I’m sorry for this lengthy rant, but I need a community to get this off.
I’ve been learning japanese for years and I have felt I have made little progress. I can barely understand a children’s book and my listening skills aren’t that good.
Along with that, japanese seems to have a thousand grammar rules to memorize which I don’t have time to learn all. All that seems like it could be excused if I had someone to practice with( I don’t ). In order to practice japanese, I went to a website called “chatpad.” I could understand them, but they couldn’t me. I am about JLPT N4, but I don’t think I can do it.
Are my concerns valid? Does everyone go through this? What are some things I can do to help myself? Thank you to anyone who answers.
42 comments
As I always ask in these posts – could you elaborate on what resources you’ve been using in those “years” that you described? In other words, can you share extbooks, online guides, etc.etc. you’ve been using?
Another important question: how much time devoted on daily/weekly basis?
For example, someone setting aside just 5 minutes daily for duolingo wouldn’t (understandably) get anywhere meaningful after few years, whereas someone having your concern while using major textbooks and anki would be totally another issue.
Understand what you can understand and not try to understand everything because i feel like that’s what you’re trying to do imo but how we’re you studying though?
Maybe you need a tutor? Or would at least enjoy it.
> have a thousand grammar rules to memorize
IMO the grammar is one thing, but the biggest thing in my mind is the vocab, which is way, way way more memorization than grammar.
> I could understand them, but they couldn’t me.
well output is way harder than input so yeah, at n4 I wouldn’t expect too much of yourself
GL and don’t give up.
What is your objective or goal? Move to Japan, read manga, watch movies without subtitles? I’ve been learning Japanese with a private tutor for three years and also studied in for three years in high school, my goal is to have casual contact and be able to read and understand certain things. Maybe spend a year living there. I still get stumped by some basic kids stuff, because I don’t have 24/7 exposure to the language and don’t put a lot of pressure on myself outside of lessons. It’s my choice to take things easy, because I enjoy it.
Maybe make some goals for yourself or take some time off learning and, if money allows, go to Japan for study, work or holiday. If you can’t afford it, then why kill yourself over learning the language to a high degree?
How long have you been learning so far exactly? You say you’ve been trying for years but the amount of actual time you’ve invested to learn, memorize and practice matters most IMO. You don’t need to rush in learning unless you have to move to Japan within a month or whatever. Just take your time and stick with the very basic things piece by piece until the moment you can say you got ’em confidently and you’ll get some progress. There’s no magic to get fluent in any languages, but enough time and effort to learn can yield a magic for you out of them.
I’d suggest Hellotalk app or some sort of thing if you seek an opportunity for language exchanges with natives.
You got this. Just stick with it at your comfortable pace and don’t let you defeat yourself.
Good luck on you.
I am a native English speaker and I’ve been dabbling in Japanese for about 3+ years now as a hobby. I have some of the same feelings you do.
Whenever I listen to something in Japanese I’m simultaneously amazed at how much I understand (compared to before I started learning at all), and at the same time absolutely dismayed at how little I understand, and how little I have to show for 3 years of work.
Don’t even talk about speaking, I’ve never spoken Japanese to a real Japanese person. If I ever met one, I’d probably only be able to say 私の日本語レブルはまだとても下手です、許してください。
I don’t know about you but I have to remind myself, I’m just doing this as a hobby and dabbling here and there. I’m not taking classes, I’m not immersing in Japan. I have a full-time job and 2 kids. It’s about the journey and the tomodachi we made along the way 😀
I’m guessing you’re not doing this full time, and can only devote limited energy and time to this. If you were dropped into Japan and forced to study 8 hours a day, and be immersed in it the rest of the time, I’m sure you would become fluent very quickly.
Plus Japanese is particularly difficult for native speakers of just about any language (other than Korean, which is not related but has similar grammar and many similar Chinese loanwords) since it has no related languages. It’s not like learning Spanish as a Portuguese speaker.
