· 7 min read
Is Japanese Hard to Learn? Yes, and Why
By Language Lab editorial team
Is Japanese hard to learn? For English speakers it is in the hardest official group: 88 weeks, 2,200 class hours. See what makes it hard and what helps.
Yes. For an English speaker, Japanese is among the hardest languages to learn. The US State Department places it in Category IV, which it calls super-hard languages, exceptionally difficult for native English speakers, and allows 88 weeks of classes, or 2,200 class hours, to reach a speaking and listening score of 3 on the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale. Spanish and French take 30 weeks. A large part of the load is the writing: Japanese uses three types of characters, hiragana, katakana and kanji, and Japan's official list of kanji for general use has 2,136 of them. Hard does not mean unpopular or impossible. The Japan Foundation counted 4,000,750 learners in 143 countries and regions in its 2024 survey, the highest ever, and the early steps are well supported by free official courses.
The official ranking
The State Department publishes the time its English-speaking students usually need to reach an ILR score of 3 in speaking and listening. Japanese sits in the last of its four groups. The Department previously published this list under the name Foreign Service Institute (FSI); an archived version of the page gives identical class-hour totals to the current one.
| State Department category | The State Department's description | Class time | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| Category I | Languages close to English | 24–30 weeks (552–690 class hours) | Spanish, French, Italian |
| Category II | No description given | About 36 weeks (828 class hours) | German, Indonesian |
| Category III | Hard languages, with significant linguistic or cultural differences from English | About 44 weeks (1,012 class hours) | Russian, Hindi, Thai, Vietnamese |
| Category IV | Super-hard languages, exceptionally difficult for native English speakers | 88 weeks (2,200 class hours) | Japanese, Arabic, Chinese, Korean |
Category IV takes exactly twice as many weeks as Category III, and roughly three times as many as Spanish or French. The State Department adds that actual time varies with natural ability, prior language-learning experience and time spent in the classroom.
What makes Japanese hard
Three types of characters
NHK WORLD-JAPAN's course for beginners explains it this way: the Japanese language has three types of characters, hiragana, katakana and kanji. Hiragana and katakana are phonetic symbols, each representing one syllable, while each kanji stands for a meaning. A learner has to handle all three.
Kanji
The Jōyō Kanji Table, issued by Cabinet notice in 2010, is the Japanese government's guide to kanji use for writing the modern language in general social life. Its main table lists 2,136 characters, each with its forms, readings and example words. The Japanese-Language Proficiency Test reflects the climb: its lowest level, N5, expects sentences written in hiragana, katakana and basic kanji, while N1 expects newspaper editorials and abstract writing.
Speed of speech
The same test shows how far listening has to travel. At N5 and N4, conversations are understood when spoken slowly. At N3 the standard is near-natural speed, and at N1 it is natural speed in a broad variety of settings, including news reports and lectures.
Polite language
Japanese has honorific language, keigo. NHK lists it as a topic of its own in its Learn Japanese programmes, with items such as making a polite request to a superior, speaking about a superior, and the honorific o and go.
What is more manageable than it looks
- The two phonetic scripts. Hiragana and katakana each represent one syllable per symbol, and NHK publishes both as charts you can download as PDF.
- The first conversations. NHK's beginner course reaches useful sentences in its first lessons: asking where something is, saying your name, asking someone to speak slowly.
- The path. The test has five clear levels, N5 to N1, and the Japan Foundation's Irodori coursebooks are organised by what you can do in daily life at A1, A2 and B1.
- The company. The Japan Foundation's 2024 survey found 4,000,750 learners, 19,344 institutions and 80,898 teachers outside Japan, all the highest ever recorded.
Who is learning it
| Country or region | Learners in the 2024 survey |
|---|---|
| China | 1,019,197 |
| Indonesia | 732,914 |
| Korea | 555,396 |
| Australia | 424,316 |
| Thailand | 194,366 |
| Vietnam | 164,495 |
| United States | 134,096 |
The survey covers learners at institutions only, so people studying on their own are not counted. About 1.9 million people applied for the Japanese-Language Proficiency Test in 2025, the largest number ever recorded.
How to make it easier
- Learn hiragana and katakana before anything else, and stop relying on romanised text as soon as you can.
- Add kanji a few at a time, always inside words.
- Listen every day, starting with slow material such as NHK's Easy Japanese.
- Test yourself and space your reviews. A 2013 review of learning research rated practice testing and distributed practice as high utility, and rereading and highlighting as low.
- Aim at a level, not at fluency: N5 first, then N4.
Language Lab's Japanese course is built around voiced real-life scenarios with an AI tutor, so you practise listening and speaking from the start.
Frequently asked
Is Japanese hard to learn for English speakers?
Yes. The US State Department places it in Category IV, super-hard languages, at 88 weeks or 2,200 class hours to a speaking and listening score of 3 on the Interagency Language Roundtable (ILR) scale.
How much harder is Japanese than Spanish?
By the State Department's class-time figures, about three times: 88 weeks against 30 weeks.
What is the hardest part of Japanese?
The writing system is a large part of it. Japanese uses hiragana, katakana and kanji together, and the official list of kanji for general use has 2,136 characters.
How many kanji do I need to learn?
Japan's Jōyō Kanji Table, the government's guide to kanji in general use, lists 2,136 characters. Beginners start with far fewer: the lowest test level, N5, expects only basic kanji.
Is Japanese harder than Chinese or Korean?
The State Department puts all three in the same group. Japanese, Chinese, Korean and Arabic are the Category IV languages, each at 88 weeks.
Is Japanese worth learning?
Many people think so. The Japan Foundation's 2024 survey counted 4,000,750 learners in 143 countries and regions, the highest figure it has recorded.
Sources: US Department of State, National Foreign Affairs Training Center, Foreign Language Training; NHK WORLD-JAPAN, Easy Japanese, Japanese Letters and Learn Japanese; Agency for Cultural Affairs, Jōyō Kanji Table (Cabinet Notice No. 2 of 2010); Japanese-Language Proficiency Test, Summary of Linguistic Competence Required for Each Level and JLPT in Charts; The Japan Foundation, Survey on Japanese-Language Education Abroad 2024 and Irodori; Dunlosky et al., Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2013. Checked on 13 October 2026. Photo: The Golden Pavilion, Kinkaku-ji, Kyoto, Jakub Hałun / CC BY 4.0 (Wikimedia Commons).
