Hello all! I’ve only been teaching myself Japanese for a week now using Duolingo and Memrise. My question would be: what is your best advice for someone who is just starting out? I’m really dedicated to learning and I want all the advice I can get
There are lots of ways to learn as there is definitely no shortage of materials available to learn Japanese. Take a little bit to figure out what you want to learn from and then stick with it. It’s very easy to be distracted by all the available options.
Be patient. It will not just “click” overnight. You will need to spend a long time learning so get yourself Ii to that mindset. Don’t get discouraged because it takes a long time and can seem counterintuitive. Persevere!
Don’t waste time learning kanji individually, I think it’s a mistake a lot of new learners make. Knowing the multiple readings for each kanji will not help you read full sentences or have conversations, which are the two things you want to be able to do in order to speed up your learning. Duolingo worked really well for me, and then I got onto reading books with furigana and listening to conversation practice and japanese videos/movies/anime.
I’m also starting out, but just about to finish learning Hiragana.
* Duolingo is a good start. It is good at teaching how to read Kana, and the initial steps to writing, listening and speaking Kana. You can do the initial 2 units if you’d like too. However beyond that it will start throwing Kanji at you without proper explanations, so it would only be slightly useful to reinforce reading and listening, and you probably should move on from Duolingo then. * Duolingo on the phone is better than on the computer to learn Kana, because on the phone is also gives writing exercises. * Go to Settings -> Manage courses -> Show pronunciation and select Japanese * After you learn Kana, stop using romanji. The pronunciation of romanji is not always what you’d expect, so it will drill into you the wrong patterns, but at the beginning it’s a necessity. * Set up IME character recognition on your computer if you are using it for exercises * Memrise is only going to teach you how to read and maybe listening. You’re better off dropping it and using other resources. I’d recommend something that will teach you grammar and Kanji stroke order after Hiragana. * Start with Hiragana, then learn Katakana and Kanji simultaneously. You’ll be done with Katakana quickly.
Yoo same here. I mean i started a while ago but stopped in a 2 weeks or so but I just re-downloaded it today and ima take it seriously fr this time Wish me luck
Carry a notepad and pen with you throughout the day and write down any phrases that you notice yourself using often. Then spend some time translating those phrases to Japanese and practicing them.
You can also look for Japanese music that you like and transcribe & translate the lyrics. This is a pretty good way to learn. Any time the songs get stuck in your head, it’s like free practice.
You can also find Japanese shows to watch and do the same kind of thing. But this can be a bit more difficult because there is more slang and mumbling in movies and TV than in music, usually. Though, the Japanese gameshows can be an easy way to learn some phrases when you are starting out. People on those shows tend to keep repeating the same few phrases.
Do whatever you can to immerse yourself in the language. It will take a while to develop an ear for Japanese. And the way language acquisition usually works is we learn to listen to a language before we learn to speak it. So after a while you will notice that you can understand a good bit of what people are saying on Japanese TV but you can’t quite put sentences together properly. Then you gradually get better at the grammar, clearing up any mistakes you are making and eventually, you will be able to converse pretty easily in Japanese.
My best advice is about managing expectations.
Unlike learning Spanish, French, or German, for example, Japanese shares absolutely zero linguistic “ancestry” with English or other European languages.
When learning Spanish, you do have roughly the right idea of what order words should come in, what order thoughts come in, how thoughts modify other thoughts, etc. You don’t know the words themselves, you have to learn verb conjugations, there may be a few tricky order switches like noun/adjective in Spanish, but there’s a surprising amount you already know.
You know nothing about Japanese. Even just saying very simple things is going to seem very hard because you are learning a whole new order of thinking and communicating. Please don’t get frustrated. It is completely natural for the first couple years to seem like they are going very slowly. Unlike other languages, it’s the basic stuff that’s actually the hardest.
The good news is, Japanese is a pretty “tight” language. Because it’s never really spread beyond its own country for a sustained amount of time (unlike European empires), it hasn’t picked up a huge amount of contradictions and exceptions like others. The ones you learn in the first couple years are pretty much it. So it actually gets easier and faster to learn with time.
