Learning experience

15 comments

1. I also apologize for spelling errors I am not native English speaker

2. I had a similar experience, my first year of japanese I felt I learned nothing. I had a very dry and cold tutor. She just read powerpoints and we did exercises in a book. Our personalities didn’t fit.

   I made an appointment with a new tutor, she was really funny, had a nice voice and our personalities really matched. When I spoke with her I felt as if talking to a friend. My japanese ability increased greatly with her. Sometimes finding a tutor whose personality matches with your is the key to having fun while learning

3. I’m sorry about your bad experience with your teacher, and I think a lot of people can relate.

   I feel you’re at a level where you can spend more time on stuff in the language, like reading, watching, and writing/speaking with natives, while looking up anything you don’t know in a dictionary or google.

   You’re also free to ask any questions in the Daily Thread.

4. My first year of Japanese in evening classes was awful and I learnt barely anything. The teacher worked to the speed of the fastest students and didn’t hand back homework for a couple of weeks so I couldn’t learn from the corrections. I moved to a tutor and I’ve stuck with her for the last 5 years and I’m now roughly N3/N2. She’s not a qualified tutor and I’m not going to say she’s the best teacher in the world BUT she’s so lovely that my main motivation for learning Japanese is now just to be able to have better chats with my tutor because I like her so much!

   So I would concentrate on a) finding a tutor who you like and b) working out how you learn grammar best. For me it’s been lots of practice exercises and learning sample sentences by rote.

5. I have a whole bunch of comments on my profile so you might want to look at those as well.

   1. Look at JapaneseAmmoWithMisa’s N5-N3 playlist and do a few grammar points each day. Completing the N3 playlist will allow you to understand most spoken language.

   2. Find i+1 sentences. Basically, any sentence where you are exactly 1 word or 1 grammar point (or 1 “piece of the puzzle) away from solving the sentence. Write those down (in Anki or any other program)

   Studying the language (doing grammar, reviewing words, looking at kanji etc.) shouldn’t take a lot of time. The rest is just immersion, and here are 2 rules:

   1. Immerse in what you enjoy. You will run out of will power at some point if you keep looking at stuff you find boring

   2. Find something you are able to understand – more or less

   Its difficult in the beginning since there is not a whole lot of material out there that is both fun and easy to understand but i actually really liked Yotsubato! (Although it was still difficult for me to understand) and i watched a few episodes of shirokuma cafe as well.

   Go slow at your own pace and just have fun, that’s the most important part

6. Try Cure Dolly on Youtube – [https://www.youtube.com/@organicjapanesewithcuredol49](https://www.youtube.com/@organicjapanesewithcuredol49) – There will be no new videos due to her death, but the content is solid and the explanations are good and simple.

   Grammar is one of those things that needs a lot of practice and if you do not know it then Japanese becomes impossible.

7. Don’t worry that it is taking a while – I think that for most people, learning a language “privately” (like as not part of your basic school education), is very difficult, and takes a lot of time.

   I started studying Japanese in 2014, – that’s almost 10 years! And I am far from fluent. The first several years I just attended one class each thursday evening with 5-10 other students, as a sort of hobby.

   After getting married to a Japanese woman I figured I had to “get serious” with my studies, so for the last 2-ish years I have turned up my effort a bit. I started learning kanji, and last week I started with a second teacher – one to one. Still – after all of that – I am not fluent at all, and I cannot understand anime conversations.

   If you really want to learn, I think the neccessary step is to make a plan, and try to follow it as good as possible. There are many ressources in this sub which can help you. Make goals, focus your study, and study every day. Maybe find a teacher online that you can meet with once pr. week. (A nicer teacher).

   Good luck.

8. I think it will click for you soon. I learned Spanish as a little kid, and nothing made sense. But a year after I stopped studying I started up again and everything made sense. As far as grammar goes, check out online articles about grammar/ sentence structure.
   Here’s one: [Beginners guide to sentence structure](https://8020japanese.com/japanese-sentence-structure/)

9. If you passed N4, then she taught you something. The chemistry you had with her may not have been good, but I think you should give her some credit. Not only did she help you pass N4, but she’s helped you figure out some things about how you learn.. about what things are helpful or are not that helpful.

   It’s very possible you actually know quite a bit about grammar now. I felt like that after taking classes, too. The problem is that knowing the grammar and rules does remarkably little for your listening comprehension. I’d say the same thing about using Tae Kim’s guide. It’s a great, concise guide on lot of information about the language, but it isn’t a tool for practice or immersion. It’s more of a companion piece that provides insight and knowledge for the other things you should be doing.

   You said you can’t understand animes. That doesn’t mean you don’t know a lot. You probably have focused on other areas.

   “Learning stuff” is actually very specific. You get better only at the things you try to get better at. If you only do flashcards, you will _only_ get good at doing flashcards. If you only study grammar, you’ll only be good at grammar. If you want to be good at everything, you will have to do a little of everything. It takes a long time.

