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Learning Japanese • 日本語の勉強 |これはOTです| ゆっくりしていいぞ！
- Thread starter Resilient
- Start date
Hey guys! My first time posting in this thread, I'm really interested in giving a genuine effort into learning this language and wanna just post my understanding and making sure I have a solid foundation for the start of this journey after reading the OP and guide.
First, just wanna say thank you to Alanae and Resilence for the amazing write up and guide.
Second, I guess to answer why I wanna learn Japanese, truth be told, I took my first trip to Japan at the start of the year, and it was my first time visiting a country where I couldn't speak the language or communicate with the people, and I also just, loved Japan. I don't necessarily have any ambitions to move to Japan, or work a job / career in Japan, but I do wanna go there again. Multiple times a year to be honest. Currently I'm planning to return to Japan for at least 2 weeks in January 2025, and from there, make it an annual thing where I visit Japan twice a year, specifically during Golden Week and Early January.
I just wanna be able to communicate, understand, and talk to people. Plus, I'm 27 and I heard that one of the hardest things to do as you get older is learn a new language. I've honestly never had to "learn" a language. I mean, I guess I "learned English", but that just came naturally through the education system. I also speak fluent Spanish but it just came naturally from having immigrant parents. It seems like a fun challenge to really put in the time and effort to learn a language, and I wanna do it now before it really really gets harder!
So my general understanding, and the questions I have, is I have a solid amount of free time every day, but so far I'm only willing to commit one hour a day to learning this, because I wanna make sure I can do it every day without missing. Committing 2 hours a day might lead to insane burn out and something I might be discouraged if I fail to do or put off. Is 1 hour a day enough to make a solid effort on this or am I already setting myself for failure at the start by only investing an hour?
So this is the process I'm looking at, prioritizing Speaking and Reading! Please let me know if I'm missing something or can add something and or there's a better way to optimize the learning!
I'm starting off with purchasing these books and going through them, this teaching me the fundamentals and basics and helping me learn the language both written and spoken.
Genki Volume 1, Genki Volume 2, and also A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar .
These three books, will take me some time to get through, and once I feel comfortable and understand them, I move onto the consuming phase, where I'm capable of listening to Japanese and understanding some of it, I understand Kanji and have practiced it and can read it? So I start watching a few Drama Shows with the intent of learning, and go through the process of writing down anything I don't understand, working through what is escaping me, figuring it out to my best, repeating it and replaying it until I get it. I also should be watching the news, and various other forms of media like Podcasts and Content I'd be interested in (one I just saw that I'm excited to learn using, as a Smash Bros competitive player, is all of Sakurai's Creating Games videos). Change my Twitter feed to Japanese, follow Japanese people and read them to my best, reading Japanese articles and new sites.
I also want to learn how to speak with Pitch Accents, and Dogen's videos and guides are a good way to learn that as I get more comfortable and have an understanding with the language.
Is this a good understanding of the process, and a solid route to go with for my self studying?
Thanks again in advance for reading and any input or help you provide. Also so very open for any other tools and recommendations people have for this journey!
EDIT :
Side note, some of my friends are also attempting to learn Japanese and one of them mentioned Duolingo as a good starter tool, but I always assumed it was just a kind of, not great tool. Should I also attempt to use that to learn words and consume the language at the start?
EDIT 2 :
The links given for learning and memorizing hiragana and katakana are broken! Are there any updated links on good ways to get started with learning and memorizing them?
First, just wanna say thank you to Alanae and Resilence for the amazing write up and guide.
Second, I guess to answer why I wanna learn Japanese, truth be told, I took my first trip to Japan at the start of the year, and it was my first time visiting a country where I couldn't speak the language or communicate with the people, and I also just, loved Japan. I don't necessarily have any ambitions to move to Japan, or work a job / career in Japan, but I do wanna go there again. Multiple times a year to be honest. Currently I'm planning to return to Japan for at least 2 weeks in January 2025, and from there, make it an annual thing where I visit Japan twice a year, specifically during Golden Week and Early January.