Study hard, study regularly, start reading ASAP, speak with natives ASAP. There are a ton of tools to do all of those things. If you aren’t actually using what you’re learning, then you’re not really learning IMO.
Find a local Japanese language class. I found the group setting can help wonders. I’m sure there are affordable online options now, too.
IMO Memrise and Duolingo are a great combination for beginners, as one myself I have just finished section 1 and it has taught me how to read Japanese more than anything else. And I also use Anki which is similar to Memrise the SRS system, only I feel Anki is abit faster but tbh Memrise is really good – you might want to look into that also it’s extremely good, add Japanese to your keyboard if you haven’t already so you can switch from English to Japanese, helps you get used to it. Finally if you ever need a language partner who is also a beginner let me know and Il give you a message. It would be great to be at a similar level and be able to practice writing conversation and go through duo at a similar time 👌
Best advice I can give is ask yourself if this is a dream or a goal? Dreams are things we fantasize about where as goals are something you are set out to accomplish! You are much more likely to succeed if you treat this as a goal. Second piece of advice is imagine Japanese as an ocean, it’s very deep and you may never reach the bottom.. and that’s okay. Start at the shore and don’t dive in or you will drown. Start with the basics like introducing yourself, learning hiragana and katakana, learn the days of the week and colors and numbers. Third! Create mini goals for each month. Don’t over study or you will burn out! Make sure to celebrate your accomplishments as as insignificant as they may seem to you they are a reminder that you are further then you were previously! Japanese is a journey that takes years to learn! Just keep swimming!
It’s a marathon not a sprint. You don’t have to achieve N1 level in 6 months.
Also, italki is invaluable for conversation practice. Find a teacher you like and stay with them.
Doulingo is not very good after about two or three weeks.
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r/learnjapanese
I recommend [Tokini Andy on YouTube for grammar](https://www.youtube.com/@ToKiniAndy) and [Wright Juku Online for kanji](https://www.youtube.com/@wrightjukuonline). They also have paid stuff that may also be useful if you have the budget for it, particularly Tokini Andy.
[To work on reading, here are free readers arranged by level](https://tadoku.org/japanese/en/free-books-en/).
For listening practice, I recommend [Nihongo con Teppei podcast](https://nihongoconteppei.com/).
There are lots of ways to learn as there is definitely no shortage of materials available to learn Japanese. Take a little bit to figure out what you want to learn from and then stick with it. It’s very easy to be distracted by all the available options.
Be patient. It will not just “click” overnight. You will need to spend a long time learning so get yourself Ii to that mindset. Don’t get discouraged because it takes a long time and can seem counterintuitive. Persevere!
Don’t waste time learning kanji individually, I think it’s a mistake a lot of new learners make. Knowing the multiple readings for each kanji will not help you read full sentences or have conversations, which are the two things you want to be able to do in order to speed up your learning. Duolingo worked really well for me, and then I got onto reading books with furigana and listening to conversation practice and japanese videos/movies/anime.
I’m also starting out, but just about to finish learning Hiragana.
* Duolingo is a good start. It is good at teaching how to read Kana, and the initial steps to writing, listening and speaking Kana. You can do the initial 2 units if you’d like too. However beyond that it will start throwing Kanji at you without proper explanations, so it would only be slightly useful to reinforce reading and listening, and you probably should move on from Duolingo then.
* Duolingo on the phone is better than on the computer to learn Kana, because on the phone is also gives writing exercises.
* Go to Settings -> Manage courses -> Show pronunciation and select Japanese
* After you learn Kana, stop using romanji. The pronunciation of romanji is not always what you’d expect, so it will drill into you the wrong patterns, but at the beginning it’s a necessity.
* Set up IME character recognition on your computer if you are using it for exercises
* Memrise is only going to teach you how to read and maybe listening. You’re better off dropping it and using other resources. I’d recommend something that will teach you grammar and Kanji stroke order after Hiragana.
