Hey everyone!
It’s been around 2 years / 2900-3000 hours since I’ve started to learn Japanese. During this time, I’ve tried a lot of approaches and resources to learn Japanese. I just wanted to write this short post about my progress, experiences and insights I’ve gained. I hope this can also help out some people.
## My journey and experiences ##
I started learning Japanese on the first of July 2020, I don’t even remember why exactly, probably a combination of being bored, the desire to do something productive with my time and just being fascinated by the Japanese language. I came across Matt vs Japan’s YouTube channel at that time and his general message to learn through “immersion”* immediately made sense to me, as I learned English through watching a lot of YouTube videos in English after I had some very basic knowledge (Grade 1-6 of English class in Germany).
*I don’t really want to call it immersion, but rather “input”, or just “reading” and “listening”. Immersion is just this seemingly big word everyone uses to describe the rather simple process of engaging with a language.
For a German native speaker like me, English is a very easy language to learn (a lot of very similar vocabulary and really easy grammar as both are Germanic languages). In contrast, Japanese is really hard since it basically shares like 3 useful words (アルバイト – Arbeit (work), エネルギー – Energie (energy), アレルギー – Allergie (allergy)) with German and the grammar as well as pronounciation are completely different.
I started with the Tango N5 Anki deck, RRTK 1000 and the Beginner’s grammar playlist by Japanese Ammo with Misa. While doing that I already started to listen to Japanese. I quickly dropped the grammar playlist, which resulted in me basically not knowing any grammar. I eventually picked up common grammar patterns through input, but the whole process would have been much easier if I’d have continued to study grammar.
Then I finished RRTK and Tango N5. RRTK was a huge waste of time, boring and in total just did not help me in any way. Tango N5 is a great deck that I’d still recommend. Eventually I started “sentence mining”, and from there on I basically just watched/listened to Japanese a lot while making anywhere from 10-30 Anki cards a day (I changed it a lot throughout the process).
A bit after a year I came across TheMoeWay (the old MIA website shut down), which got me heavily into reading Japanese light novels. I set myself the goal to read 100 light novels in one year and switched from sentence cards to vocab cards. At first I really struggled to read, but the more I read the easier it got: I could read faster and understand more, which resulted in enjoying reading more. Nowadays I usually read at 20,000-25,000 characters per hour, sometimes more, sometimes less. For me it’s an acceptable pace to read light novels, since I get bored easily when the story doesn’t really progress.
At 18 months I was able to pass a N2 practice test. I also tried to learn grammar more actively to improve on that, but that didn’t really last.
After around 21 months I was done with “learning Japanese”. I had enough of just setting and persuing goals and the pressure and stress that came with it. That may have been a really efficient way to learn a lot and progress fast, but what about enjoyment? I mean, I enjoyed what I read and watched, but I did not enjoy just progressing for the sake of learning Japanese. I just felt that this wasn’t the right way for me and would ruin my whole journey in the long run. I dropped any form of vocabulary/grammar study as well as tracking my journey in detail, and basically changed my whole outlook on learning Japanese. At that time, I had learned enough Japanese to just be able to watch/read what I want, understand and enjoy it. That’s what I would call “basic fluency”, altough fluency is a rather wide spectrum.
I changed my whole view point from being motivated my goals to just doing what I really, honestly, genuinely and truly enjoy, no pressure and no goals. It almost felt like I was free. I took a break from Japanese learning communities and reading light novels. I think that if I’d have continued this goal-driven way I would have eventually quit, and I’m really glad I didn’t. Now I just read/listen to what I enjoy while polishing my speaking skills through monologuing, shadowing and focused shadowing. Monologuing is rather simple, I just pick a random topic, write down a rough outline of what I want to talk about (just a few key points) and record myself just talking for 1-5 minutes. Shadowing just means that I mimic the characters speech in j-drama/sometimes anime while watching an episode. Focused shadowing means that I record useful sentences that I 100% understand and put those into Anki. I currently lack the money to be able to hold conversations via Italki etc, altough that would be very beneficial. Until then I’m practising on my own.