I know you feel discouraged, but don’t give up. I lived in Japan for years where I couldn’t help but be immersed in it, and felt like I was walking through the dark until it finally clicked one day. I had to learn to write it first; unfortunately that’s the way they teach it in the schools over there. There are several things that make learning difficult. The accent isn’t easy to master. Then there’s the vocabulary, the different familiar/polite forms, and the grammar. On the plus side, the Japanese tend to use fewer words (than we do in English) to express what they want to say. I am rusty as it’s been several years since I learned and regularly used Japanese, but to prepare & brush up for an upcoming trip to Japan I’m binge watching Terrace House on Netflix and I rewind a lot to re-listen to what is said and how they say it. Believe it or not, it’s been extremely helpful. Don’t be too hard on yourself, it’s not easy to advance if you’re not actually living in Japan or don’t have native speakers to bounce things off of. Take it from me, even if you DO live there it’s hard. But you can and will improve if you are consistent & persistent. As I said, I highly recommend watching some of the Japanese series shows with English subtitles. Even keeping them on in the background will help it to sink in. Good luck!
High n4 is kind of where things really start to take off.
It’s a speedbump for a lot of textbook learners. Even college people who don’t have around 2 hours a day after school and work to push forward.
It’s where you should be reinforcing the things you learned by exposure and repetition.
Namely grammar and vocabulary. You should feel confident in all of the material you’ve learned to get to n4.
I highly recommend you take a couple of weeks and patiently pour over your n5 and n4 resources with a good youtuber who covers the grammar points, then just set some goals to move forward.
It’s important to set that pride aside sometimes and go back. I know it sucks taking a step backwards, but sometimes it is what we need to move forward.
At the same time it’s now time to start incorporating japanese only videos.
Shun on YouTube and a handful of other native speakers have excellent video series where they ONLY speak in n5 or n4, etc for the entire videos. With Japanese (not English) subtitles, which is a big big deal.
If you used genki I recommend Tokini andi. He has entire series where he goes over genki 1 then genki 2 grammar. He explains it better than most of my college professors did.
Honestly, this is a huge benefit because you can go back and reinforce that grammar in an almost classroom setting.
People pay thousands of dollars to be taught half as well without the option to rewind and go back over the lesson.
I feel you are fine. Really. I had kids and started work and it made it tough too.
It’s just a matter of consistency and actually identifying what you need to move forward.
Memorization and listening seem to have you down.
This is an awesome time to start listening to n5 n4 podcasts and youtubers with Japanese only subtitles.
Graded readers are amazing too. The word “reading” scares people away but believe me they are a HUGE confidence boost because they start as easy as possible. You use them to reinforce what you know and to get some repetition. Then you move forward as your skills increase.
Once you’re back up to feeling 100% confident in your textbook grammar and vocabulary through n4 its time to move forward.
Plan on n3. Focus on what n3 is and make that your goal.
Don’t waste too much time on vocabulary and grammar outside of n3. That will have it’s time.
Pick up quartet. Take your time going through it alongside youtubers who have done extensive lessons on each chapter. Don’t move on until you’re confident. It’s not a race. It’s about taking what you know and are currently learning and being totally comfortable with it before moving forward.
Sometimes it feels right to just keep blowing through chapters simply because it means you have less pages in the book to go through. This is wrong.
You want to never have to come back and do it again. So you’re going to learn it so well that it’s muscle memory for you.
Keep listening to n4 dialogue and incorporate your n3 dialogue as well. Rewatch and listen to anything you felt you didn’t understand 100%. Not that same day, but make a YouTube Playlist and put it on next week. See how you feel about it this time around before you decide to discard it.
At the same time n3 it’s where you should start to tackle to easier reading practice. Maybe easy manga alongside a vocabulary list someone else has provided.
Now you should be looking for people to help you with making sure your translations are correct. The learn Japanese reddit is okay for this. Hellotalk is good too. You can upload pictures of the original text and your translations for corrections.
Any grammar you weren’t positive of, make a flashcard of if thats your think. Or anki.
If you’re a journal person, keep track of grammar or vocabulary there instead. Make sure you have a set day every week you go over it again.
Get rid of English subtitles. Absolutely stop. The only time you use them is if you have already watched it with or without Japanese subtitles, for the sake of seeing the translation if you need to.
You’re not watching anime or dramas to be entertained anymore. Thats a byproduct of you studying the language in the show.
You’re like a child who is learning their native tongue from their surroundings now. Your ears need training. Thankfully you have an adult mind and can rewind and dictionary your way through things as well if you need to.
