# 50-Hour Update Pure CI Approach **URL:** \ **Category:** Study Wins\ **Created:** [December 19, 2025, 6:20pm UTC](https://community.nijapanese.com/t/50-hour-update-pure-ci-approach/534 "2025-12-19T18:20:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![musicanimelife](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/community.nijapanese.com/musicanimelife/32/393_2.png) [@musicanimelife](https://community.nijapanese.com/u/musicanimelife)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2025, 6:20pm UTC](https://community.nijapanese.com/t/50-hour-update-pure-ci-approach/534/1 "2025-12-19T18:20:05Z")
As of last night, I officially hit 50 hours of Japanese. It took me a while simply because I had a lot going on in my life and couldn’t consistently get input at times. I am still focusing on an input-only approach, with only a small handful of words—fewer than ten—that I have actually looked up on occasion. Here are the things I have noticed: **Segmentation:** I have noticed words no longer feel blended together like they did in the beginning. My brain can automatically tell where a word starts and stops. **Word Categorizing:** My brain has automatically started to notice patterns. When I hear an unfamiliar word, I often have an idea of what its meaning could be related to, as well as whether it’s a noun, adjective, or verb. I’ve noticed this helps me acquire words faster than before. **Comprehension:** My comprehension has increased dramatically and noticeably. I went from watching the lowest-difficulty videos I could find and having no clue what was going on—struggling to grasp any meaning at all—to understanding 90–95% of every “complete beginner” video I watch, regardless of the difficulty level. **Vocabulary:** Although I can’t reproduce many words yet, I recognize a lot of them automatically now. I can feel my “vocabulary bank,” if you will, increasing. **Cusp of Beginner:** I can almost feel that I’m getting close to being able to start watching “beginner” videos. It’s a strange sensation, but not completely unfamiliar to me, as I felt the same way when graduating through levels in Spanish. To start out, I’m going to do what I did when I was transitioning from beginner to intermediate Spanish: I’m going to gradually mix in more beginner videos until all of my input is at that level. **Relying on Pictures Less:** I am starting to notice that with certain low-level, complete beginner videos, I can just listen to the audio by itself and comprehend 90–95% of the content. Due to this, I have been incorporating that into my CI time. I’ll take a few minutes to listen to a video or two with no visual guide whatsoever to practice getting my brain used to audio-only CI. The hope is to slowly work my way up to podcasts. That is pretty much everything I have noticed. I definitely have not developed the “Japanese sector” of my brain to the point where I am able to start thinking in Japanese like I do with Spanish; however, I am not worried about that. I know it will come with time. I am still very early in my CI journey, but I’m pleased with my progress and excited to continue growing and watching myself develop in this language! At this point, I still find the Comprehensible Japanese platform to be the best way to spend my time. The content works well for me, so I have stopped seeking out other forms of CI for now. I am currently up to about an hour a day of CI. I will return with another update when I hit 150 hours. Until then, as our lord and savior Yuki would say, またね! ---
**Author:** ![robozilina](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex007/user_avatar/community.nijapanese.com/robozilina/32/285_2.png) [@robozilina](https://community.nijapanese.com/u/robozilina)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2025, 7:55pm UTC](https://community.nijapanese.com/t/50-hour-update-pure-ci-approach/534/2 "2025-12-19T19:55:59Z")
Good job, I am at around 700 hrs now, I feel like the hardest part is until 500-600 hrs. At this point some other content outside CIJ starts opening up. It is still and uphill battle, but other users report that around 900-1000 hrs, one starts enjoy some easier native content and that is where the real fun begins 😉 Also, if you havent already, think about joining CIJ discord. We talk about our journeys over there every day.