I recently did the JLPT N1 test from the year 2021 and scored 113/180. Personally I’m satisfied with this result, considering that I’ve never practiced nor learned for the JLPT. Japanese media and JLPT are really two “domains” that surprisingly don’t overlap too much.
## My “philosophy” to learning Japanese ##
1. Language learning is all about time. We’re talking about hundreds and thousands of hours to really get good. This time must be spend in an enjoyable way. If you’re doing something for thousands of hours and you’re having no fun, you’re just turtoring yourself. In the beginning, new learners are bombarded with (mostly useless) apps, websites, courses and programs that claim fast fluency. None of these will make someone fluent. To become fluent, you have to interact with the language. That’s not a magic formular, but rather common sense: Do something to become better at something. Do x to get good at x. There are 2 vital components to language learning:
a) interacting with the language
b) studying grammar and vocabulary
Every language can be learned this way – Japanese is in no way a linguistic anomaly that can’t be learned like any other language.
2. As long as you’re learning in one way or another while interacting with the language, you’re on the right path. It seems to simple to be true, but learning a language in itself is simple, altough by far not easy! It is a lot of work, and you’ll have to put in effort. It’s not “just watching anime all day until you somehow become fluent”. But you certainly make it easier for yourself if you enjoy what you do. I call that the Pokémon mindset – have as much fun as possible on your journey, your road to becoming ~~the Pokémon master~~ fluent. Why are you even doing it if you don’t enjoy it?
3. In language learning, there’s no need to finish anything ever. If the book you’re reading is boring – drop it! You’re finished when you’re bored, and not when you complete something. Just forget the rest and move on.
4. You’re not a word hunter. There is no need to learn every single word, you’re not a walking Japanese dictionary – you don’t have to catch ’em all. I’m fed up with the idea of “whitenoising”, because it sets unrealistic expectations. There is no need to put every single word you don’t know into Anki, trying to comprehend every sentence or even reading a book analytically. You probably didn’t sign up to analyze books when you decided to learn Japanese, I certainly didn’t. As long as you can follow the story and enjoy it, there is absolutely no need to do anything like that. You don’t need to know highly specalized words with a frequency of 110,000 that you’d even have to look up in your native language.
5. Read/listen to what you enjoy. Don’t read a light novel like 物語シリーズ just because it is notoriously hard, read it because you enjoy it. Japanese media has so many amazing stories to offer. But a healthy mix is important: If you only watch highly stylized shounen fight anime, then your spoken Japanese will sound the same (you cannot suddenly mimic natural daily life Japanese because you have no idea what it sounds like). Include a variety of Japanese media into your learning to get used to several speaking styles, like anime, drama, news, live streams, YouTube videos, podcasts, news or whatever you enjoy. Try everything and see what you like. Just ask yourself this question: “What would be really fun to learn from today?”, then go read and listen to it.
6. There is a lot of (bad) advice out there on how to learn Japanese. Everyone seems to have their own really strong opinion on what you should and shouldn’t do. Especially beginners fall into the trap and give advice, altough they know basically nothing. But bad advice given with good intentions is still bad advice. It’s important to question advice critically. Question every little thing and if it doesn’t make sense to you, disregard the advice. Feel free to question my advice. Just don’t blindly follow someone. Gather advice and follow what seems logical, in other words: Do your own thing.
7. In the beginning, every new learner will be faced with the dilemma of understanding vs. enjoyment. When you know close to nothing, only content targeted at a young audience is somewhat approachable. In this sub, you’ll often find the advice to watch Peppa Pig in Japanese. In my opinion, that’s just nonsense. Be honest to yourself, you don’t enjoy watching Peppa Pig for more than 10 minutes. Personally I’d rather watch interesting content with a lower understanding than boring content with a higher understanding, but that’s up to the individual. Having a high comprehension can also motivate you, even if the story is boring. Find a good balance for yourself.