If you find you’re binging episodes with English subtitles and looking down at them for anything other than checking your internal translations, you’re doing yourself an injustice. You’re robbing yourself of the opportunity to use that confusing scene as a chance to learn.
You got this.
N3 is right around the corner for you.
Edit: there are a lot of lists of graded readers between reddit and the wanikani communities. Wanikani forums also has a bunch of book clubs ranging from beginner to intermediate and advanced.
It may be worth finding one of their easier book clubs with an already established vocabulary list and weekly discussion of each chapter so you can check your work.
As many others recommend, Yotsuba is a good first manga to translate.
Im not a big manga/anime guy, but going back to look at some of these for my kids who are learning makes me wish I had as many resources and helpful communities when I started learning.
First I would take a look at the free graded readers people have shared on this subreddit. If you ask I’m sure people will provide a number of awesome links to pdfs they tend to share with people looking to grow from n4 onwards.
> I can barely understand a children’s book
FWIW, everyone assumes these are simple, but for learning, they’re actually not that easy. They’re still native material and may use onomatopoeia or yakugo (“character speech” like old-man dialects or baby words), and other “simple” words that early learners might never have encountered or never needs (like, I dunno… “polar bear”). Also remember that little children may not “academically” (for lack of a better word) understand every word or grammar point to enjoy the atmosphere of the story like an adult learner will try to, and children have native speakers (parents, etc) they can ask for simple explanations at any time.
In short, people always assume children’s books should be easy, but they’re actually not, and they don’t really fit into a students learning journey so neatly. I’d recommend sticking to textbooks or graded learners until you’re able to engage with native material (even native material aimed at adults) a bit more smoothly and don’t get discouraged.
Game Gengo on youtube has a genki lesson playlist that I’ve been watching and learning a lot more from than just using duolingo and reading other material. After each video or section in the video(especially the grammar stuff) I’ll practice typing out my own sentences in google translate with the words he uses and other words that I know, even though I know google translate isn’t the best. But I use that to type it out and read out loud. But yeah, check those out and practice using the particles. He explains them pretty well.
getting a private tutor was the absolute best thing I ever did for my Japanese studies. I’m terrible at self-studying, and I know for a fact I never would have progressed much without taking strcutured lessons from a great teacher. I would highly recommend you take lessons as well. Others mentioned good sources like iTalki for finding one.
I’ve been working for over 300 hours just to learn hiragana and katakana. Just now getting to know them. I can hear them in songs now. I learn very slow. 5000-6000 hours is probably what I will need just to read a manga. You are doin well we all just have to keep learning.
Just to ask, what’s your schedule? Do you do it daily, or sometimes skip some?
You dont have to be an expert at your hobby- assuming you srent learning this for professional reasons
In my early days I would listen to Nihongo no mori grammar videos (N5, N4, and N3) until I could internalize the grammar and mostly understand what they were saying. After I got to an N3 level, I started language exchange and doing that really bolstered my grammar ability because I could finally see how people actually conversed with this language.
I also used Tae Kim, Japanese Ammo with Misa (her content nowadays is much better than it used to be), and some other online resources. But Nihongo no mori was big for me because it had explanations *in* Japanese.
I also took some time to research stuff on my own like the different conditionals and try to make sense of how they differ by using online resources and example sentences.
I never bothered with textbooks or Anki but everyone’s different. I was the kind of person who didn’t need to study to retain information in school, so it may be unique to my case.
I had the same problem at first, people couldn’t understand me. I studied Japanese at high school and even took an extension class for my senior year (like an AP class I guess), I was literally the only person doing the class. I went to Japan and while I could often understand what people said, they could not understand my answer.
I think this is because, we think what we want to say in English and then try to say that exact same thing. However, in Japanese you express ideas much more differently than how you would in English. It takes time but eventually you get there. The more you’re exposed to it, the more you learn the way things are expressed.
Just memorising grammar isn’t the way to go, you have to use examples. Read and hear how the grammar is actually used. You need to learn about the point and then see it in action (without English translation). This is the only way you can learn, it’s called active recall. Always studying over notes or videos which contain an English explanation is too easy.
You will feel dumb, it’s fine. Just keep moving on with it.
This seems to be the theme of the week. Here we go.
🙂 I’ve been at this for 17 years this year.
7 years on, 7 years off, 3 years on again.
