I took Japanese 1A at Berkeley, which is the first semester of the Japanese language course. A semester at Cal is equivalent to a year because they cram so much. Within the first two weeks, we had to know both Hiragana and Katakana. In the weeks following, we had to have about 33 vocabulary words memorized each week, as well as about 10-15 Kanji characters. By the time you complete the course, you're supposed to know at least 150 Kanji characters and can speak Japanese fluently on a conversation level.

By the time you take Japanese 1B, you're already writing essays in Japanese. I almost failed J1A and I've forgotten quite a bit. I still have the textbook, so I study it from time to time. I also participated in a conversation-exchange program up until I graduated from Berkeley. It helped a lot and I recommed it to anyone if you have the opportunity to participate in a conversation-exchange program. ;)