In the beginning, everything is ok as long as you don’t quit. Even if it’s not as “efficient” or “effective”. Feel free to watch a show with English subtitles at first or read a book with an English translation to check. In the end, it doesn’t really matter if you become fluent in x years/months or a few weeks earlier or later. But if you quit, you’ll never become fluent, just remember that!
8. Remember that Japanese is still your hobby, not your entire life. It’s totally fine to take a short break to sort things out. You probably have friends, family and other hobbies besides learning Japanese, so don’t neglect those. You shouldn’t, I quote Matt vs Japan, “just grow some balls and watch anime all day.”.
9. When you feel like you are at a decent and resonable level that you’re personally satisfied with, there is no reason not to stop studying. Studying is not your eternal quest, but rather a tool to progress faster. When you stop and just “live the language”, you’ll still pick up new things and progress, just a bit slower – and that’s totally fine. Quit your SRS if you feel like it.
10. After the beginner stage, you’ll steadily feel like you’re progressing slower and slower. It’s a natural feeling, because the words and grammar you encounter become more and more rare. Visualizing your progress can help by giving you new motivation and conquer this, how I call it, “progress burnout”. My advice is that, if you want to visualize your progress, then you should not do it with time. From personal experience, it made me feel a lot more stressed. My recommendation is to measure in “content-related stats”, by that I mean pages, volumes, episodes or even characters. This will reassure you that your on the right way.
## If I would start again, I would probably do it like this ##
1. Learn Hiragana and Katakana in a week
2. Study Tango N5 and N4 Anki deck while learning basic grammar from Cure Dolly/Tae Kim. Start to watch Japanese content. There are a lot of alternatives to this step, as long as one learns 2000-3000 basic words and basic (~N4-N3) grammar, it’s fine. Textbooks are also a totally viable option
3. Learn around 15-25 words every day while continually watching Japanese content
4. After around 5-6 months since beginning: Begin reading easier light novels and manga
5. After around 12-18 months since beginning: Practice output through monologuing, shadowing and focused shadowing; slowly begin to introduce conversation practice with a native speaker
6. When satisfied with ability: Stop active study and just keep on watching/reading Japanese content while looking up as many unfamiliar words and grammar as wished
## My favourite Japanese media ##
*Anime:*
– ポケットモンスターダイヤモンド&パール (Pokémon Diamond And Pearl)
– ポケットモンスター (Pokémon 1997)
– やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている (My youth romantic comedy is wrong as I expected)
– 暗殺教室 (Assassination classroom)
– かくや様は告らせたい~天才たちの恋愛頭脳戦 (Kaguya-sama: Love is War)
– デスノート (Death Note)
– STEINS;GATE
– その着せ替え人形は恋をする (My Dress-up darling)
– SPY×FAMILY
– ハイキュー!! (Haikyuu!!)
– からかい上手の高木さん (Teasing Master Takagi-san)
*Drama & Movies:*
– 君の膵臓をたべたい (I want to eat your pancreas)
– 1リットルの涙 (One litre of tears)
– Great teacher Onizuka
– オレンジ (Orange)
– 部長と社畜の恋はもどかしい
– 家族ゲーム
*Manga:*
– 暗殺教室 (Assassination classroom)
– ベルセルク (Berserk)
– かぐや様は告らせたい~天才たちの恋愛頭脳戦 (Kaguya-sama: Love is War)
– really want to read: Monster
*YouTubers:*
– メンタリスト DaiGo (Mentalist Daigo)
– ジュキヤ / ジュキぱっぱ (Jukiya / Jukipappa)
– NAKATA UNIVERSITY
– 歴史を面白く学ぶコテンラジオ (Coten radio)
*Light novels:*
– やはり俺の青春ラブコメはまちがっている (My youth romantic comedy is wrong, as I expected)
– 義妹生活 (Days with my step sister)
– 経験済みなキミと経験ゼロなオレがお付き合いする話 (Our dating story: The experienced you and the inexperienced me)
– ようこそ実力至上主義の教室へ (Classroom of the elite)
– 継母の連れ子が元カノだった (My step mom’s daughter is my ex)
– ワールド・エンド・エコノミカル (World End Economica)
## My favourite resources ##
#### SRS/Reviewing ####
www.jpdb.io: A browser based SRS with premade decks for anime/light novels/visual novels/textbooks/drama etc. Also includes statistics and difficulty ratings. Good and easy-to-understand review system.
