Is there a “fun” way of learning japanese?

9 comments

1. I found some structure helps in the start. Once you have enough words and basic grammar, most of your time can be spent on reading and watching things.

   I don’t think textbooks have good quality explanations, but knowing how of a chapter I wanted to complete in each session made learning more of a habit than a chore.
   I only did something simple like: when I wake up do up to 30 mins on anki. After dinner spend 1-2 hours on grammar (getting to this point in the book)

2. When you say complete beginner, have you learned hiragana and katakana? Do you know any kanji? Like not to burst your bubble, but you have to learn the basics before you can do any games or cartoons. It took me about 3 years before I could really navigate a game and get the gist of what is going on, and that’s with me skipping sentences.

   There are plenty of gamified apps for like the very very basic on the app store, but honestly, learning Japanese isn’t exactly a fun thing. It’s hard, It’s frustrating, and it takes years to make any ground. You have to decide if you want to do this for fun or if you have a dedication and appreciation for the language that is going to last a long time.

3. Why do you want to learn Japanese?

4. Yes.
   https://learnjapanese.moe/

5. Yes, reading is a lot of fun.

   However, it depends on what you are reading. For instance, if you are reading a list of numbers, it isn’t fun.

6. There are a ton of games and apps out there for beginner Japanese, I’ve heard good things about the “Learn Japanese To Survive” series on Steam, but you are eventually going to reach a point where you need to grind flashcards or something similar for learning kanji and memorizing vocab, not much way around it

   Not to be discouraging but Japanese is one of the hardest languages for an English native to learn (https://www.fsi-language-courses.org/blog/fsi-language-difficulty/), no matter what strategy you do it’s going to take longer to learn than nearly any other language.

7. I started off with the Pimsleur audiobook lessons. 30 minute lessons, one lesson per day (although I always did them at least twice)

   I found it both practical and fun, because I could do lessons while driving or working. The only downside is that it’s a bit pricey.

   Eventually I moved on to also study with textbooks to learn how to read and write, but the groundwork that you get from learning by listening and actively speaking and pronouncing is considerable! I absolutely recommend it!

8. There is Learn Japanese to Survive if you have Windows or a MacOS old enough to run 32-bit. It just teaches hiragana, katakana, and some kanji though.

   Satori Reader can be pretty fun if you’re into reading.

   Although if you don’t eventually find something in the language you find interesting, you’re going to hit a wall at some point.

9. As other people have asked, why do you want to learn Japanese then, if it doesn’t interest you? Spend time on your interests.