LLearn Japanese

I’ve reached the point where I know enough about learning Japanese to know I know hardly anything about it, and need help staying motivated

Hi everyone, just hoping for a bit of advice.

At the moment I’m trying to do as much as I can to learn Japanese as effectively as possible. I’m almost at stage 2 of Duolingo’s programme, I’ve almost hit level 3 in WaniKani and I’ve been adding assorted vocabulary that I’m struggling with into a custom Anki deck that I cycle through regularly. I already learned hiragana and katakana about 4 years ago and have refreshed myself on them.

I think the biggest issue I’m having is that I feel like I’m forgetting all of the new vocabulary that I picked up the day before very quickly. My experience so far has been very “in one ear, out the other”. Anki is great, but I don’t know if I’m utilising it as best as I can?

It’s really cool to be able to suddenly pick up context from random Japanese conversation, but I’m still finding it incredibly difficult to break into the next step. There just doesn’t seem to be a sense of progression for me, or anything that makes me feel like I’ve learned much more than when I restarted about 2 months ago.

I know that Japanese is a language that takes years to learn, I guess I just would like some encouragement and maybe some tips on where I might be going wrong or anything else that I can try to help my comprehension improve and to demonstrate to myself that I am improving in some ways, even if it isn’t as obviously as I’d like.

Thank you all!

43 comments

  2. Read and consume comprehensible material!!

    – Comprehensible Japanese on YouTube is a godsend
    – There are tons of graded readers out there designed for absolute beginners (search “graded reader” in this subreddit)
    – Crystal Hunters is a manga written with the absolute barest minimum of vocabulary and grammar
    – There are lots of podcasts for beginners out there as well, though I find them the least accessible of these options (Nihongo con Teppei, Japanese with Noriko, Sakura Tips)

  3. Courses and anki are not magic. If you don’t use your knowledge, you will not retain it.

    Studying more of the same courses, or of different courses will not help.

    Immerse yourself in the language. Watch japanese youtube, shows, anime or whatever else you want to watch, read simple books or internet forums (did you know there are quite a few sub primarily in Japanese? not super active, but active enough to be a decent reading practice, at least for informal language).

    Try to write something simple in Japanese – you don’t need to post or comment it everywhere, just as a practice of formulating your thoughts in the language.

    When you get more confident, try to find people to chat with either in text or in voice (it’s probably too early for that now, but you will get there).

    Don’t try to rush it, just be persistent and enjoy the journey.

  4. Duolingo is a lot of fun but it is far from efficient. In fact, progress becomes incredibly slow after the initial 1-2 checkpoints. It is particularly slow with teaching you vocab. You could get a real textbook and set yourself a schedule like “1 lesson per week” and you will feel like you are progressing soon enough. Alternatively, get a quick overview of all basic grammar e.g. via Tae Kim and then get started with graded readers like Satori Reader. No matter what you choose, everything will move faster than Duolingo.

  5. Watch movies but with Japanese subtitles. Holy shit was that annoying to search every little word at every dialogue in starting but fortunately I’ve reached a point where just yesterday I finished whole Doctor Stramge 2.

    Mid movie though.

  7. You could stream Japanese movies with the original audio, and turn on or off the subtitles. I like watching Star Wars over and over again… in the Japanese dub. C3P0 cracks me up, and Leia is pretty amazing.

  9. It’s hard to motivate other people but, please consider that it’s a pretty neat hobby regardless of how much you “know” about Japanese

    Anyway for helping to remember vocab a lot of people use ANKI or some similar SRS program

  10. If you have lots of time to study,

    First, give more focus on Grammar when you think you got the basic down, preferably up to N3 and then read a book that is written in Japanese, manga/LN or even children story books are fine too. Just read it.

    If you find a new words, put it in your anki deck and review it later. First it will be very difficult and very time consuming. You might sometime spend an hour to read 2 or 3 pages but it will be worth it because the best way to learn any language (after you get your basic down, of course) is to make that language part of your daily life.

    Also, don’t feel that bad about not progress too much. Japanese has too many vocabs so it’s normal that you don’t feel like you are progressing much.

  11. There’s maaany ways to learn a language but the only that prevals them all is “use it”. Just talk with Japanese speakers, with the intent to use the new vocabulary. At first you’ll sound like a toddler that repeats the words over and over, in different contexts, until they’re only used at the right PTO.