I just wanna be able to communicate, understand, and talk to people. Plus, I'm 27 and I heard that one of the hardest things to do as you get older is learn a new language. I've honestly never had to "learn" a language. I mean, I guess I "learned English", but that just came naturally through the education system. I also speak fluent Spanish but it just came naturally from having immigrant parents. It seems like a fun challenge to really put in the time and effort to learn a language, and I wanna do it now before it really really gets harder!
So my general understanding, and the questions I have, is I have a solid amount of free time every day, but so far I'm only willing to commit one hour a day to learning this, because I wanna make sure I can do it every day without missing. Committing 2 hours a day might lead to insane burn out and something I might be discouraged if I fail to do or put off. Is 1 hour a day enough to make a solid effort on this or am I already setting myself for failure at the start by only investing an hour?
So this is the process I'm looking at, prioritizing Speaking and Reading! Please let me know if I'm missing something or can add something and or there's a better way to optimize the learning!
I'm starting off with purchasing these books and going through them, this teaching me the fundamentals and basics and helping me learn the language both written and spoken.
Genki Volume 1, Genki Volume 2, and also A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar .
These three books, will take me some time to get through, and once I feel comfortable and understand them, I move onto the consuming phase, where I'm capable of listening to Japanese and understanding some of it, I understand Kanji and have practiced it and can read it? So I start watching a few Drama Shows with the intent of learning, and go through the process of writing down anything I don't understand, working through what is escaping me, figuring it out to my best, repeating it and replaying it until I get it. I also should be watching the news, and various other forms of media like Podcasts and Content I'd be interested in (one I just saw that I'm excited to learn using, as a Smash Bros competitive player, is all of Sakurai's Creating Games videos). Change my Twitter feed to Japanese, follow Japanese people and read them to my best, reading Japanese articles and new sites.
I also want to learn how to speak with Pitch Accents, and Dogen's videos and guides are a good way to learn that as I get more comfortable and have an understanding with the language.
Is this a good understanding of the process, and a solid route to go with for my self studying?
Thanks again in advance for reading and any input or help you provide. Also so very open for any other tools and recommendations people have for this journey!
EDIT :
Side note, some of my friends are also attempting to learn Japanese and one of them mentioned Duolingo as a good starter tool, but I always assumed it was just a kind of, not great tool. Should I also attempt to use that to learn words and consume the language at the start?
EDIT 2 :
The links given for learning and memorizing hiragana and katakana are broken! Are there any updated links on good ways to get started with learning and memorizing them?
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I'm probably going to be the odd one out but I personally never got much value out of textbooks, especially Genki. There's so many resources online that have taken the grammar points from Genki and made them in to lessons online for free (like GameGengo on Youtube).
Two resources that I've personally benefited the most from is JapanesePod101 (They have a Youtube channel with lots of videos to check out, but they offer a website with a subscription if you want curated lessons) and Renshuu (It's an app that teaches you grammar, kanji, hiragana + katakana, and they also have a discord for you to engage with). The Moe Way is a decent starting point if you're looking for resources and for a guide. I wouldn't worry too much about being strict with some of their recommendations (like the 30 day guide asks for 3+ hours a day, and that is a lot of time to dedicate for a lot of people).
I don't really want to clutter my post up with a bunch of links, so if you want resources that I've used or am using currently let me know and I'm more than happy to share them with you.
Two resources that I've personally benefited the most from is JapanesePod101 (They have a Youtube channel with lots of videos to check out, but they offer a website with a subscription if you want curated lessons) and Renshuu (It's an app that teaches you grammar, kanji, hiragana + katakana, and they also have a discord for you to engage with). The Moe Way is a decent starting point if you're looking for resources and for a guide. I wouldn't worry too much about being strict with some of their recommendations (like the 30 day guide asks for 3+ hours a day, and that is a lot of time to dedicate for a lot of people).
I don't really want to clutter my post up with a bunch of links, so if you want resources that I've used or am using currently let me know and I'm more than happy to share them with you.
