I agree with the other responses to this comment. Many people who I know who passed N{1..5} say things like "It wasn't too bad", "It took me a few years"... I think a lot of people who have learned a second language to a high level of proficiency forget the struggle and difficulties.
I passed N1 many years ago and am now very fluent, but the difficultly of transitioning to "real life" Japanese, even after passing N2, was very real. It took me around 5 years to pass N2 (without living in Japan, just studying and practising with whoever I found find).
Even after passing N1, I still found it super tough to forge real friendships for quite some time after, since I would often struggle to say what I wanted to. I don't mean "haha, the weather is nice", but the actual interesting conversations you might want to have (for me this was mainly about software, for example).
This pace of progression is probably not unusual. Learning a language is hard.
To anyone else trying to learn Japanese who might be struggling, you can do it! I never experienced the "you'll pick it up", "it'll just click" moment - I just sucked for a long time, then progressively sucked less. I think the key is to accept you suck and put yourself out there anyway, and keep speaking and learning as much as you can. Oddly enough, I knew I was pretty fluent when people stop complementing or been impressed by your fluency.
To the first line your comment, though, I definitely agree - without knowing the local language in most countries (especially somewhere like Japan with a very low level of English literacy) it is difficult to really experience culture.
I passed N1 many years ago and am now very fluent, but the difficultly of transitioning to "real life" Japanese, even after passing N2, was very real. It took me around 5 years to pass N2 (without living in Japan, just studying and practising with whoever I found find).
Even after passing N1, I still found it super tough to forge real friendships for quite some time after, since I would often struggle to say what I wanted to. I don't mean "haha, the weather is nice", but the actual interesting conversations you might want to have (for me this was mainly about software, for example).
This pace of progression is probably not unusual. Learning a language is hard.
To anyone else trying to learn Japanese who might be struggling, you can do it! I never experienced the "you'll pick it up", "it'll just click" moment - I just sucked for a long time, then progressively sucked less. I think the key is to accept you suck and put yourself out there anyway, and keep speaking and learning as much as you can. Oddly enough, I knew I was pretty fluent when people stop complementing or been impressed by your fluency.
To the first line your comment, though, I definitely agree - without knowing the local language in most countries (especially somewhere like Japan with a very low level of English literacy) it is difficult to really experience culture.