How long will NativShark last me?

We sometimes get questions about the amount of content that NativShark has available, and if it’s worth purchasing an annual subscription or if they’ll run out of things to study in less than that time.

NativShark is designed to take you from an absolute beginner to a high level of proficiency and functionality in Japanese.

It has enough study content to guide you through all of the steps in this journey, which will likely take multiple years. New study content is also added every week.

However, I'd like to bring up a potential misunderstanding that can happen when asking this question, if you'd like to join me for a bit.

The problem with counting vocab

I’m sure many of us have seen resources emphasizing the sheer number of vocab, kanji, or otherwise they teach.

Learn 1,000 kanji in a month!!
Learn 6,000 pieces of vocab!!
Learn all the JLPT N1 grammar points!!
Get fluent in 3 months!!

While numbers like these are enticing, they do not contain an accurate picture of what your ability in Japanese will be like when you come out on the other side.

To give my personal experience with this (Ty here!), I have gone through many different resources including two flashcard decks of ~2,400 kanji and 10,000 pieces of vocab. I did 20 new cards a day, every day until it was done, with probably less than a week's worth of exceptions.

And while your first assumption upon hearing this might be that I'd be fantastic at Japanese after completing it…

That wasn’t the case. At all.

Even after completing both decks, I couldn’t handle even the most basic of interactions when I came to Japan.

- I couldn’t understand the conbini worker asking if I wanted chopsticks or my food microwaved.

- I couldn’t understand my friends asking me to give them the rice scoop when having dinner with them, or asking me to put away the spoons when cleaning up.

- I couldn’t even express my birthday or other essential information when asked about it when I went to the ward office, assuming I even understood what they were asking for in the first place.

I couldn’t effectively use my Japanese, even though I had memorized 10,000+ pieces of vocab and probably around 3,000 kanji at that point.

I found myself asking, what on earth is the cause of this?

How can I know so many words but still feel so utterly lost when trying to do such seemingly simple things in Japanese?

I shared the resources I used with my native speaker friends, and things started to make sense.

Only half the story

It turns out that textbooks, classrooms, and most resources found (for free or not) online tend to share a common feature.

They teach exclusively rigid, textbook language.

They don't cover language as how it's used in everyday life in Japan and its media.

They might even present you with situations where you would expect natural language to be used, but still persist in using textbook language that people don't use in real life.

This is what caused the problems I ran into above.

Since I wasn't made aware of the (surprisingly large) difference, I had no idea how to connect what I learned from the textbooks to what I saw when I went out and tried to use my Japanese.

Japanese is simply too different of a language for an English native to make accurate guesses about how to connect these two halves of the language.

Let's take a look at some examples.

Textbooks and similar resources commonly overuse pronouns like 私わたし and 僕ぼく (meaning “I”), 君きみ and あなた (meaning “you”), along with the overuse of particles in example sentences.

This leads to unnatural sentences such as:

Textbook Formal

あなたの学校がっこうに日本人にほんじんの学生がくせいがいますか。

Are there Japanese students in your school?

If you’re used to reading textbooks, you may not see the immediate... weirdness with this sentence.

If you’ve had a lot of exposure to Japanese as used in the wild, especially in everyday life in Japan, the entire sentence will likely sound a bit off. It won’t feel like a human wrote this.

As to why this is, あなた (you) is included in the sentence. In English, this makes sense.

But Japanese is a high-context language, which means we don’t need it because the rest of our sentence is clearly a question directed at the listener/reader.

Moreover, if you say あなた to someone who you know the name of, it’s actually quite rude.

Not the best habit to instill in learners with no other reference point. If we aren't careful, we end up thinking that’s the right thing to do and that we should use it as we do in English. Then we end up being rude and not even realizing it.

Moving on, this sentence uses the particle が when most people speaking without thinking about it would drop it.

In fact, I asked a native Japanese-speaking team member and they were quite confused as to why this sentence had が there. You wouldn't really see it like that in most real-life cases, at least. Again, it just feels off.

This sentence also uses 学生がくせい (student) when 生徒せいと (a different word for student) would likely be more natural.

It’s hard to say due to the lack of context, but teaching odd words over natural ones is a common theme with textbooks and similar resources.

You can never say for sure what’s best because there is never enough context given.

Lastly, their sentence ends with a 。 instead of a question mark. The vast majority of people use question marks in everyday life.

Only the highest levels of formality need a 。 when questions are being asked, but I see countless learners of Japanese making this mistake over and over because they aren’t being set up for success by their resources.

If we wanted this question to be more natural, then we’re likely to see something along the lines of:

None

学校がっこうに日本人にほんじんの生徒せいといますか？

But even this sentence has problems. Since there is no context, it’s impossible to make a fully accurate guess at how to make it more natural.

