How many hours per day would I have to study to learn to speak japenese fluently in less than 6 months?

I have been studying Japanese for six years and am no where near fluent. To get a basic understanding of the language learn the written forms. If you were to cram all I studied into those months you would need to learn all 46 Hiragana in one month, and all 46 katakana within the next month. Then include 200+ kanji into your learning and you’ll get closer to being able to move freely in Japan.

Make sure you remember how to convert different verbs from their dictionary form to te form so that you can take anything out of a dictionary and use it. Also, a pocket phrase book is extremely helpful when you begin learning.

When getting the tempo of the language try to watch Japanese language movies with English subtitles. This way you can listen to the way they speak and you might pick up one or two phrases. Listening to music will also help with comprehension. What good is speaking the language if you cannot understand what is being said to you?

Also, many phrases have double meanings in the Japanese language. So learning just one meaning may get you in trouble.

Different regions have different dialects, so while one phrase may be used in the Hokkaido region, it might not be used in another as frequently. For instance, there are two ways depending on dialect to ask “What should I do?” There is “Dousurebaiidesuka”, or “Doushitaraiidesuka”

I highly doubt, even with full immersion, that you can learn to fluently speak Japanese in six months! As another poster suggested, set your goal a bit lower, something that can be reasonably accomplished. General vocabulary, dialogs that can be used on a daily basis, some understanding of the culture.

I recommend getting the computer program Rosetta Stone. It will probably be the best help for you at this point, and it’s quite successful.

Good luck!

To have a good understanding of the language, it cannot be done in 6 months. I worked for a Japanese factory a few years back. There were a couple of Americans that had trained in Japan (one had been there for several years) and they still did not have the language down pat. From my understanding from talking with the American trainers, you must continually study the language, or continually speak it to be fluent.

Good Luck

Bring your bar down lower. With any language, six months is too short of a time to expect fluency. Japanese is an entirely different written and cultural system.

You would not be fluent in Japanese unless you have lived and spoken Japanese for several years and even then you will be fluent only in the foreigner’s sense of the word – you would still have an accent, you would still have to practice, and you would still need the cultural fluency for it to mean anything.

You want to aim for being able to speak Japanese on a basic day to day level – how to have a basic conversation, how to not offend, how to greet people, how to manage eating and shopping, how to get a cab, etc. Cultural fluency is more important at first, and with it will eventually come linguistic fluency.

I would like to suggest that the ONLY way that you will be speaking Japanese fluently in that time is to live with and work with and socialize exclusively with people who are native speakers in the time you have before moving to Japan.

i suggest to just start it is a surprisingly lovely language and and u wont learn to speak it fluently but if you can at least learn he basic like how to say hi and ask various questions you should be fin relax and breath take about 45 min twice a day and study a Lil at a time an by the time u go u should be able to at least maneuver somewhat and they’ll under stand that your an American and they should at the very least know a Lil English

Japanese is a complex language.. i agree it differs from person to person.. but you also got to remember that it is also a language of customs and respect.. Id say it can be done.. but i think you’ll learn better once your there and using it daily to get info and communicate with others..

Before you learn to speak it you had better learn to spell it !

it depends on your attention span and how fast you are able to learn things , its different for everyone….it could take some people a few days , while it may take others years….

Probably the majority of the day, everyday.