Language Marathon

It's been 140 days since I started learning Japanese on fine morning. It is tough, I sometimes feel like I am torturing myself for no particular reason, but it is going well, I guess they don't call it masochism for fun, or do they! I know the date accurately, thanks to my somewhat regular posting at hive. I wrote this post on Oct 06, 2025. That is 140 days back. Also my DuoLingo Japanese streak is 141 days today! Phew!

I have written quite a few posts on this struggle and these posts are also a reflection of my data analysis prowess and my curiosity of generating different types of charts and plots, with an inclination towards statistics. I have enjoyed writing the progress or lack thereof:)

Still DuoLingo

Yeah, I am still at it, among other things (LingoDeer). Duolingo follows a simple hierarchical structure: Lesson → Unit → Section. In practical terms, the Duolingo Japanese course consists of roughly 4,800 lessons, grouped into about 221 units, which are further organized into six learning sections. Importantly, neither the units nor the sections are uniform: different units contain different numbers of lessons, and each section spans a different number of units. One thing that took me a while to fully wrap my head around is the Duolingo score—especially for Japanese. At first glance, it looks like a proficiency metric, something you might be tempted to equate with JLPT levels or “how fluent” you are. In reality, it’s much closer to a course‑completion indicator than a true measure of language ability.

For Japanese, the score currently runs from 0 to 130. That upper bound isn’t arbitrary: it corresponds to finishing the entire course path. In other words, as you work your way through lessons, units, and sections, your score gradually increases, and hitting something close to 130 means you’ve essentially completed all available content.

✅ Total sections: 6 core sections

(With an additional non‑progress section for review)

Section	Typical name (varies by UI)	CEFR focus	Units
Section 1	Rookie / Intro	Intro / early A1	~9 units
Section 2	Explorer	A1	~30 units
Section 3	Traveler	A1	~30 units
Section 4	Trailblazer	A2	~60 units
Section 5	Adventurer	B1	~50 units
Section 6	Discover	B1 (advanced)	~42 units
Daily Refresh	Review only	—	no new units

My Progress

After 140 days, I am at Section 2, Unit 14. So I have done about 23 units in 140 days.

Days practiced: 140
Units reached: ≈ 23
Average lessons per unit: ≈ 21–22
Total lessons per course: ≈ 4,806 over 221 units

Speed≈140 days -> 500 lessons​ -> 3.6 lessons/day

In the plot above, I tried to plot various standard speed, and marked my current position. I am currently plotting little above 3 lessons/day line, which is just barely above average. At this rate, I am looking at 3-4 years to complete the course, and gain some sort of B1 level proficiency as per CEFR scale, but that is a DuoLingo claim. In reality CEFR B1 describes functional, real‑world communication across skills. Most learners agree Duo alone can't help anyone achieve that. Not right now anyways. I have written extensively about Language proficiency standards here.

⏱️ Time to Reach Score 130 by Learning Speed

Lessons per day	Days to reach score 130	Approx. years
1	4,806	13.17
2	2,403	6.58
3	1,602	4.39
5	961	2.63
10	481	1.32

So there you have it. The confusion is common. Reaching a Duolingo score of 130, i.e., completing the entire Japanese course—puts someone comfortably around JLPT N4 level, with some exposure to N3‑level vocabulary and grammar. However, it is unlikely to be sufficient on its own to pass JLPT N3, which requires targeted reading, grammar classification, and exam‑specific practice that Duolingo does not emphasize.

Realistic JLPT equivalence

Duolingo status	CEFR (Duolingo claim)	Realistic JLPT outcome
Early sections	A1	JLPT N5
Mid course	A2	JLPT N4
Full course (Score 130)	B1 (internal)	Solid N4, some N3 exposure

So, bottom line, even after 3+ year of study I may or may not be conversationally proficient in Japanese. That is a potential reality that I need to warm up to! Phew!