Anki / Ankidroid: The most widely used SRS. You need to adjust the settings a bit, which requires some effort, since it’s not exactly user friendly for beginners. Great review system. Has a lot of useful and less useful add-ons.
#### Mining/Dictionaries ####
Akebi: Android app that allows you to look up words and send them into Anki with one click
Yomichan: Pop-up dictionary that allows you to highlight text and displays definitions. Must use.
AnkiConnect for Yomichan: Allows you to connect Yomichan with Anki.
https://github.com/KamWithK/AnkiconnectAndroid: AnkiConnect for Android (with Kiwi browser and Yomichan)
www.jisho.org / Takoboto: pretty basic English-Japanese dictionaries
www.yourei.jp: Example sentences in Japanese
www.dictionary.goo.ne.jp/: Japanese-Japanese dictionary
#### Progress Tracking ####
www.myanimelist.net (+App): You can track your anime episodes here. It’s also possible to rate anime, use the community function and see some statistics. Also good for browsing and choosing what to watch next. In addition, manga and some LNs (not all) can be tracked here.
www.bookmeter.com (読書メーター): You can track all your books read in Japanese here. Also includes some statistics, also has an app.
MyDramaList: Very similar to MyAnimeList, just for Asian drama.
https://learnnatively.com: A very helpful site to decide what to read next based on difficulty ratings. You can also write and read reviews and difficulty ratings of books/manga. It’s similar to bookmeter, just for Japanese learners.
#### Reading & Listening: ####
Streaming services like Crunchyroll, Netflix, Amazon prime, Disney+ etc (VPN recommended)
www.tver.jp: Japanese drama, anime, live action and a lot of variety shows. Free of charge, but you need a Japanese VPN to access it (it also has an app).
Kindle / www.amazon.co.jp: For buying Japanese books and light novels. Setting up a Japanese amazon account requires some effort, but there are guides online on how to do so.
Bookwalker: For buying/reading Japanese books.
9Anime: Anime streaming service. Only has English hard subbed content, but you can hide the subs by putting another window above them.
Zoro: Best anime streaming site. No ads, no malware or anything malicious. Has soft subs, so you can disable the subs. You can also link it with your MyAnimeList Account (very useful).
Ttu ebook reader: Usable with Yomichan in browser. Best option to read books. You’ll need to load your own epub files in there, you can find those on other sites like itazuraneko, TheMoeWay discord server in #book-sharing or buy them online.
Itazuraneko: Libary of Japanese books, anime, manga etc. Also has a guide. (similar options: yonde, boroboro)
#### Guides ####
www.refold.la: Roadmap by MattvsJapan, also has a discord server and subreddit.
www.learnjapanese.moe: Guide on learning Japanese by shoui. It has a very good and extensive resource page, a solid guide and a discord server.
www.animecards.site: Has a guide on learning Japanese as well as set-up guides for Yomichan, mining anime etc.
#### Other ####
KanjiEater’s podcast on YouTube: Long interviews of successful Japanese learners.
Brave browser: Good browser that blocks ads and keeps you privat. Highly recommended for streaming.
NordVPN: Paid VPN. Costs around 3-4€ per month if you choose a 2 year plan. Very fast, safe and reliable.
Kiwi browser: Allows you to install add-ons (like Yomichan!) on android, to read on your phone. Also blocks ads and keeps your privacy.
