How on earth did you come to be competent?

[OmukaiAndi]

Try this:

What have been your most effective self-study methods?

here’s my quick’n’dirty “10 steps to get you out of noob-land and into intermediate territory, so you can read real japanese for fun and learn without sitting down to study”. these 10 steps are exactly that though, sitting down to study. they are not easy, but they are simple and they work. it’s a complete routine, proper curriculum for self-study from zero to intermediate. let’s go. step 0: go to memrise dot com and learn hiragana and katakana. don’t worry about any other course just yet - l…

I’ve been studying since October 2010.
I mainly studied with Pimsleur, then Japanesepod101. Then I moved to Japan in 2013 and read a lot. Working in a Japanese environment, where Japanese is required, also does wonders for your language skills.

And WK of course, even tho I reset 2x, maybe I can pull through this time.