For me, it was after I learned most of the Hiragana and Katakana symbols. I was watching an anime, and suddenly realized that I could understand what a lot of the signs in the show said, like an udon noodle shop, or a sports store. As I learn more, the conversations in the shows sounded a lot less like gibberish and I began to understand fragments of what they said without the need for subtitles. Small signs of improvements like these tell me that all my efforts to study Japanese have not been for nothing, and it really encourages me to study more. Best of luck to everyone on finding that light at the end of seemingly endless tunnel(it’s not actually endless, just really really long). :)