igaku Academy Level 2: where it stands in November 2026, and what to do after Level 1
You finished Migaku's Japanese Academy. Six months, ten cards a day, lessons that kept saying a point would be "covered in Level 2". You open the course list expecting the next button, and there is only Level 1.
This post is the status check we would have wanted at that moment, plus what to do with the months in between.
As of November 4, 2026, Migaku's official pages list no Japanese Academy Level 2 and no release date for one. The Migaku courses FAQ describes Fundamentals, Academy, Kanji/Hanzi, and Vocab courses, and the only Academy it names is Academy I. The Learn Japanese page lists three Japanese courses: Japanese Fundamentals, the Kanji Course, and the Japanese Academy.
The same FAQ is clear about what Migaku expects you to do after the Academy. Its "next steps" are to watch the videos in the Migaku Bible, start consuming media you find interesting, and make flashcards from that media to guide your own learning. In other words, the official path after Level 1 is immersion with your own cards, not a second course.
The question comes up often enough that there is a dedicated thread about it on r/ImmerseWithMigaku from October 2026. We have no information beyond what Migaku publishes, so we will update this post if a date appears. Verify on migaku.com before relying on any of this.
Migaku's Japanese Academy teaches roughly 1,500 to 1,700 words and about 380 grammar points, and Migaku estimates six months to finish it at ten items a day. The two figures for vocabulary come from Migaku's own pages, which cite "~1,500" in the general FAQ and "~1,700" on the Japanese page, so treat the exact count as approximate.
Item
What Migaku states (as of November 2026)
Vocabulary
~1,500 to ~1,700 of the most common words
Grammar
~380 grammar points; Migaku says these include about 400 patterns that appear on JLPT N5 and N4
Kanji
Covered by the separate Kanji Course: the 800 kanji that appear in the Academy's vocabulary
Pace
~10 flashcards a day, about 30 minutes
Time to finish
About 6 months
Stated outcome
Ready to begin consuming real media; Migaku's phrasing is that it will not be easy yet, but it will have become possible
One detail to check on your own dashboard: the Japanese page lists the Kanji Course as included in a subscription, while the general courses FAQ still labels the Kanji/Hanzi courses "coming soon". We could not resolve that from the outside.
Migaku also states that it is not optimized for JLPT preparation. If your goal after Level 1 is a specific JLPT level, Migaku's own advice is a prep book, and we agree with it.
Migaku designed the Academy to end at the point where immersion becomes possible, and that is a different kind of learning from working through lessons. Up to the end of Level 1, someone else chose the words and the order. After it, the words come from whatever you read and watch, and the order is whatever order you meet them in.
That shift is why the months after a structured course feel disorienting. The comprehension you built on the course's sentences does not transfer cleanly to a blog post or a game script, because real text uses the 20,000 words that come after the first 1,700. We wrote about that stage in the intermediate plateau, and the short version is that it is normal, and it is where most of the vocabulary you will ever learn actually gets learned.
This is not a gap in Migaku. It is how the course is designed, and the design matches what the immersion community has said for years: a course gets you to the door, reading gets you through it.
A workable plan after Academy Level 1 has three parts: grammar from a reference, vocabulary from what you read, and kanji from the same reading. None of it needs a release date.
Migaku's own Japanese Grammar Reference is free, organized by JLPT level, and tags the points that belong to Academy Level 1, so you can see exactly where the course stopped and start on the N3 entries above it. For a scheduled approach, Bunpro runs grammar through spaced repetition by JLPT level and has its own path from N4 into N3. Either way, grammar after Level 1 works better as a reference you consult when a sentence confuses you than as a second curriculum you march through.
Past the first 1,700 words, vocabulary comes from reading, and the bottleneck is not finding unknown words but keeping them. The workflow that survives is simple: look a word up where you meet it, save it with the sentence, and review on a schedule that fits the day you are having.
This is the part immit was built for. Hover a word on any web page and the definition appears; one click saves it together with the sentence and the page it came from, so when the card returns a week later you see the word in the context you met it in. Reviews run on FSRS, the same open scheduler Anki users can turn on, and you choose a time budget (5, 15, or 30 minutes) rather than a card count. It is free, needs no account to start, and a free account syncs your wordbook across devices. If you want to try it on today's reading, add the extension and save the first five words you do not know.
One scope note so you are not surprised: immit is built for reading on the web. It does not do Netflix subtitles. (works on Youtube subtitles) If Netflix is most of your immersion, Migaku's tools remain the right fit for that part of your day.
The Kanji Course covers the 800 characters that appear in the Academy's vocabulary; the 常用漢字 list has 2,136, and real text draws on roughly that many. The practical route to the remaining 1,300 is the same reading routine as vocabulary: a new kanji arrives inside a word, the word gets saved with its sentence, and the character gets learned as part of the word rather than on its own. We laid out that approach in learning kanji through immersion.
Migaku Academy Level 1 is a real reason to pay for Migaku, and we say so in our Migaku review too. A human-written beginner course with native audio on every sentence and one new item per card is rare, and nothing in this post is meant to talk you out of it if you are at the start.
As of November 4, 2026, Migaku's pricing page lists Standard at $10 per month (20% off on the yearly plan), Early Access at $15 per month, and Lifetime at a list price of $499, currently discounted to $290. All plans carry a 10-day money-back guarantee, and no free plan is listed. Prices and promotions change, so check the page before deciding.
The decision is simpler if you separate the two phases. If you have not started, the Academy is what you are paying for and the question is only whether you will finish it. If you have finished it, the question is whether the video tools fit how you immerse, because the course part of the subscription is now behind you.
Is Migaku Academy Level 2 out?
No. As of November 4, 2026, Migaku's official pages list only the Japanese Academy (Level 1), the Japanese Fundamentals course, and the Kanji Course. No Level 2 appears on the courses FAQ, the Learn Japanese page, or the pricing page.
Has Migaku announced a release date for Academy Level 2?
No public release date appears on migaku.com as of November 2026. We will update this post if one is published.
What should I do after finishing Migaku Academy Level 1?
Migaku's own FAQ says to watch the Migaku Bible videos, start consuming media you enjoy, and make flashcards from it. In practice that means a grammar reference for N3 and above, saving vocabulary from your own reading with the sentence attached, and reviewing it on a schedule. The plan above covers each part.
Does Migaku Academy Level 1 cover JLPT N4?
Migaku says the Academy introduces about 400 grammar patterns that appear on JLPT N5 and N4, and also says Migaku is not optimized for JLPT preparation. For the test itself, Migaku recommends a prep book, and so do we.
Is there a free version of the Migaku course?
Migaku's pricing page lists no free plan as of November 2026. The Academy is included in the Standard, Early Access, and Lifetime plans, each with a 10-day money-back guarantee.
If Migaku publishes a date for Level 2, this post will say so at the top.
