The 2–5 Year Roadmap

← Back to the homepage | Watch my live streams & VODs on YouTube

TL;DR: Plan for about 4 years to reach functional fluency. At a sustainable pace of about 10 new words per day, or roughly 50 retained words per week, most learners steadily reach around 10,000 words without burnout. Faster paths, around 2 years, are possible with exceptionally high retention and immersion, while slower paths, up to 5 years, still work if life gets in the way. This system prioritizes consistency, retention, and finishing over speed.

In the last post, we talked about why 10,000 words equals functional fluency, roughly the point where you understand about 95 percent of everyday Japanese and the language becomes comfortable. The next question is obvious: if you are only mining about one episode per week, how long does it actually take to get there?

This post answers that question realistically, not optimistically, and explains what the 2 to 5 year timeline actually represents in practice, starting from about 800 known words.

The Starting Point

You do not begin at zero. Before starting the weekly loop, you have already built a foundation:

Kana Bootcamp, about one month mastering hiragana and katakana.
JP1K Starter Deck, about 1,000 words total, with roughly 800 solidly retained.

What Rotation Means

To keep encountering new vocabulary as your comprehension grows, you need to rotate content over time. Rotation is not about chasing numbers. It is about keeping input rich and varied.

Stick with one show until you finish a season. Familiar voices and settings improve retention.
When your new word yield drops too low, switch series or genres to refresh your vocabulary pool.
Rotate among slice of life, romance, fantasy, science fiction, historical, and other genres to expose yourself to different domains.

The Weekly Reality

If you mine one episode per week, the number of cards you add will change over time. What matters most is what you keep.

Many learners aim for 100 new cards per episode. In practice, some words fail early, some get deleted, and some simply are not ready yet. This means gross speed and net progress are not the same thing.

For most learners, a sustainable long term average looks like this:

About 50 retained words per week
About 10 new words per day
Higher quality sentences
Lower deletion rates
Easier weeks and fewer skipped weeks

The Roadmap Scenarios

Starting from about 800 retained words, here is how long it typically takes to reach 10,000 depending on your net weekly progress:

About 2 years (exceptional): very high retention, very low deletion, heavy immersion, about 100 retained words per week.
About 4 years (realistic default): sustainable pace, low stress, high consistency, about 50 retained words per week.
About 5 years (relaxed): lighter mining, missed weeks, slower rotation, about 35 to 40 retained words per week.

Why 4 Years Is the Stable Path

At around 10 new words per day, learning becomes stable rather than fragile. Words have time to appear naturally in immersion, early failures drop sharply, and mining sessions feel easier to complete.

Trying to go faster often creates churn. Words fail repeatedly, get deleted, and never contribute to long term progress. Slower daily targets frequently result in the same or better net learning with far less stress.

That is why four years is not slow. It is the point where progress becomes reliable and inevitable.

The Hours Behind It

Each week of the 9to5 Japanese loop adds up to roughly 20 hours of exposure:

Anki reviews, about 6 hours.
Mining, about 2 hours.
Active immersion, about 7 hours.
Passive listening, about 5 hours.

Over time, that looks like:

About 2 years: roughly 2,000 to 2,500 hours with high efficiency.
About 4 years: roughly 4,000 hours as a realistic baseline.
About 5 years: roughly 5,000 hours at a relaxed pace.

Why the Taper Is a Good Sign

As your vocabulary grows, new cards per episode naturally decline. This is not failure. It is progress.

Early phase: frequent pausing and heavy mining.
Middle phase: recognition increases and mining lightens.
Late phase: long stretches of uninterrupted watching with high comprehension.

🚀 The Big Picture

No matter which path you take, exceptional, realistic, or relaxed, the destination is the same: 10,000 words and functional fluency. This system is not designed to be fast. It is designed to be finishable.

Show up each week, keep your pace sane, and let the numbers add up.

Next up: How to Mine Anime with MPVacious and Rikaitan