I highly recommend Tofogu's Hiragana/Katakana guides. They're great!
Learn Hiragana: The Ultimate Guide
Start reading hiragana today. Most people waste months, but our mnemonics and step-by-step worksheets will have you reading hiragana in a few hours.
Learn Katakana: The Ultimate Guide
The sequel to our famously fast Learn Hiragana guide. Learn katakana quick, in hours or days (not months) using mnemonics and step-by-step worksheets.
I'm not sure what those links you are referring to are but I see Moe mentioned in the URL so maybe they originally came from here https://learnjapanese.moe/resources/#kana
I second the Tofugu guides, I used them with a random android app and learned them well enough to start actually using them for stuff very quickly.
I think the only thing missing (or maybe I missed it) is what approach to use for kanji and vocab. An srs of some kind is definitely helpful especially at the start; it also gets you in the habit of doing it daily.
I think the only thing missing (or maybe I missed it) is what approach to use for kanji and vocab. An srs of some kind is definitely helpful especially at the start; it also gets you in the habit of doing it daily.
Hopefully you like it. I go looking every now and then and it's also been hard for me to find things that are actually entertaining, but I genuinely like that one. I'd say it's a bit more difficult than ゲームなんとか because the topics are more varied and come out of left field sometimes, but not by that much.
Kemioの耳そうじクラブ podcast was alright as well because he interviewed a lot of young celebrities and youtubers so it was an easy way to learn about people I wouldn't otherwise, but I think it's Spotify exclusive and it seems like it ended last year. But yeah, I'm always all ears for good recommendations too.
i need to figure out a good way to up my listening practice (or find stuff more level-appropriate). I think one of my issues is that I don't really like stopping flow to look up unfamiliar vocab/grammar in a listening (or watching) situation, where it's easier during reading.
Maybe audiobooks of stuff I've already read or something idk
Maybe audiobooks of stuff I've already read or something idk
I think it's probably best to practice rolling with the flow of the conversation and accepting there's words you're not going to know. If you remember the word after, that's probably the best time to look stuff up
So easier podcasts meant for language learning like Nihongo con Teppei might be good, partially because he'll constantly say it's okay not to understand everything 100% but still uses regular grammar and will sometimes simplify it right after. There's also like a million episodes. You can also speed it up if it gets too easy. There are similar podcasts in this vein like The Real Japanese Podcast and Japanese Listening Podcast and probably a bunch of others.
For a harder version meant for N2 and N1, I quite like 日本語聞きはじめ.
Teppei also has a now stopped series called Learn Japanese with Bizarre Stories where every episode is just a 10 minute story that was really fun.
If you really can't hold back from breaking out the dictionary, 気まぐれ日本語 is great because it's all in Japanese but they'll explain vocabulary constantly in Japanese and it's basically split into an easy half and a more challenging half where they free talk on the subject.
I don't personally care for this one because they use a lot of English but I have friends who really like it, "Let's learn Japanese from small talk." Seems it has stopped as well though.
If you read a lot, I've only listened to a few episodes on books I've already read, but おしゃべりレーディング talks about a different book every episode. Not meant for learning but they talk slowly and if you've read the book the material should all be familiar. Some of the books are easy, some are hard, but if you've read them it's nice to listen to people talk about the book and compare your reactions since otherwise it can be hard to find anyone to talk to about Japanese books. Also gives motivation to read books you might not otherwise read.
Have you heard of the company Panrolling (aka でじじ). I've been listening to a few of their audiobooks over the years (西遊記、OZの魔法使い, 日本の神話 which is basically abridged 古事記 which i first met in graded readers) and found them to be a good follow-on from the graded readers. The speaking is quite fast and nice vocab and voice acting. With all listening i don't sweat vocab too much as i do many many passes of the same media so will get to look up the word at some point and for me the difficulty was getting used to the speaking speed. As for level i would say they are a quite a bit harder than say 走れメロス recording which i think is probably the hardest graded reader i heard at the time i was listening to graded readers.