    Also!! Language learning comes in “steps”. You’ll plateau many times, and this is where you want to keep pushing through and incorporate new medium (song lyrics from artist you like, tv show/anime with Japanes subtitles) to entertain your interest while immersing in it some more.

  13. What you’re doing isn’t working if you learned kana four years ago and are still doing Duolingo and Wanikani.

    Get the Genki books and go through them, and don’t rush. Walk before run. You’ll learn a ton of Japanese from the Genki books and it’ll mostly feel like rapid progress because it is. It’s structured to be rapid progress. And it’s enough of a foundation that you can branch off into native material like manga, anime, games, etc after. With great difficulty at first of course, but you’ll have a fighting chance with a solid foundation.

    Fuck motivation. Either you do it or don’t. If you want to learn this language it’s a lot of sacrifice of your time and effort. You can’t half ass it or you’ll be back asking the same question here again in 4 years.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3lQSxNdr3c

  14. I have almost no knowledge on what Duolingo and Wanikani levels correspond to actual knowledge, but its pretty important to try out different methods of learning if you feel you are running into plateaus. I would take a look at learning some grammar and perhaps some graded readers.

    [TokiniAndy Youtube Lessons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GaQBL4XHuSo&list=PLA_RcUI8km1NMhiEebcbqdlcHv_2ngbO2)

    [Bunpro](https://www.bunpro.jp/)

    [Renshuu](https://www.renshuu.org/)

    [Satori Reader](https://www.satorireader.com/)

    I also don’t know your overall motivation for learning japanese, but it helps to take baby steps in the thing you like. For example, if your goal is to read light novels or watch anime, you should make motions in that direction. Manga is a particularly good one, as the stories are often better than textbooks/readers and most kanji has furigana.

  16. Keep a journal in Japanese. Doesn’t have to be anything major just what you did that day, what you had for lunch, talk about a show or movie you watched. Do it everyday. You’ll see improvement

  18. Have a look at [network effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect). Each additional word you learn at this point makes all of the other words you know significantly more valuable, because each word is usually used in conjunction with other words. It’s the combination of words that allows understanding and expressing more nuanced and complicated thoughts.

  19. I think you didn’t give enough details. How many hours of study do you do a day? How many of those are spent on Duolingo, Wanikani etc.

    Personally, I would advise at least 1h of study a day to feel any kind of progress and to use 2 resources at most. I would say find a word resource (like Wanikani or Duolingo) and a grammar resource. Then spend maybe 30 minutes on each

  20. I try and focus on the things I do know. There is so much Vocab that I do not know, but there is also so much that I do. I might not understand a. Sentence but I try and focus on the words/phrases/tenses/forms that I can recognize and build off of that. It is very demotivating to focus on the things you don’t know but there is so much that I do know compared to someone with no knowledge.

  21. Studying a language and acquiring a language are two different things IMO

    Studying will make your journey to acquire the language smoother and faster but to actually acquire it you will have to use the language by e.g. listening to videos, reading books and/or playing games

    Don’t become a slave to textbooks or learning materials, they’re supplements. Try intensive reading/listening where you look everything up, but also extensive reading/listening where you’re consuming a lot of content without necessarily understanding everything, giving your brain a workout by letting it figure out meanings from context. Become comfortable with not understanding everything and you will notice large gains after a while

    Don’t use anki too much because it’ll eat up time you could’ve spent on using the language, and it might become exhausting if you have tons of reviews each day. Use it to assist with acquiring vocabulary, but the best way for words to stick and learning their diverse meanings is by seeing them in context tons of times until you build up a massive databank in your head

    You won’t always notice when you improve, but just trust in yourself and in the power of your brain. Don’t burn yourself out by trying to reach a vague goal like “fluency”. Enjoy the journey by finding content that you enjoy in the language and stop seeing it as studying

    After learning basic grammar I recommend taking a look at https://nihongokyoshi-net.com/jlpt-grammars. There is also an anki deck that contains all of the grammar points, if you prefer

  22. Feeling like I’m unable to accumulate vocabulary and constantly forgetting words is one of my biggest struggles. Here is some of my advice on the matter:

    * When learning vocabulary, ability to recognize words in context sets in WAAAAY before ability to recall them on your own does. Do some reading or listening practice, and let yourself see how many words you do remember when you run into them. Give yourself permission to acknowledge what you have learned, as opposed to focusing only on what you haven’t.

    * Listening to and speaking words makes them more “real” to your brain than just learning them in written form. If possible use something like [the migaku anki plugin](https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/1846879528) to add audio clips to your flash cards. I recommend that your first anki card type should be audio only on the front.

