Hi! I’ve been trying to learn Japanese several times, but each time I got stuck and lose my motivation. Each time I learn about 50 kanjis and started to forget them soon after. I tried studying semi-regulary on Duo, but I think it’s not very effective. I may be wrong though.
My goal is to learn Japanese to a level where I could understand at least 50% of what’s going on when playing games or reading manga, but I couldn’t reach that level with neither of methods I used before. This level of knowladge is very important to me as I know by learning English, that after that point you can basically learn the language like native speakers do. By consuming the media.
So I’m looking of an advise, what strategy should I use to study the language? I don’t have money for payed courses, but I have free time. Is there a free course or some strategic guide on learning Japanese?
4 comments
I just recommend picking something you love and working hard on understanding it. Like you mention manga. Pick a manga and make sure you know every word in it. It’s really helpful to have a goal as a reason to study.
Consistency is ultimately what strategy you need to employ. You can try as many courses and apps and textbooks as you want but if you’re not doing it everyday(or very consistently) you’re going to get stuck.
Just engage with the language everyday however you can. Flashcards, Duolingo, Manga, whatever works for you, just don’t put it down when you get frustrated. Push onward.
Everyone’s different so you have to patch together something that works for you.
For me it’s sitting the JLPT exams (enables me to measure my progress and forces me to study), watching YouTube videos from good Japanese teachers, listening to podcasts for listening practice and watching Japanese reality TV to learn casual dialogue. I don’t work on productive language which is a gap I need to work on.
I’m not sure how far you’ve gotten on Duolingo (and it’s not something I’ve every tried, as I use the Genki Textbooks and TokiniAndy’s explanatory videos on the grammar points), but you need a good grammar foundation.
With that, your next best step is to apply what you’ve learned. This is how you’ll retain it.
Everyone’s study process is different (as are their resources). What works for me, won’t work for you because a lot of the resources that I use cost money to really utilize.
Although it’s meant to go with the Genki textbooks, the publisher of the books have a free to access page, which has dialogue videos, and links to vocab decks on Quizlet. [https://genki3.japantimes.co.jp/en/student/](https://genki3.japantimes.co.jp/en/student/)
Anki is another free resource you could use to set up your own decks of vocab to drill (originally, I preferred Quizlet, since it forces me to type the words, but I’ve been drifting more to Anki since I can easily use it on my phone.
Using the Yomichan plugin on your browser can also help you do quick lookups when reading native material in your browser. TokiniAndy has a free video resource on using both Anki and Yomichan together to build your own vocab decks here: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJxndUGN8Cg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJxndUGN8Cg) (I can’t remember if it’s in this video or a separate one where he talks about how he sets up his Anki decks but that may also be helpful do you). Andy’s channel has some free videos around grammar points in the Genki text books as well. While his paid course has a lot more resources, the free grammar videos on youtube are great and worth viewing for excellent explanations of the material (the free videos are how I found his paid resources).
If you want to read, start reading. But start with materials that are on a basic level. I love Tadoku readers, as you get a sense of accomplishment in getting through them, and they have different levels depending on where you are. Free ones can be found here: [https://tadoku.org/japanese/en/free-books-en/](https://tadoku.org/japanese/en/free-books-en/)
Additionally, you can find reading material on Natively by difficulty, and have it filter for only free materials only. [https://learnnatively.com/](https://learnnatively.com/)
You mentioned in a comment below that one of the things you struggle with is understanding where words start and end. You’ll only get the hand of that by learning grammar points and practicing reading so that you get the hang of the language. Try some of the Tadoku readers, as they’re meant for beginners, then move into some of the easier manga (I am only 11 months into my study while working full time, only at lesson 8 of Genki, but have managed to read the first issue of しろくまカフェ and よつばと with the help of vocab lists from WaniKani book clubs (Natively sometimes links to these), and some sentence translation when I’m really stuck.
When starting to read, the point is to get the overall sense of the book and what’s occurring, you don’t need to do word by word literal translations, and you don’t have to understand every word and sentence.
I hope something in the ramblings above proves helpful to you – Good luck!