Help starting out

4 comments

1. Start with hiragana and buy a textbook called “genki” use genki to get a basic foundation for grammar then look through the book and get all the vocabulary from the vocab pages at the end of every chapter and put them into a application called “anki” you can download it for free off Google on your computer but on smartphone it will run you 20$

   I’d start from there

2. I use hellotalk, you can speak with native speakers and help those who want to learn English at the same time! I’d also recommend finding some shows in Japanese that peak your interest so you can start hearing it and familiarizing yourself with how it sounds 🙂 Ganbaremasu!!!

3. I would like to temper your ambition by saying you wont achieve much if you are starting from zero, unless you are able to dedicate any waking hour to Japanese for the next 1.5 months, theres too much you have to learn.

   In my opinion, the biggest obstacle would be your accent( assuming you are english speaking) put more effort into that than anything else.

   For accent, I recommend dogen’s patreon( his youtube has 1 or 2 lesson as teasers).

   Next would be Japanese ammo with misa for all the grammars you need.

   For vocab, you can ask the rest of the sub for their anki deck I suppose.

4. I would ask your parents (I’m assuming you are still at least in high school) if you can get a tutor on a site like italki. They have really good teachers that could help you use the language you are learning. It is much easier to speak when you have real conversations. Don’t get stuck on what you should study. Just grab any textbook like Genki 1 and look at the dialogues. You can listen to the audio and follow along.

   Think about topics you want to talk about or ways you can assist the exchange student. Some ideas are:

   * Your self-intro
   * asking questions such as what food do you like?
   * Knowing the names of things around your school. Gym, library, etc.

   Optional but useful:

   * Knowing the basic geography of Japan. Major cities.
   * Popular Japanese musicians.

   Also, I would talk to your teacher or vice principal to see if you can be the one to introduce the student around campus. They might already have a team set up but you might be able to join.