    * In addition to audio cards, working with example sentences helps words set in a lot faster than learning words in isolation, though this will eat up more of your time to prepare. Choose where to pick your battles: maybe make sentences for very useful words, or words you tend to mis-use. Example sentences also work well for learning useful sentence structures (ようにする… 限り… ばかり… etc.) which will make you feel more fluent than you would with vocabulary alone.

    * Reading comprehension levels tend to stay ahead of listening comprehension levels for most people. This was true for me, and I always found it irritating. I highly recommend finding dedicated speaking tutor on something like italki, which can be done for way cheaper than you think. This should still supplement self-study, group classes, and/or reading practice, but having to say a word in order to make another person understand an idea you want to convey does wonders to trick your brain into retaining words. But, BE PATIENT WITH YOURSELF for your first few sessions. Having a full conversation with yourself will be shockingly hard at first, if you’ve never done it before. That said, you can avoid relying on *random* conversation, and will get to focus on topics relevant to your life, which also helps trick your brain into feeling like it *has* to remember these things.

    * Let yourself take breaks and learn in inefficient ways when you need to. The suboptimal practice that you do is worth more than the optimal practice that you don’t.

  23. sounds like, you know, you need to use the language. What are you studying japanese for? go read a book, watch anime or chat on discord

  24. A great resource is fukumusume: [http://hukumusume.com/douwa/PC/jap/itiran/01gatu.htm](http://hukumusume.com/douwa/PC/jap/itiran/01gatu.htm)

    A lot of old stories in easy to read Japanese. Reading in context helps you remember much better than just flashcards. Look for お話しを表示 and click it and you can read along with the spoken story. I use it in my beginning intermediate and intermediate classes.

  26. It sounds like you are using standard Anki settings. I personally think 2 repeats on the same day isn’t enough when the space between them is so short. Is it 10 min on default settings?

    I recommend changing it to 3 steps, personally I use 1 min, 15 min and 60 min. If you can remember after 60 min, chances are you can remember the next day.

    There are also some very good Anki guides out there that go into much more detail, sadly I don’t have a link on hand as it’s been a year or so since I set mine up.

  27. In my opinion, you should look at “Graded Readers” that will give you reading material targeted for your current Japanese level. This is a great way to reinforce the vocab you are learning and also give you new words to add to your deck.

    These will grow with you as you learn more as well, there are huge ranges of them from various companies.

    I don’t know what Duolingo stage 2 is but level 3 in Wanikani is extremely basic. Luckily most graded readers at the beginner level are going to use little to no kanji.

  28. I have started out similar to you in that I did duolingo up till about stage 2-3 and then wanikani and anki. It wasn’t till around wanikani level 8-10 that I started being able to kind of read the easiest NHK easy news articles (a lot of sentences I would read I would get the gist of, but not the full meaning and was looking up a lot of stuff). It wasn’t till about wanikani level 15-20 with all of n5 and half of n4 grammar studied were I was comfortably able to read the easier stuff from satori reader and NHK easy while fully understanding sentences.

    The point where you are at is kind of the shitty part where there really isn’t much you can read without looking up every other kanji or word. Some of the early tadoku graded reader stuff is probably the only thing that was comprehensible to start with or stuff from textbooks. Basically you will need to keep grinding away for awhile before things start to click.

    I had to play around and try various methods to learn and retain new vocab till I found what I am comfortable with. I tried a variety of systems such as anki, wanikani, kanji study, satori reader built in system, nhk easy built in system. I tried with and without mnemonics, with and without learning the kanji first and ultimately, for me, something along the lines of wanikani (I use images in my head vs word mnemonics) worked out best for me personally, especially for retention. Nowadays, anytime I come across a new word that I think is useful i’ll pull up the kanji for it along with several words that seem useful that use that kanji and put it into an srs system.

    Either way, good luck. Things do get better eventually and ultimately playing with different methods to find one that works for you is part of the process too.

  29. I think it helps when after you learn some new vocabulary, trying to form different sentences where you include the words you learned. Also listen to podcast in Japanese (Spotify has some great podcasts to practice listening) watch some Japanese content online. Well to get motivation just think about the UwU and Ara ara

  30. Motivation is overrated. You have to focus on learning, despite you have motivation or not

  31. You say youre forgetting new vocab the next day? How are you trying to memorize them and how many are you learning at once? I found that actually using the language by conversing on the japanese discord really helped. Quicker than anything I’d done thus far. So I would suggest that or even have someone you can message or email back and forth with who is on the same level.

