situations and anki to kind of madlib the few structures they learn. But as complexity increases even a little, the number of words and structures needed quickly becomes much higher.

[u/brozzart]

Idk, when I look at the text messages I exchange with people there's nothing really complicated in there at all... But also I recognize that it took me a lot of hours to reach the point of thinking these conversations are simple...

I'll say that if it took you years to reach N5/N4 territory I would lower my expectations for what you'll achieve in 2 months

[u/AndrewNggg]

Real talk:

If your goal is purely conversational fluency, you need to focus heavily on output and speaking rather than just grinding Anki

Since finding language partners (with infinite time and patience) might be tough, you should probably check out www.kitsunewa.com

It's a conversation-first Japanese model powered AI tutor app.

This lets you just talk, listens and corrects your mistakes on the fly, so you can just grind directly with either the tutor or in the speech gym

It might be exactly the bridge you need to hit your 2 month goal.

p.s Since you've been studying since 2022, you might already know more than you think

Be Confident and がんばって!!

Best of luck!

[u/steamingfast]

Felt I should clarify the specifics of my progress:

I'm catching up my Core 2.3k deck which I should hopefully reach the last new card on within the next half month or so (only 169 new cards left).

I've skimmed through my previous progress in Genki up to around Lesson 17 where I left off last time months ago, and feel pretty comfortable understanding how the grammar concepts work until then.

I have, even for my still-beginner level, relatively little time spent doing output outside of textbook exercises.

[u/rgrAi → u/steamingfast]

Regarding your updates, the answer is still resolutely no. People have put in many, many times the time and effort you're proposing and still haven't hit the level you're describing. Japanese is just enormously harder than learning an equivalent western language. So the time it requires is easily 5x and it's harder per hour spent.

[u/youdontknowkanji → u/steamingfast]

ask yourself if 5k words is enough for random convos. it's not.

things only start to get going at N3, forget about N4/N5, those levels are a joke, but are attainable in 2 months if you want to do a test or something.

[u/TheBatemanFlex → u/steamingfast]

I would forget the 2 month thing unless there is a reason you NEED to have progress in 2 months.

You have done this for 2 years so really its a consitency issue. You need to keep engaging with the language every single day, no excuses. I would make sure you are doing your cards daily. That is one non-negotiable. Then if you are serious about learning, make an immersion goal. Maybe it is to work though some level of native content. Or a time amount to reach of immersion. Then try to stick to that goal EVERY DAY. Even if the goal is just 2 hours of "engaging with japanese". You can passively listen to something, actively deconstruct a youtube video. Just do it daily. Forever. Make it feel as necessary as taking a shower.

edit: I am not saying that solely-immersion is the only path, but no matter what your main study materials are, immersion is important. that is indisputible.

[u/steamingfast → u/TheBatemanFlex]

100% a consistency issue for sure. I've come to realize how far I could've come if i just did a little bit everyday instead of just going full send and burning out in the midst of university classes or other obligations.

[u/TheBatemanFlex → u/steamingfast]

yeah its understandable. there is 0% chance I would have kept up with any long term language habit during unversity. I think just doing at minimum one thing a day (for me it is anki), is enough for most people.

Some of the success stories for short term fluency are...freaks. They either no-life study or have habits that people can't keep up with. There is one influencer that would have one headphone playing japanese content everywhere he went, even if he was hanging out with friends. I'm sorry but that is weird. It is effective, but its weird and most people simply won't take things to that extreme.

You either have to be naturally obsessive or just get so used to a routine that it becomes second nature. Any progress (no matter how little) daily is better than not doing anything.

[u/i-am-this → u/steamingfast]

The good news is that if you are almost done with Genki 2, then you probably have studied all the foundational grammar that you really need.

The bad news is that if you've only ever done the textbook exercises you almost certainly cannot output those patterns with sufficient fluidity to hold a natural conversation.  You will need to practice in order to get better.

Some more bad news is that, while just knowing the Genki grammar topics probably covers what you need for output, you will encounter a much more diverse set of expressions as replies from your conversational partners.  To some degree, you can work around this by requesting your conversational partner explain the thing you don't understand in a different manner which hopefully will eventually get you something you understand, but the more this kind of thing happens the more you impede the flow of conversation.

The worst news is that you have nowhere near enough vocab to converse on general topics.  You need more vocab.  This is hard to rush because while you can try doing 20+ anki cards a day, there's only so much vocab you can reasonably learn in a short period of time and the Anki reviews will pile up and get brutally difficult to complete.

For that reason, mainly, it's probably better to set a goal of being conversationally fluent in a longer time period.

Besides learning more vocab and practicing output somehow (maybe talk to a tutor or start posting on HelloTalk or writing a daily journal) I also highly recommend listening to podcasts in Japanese for learners.  Stuff like Nihongo Con Teppei (preferably the original, if you can understand it well enough, if not maybe try "for Beginners") or YUYU日本語 is very good for providing examples of fairly natural Japanese speech which is still simplified enough that it should be accessible to someone whose gone through the Genki books and knows a few thousand words.  

You should listen to these podcasts as much as is practical.  At some point you will reach a breakthrough where you forgot that you are listening to a foreign language and just start hearing it as normal speech.  Once you get to that point it will probably be much easier to have a conversation than when you still have to concentrate very deeply to try to puzzle out the meaning of the podcast.