For 4 of the first 7 years I was studying between 4 and 8 hours a day in some capacity and immersing even more.
The other 3 I dropped to a couple hours a day.
At the time of my hiatus I had virtually no reading or audio comprehension. I could follow learning material, at times it seemed too easy, but I was no longer learning new vocab and understanding media was out of reach.
Talk about feeling worthless. By that point Japanese was kind of a compulsion hobby. But I had zero hope of ever understanding the language by that point.
Among other things I could speak with and understand other learners. But learners and learning material have very similar vocab banks and phrasing. And it doesn’t overlap with native media well.
When Covid started, out of desperation, I forced myself to pick through native media line by line. Looking up grammar and vocab, and even translating sentences where needs be.
I watched Japanese shows with Japanese subs and replayed lines until I could hear all the things I was reading.
In 6 months I was starting to watch some TV shows without subs and was able to play some games with little word look up.
😅 but now I also get to be the person who took 13,000 hours to get there.
🙂 there’s hope for you. Technology and resources are better. And though you may not take 17 years kind of long, it still takes a while to get fully oriented to the language.
Even those who pass N1 say that’s the beginning for them, because there’s just SO MUCH.
And you also have to be mindful of things like focus. People who get through the N1 in just a couple of years are ONLY studying the JLPT… so that’s all the Japanese they know.
Me? I can’t pass the higher levels of the JLPT. Maybe not even the 3. But I know some N2 and N1 grammar and vocab. Its just that my knowledge is all over the place because my focus is not only media but whatever I’m into at the moment.
Don’t give up hope.
If someone like me could do it, and especially if I could make a stupid amount of progress after the first 7 slow hopeless years, you can learn this language too.
N2 with kanji knowledge took between 1,150-1,800 hours, while those with no prior kanji knowledge took between 1,600-2,800 hours. N1 with kanji knowledge took between 1,700-2,600 hours, while those with no prior kanji knowledge took between 3,000-4,800 hours. [https://interacnetwork.com/japanese-language-proficiency-test-jlpt-levels-n1-to-n5/](https://interacnetwork.com/japanese-language-proficiency-test-jlpt-levels-n1-to-n5/)
And N2 described here doesn’t verify any speaking ability so you could be good at passing N2 without any idea how to hold a conversation.
If I evaluate myself, I started in 2016 and did on average 4 hours per week. That would be only 1200 hours. I failed N3 3 years ago ahaha cause I couldn’t read fast enough. I’m definitely a slow learner and oral comprehension (kikitori) is my nightmare.
How much do you think you have spent learning Japanese so far?
I don’t say this to be cruel, but…no, there’s no reason you needed to have to study for “years” to reach a point where you can (barely) understand people and no one can understand you.
I’m not sure what you’re using to learn, but if you followed any structured plan of study like Genki or whatever, you would at least have some basis of knowledge to build upon after a year or two, maybe less.
Japanese doesn’t have any more “grammar rules to memorize” than any other language, but you still have to learn them.
You don’t have “time” to learn all the grammar rules, but you’ve put “years” into learning Japanese? That doesn’t make sense. If you have “years” of free time to learn Japanese, maybe spend some of that time actually learning the language rather than “practicing” with children’s books and websites that you can barely understand.
I’m not trying to be mean or cruel (yes, feel free to downvote me and tell me that this is what I’m doing), but you have to actually put in the work. You can’t just kinda-sorta do the stuff you consider fun and then wake up magically five years later being fluent in Japanese.
Buckle down and study the stuff that seems “hard” to you and you’ll probably find you’re making progress very fast.
I think I am similar to you. I stay in Japan almost 10 years, but my Japanese skill is not good, and some people around me keep ask why my Japanese skill is not improved these years. These negative things make me didn’t enjoy the learning process, which is quite important!!
Recently, I found a YouTube channel “Game Gengo” that gives me a positive thinking. I like how he says something like “you need to enjoy the learning process. You don’t need to care what level you are before achieving a certain level to play a game”.
So, I currently don’t care about textbook which makes me feel bored anymore. I just jumped into a game and try to translate it. When I translate a sentence, I use ChatGPT to explain how it was translated too. In this process, I am still enjoying and I can immerse into the game about at least 1-2 hours a day. I don’t know what if I get bored again, but current process still works!!
