Those self taught who got far in japanese… how did you study grammar / speaking?

5 comments

1. More than half of my Japanese learning experience has been self-study. I also started before Reddit and smartphones, and all of this connectivity were a thing, so grain of salt.

   1) Early on, for grammar what really made it stick starting out was Marc Bernabe’s Japanese in Mangaland, with a few other books like Gene Nishi’s Japanese Step-by-Step and Japanese the Manga Way. Each are smaller and more digestible than the copy of Nakama I was given by a friend.

   2) I also was lucky enough to meet a Japanese woman through work and we’d meet up once a week for conversation. Even from the start I wanted to speak, so I was focused on that. I think where I struggled was listening and writing.

   3) As I got to higher-intermediate Japanese (after 3 years of university study, about N2), the grammar took a bit longer to get down. I hired a few tutors for speaking, but I don’t think my ability really “got there” until grad school.

   4) For N1 (which I didn’t pass in 2021, although I want to try again next year), I was lucky enough to live in Japan for 3 years. My speaking and listening really improved. Grammar is easier because I took a Classical Japanese course and N1 grammar is very similar as it tends to be literary/academic/bookish and less conversational.

   5) As personal advice from my own failings, I’d read a lot more, which is hard when you don’t necessarily have the time. I’m lucky enough to be working in an environment where I can use Japanese everyday with coworkers, so I’m not worried about losing that ability.

   6) For future plans, I’m planning on tutoring through iTalki, reading more and aiming for N1 again in 2023.

2. You dont need a tutor, especially not for grammar.

   You can use a textbook, I dont exactly want to recommend them because they dont really explain grammar, at least not as well as other sources like Cure Dolly and Tae Kim.

   After getting the basics down, get a popup dictionary, install vocab and grammar dictionaries, and learn how to use Google, then read for hours and hours looking up words and grammar.
   If you find yourself getting confused with sentences because grammar you dont know how to look up, it would be beneficial to go through lists like https://nihongokyoshi-net.com/jlpt-grammars/ routinely

   Unless speaking is an immediate concern, you dont need to worry about it yet. Once youve consumed enough content you will understand the language well enough to not make simple mistakes in output.

   Either way, if you start output now or later, there are language exchange apps and social media where you can talk with natives for free.

3. I tried to read through Tae Kim, Maggie Sensei, and whatever other grammar guide I had.

   Ultimately though I found I didn’t remember much that way, so I started using those resources to look up grammar points as I came across them.

   First when I came across them in learning materials and apps, then when I got to that point, when I came across new grammar points in native media.

4. Not me but I knew someone who got N1, I think they did things like language exchanges and they did it for hours a day, like 6+ hours each day(!) on the weekends.

   Changed their schedule to be an “earlybird” so they can sync-up with Japanese speakers easier.

   One thing they told me is that on language exchanges, most of the Japanese would let him speak in Japanese a lot because they couldn’t speak much English, though this may have changed now.

   Other than that, they somehow were able to squeeze in 4 hours of study every weekday after work (no idea how this is possible, I can see 3 but not 4, that is hard).

5. Grammar with books like Genki, Tobira etc. And the internet

   Speaking with iTalki. It’s much cheaper than hiring a Japanese tutor IRL here and I had a pretty positive experience with it