For example, if it’s obvious from the situation that we’re talking about school, we could reduce it even further:

None

日本人にほんじんの生徒せいといますか？

If we were already talking about students, or it was easy to imply that we mean students, we could even say:

None

日本人にほんじんいますか？

Again, I can’t say any of these sentences are correct or incorrect because the situation/context is not presented with this question.

Depending on what the situation and surrounding conversation is, these questions could change entirely.

Instead, all we get is this question with no reference point in reality.

What's for sure, though, is that only learning the first sentence we saw will give you unrealistic expectations of what Japanese is. And many, many headaches down the road.

But this, perhaps, is a more common example that’s easier to pick apart. Let’s take a look at a small conversation from a textbook:

A phone call.

Textbook Formal

ロバート：もしもし、みちこさん、今いま何なにをしていますか。

Robert: Hello, Michiko, what are you doing right now?

Textbook Formal

みちこ: 別べつに何なにもしていません。今いま、スーさんの写真しゃしんを見みています。

Michiko: I’m not really doing anything. I’m looking at Sue’s pictures right now.

Real people don’t speak like this. This is a bit painful to read, even

However, the real pain point arises from this textbook presenting us with a real situation and teaching language that would not be used in that situation.

We have a lot of the same issues as above, with excessive particle use and unnatural word choice/ phrasing.

There’s a lot to break down, such as the use of を, a particle that is almost always dropped in spoken conversation (formal and casual), along with the extra い in していません, which is spoken and written like してません most of the time.

Michiko, the second speaker, also gives off an odd tone by using 別べつに with the -ません formal negative form. It’s just way too stiff to use with someone who calls you enough that they don’t need to introduce themselves before starting a conversation on the phone.

While it is problematic to attempt to make Japanese like this more natural, (i.e. why would you be calling someone and asking them what they’re doing right now if you’re not close enough to use casual language?) here’s what you may be more likely to expect in an actual phone conversation between two real people:

Formal

ロバート：もしもし？今いま何なにしてますか？

Robert: Hello? What are you up to right now?

Formal

みちこ: 別べつに何なんもしてないですけど、あ、スーさんの写真しゃしん見みてます。

Michiko: Not much. Oh, I’m looking at Sue’s pictures though.

今いま is not repeated by the second speaker because it's already been said. The sentences flow much better. Both of these are starting to feel like something that real people would be likely to say.

If this Japanese is a bit hard to understand, then looking at the translations is fine for now.

There is a noticeable difference between what feels like what a person would say vs what feels like is just written in a textbook, right?

This all said, it’s hard to force naturalness onto sentences that were entirely unnatural to begin with, so I’d like to not linger on that “correction” for too long ^^

We can just learn with textbooks and make some quick notes for language in the real world though, right?

Yes and no. Answering this requires nuance.

Using traditional resources means that textbook language becomes your baseline.

If you're learning Japanese for academic purposes only, and have no interest outside of these purposes (like making friends or consuming media), then this probably isn't an issue for you.

However, if your goal is anything besides the above, you'll likely end up with unnecessary struggles if you attempt this method.

Personally, I started learning Japanese so I could play untranslated Japanese video games, watch anime, and maybe one day move to Japan and make friends there without English.

Going from an environment that only taught textbook language to those environments was a rough time. The language was so different. I felt so lost when I tried.

Again, I could pass the most difficult standardized tests but struggled to understand and communicate with the friends I was making.

I remember the day I passed the JLPT N1. I didn't feel like I was a god at Japanese or anything. In fact, it felt really weird that people were calling me advanced when I didn't feel that way at all.

Instead, I felt bummed that I still wasn't able to comprehend and communicate with the friends I was trying to make. I felt bad about still not having reached my goals.

If your goals are similar to mine, I personally wouldn't recommend trying the above method.

A comprehensive approach

NativShark teaches language used everywhere. Spoken casual and formal, written casual and formal, language used in academic or research settings, textbooks, with friends and family, anime, video games, on signs, anything.

You get a firm foundational understanding of the language, and then we show you how to go above and beyond by teaching you how it’s used in everyday life.

This means you’ll be able to navigate Japan, consume whatever media you enjoy, and pass the JLPT all from a single resource.

You’ll understand things faster and more thoroughly than if you had to try to piece all of this together yourself, which often results in burnout instead of learning.

Thinking about comparing naturalness with the conversation we saw above, here’s what people sound like when in a normal conversation, which comes from a Dialogue in Phase Three, Unit 109 in NativShark:

A conversation between a brother and sister.