I wanna share a bot I use to translate it here, and I hope you can enjoy the process too!
ChatBot on Poe: https://poe.com/jptranslator
If you don’t enjoy it, I think it’s fine. You may have another important things in your life 🙂
Idk if anyone said this, but N4 is about enough to start reading manga. I’d recommend yotsubato, since it covers a lot of daily life situations and has furigana.
Children’s books are actually surprisingly hard! They use a lot of vocabulary and patterns that you’re not going to pick up early on in the adult language acquisition process. They’re often full of sound words, partial sentence patterns, and baby talk versions of words.
If you want something approachable, check out [NHK News Easy](https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/). It’s not going to be *easy*, but at least you can eventually work through what’s going on in there.
The biggest piece of advice, backed by research, should always be to do lots of listening and reading. Do you spend much time watching easy content like kids’ anime, or reading kids’ books or easy manga?
If you already understand the story then you can pick up more of the language used. So you could, for example, watch an episode of Shin Chan or Maruko with English subtitles, leave it a bit, then watch it again without subs. Or read the summary of an episode before you watch it.
Listening and reading aren’t things you do after your study to test what you’ve learned, it IS the study.
Watch this video, it changed my life.
https://youtu.be/J_EQDtpYSNM
Hi Humble Tortoise! I’ve recently been using a YouTuber called Game Gengo to help bring fun back into my Japanese studies. I think the thing is, if you put hours into something if you enjoy what you’re doing, you’ll put in overtime and your skills and understanding of the language will improve greatly and so you’ve gotta find something you really enjoy, for me it was games and I found game gengo REALLY fun and exciting to learn with, I’ve been playing loads of JRPGs, just about to start N3 from finding out about him when I was N5, but if games aren’t for you then maybe just don’t take the same approach, but yeah I owe a lot to Game Gengo so go check him out if you have the time since I probably would have been in the same situation as you are now, but yeah find a study method you love and you wouldn’t have a problem spending more hours or even doing it as fun (I do this now, I’ll whip out my 3DS, or go on my PC and play Drayon Quest, Final Fantasy etc. and I really enjoy it – in fact I play to do it today too), since only experiencing Japanese as this dull, boring activity can really make you just never want to do it and put you in a slump of motivation, like spamming Anki reviews but not actually immersing in the language you’re using, so yeah just find what works for you best and use it as much as you can and dont worry about the rest, I gave up with Anki a WHILE ago, but I’m still really happy with my progress so far! But yeah good luck and let me know what you find you love doing with Japanese and trust me, you’ll learn loads.
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Bonus Tip: if you like music, or anime music, you could actually get Yomichan and study the lyrics to songs or anime OPs that you love, I found that helped to broaden my vocab and you get to listen to some amazing tunes!
If you’ve been in classes it’s because Japanese courses don’t know wtf to do past Genki 2 and N4 and their structure becomes garbage.
Genki 1 vocab and kanji —> Genki 2 —> SKM N3 —> N2 —> N1 same vocab and kanji in that progression scheme using Anki decks
Have a separate deck where you add 1 grammar point in per day starting at Genki 1 all the way up to N1.
N3 has roughly 150 grammar points
Have 5-7 new words per day, 25-30 reviews per day
Read an really easy visual novel with a texthooker and JL/yomichan. Thoroughly devote yourself to it for like 2 weeks, a couple hours a day at least. You will guaranteed see a ton of progress, and your motivation will jump back up.
I’ve always been in favor of learning foreign languages actively from tales for kids as one of your primary sources. It gives you a lot of the language that doesn’t come in textbooks!
Now, at N4 and even higher levels of proficiency, it’s actually very normal to be misunderstood in writing by Japanese people. I think it says a lot about the methods, not just about you and the cultural differences. That said, the amount of cultural and pragmatic knowledge that needs to be sorted out in the way —and not many textbooks deal with— is by no means negligible. In fact, I’ve seen many Japanese saying “what is this?!” after checking a textbook’s content. I don’t even mean the philosophy behind, but the actual dialogues and phrases used in the books.
So breathe deeply, and when you feel like it, go back and find better alternative methods to take off! For knowledge, you could check the Kanji Kentei Shiken exams. But don’t give up on chats!
I’m similar, don’t worry.