*Thanks for reading my post! If you have any questions, comments or critique please let me know in the comments!*
29 comments
> How I would do it all over again:
> step 1. learn hiragana and katakana
> step 2. learn 2000-3000 words
wait what
> RRTK was a huge waste of time
just brute force memorize vocab through tango decks? no kanji study? no mnemonics?
Link to tango n5 and n4 decks please. I can’t find it here, most of the links posted here were already expired. Thanks
Ah nice post.
So I’m at < 2000 hours so far but coming up on it
There’s just no way I could read 100 LN in a year. That sounds cool but I read 4 LN this year. But I’m not even sure if what I read were novels or LN. They were like 2-300 pages long and either had no pictures or a picture only like every 10 pages. Even reading 100 books in English seems like a lot for a year, that’s like finishing a book every 3.6 days. So I don’t think I will be able to read 100 Japanese books in one year.
Maybe if I used digital books and yomichan, but I use paper books so I have to manually enter dictionary lookups, which is the bottleneck.
Also I didn’t do your step 5 yet (shadowing) which I bet would help me out.
I’m curious why you went with light novels instead of visual novels? I had thought that visual novels would be better, especially the ones with voiced dialogue, so you can practice listening and reading at the same time.
I’ve read a couple really easy visual novels and lookups were easy to do with a texthooker and yomichan.
I’m just staring to get serious about learning Japanese after procrastinating for about 2 years. I’m really glad you said how you would start again if you could, it seems to be a very helpful and effective routine as I can also personalize for myself.
Also a side note, your taste in anime is great ( ◠‿◠ )
i hope i have an award for you ⭐
For me, I find that I can understand shows like shonen mostly with barely any dictionary use. The problem is that I have to remain focused. If I lose attention, what comes through the brain is garbled nonsense and I have to repeat the sentence. I know of course it’s just a matter of needing to get the brain used to this, but it’s frustrating nonetheless.
Am I the only one who’s tired of using sites to document what I watch/read. I was into it before buy now I’m kind of over it. I feel it’s just a chore at this point. That’s just me though.
>It’s been around 2 years / 2900-3000 hours
*I think I started around the same time, but 3k seems a bit far for me?*
​
>I set myself the goal to read 100 light novels in one year
*I see, understandable.*
I love to see these posts. Congrats on reaching that point! I’d call that the goal. Not perfection, but being able to learn purely through enjoying things.
And always a thank for you leaving behind some tips and helpful things.
Hey this is such a great post. Thanks so much for taking the time to write it up. I have recently been in a bit of a dip with my Japanese learning. I started in the end of 2019 and am no where near your level although I do a lot of podcast listening. I think I need to focus on some reading so I will try the resources you suggest. Again thanks for putting the time into writing this!
Did you find switching from sentence cards to vocab was helpful? I read and make sentence cards but reviewing anki gets really overwhelming with the time per a card
How many Anki review cards did you have a day?
Nice writeup and pretty impressive results. Now I’m motivated to check out ebook reading options.
Berserk and my dress up darling…
I see you are a man of culture as well.
I always hear so much about the importance of input and I can’t argue with this because it makes so much sense!
However, I still feel like I’m not picking up on the language. Like it’s not “sticking” in my head. For example even tho I’ve read a lot of native material and done an extensive amount of sentence mining, I still often have difficulty saying things in Japanese. I’ll think to myself “I wonder how I can express this thought in Japanese” and I often struggle to do so. AS SOON as I try to translate it tho it makes perfect sense to me! But I can’t PRODUCE it on my own. Has anyone else felt this frustration despite doing a lot of immersion? How do I fix this?
I started one and a half month ago, I though Hiragana and Katakana were easy, I learned a lot in the first days and I have them all quickly but I still confuse them A LOT. When I have to write even the simple ones my brain freeze. And when they are mixed (so in real world almost every time) it’s a mess…
Any suggestion?