* Start with Hiragana, then learn Katakana and Kanji simultaneously. You’ll be done with Katakana quickly.
Yoo same here. I mean i started a while ago but stopped in a 2 weeks or so but I just re-downloaded it today and ima take it seriously fr this time
Wish me luck
Carry a notepad and pen with you throughout the day and write down any phrases that you notice yourself using often.
Then spend some time translating those phrases to Japanese and practicing them.
You can also look for Japanese music that you like and transcribe & translate the lyrics. This is a pretty good way to learn. Any time the songs get stuck in your head, it’s like free practice.
You can also find Japanese shows to watch and do the same kind of thing. But this can be a bit more difficult because there is more slang and mumbling in movies and TV than in music, usually. Though, the Japanese gameshows can be an easy way to learn some phrases when you are starting out. People on those shows tend to keep repeating the same few phrases.
Do whatever you can to immerse yourself in the language. It will take a while to develop an ear for Japanese. And the way language acquisition usually works is we learn to listen to a language before we learn to speak it. So after a while you will notice that you can understand a good bit of what people are saying on Japanese TV but you can’t quite put sentences together properly. Then you gradually get better at the grammar, clearing up any mistakes you are making and eventually, you will be able to converse pretty easily in Japanese.
My best advice is about managing expectations.
Unlike learning Spanish, French, or German, for example, Japanese shares absolutely zero linguistic “ancestry” with English or other European languages.
When learning Spanish, you do have roughly the right idea of what order words should come in, what order thoughts come in, how thoughts modify other thoughts, etc. You don’t know the words themselves, you have to learn verb conjugations, there may be a few tricky order switches like noun/adjective in Spanish, but there’s a surprising amount you already know.
You know nothing about Japanese. Even just saying very simple things is going to seem very hard because you are learning a whole new order of thinking and communicating. Please don’t get frustrated. It is completely natural for the first couple years to seem like they are going very slowly. Unlike other languages, it’s the basic stuff that’s actually the hardest.
The good news is, Japanese is a pretty “tight” language. Because it’s never really spread beyond its own country for a sustained amount of time (unlike European empires), it hasn’t picked up a huge amount of contradictions and exceptions like others. The ones you learn in the first couple years are pretty much it. So it actually gets easier and faster to learn with time.
Study hard, study regularly, start reading ASAP, speak with natives ASAP. There are a ton of tools to do all of those things. If you aren’t actually using what you’re learning, then you’re not really learning IMO.
Find a local Japanese language class. I found the group setting can help wonders. I’m sure there are affordable online options now, too.
IMO Memrise and Duolingo are a great combination for beginners, as one myself I have just finished section 1 and it has taught me how to read Japanese more than anything else. And I also use Anki which is similar to Memrise the SRS system, only I feel Anki is abit faster but tbh Memrise is really good – you might want to look into that also it’s extremely good, add Japanese to your keyboard if you haven’t already so you can switch from English to Japanese, helps you get used to it. Finally if you ever need a language partner who is also a beginner let me know and Il give you a message. It would be great to be at a similar level and be able to practice writing conversation and go through duo at a similar time 👌
Best advice I can give is ask yourself if this is a dream or a goal? Dreams are things we fantasize about where as goals are something you are set out to accomplish! You are much more likely to succeed if you treat this as a goal. Second piece of advice is imagine Japanese as an ocean, it’s very deep and you may never reach the bottom.. and that’s okay. Start at the shore and don’t dive in or you will drown. Start with the basics like introducing yourself, learning hiragana and katakana, learn the days of the week and colors and numbers. Third! Create mini goals for each month. Don’t over study or you will burn out! Make sure to celebrate your accomplishments as as insignificant as they may seem to you they are a reminder that you are further then you were previously! Japanese is a journey that takes years to learn! Just keep swimming!
It’s a marathon not a sprint. You don’t have to achieve N1 level in 6 months.
Also, italki is invaluable for conversation practice. Find a teacher you like and stay with them.
Doulingo is not very good after about two or three weeks.