Instead of routine english language tv watching I watch asadora (Oshin, Hiyokko, and now Asagakita) and drama instead. The version of asagakita i have doesn't have Japanese subtitles (which i turned on at certain points in the other asadora to help me out) so a little more difficult.
As i mentioned i do many many passes of these media. I find it comforting but also pick up new stuff on each listen/watch. For audio books i set a 20 minute timer before i sleep and if i wake up at any point do the same again. I'm usually asleep by the end of the 20 mins but its nice as its up to 20 mins of active listening. Most of my immersion is story based as stories are what i enjoy. We are all different of course and learn differently and all we can do is find a method that works (for us).
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please enjoy my recent extremely dumb little project. wanted to test the absolute limits of my new vinyl cutting machine (and also my patience apparently god that took forever) so i did some NGE typography nonsense for my water bottle, complete with intentionally very dumb and bad translation. i hope anyway, that was the plan at least. did most of it manually with absolutely no regard for making sense at all, often swapping out kanji based entirely on how it would affect the alignment lmao. going to etch it on there when the acid i ordered arrives.
my favourite bit is [秘伝汁]
Haha I love it.
please enjoy my recent extremely dumb little project. wanted to test the absolute limits of my new vinyl cutting machine (and also my patience apparently god that took forever) so i did some NGE typography nonsense for my water bottle, complete with intentionally very dumb and bad translation. i hope anyway, that was the plan at least. did most of it manually with absolutely no regard for making sense at all, often swapping out kanji based entirely on how it would affect the alignment lmao. going to etch it on there when the acid i ordered arrives.
my favourite bit is [秘伝汁]
Just a heads up for everyone ITT that Satori Reader is having a Spring sale for new subscribers right now. Sales are very rare, and this is IMO the best Japanese learning app on the market and has been for a while.
Good tip. I'll be traveling for work for a few weeks, and I was hoping to get some listening practice in on the flights and drives. Thanks!
Since Era started pinging me about this thread again, can I ask if there are any good YouTube channels or the like around for listening practice? I've been slacking for a while, my reading is way better than my ability to parse the spoken language (and even my reading could be better but that's another story)
I've been playing Pokemon Green recently, in Japanese. I've played Red and Blue countless times before, so thought it'd be a decent idea to replay something I'm familiar with, but in Japanese to try and help with reading practice.
The game doesn't have any kanji at all, it's all kana, which seems pretty common with Gameboy games. I feel like the lack of kanji actually makes it harder for me to read, as I'm finding my brain sometimes malfunctions on certain words until the lightbulb dings and I'm like "oh, it's that word". I definitely feel like I'm stumbling my way through it a little, but I've actually managed to pick up a few new vocab from it, guessing what words mean based on context and such and then looking them up (e.g. picked up a どくけし/antidote early on in the game in the forest, I assumed the どく was poison and the け part was "extinguish", which turned out to be correct. Definitely would have been a lot easier with the kanji though).
The game doesn't have any kanji at all, it's all kana, which seems pretty common with Gameboy games. I feel like the lack of kanji actually makes it harder for me to read, as I'm finding my brain sometimes malfunctions on certain words until the lightbulb dings and I'm like "oh, it's that word". I definitely feel like I'm stumbling my way through it a little, but I've actually managed to pick up a few new vocab from it, guessing what words mean based on context and such and then looking them up (e.g. picked up a どくけし/antidote early on in the game in the forest, I assumed the どく was poison and the け part was "extinguish", which turned out to be correct. Definitely would have been a lot easier with the kanji though).
These three post short videos pretty often (though I'm not as good as I should on actually listening to them):
Lately I've been listening to 牛沢's let's play of FFVIIR, and it's been going well. I obviously don't understand a lot of what he says, but there's a good balance between the in-game dialogue (which is voiced and subtitled) and his own commentary and jokes.
I kind of hate only having kana. I've gotten more used to it thanks to some manga I've been reading, but it still stops me in my tracks a lot of the time. The biggest issue seems to be that certain combinations without kanji might look like a grammar structure.