Beginner roadmap: your first 90 days in a new language

The first months of an Asian language decide whether there will be a second year. Most beginners do not fail because the language is too hard. They fail because they start five things at once, or spend ten weeks choosing an app.

This roadmap gives one path from zero: week by week for the first month, then month by month up to six months. The first 90 days build the foundation, and months four to six turn it into something you can use. It is written for Chinese, Japanese and Korean and works with small changes for Thai or Vietnamese.

How much time the roadmap assumes

The plan assumes 30 to 60 minutes of study a day, plus whatever listening fits into walks and commutes.

Kungfucius's view on the daily dose is simple. Fifteen minutes a day gets you to the intermediate plateau, slowly. Sixty minutes gets you there quickly, and beyond it. More than 60 minutes of deliberate study a day is not recommended: past that point the extra time is better spent on easy listening, reading and real contact than on more drills. Sample days for each dose are on the page about a study routine.

If you have 15 minutes, follow the same order and expect each stage to take about twice as long. The sequence matters more than the speed.

What should you learn first in a new language?

Sounds and script, before words and grammar. Everything later is built on being able to hear the language correctly and read it without a crutch.

• Chinese: Pinyin and the tones first, then characters through words.
• Japanese: hiragana, then katakana. The page on kana has the charts.
• Korean: Hangul, which takes a day or two.

How to approach each script, and when to drop romanisation, is covered in the guide to learning scripts.

The first month, week by week

Week	Focus	What you do	You can now
1	Sounds and script	Learn the sound system with audio. Start the script: Hangul complete, hiragana complete, or Pinyin with all four tones	Read syllables aloud slowly and hear that tones or long vowels exist
2	Script and first phrases	Finish the script: katakana, Korean final consonants, the difficult Pinyin sounds. Learn 20 to 30 survival phrases by ear	Greet, thank, apologise, and read a simple word without romanisation
3	A course and a review habit	Start one beginner course or textbook, one lesson a day. Set up flashcards with audio at five to ten new cards a day	Follow a first dialogue and introduce yourself in three sentences
4	Speaking aloud	Continue the course. Repeat each dialogue aloud after the audio. Chinese learners start their first characters inside words	Say a rehearsed self-introduction and order something simple

Three rules for this month. Choose one course and do not switch. Say everything aloud, since silent study produces silent learners. And keep the flashcard number low: new cards are easy to add and expensive to review.

Months two to six, month by month

Month	Focus	What you do	Milestone
2	Core words and patterns	Course lessons, daily reviews, short learner dialogues listened to several times. Book a first session with a tutor or exchange partner at the end of the month	About 300 words, and a first real conversation of five minutes, however clumsy
3	Easy input and regular speaking	Add graded reading or learner videos. One conversation a week. Short written messages, corrected	500 words or more, basic questions and answers without a script
4	From course to content	The course continues, but half your time goes to easy listening and reading. Start collecting sentences from what you read and hear	You can follow slow learner content without a transcript
5	A first niche	Pick one narrow topic you care about and add simple native content on it, with subtitles and a dictionary	You can talk for a few minutes about one subject of your own
6	Consolidate and measure	Finish the beginner course. Record yourself. Decide whether an exam date would help	Around 1,000 words, simple conversations on everyday topics, a plan for the next six months

The word counts are rough markers, not targets to chase. The order is the point: script, then core words in sentences, then easy input, then people, then a first corner of the real language.

How much can you learn in three months, and in six?

At an hour a day, three months is roughly 90 hours and six months about 180. That is a real start and nothing more. For comparison, the US Foreign Service Institute plans around 2,200 class hours for Mandarin, Japanese and Korean.

Kungfucius's estimate for a consistent learner: after 90 days you read the script, know 500 to 1,000 common words, and survive short, slow conversations about yourself. After six months you are somewhere in A1 heading for A2 on the European scale. In exam terms that is the neighbourhood of HSK 2, JLPT N5 or TOPIK 1, with wide variation between people.

You will not be fluent, and anyone promising otherwise is selling something. You will be past the stage where most people quit, which is the more useful achievement.

First milestones worth celebrating

Tests are months away, so use real events as markers:

• You read a sign or a menu item without help.
• You type your first message on a native keyboard.
• You understand a full sentence in a song or a series without subtitles.
• You get through five minutes with a tutor without switching to English.
• A stranger answers you in the language instead of in English.
• You make a joke, on purpose, and somebody laughs.

What to ignore in the first six months

A beginner's scarcest resource is attention. These can all wait:

• A second app, course or textbook. One path, finished, beats three paths sampled.
• Handwriting every character. Write the first few hundred by hand to learn the structure, then let recognition and typing lead.
• Rare and literary vocabulary. Four-character idioms, proverbs and slang are fun and not yet useful.
• Advanced politeness. Japanese keigo and the finer Korean honorifics can wait. One polite everyday register is enough.
• Regional accents and dialects. Pick one standard and stay with it.
• Exam preparation, unless a visa or a university demands a certificate soon.
• A second language. Kungfucius likes language stacking as much as anyone, but not in month three.
• Videos about how to learn languages. Two a month is research. Two a day is avoiding the language, in English.

One thing is never on this list: pronunciation. Tones, long vowels and final consonants are cheap to get right in month one and expensive to repair in year two.

Tools and what to do today

Keep the kit small: one dictionary, one course, one flashcard tool, one source of people.

• Dictionary: Pleco for Chinese, and the picks on the lists for Japanese and Korean.
• Flashcards: Anki, free, capped at 20 minutes a day.
• Course and apps: the lists of the best apps for Chinese, Japanese and Korean name a first course for each.
• People: a weekly tutor or an exchange partner from month two.

Then, today:

1. Decide your daily dose and the time of day it happens.
2. Open the script page for your language and learn the first five symbols or sounds with audio.
3. Choose one beginner course, and do not look at another until this one is finished.
4. Put the week-four milestone in your calendar: a rehearsed self-introduction, said aloud to a person.

If you are still choosing between languages or are not sure where you stand, the Start here page sorts you into the right path first.