I’m a 42 year old adult that hasn’t studied in years. I was never a good book learner. I got middling grades which were enough to graduate HS and college.
I’ve been trying to study Japanese for a year now, bouncing from one system to the next: Rosetta Stone, Memrise, Human Japanese, Duolingo (which gets slammed here but is great for learning sentence structure and some basic kanji)
When it comes to this book, I don’t really know how to use it. I bought the 3 companion apps and downloaded the resource that allows you to hear examples from the lesson.
I don’t really how know long to stay on a section, when I’ve completed it, how to not forget what I have learned, how to keep vocabulary. I think it’s frustrating at times to stay on the same material and not getting it.
I have about 30 minutes a day to work on this. I need quiet and no distractions or I’ll see a blinking light and stop what I’m doing. Usually I study at work during lunch. Home is too chaotic to find much quiet time to learn.
Any suggestions on how to focus on the material, know when I’ve reached a checkpoint or milestone and move forward?
I don’t have any real goals. My wife and I plan to go to Japan in 2024 or 2025. It would be nice to be able to order from a restaurant, shop in a store and speak in Japanese to the clerk, read signs and not be a bumbling tourist.
I also enjoy Japanese games and play them with subtitles and Japanese audio. It would be cool someday to play them natively but I expect that is a long way off.
4 comments
Learn hiragana and katakana then use Anki to learn the book’s vocab in the order it’s introduced. With those areas covered, you’ll have a lot more cognitive bandwidth to spend on the core of the text.
the short answer is to use it. write and speak sentences using the words and grammar you learned. and read and listen to sentences that use them as well. the more media you engage with, the more senses you use while engaging, the more and stronger neuronal connections you form. better to learn half the content and spend the time using it, than just doubling up on rote memorization of flashcards.
the first thing you have to do is just make sure you finish reading it(both genki 1 and 2 if possible). it’s normal to not understand everything on your first go but when you see something in the wild you’ll get the “oh I’ve seen that before somewhere” feeling. and then you’ll be able to look stuff up more easily which will reinforce what you’ve learned.
again, you won’t understand everything on the first try, this is complicated stuff but just finish it before worrying about anything else.
I can’t really advise if this book suits you or not. If you are struggling with it, maybe try some other stuff.
If you decide to give it a go, the most important thing to keep in mind imho is that it’s a textbook tailored for classroom study. As such, there is a lot of repetition, additional exercises. A teacher using this book in a classroom might skip some exercises/rush through them/change some things. I would maybe advise skimming through the lesson in advance and trying to figure out which parts might be the most relevant for you. Obviously it’s good if you read all grammatical explanations. But as for exercises, maybe pick one on each page or do some of them orally, some in writing, so that you don’t get too bored.