but if it was to more than one person it will be better bc you will get each one of them opinion about your japanese skills and that will also help you get better ^^

i can understand that. I am learning japanese and i would not want to show my blunders to the world. It would be awesome if i knew a Japanese person who could help me along, or even a pen pal. Alas, i must settle for my friend Angelo, a fellow student and my tutor.

But that's the thing, you can't depend on a student? It'd be alot better for you if it were multiple native speakers? And no one's going to laugh at yall, everyone starts somewhere and it's always the beginning.

It depends largely on what you mean by "it." When I arrived in Japan, I had a very cursory understanding of enough grammatical elements that as long as I had vocabulary, I could communicate. I found, however, I had spent so much time on grammatical structure that I didn't know enough words to actually plug in. I would say after no more than two or three months I knew vocabulary for most of my daily tasks.

I can now have a rather rambling conversation in Japanese for hours with no real issue. Sometimes I need to ask for the other person to slow down or give synonyms or examples of words I don't yet know, but it rarely causes the conversation to stop. I even understand about 80% or 90% of complex legal transactions. Just last night I played translator between a new arrival and SoftBank (cell phone provider), he wanted an iPhone like I have. Each time a term of the contract was explained to me, I had to turn around and explain it to him.

So for me, I would say "it" being "functional" or even more than functional would be, er, maybe six months of constant, daily exposure. Since I only really studied grammar before moving to Japan, I have nothing to offer in the way of studying Japanese while not using it, at all times, every day.

Reading wise, I would say has been much longer. I only recently became comfortable enough with my acquisition of kanji to start reading popular manga. Light novels are probably going to be my next step, assuming they have furagana. Right now, I know about 240 kanji (elementary school first and second grade kanji) completely with on yomi, kuni yomi and ei (english) yomi, as well as how to properly write them. There are probably at least fifty or so random other kanji I can recognise in some way, but cannot write yet. I've been studying kanji for four hours every week day between classes, but I do feel my acquisition is not as quick as I would like.

Still, its my comfort zone...so...maybe soon I'll surpass it.

yea i understand about the comfort zone thingy. it just takes time ^^ dont give up and do your best.

But I don't live in Japan, which means I don't hear everyone speaking Japanese everyday, which makes your scenario completely different lol I really wish I could move to Japan for a summer or a school year for that matter. But my point is learning to actually speak Japanese and hear it and understand it that way will probably be alot harder for me than it was you, just because you were constantly hearing it.

Absolutely. I took ten years of French, but fifty minutes every other day of the regular school year with no studying beyond what would get a good grade accomplished only one thing: I can still read it. I cannot speak it, I can barely understand it when listening to it, and don't ask me to write any compositions in it!

(Incidentally, English teacher mode: on. Every day is two words, everyday means common, i.e. "that's so everyday." Good difference to know, since everyday is a great word when used within its actual definition :) ).

Again, absolutely. I know my language acquisition will always be faster than my students' acquisition of English. I can't look at my TV or my refrigerator or pass a neighbor on the walk without being forced to use Japanese. That's why as hard as I try, for some students, my instruction of English will have no more impact than my French teachers had on me. Some students, of course, will indeed be impacted, and that is why I do this.

(A lot is also two words).

Well, that's a good point, but I'm slightly confused on how this helps? *headscratch*
And thanks for the everyday thing :) I never knew that.

The basic moral you should take away from my rather long diatribe is that immersion is the best way to learn a language, so you should maximise the possibility of Japanese language use.

If your area has a Japanese association, that might be a good place to start. Go to Japanese events, find Japanese restaurants actually run by Japanese families, go to Japanese supermarkets. Force yourself to engage in conversations where Japanese is a necessity. Reading functions the same way. To learn first grade kanji, I spent time with the art club at my junior high school and while the students drew or painted, I created kanji squares, and then posted them all over my bedroom walls. They were the first things I saw when I woke up, and the last things I saw when I went to sleep. I learned them pretty quickly.