None

Haruhiko: 最近さいきんお菓子かし作つくり始はじめたんだ。

I started making confectioneries recently.

recently

・

お-

・

sweets

・

making

・

started

・

んだ

Male Voice

None

Moe: 今いま流行はやってるよね。どんなの作つくってるの？

That's popular these days, isn't it? What have you been making?

now

・

is popular

・

よ

・

ね

・

what kind of

・

の

・

is making

・

の

Female Voice

This is an excerpt of the first two sentences of the Dialogue. If you have an account with an active free trial or a paid subscription, you can view the full dialogue here. Feel free to send an email to [email protected] and ask for more free trial time if you ran out

This is what a conversation between two native speakers sounds like, both grammatically and how the audio sounds as well. This is language that textbooks don't include ^^

If you’re curious about what more advanced NativShark content looks like, feel free to browse these as well:

Inferring others' behaviors with のことだから

 Various ways to make words out of numbers

Japanese household manners

Thanks for reading all the way to this point! Now let's look at exactly how much content NativShark has

How long will NativShark “last”?

Long enough to get you to a high level of functional ability while ensuring your smooth transition into everyday Japanese and Japanese media.

This means you can jump from NativShark to native materials + doing what you want to with Japanese at a faster pace than with resources that don't teach comprehensively.

This is because:

Every single sentence is hand-written by a native speaker of Japanese, and we include context, which helps you deeply understand how each word is used in real situations.
Every lesson and vocab sentence has two pieces of audio spoken naturally (not a robotic, slow textbook voice that completely changes how words are pronounced, setting your ears up to not be able to understand natural Japanese) from a male and female native Japanese speaker.
Every lesson is hand-written by a learner of Japanese who has reached a high level of proficiency as an adult (then all lessons are checked and edited by a native speaker). This means they have experienced the joys, potential pitfalls, and challenges of learning Japanese from scratch and know how to guide you through to your goals.
Every Unit contains a Dialogue at the end, which contains Japanese you have already been taught while introducing it to you in new contexts and preparing your brain to understand and use it naturally.

Now let’s take a look at the amount of content that is contained within NativShark, and how long it can “last” the adamant and the average learner.

As of November 5, 2024, there are a total of 828 Units* in NativShark, across Three Phases**. Additionally, NativShark has new content added to it every week, currently at the pace of 4 new Units a week.

*A “Unit” is a package of complete Japanese knowledge within NativShark. Units contain lessons, vocab, kanji, Dialogues, tips on how to study, and various other things depending on the concept being introduced.

**A “Phase” is a way to divide what your abilities will look like based on where you are in NativShark. There are 4 Phases which each correlate to a certain level of ability in Japanese.

There are*:

~827+ Dialogues, which are natural conversations in Japanese all with naturally spoken recordings and appropriate context
~950+ lessons that cover various grammar points, cultural aspects, historical topics, and much more
~3,000+ lesson sentences each with two naturally spoken recordings from both male and female speakers and appropriate context
~7,400+ vocab sentences each with two naturally spoken recordings from both male and female speakers and appropriate context**
~2,400+ kanji, which includes all the normal-use (jouyou) kanji + more

*These numbers are all estimates and are always growing over time.

**Every vocab sentence has context beginning in Phase Two. Phase One will include this feature in a future update.

The average student usually does 3-4 new Units a week, and the other days are review days.

With our update schedule of 4 new Units a week, these students will nearly never run out of content to learn, because NativShark will continue being updated for many years to come. There are always more things to learn in a language.

Allow me to say that one more time

The average learner will essentially never run out of content to learn from if they start today

A faster-paced student does a Unit a day. This means it will take them 828 days, or about 2 years and 2 months to reach where content is as of November 5, 2024.

But due to the constant content updates, they will still have a large buffer of content left (~1 year) on top of that. And by the time they reach the end of that, there will be another buffer of content waiting for them ^^

In realistic terms, this means it will take a fast-paced student more than 5 years* to catch up to current content if they start today.

By that point, the student will have seen everything they need to be a highly functional adult in Japanese, be able to handle most Japanese thrown at them with ease, and the rest would be comprehensible with some amount of effort.

*It's hard to predict exactly what content production will look like in 5 years from now, but hopefully this breakdown helps make it clear how much content there currently is & how much more is going to be added to NativShark

Is NativShark worth it?

We had a community member ask this recently:

Besides the fact that I passed the JLPT N1 almost 5 years ago and am constantly learning new things in my daily NativShark studies, here are some responses from active users:

If you're curious, you might want to try it for yourself.

It's risk-free ^^ You don’t need any payment info to sign up.

Here's a guide that will helping with starting your journey here if you don’t have an account yet!

If you’re on the fence but ran out of trial time, feel free to reach out to our email at [email protected] and ask for some extra time to help you decide

Thanks for reading all the way to the end, and for considering studying with NativShark

Good luck and happy studies everyone ^^