NIHONGOCENTRAL | PROFiCIENCY SCALES

PROFiCIENCY SCALES

There are several scales used to gauge one’s proficiency in a foreign language.
ACTFL (American Council of Teachers of Foreign Languages)
ILR (Interagency Language Roundtable)
JLPT (Japanese-Language Proficiency Test)

Since you are interested in Japanese, I have compiled the chart below. I use ACTFL as a reference, JLPT is marked with hours required, and ILR is described below.

From my experience the ILR estimate is the most realitic. According to the FSI (Foreign Service Institute) of the US Department of State. It would require 2200 classroom hours with 1 year of in-country study to reach Level 3 on the ILR scale in speaking, reading, listening and writing in Japanese.*

see How Long Will it Take to Learn Japanese? for more information

ACTFL	ILR		JLPT
Novice Low	0	no proficiency	N5	Beginner (150 hours)
Novice Mid
Novice High	0+	memorized proficiency	N4	Basic (300 hours)
Intermediate Low	1	Elementary proficiency
Intermediate Mid			N3	Lower Intermediate (450 hours)
Intermediate High	1+	Elementary proficiency, plus
Advanced Low	2	Limited working proficiency	N2	Upper Intermediate (600 hours)
Advanced Mid
Advanced High	2+	Limited working proficiency, plus	N1	Advanced (900 hours)**
Superior	3	General professional proficiency
	3+	General professional proficiency, plus
	4	Advanced professional proficiency
	4+	Advanced professional proficiency, plus
	5	Functionally native proficiency

* Japanese is typically somewhat more difficult for native English speakers to learn than other languages in the same category.

** I am a bit skeptical about the estimated hours-of-study needed to pass JLPT N1. Although, if one was to focus on JLPT-test-taking skills it is completely feasible.

Further Reading:
How Long will it Take to Learn Japanese?
Guide to Learning Japanese
English is Hard too!

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