Hello, I dont know if i should ask for advise or not, or to make this just because.
I’ve been trying to learn japanese for a year now, so far im able to read hiragana and katakana easily and i can recognize about 150 or so kanji. During this time i tried to learn using みんなの日本語 and げんき books BUT im not a good student, i just cant set a time to read and work on these book this also includes flashcard. Duolingo and Renshuu apps helped a bit since they are kinda funny but with duo i get annoyed by it after 5 minutes and renshuu ends up feeling like flashcards which get boring soon
I have tried learnIng by reading games or manga, and thanks to that i picked up some sentences that repeat a lot, Also with music lyrics i’ve been able to recognize some more words even if i dont know their meaning and now i can sing along just by reading the lyrics in japanese(except by a few exceptions).
Right now im now sure what else to try.
Thank you for reading.
5 comments
Use the way that works for you. Learn with more games and manga.
it seems like entertainment media helps you learn more, because otherwise it can feel like a chore. people may try to force anki and textbooks on you, but at the end of the day use whatever gets you learning Japanese. flashcards and textbooks help speed up the process for some people, but if it simply isn’t working, it is OK to not use them.
If you *do* want to use these tools, you said five minutes is your cap. that’s OK! 5 minutes of flash cards is better than 0 minutes of flash cards. you also don’t have to sit down and do them with that specifically in mind. you can use them throughout the day. frankly, I hate doing flashcards for 20 minutes, let alone an hour like some of these really dedicated people are doing. five or ten minutes at a time is good for me! both Renshuu and Duolingo have apps; you can use them on the go. waiting for a bus or train? maybe you can do a set of flashcards. unskippable ad on youtube? flashcard time. you get it. for textbooks, its harder, because you don’t carry them in your pocket and they’re more of a study material. but you can use it as a reference for things you don’t understand. Grammar is where these will help you most, since you are learning vocabulary from your media.
do whatever helps keep you motivated! and good luck!
You don’t need that much basics before you can do all your learning via reading or listening to stuff you enjoy. You’re sure you can’t force yourself getting some basics ?
There’s a ton of youtubers, or you can read a quick free guide like Tae Kim.
Maybe some efforts are worth it and will prevent you to be at the same point in 2 years where you can’t enjoy anything anyway.
But I’ll be honest, if you don’t want to learn Japanese enough that you can handle some discomfort and efforts, maybe you should go for something else that attracts you more.
There’s an awesome channel that teaches Japanese through video games, so if you learn better by doing things you enjoy like gaming and it sticks better because it’s relevant and it’s what you want to accomplish anyway, games and manga and anime in japanese, then it’s just an incredible resource. It’s given me the knowledge and confidence to start gaming in japanese.
Seriously it has all the n5 grammar, all the n4 grammar, some n3+ grammar, and multiple examples for every grammar point all from video games. It’s got the first hour or two of gameplay in japanese from games like Persona 4+5, Animal Crossing, Final Fantasy, Zelda BOTW, and many more. A whole big series playing through ff7 remake in japanese and breaking down every single line. Also a kanji series but I haven’t watched much of that cause I know all those kanji but same idea with examples from video games. It’s great to watch some grammar and then watch the vocab series of an hour or two of a game and try to notice some of the grammar points you just learned.
It’s very entertaining and educational with great explanations and I’ve rewatched a number of the videos cause they’re so useful and always come away learning more, and especially just being comfortable with the sentences and the grammar points and how to break it down to make it make sense, and so much exposure that things just start making sense in a different way for me because I’ve spent so much time with it. I’ve also come away with a number of games that I really really want to play in japanese. The next one I wanna do is 13 sentinels and im just in love with the art style and concept so I can’t wait to play it. And dragon quest 11, ni no kuni, zero escape and ai somnium files, classic ff games, steinsgate vn all are on my list now. You could also follow along while playing some of the games and see if you think you can handle it or learn how to be able to look things up and handle it. Good luck!
Channel is Game Gengo ゲーム言語
https://youtube.com/c/GameGengo
Also, try to think of things that motivate you in general and try to leverage those things for increasing your interest in learning Japanese. The classic, and silly, example is: get a girlfriend boyfriend who only speaks Japanese.
While I don’t recommend this, the idea of finding motivators to help draw us into the language still holds merit…