  32. Sorry in advance if this comes off as harsh, but I think it’s advice you need to hear.

    Your main problem isn’t “motivation”, it’s that you’re learning the language in a very inefficient/unproductive way, and as a result you’re spinning your wheels and not making the sort of progress that encourages you to keep going.

    I *strongly* suggest you drop Duolingo and get a real textbook like Genki. I have essentially not seen anyone develop any legitimate, meaningful level of Japanese proficiency through Duolingo. A legit textbook Genki is designed to give you precisely the structure and meaningful progression that you’re lacking right now.

    Anki is a great tool, but basically for one specific purpose: drilling vocab words. That and WaniKani may give you a basis of vocab and kanji, but you still need to learn the language itself, and Duolingo isn’t going to cut it.

    Reevaluate your study methods, and I guarantee you’ll be worrying less about “motivation” because you’ll actually be able to feel yourself progressing, and that will be motivation in itself.

  33. Do you have a goal? I find it’s important to have one in order to keep yourself motivated.

  34. I have 3 solutions i use myself that i find effective:
    – Listen to the new vocabularies all day. Be it anki cards, then take audio of the words and its sentences out to shadowing after you learn. If you use text books, listen to the accompanying CD a lot.
    – Use mnemonics, try to link the new worlds with the words you already knew. Since japanese have many different words with same readings. This is very helpful to remember the readings/pronunciation of the words.
    – Work hard on Kanji. Jo Mako has a really good Kanji deck on Anki shared deck server. Check it out.

  35. The biggest thing is to find what gets you excited to keep going.

    For me, it was picking up some easy manga with furigana once I was most of the way through Genki 1 (I was *maybe* at N5 level). Started with Yotsuba&!, took me a full hour to read each chapter, looking up about every fourth word. But I got tons of excitement every time I made a new step–whether it was reading a full page without needing to look anything up, figuring out something about a kanji, or understanding a pun.

    You might find more of that excitement from listening to podcasts, or watching movies or dramas, reading short stories, or whatever. If you’re not sure, try out a few things and figure out what got you found *fun–*even if you’re not good at it. And make it a point to do that regularly. It’s true that you need a lot of willpower and determination to really master a new language, but that will dry up over time if you don’t give yourself a reason to want it.

  38. Get a kindle, a Japanese Amazon account you connect thru a VPN. Download some books and start reading. Use the Kindle dictionary feature for words you don’t know.

  39. The material you need, unfortunately does not exist in Japanese.

    They teach Japanese the same way as they learn to (not) speak English.

    It’s based on grammar. Teaching grammar to learn a language, is as efficient as teaching hydrodynamics to learn to swim.

    Also the use of sentence patterns; absolutely useless.

    What you need is easy readers. The last useful one was about Tokyo and published by 日本語教育学会 in 1978.

    I will not recommend any textbooks, the least bad one being Genki.

    There are useful podcasts, there are useful comprehensible input style YouTube channels.

    Rumors are that there will be published new easy readers – normal easy readers, not just parallel texts.

    Japanese is my fifth language, and I’ve been struggling with it for seven years. Still can’t read a normal book without tons of tools.

  40. Hello, i had a very similar situation to you recently and it’s easy to be overwhelmed. Just keep going and learning in a way you find fun and as long as you do that you will keep making progress. One very important thing to do is immersion where you consume content in japanese with no subtitles, i highly recommended [Shirokuma Cafe](https://zoro.to/polar-bear-cafe-607?ref=search)(i started watching it myself recently and i love it). Also to help with piece your knowledge together watch this videos series called [Japanese From Zero!](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOcym2c7xnBwU12Flkm5RcLIEhvURQ8TB), This has helped keep me so motivated all the way through because the guy who is doing it is the best teacher ever!

  42. I’d stick to simpler stuff. Forget kanji other than what comes up in your textbook. Add that to Anki if you like. Nobody can learn a language in a day and we’ll never know everything so just take comfort in the fact that today you know more than yesterday and tomorrow you’ll know more making speaking and comprehension marginally better.

  43. It’s a difficult language that takes many years to learn. Just keep chipping away at it day after day and eventually you’ll get better 🙂

Leave a Reply
— Previous article

Japanese Street Food Tour in Kawagoe! Saitama Japan
Next article —

Has anyone had any TV input problems with BS/CS channels? Automatic input changing?

You May Also Like