   Since you’re already at N4 (at least), you probably are well-equipped to just start watching animes and begin to see benefits. Just watch them. It’s quite possible you already know the vocab _and_ the grammar being said, and you simply aren’t accustomed to “hearing” it. Listening is also a skill that requires practice—even to hear what you know. Of course, there will be a lot of stuff that you don’t know, too. I’m assuming you already enjoy anime, though, so it shouldn’t be a huge burden to watch more of it. Just make sure you’re watching subtitled (not dubbed) versions, and do try to listen. Don’t worry if it takes you a while. It will be a mix of things you know, and things you don’t, so perfection is still quite a ways off..but you shouldn’t be too far from being able to at least identify stuff you know from stuff you don’t, and that’s a big help.

10. I think you should just take it easy. You should focus on comprehension, there is no need to ace every grammar test, though it would be better if you could answer most of the questions. But at the end of the day, it is about how much you can understand by reading, listening, and how well you can respond to a question or express yourself.

    Choose a text book and stick to it, I know that text books are very different from reality, but those are good for starters, at least you can learn the basics without being lost or overwhelmed.
    You can choose Genki, Minna No Nihongo, Marugoto… whatever. You just need to go at your own pace, always read out loud, try your best to pronounce precisely and try to understand or translate every content of the book. When you glance at a sentence and you can understand it immediately, then you are all good.

    Read alot, listen alot and review periodically.

    Sorry for my bad english.

11. I’m so sorry you had a difficult experience with your teacher, I’m glad you haven’t given up though!

    In my personal experience as a language teacher and private tutor, I’ve worked with a number of people who felt frustrated or upset with with their learning journey so far. I’ve found that progress is always possible, and the key is to revisit your goals or set some new ones, take small steps, and find ways to enjoy the language again. Don’t give up on the things you enjoy like anime, and try not to beat yourself up for not understanding more. Just enjoy it like you did before, and remind yourself of why you wanted to start learning Japanese in the first place.
    You’re starting out on a new journey now, and you will probably find that as you start studying again, things will start to fall into place because you’re at least familiar with a lot of the words and concepts.

    I’m not familiar with Greek grammar, but Japanese grammar is structured quite differently from English and it can be a challenge to make sense of it. Especially since the Japanese education system focuses on memorization and rules, it can be hard to find resources that explain it in a logical, clear way.

    As another commenter recommended, Cure Dolly is an excellent resource for starting to understand the grammar. Comprehensible Japanese is also a great resource, also on YouTube. She teaches simple sets of vocab and tells illustrated stories with clear, slow, pleasant pronunciation.

    Don’t give up on Japanese, you can still do it! All the best on your fresh start.

12. Despite the bad experience, I think you should know that it’s normal to not understand anime after 4 years of study. However, those 4 years would have set you up with enough foundations to now teach yourself far more effectively using the resources people have already mentioned here 🙂

13. There are not many Japanese teachers where I live either and that’s why I have a tutor online. I use italki for learning Japanese. It’s very affordable, and tutors are very nice in general. I also recommend you to have a language exchange partner or have a community tutor for having just chats on the website I mentioned above. I find reading very helpful for vocabulary and getting familiar with the structure so I used this website: https://www.japanese.io
    Also, there are browser extensions where you can use as a dictionary once you hover the unknown words.
    I also listen to slow songs in Japanese while reading the lyrics at the same time. I do that over and over until I don’t need to read the lyrics, but you need to be into the song I guess 🙂

14. my advice is this: start immersing and mining +1 sentences

    even if you don’t understand most things it will beneficial on the long run, just trust! (obviously start with easier content)

    also i would recommend the podcast called “yu yu podcast”

    i started with this episode: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hFyaRtwLO4&](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hFyaRtwLO4&amp😉

    watch stuff multiple times, and ankify some of the vocabulary (especially the words that make certain sentences comprehensible, when previously they weren’t, you know the “+1” thing)

    if you watch stuff with jap subs you will get better at understanding japanese with j.subs

    if you watch stuff without jap subs you will get better at understanding japanese by hearing only

    whatever you train, you get better at. look things up while immersing, but not TOO much

    the cure dolly utube channel that was recommended is nice for grammar, also the TAE KIM grammar guide

    just immerse and be fine with not understanding everything, and do it for AT LEAST 1 hour per day if not more 🙂
    GO! GO! GO! 🙂 🙂 🙂

15. I will start my japanese learning on school this monday 24, and I know it could be difficult to find a teacher who matches with you.

    I usually don’t learn with teachers and classmates because of it. Somehow I feel that in classmates (in groups) I can’t learn efficiently. Private teachers are a good option but you need to do the work of find the right one for you.

    The right one for YOU process. If you don’t feel comfortable with the teacher, don’t waste time or money. There is nothing bad for canceling classes, it’s just life.

    P. D: I’m not a English native either. Hi! 😊