2 years with a tutor once a week just I have a terrible memory and find things like anki incredibly dull, they’re not holding my attention.
I use textbooks, videos, apps.. but I also have depression and it’s hard to motivate myself, however..
Have a look at graded readers, there’s free ones online, it might give you a little bit of a confidence boost. I sometimes think I don’t know anything but realise I know more than I did last year.
Same with listening. I can’t understand a whole song or a show, but I can pick up words and phrases. I couldn’t do that before.
Some people are just incredibly motivated, they enjoy studying etc.. and for some it is actually easy.
If you’re not one of those people, it’s okay. It can be really hard especially if you’re not needing to use it daily!
To add..
I don’t like games, anime or manga (aside from tokyo revengers), so my immersion is music, dramas, YouTube and social media, where I can’t really pick something at a more targeted level, so maybe i feel like I’m falling behind because what I use is too high level, but it’s more enjoyable.. so use what you actually enjoy, even if it takes longer because atleast you’ll be consistent!
Assuming since you’ve been learning for years you have katakana and hiragana down? The next best way to learn Japanese is to speak it. Use something like italki, where you can have online lessons with a native speaker. That way you can meet with someone and get lessons specified exactly to what you want to learn and how you want to communicate. Differences between casual and formal conversation, conjugate verbs etc. Prices can vary depending on the tutor’s experience and your preferences. Most of the tutors also speak English so you won’t have problems planning what you want. I learnt more Japanese within a few months of living in Japan and talking to people than a year of study.
Try TheMoeWay, it gives you a 30 day guide on how to study, very helpful, I also use JapaneseFromZero as my study material. Anything else and I get overwhelmed with too much.
I live in Japan for many years now and I feel exactly the same as you. * hugs *
Just keep going. It’s not a race. It’s an experience. Work on vocabulary and listening. If you’re in Japan ,you can worry about speaking and grammar .
I think you’re missing the point of learning a language. You should learn Japanese because you’re enjoying the journey, not because you’re expecting some kind of result. Everyone learns at their own pace. I’ve been learning Japanese since October, with about a 2 month break from jan-march because I got a new job. In this time, I’ve learned hiragana, katakana, and about 100 kanji. Is it a lot? No. Am I enjoying it? Absolutely. You’re not gonna hit N1 without a serious amount of work, which will probably take a lot longer than 3.5 years. Good luck!
I would recommend re-examining your goals and motivation as these are the things that will get you through the tough times.
so many replies, apologies if this was already mentioned but nowadays you can also use chatgpt. It will never tire, it can break down sentences for you and you can just ask it to converse with you.
You are at JLPT N4, but cannot understand children’s books? Including the picture books?
I was trying to learn japanese for years to no avail at the beginning of my journey as well. 4 ish years of hobby-like interest showed no progress, it wasn’t until my life took a turn to where I was living in the country that I began to get it. I think there’s a sort of eureka moment you have to experience before your ability just kinda accellerates exponentially. Either that or it’s just about finding your optimal learning environment. But I guess what I’m trying to say is don’t let a lack of progress deter you in your journey, just keep going no matter what, at your own pace.
Are you older? If so it’s ok, we have an excuse 😄
Try Satori Reader. It’s an excellent app for studying Japanese. It offers interesting stories with short episodes, an in-built dictionary, anki, and it is narrated by native speakers. It also has translation and grammar notes for some sentence structures.
If you can afford it, I’ve been seeing a native tutor 2 times a week for lessons. Most of the lesson we are conversing and there’s data to support that having another person reinforces language learning a lot. My learning has gone leaps and bounds from when I was self studying so it might help. I pay about 30$ a week for it but there are cheaper options like just going once a week
Hey, right now I’m not home, if you could give me like 2-3 hours I’ll send them to you
I had similar problems, I did independent study for years using lots of apps and never felt like I was truly understanding, just merely memorizing.
One day I decided I was really going to lean in and went back to school, taking night classes to finish my degree after many years off.
Taking classes has advanced my understanding so far, that I was selected to participate in a speech contest at the Japanese Consulate in Chicago recently. I never could have done that at the rate I was going before.
So, if you can, start taking actual in-person classes with homework, speaking and listening exercises, and a good instructor. You’ll be amazed how far your learning accelerates in a short period of time! 頑張って！