I feel like my main weakness is definitely grammar and of course speaking. How do you deal with grammar? I just could not bring myself to remember it and when to properly use it. Also just as what you have said, as much as I want to talk with native speakers, I just couldn’t due to financial reasons so as dumb as it may be, I am mainly just shadowing.
Any recordings of your japanese?
Nice write up. What’s your plan moving forward now?
I’m at a similar point as you. I’m sort of in limbo, deciding whether or not to actually take the N1 test to just have it on my resume, or just move on, and just let Japanese organically grow on its on as I continue to use it everyday.
>In contrast, Japanese is really hard since it basically shares like 3 useful words (アルバイト – Arbeit (work), エネルギー – Energie (energy), アレルギー – Allergie (allergy)) with German and the grammar as well as pronounciation are completely different.
Have you also noticed a lot of medical-related terms also seem to have Germanic origins, like ウイルス for virus? I watched a lot of medical dramas and kept encountering these kinds of words, so I asked my father about this (he’s native Japanese), and he said that German doctors had a huge influence on teaching and spreading Western medicine (in the late 1800s) in Japan so that’s why many medical and even some science-related words are German sounding rather than English.
I found [this abstract](https://www.jstor.org/stable/44451298) of an article that details Japan’s official adoption of German medicine in 1870s.
well that’s a lot of text
I wonder how you got to 20000-25000 characters per hour. That’s more than 50 pages of a typical novel. Do you skim a lot? I don’t even read that fast in my native language.
Danke schon !!!!
Your advice are really perfect, thanks a lot OP. You’ll help a lot of beginners (like me) to start the journey in a good way.
I am right after the learning Kana phase, and I was wondering how to continue. So now, with your perfect text, I know what I ‘ve to do.
Merci encore !
Edit : to watch animé without ad, I recommand to use « Opera » browser. All the ad will be block, it’s the perfect browser😊
this is truly impressive – especially given the timeline. kudos friend!
how many hours per day did you spend on average. I did struggle to juggle working a competitive job, social life and investing the required time every day to keep up with 20 Anki cards per day. if you don’t mind me asking were you working at the same time?
If so, how? Wake up super early for it?
Damn I wish the day had more hours for me to dedicate 4 hours a day to Japanese. Nice progress!
Meanwhile I’ve lived in Japan for 2 years, studied japanese semi seriously for close to 20 and more seriously for 2 and I still fail the N3 (Except for the kanji part, which is my favorite part)
>Wanting to read Monster
So many moons ago, (2005/6), Japanese roommate was moving back to Japan and gifted me all of his PS1 games and Manga because he didn’t feel like lugging it back.
Monster was among it and at the time I tried reading it/translating it and my brain popped.
Went back to look it over recently and could get through most of it fine, except for all the damn medical jargon. It’s complex in that it has a lot of that stuff in it.
I’ve always told people similar things- do what you ENJOY. Don’t force yourself to learn in a way that is unpleasant and doesn’t work for you.
I’ve got a business trip soon and I have to brush up so I’m putzing about looking for more business oriented/formal things.
Also, almost NO Japanese person will be rude to you about language in my experience. They’ve almost always been pretty nice and generally think it’s neat you’re learning.
This is a great post! I’ve been waffling on learning Japanese since I was a teenager– probably about 20 years on and off with no real “serious” study.
The last year I have been wanting to get more serious about it and set some real goals (ie: get to N4 in a year) and devoted myself to buying study material and utilizing different online study sources. I am still learning my best practices, but your study routine and materials are inspiring. As are your acheivements. I am bookmarking this post for future use and reference.
I work a full time nine to five job and am trying to figure out when to fit my studying into, since I’m not a teen anymore and cant study for hours and hours every day. But, hopefully I will figure it all out! Thanks for such a great set of resources and real talk.
Just wanna mention Animelon lets you toggle Eng, JP, Romaji, Katakana, or Hiragana and has a variety of different level content. Also has Yomichan-like functionality, and lets you easily export for use in SRS (or use theirs)