I have been thinking of starting to learn Japanese for quite a while now but I always find myself hesitant to start it because I am scared I won’t be able to abide to my learning schedule, especially since I will be starting university soon. so I wanted to know you manage to fit learning japanese in your daily routine.
I’ll be studying the 2k/6k Anki deck.
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If you don’t anything about Japanese, I’d go with jlabs beginner course, it’s an anki deck. You will learn Tae Kim’s worth of grammar with 800+ words to boot. If you are looking for a casual way to learn some solid info, this is what I recommend recommend.
First of all, you shouldnt use anki as a study source, its complementary vocabulary for your studies.
Secondly, it depends how your life situation will then be, im for expample studying right now, working out and working parttime(10-20h a week) and im easily able to study 2-4h of japanese each day, i dont have much time left for other “hobbies”, but the 3 things i just stated are my hobbies, so i dont miss out on anything.
Also there even if youre “only” able to study 30-60min a day, its more than nothing. If you want to learn more, you sometimes have to make cuts and skip out on other hobbies. Skipping doing “useless stuff” can also help you get more time(watching random youtube videos etc.)
Eh, if you’re just starting university you’ll have plenty of time. Especially the first year or two. Depends if you’re working and this or that and social life and whatever but there’s different methods for study time depending on your personality, motivation, discipline, etc.
You could either look at your schedule and say okay every single day of the week I’m free between 7 and 8, some days earlier, but at the very least I don’t have a class or work or anything that hour and that will be my japanese time. This probably appeals to more organized type A personalities. So just schedule your time. It could also really help someone with low or varying levels of motivation and high discipline, but only if you can stick to it cause you don’t want to dread it.
You could also just kind of set a target, each day I want to spend at least an hour studying and then you do it whenever you feel like and by whichever method you feel like doing that day and then do more if you feel so inclined. For some people this can be hard to accomplish and easy to blow off, but for others they’d hate having to do it at the same time the same way every single day, and like to switch it up and have more control and freeball it a bit more. It just kind of depends on your personality. This may be easier for people with low discipline but high motivation, so long as you can keep your motivation up whether that’s by setting goals or deadlines or by doing things you enjoy in japanese.
According to something and someone, it takes about 2200 hours to reach a decent level of fluency in japanese. Of course you can use it and enjoy it before that point but let’s use that number. If you study an hour a day it would take just about 6 years to get decently fluent, and probably pretty decent in 2 or 3 years. If you spend 3 hours a day you’d attain decent fluency in 2 years and at a decent level in a year or so. And those are just numbers and examples but it’s worth thinking about. But either way, it’s a long journey and going to take years regardless unless you’re nolifing it or are some kind of savant. Don’t let the years discourage you though, because if you know one japanese word or even can read one japanese letter then you already know more japanese than most people! Think about it this way, even with just a few words and a day of studying you’ll know more japanese than 98% of people in the entire world. Thats crazy cool!
I am more of the latter type. I study it when I want and how I want and it has been working well for me this time around. Although I, along with just about everyone in the sub, use a SRS ((spaced repetition system) like Anki that i now realize you mentioned after i typed this out) and that I kind of do on a schedule. I’m using a certain system that basically sets the pace for me cause if I had to come up with everything myself personally I wouldn’t have gotten this far but some people prefer the more free or less regimented system with more customizability. So my flashcards are on a kind of loose schedule and I do them every day throughout the day when they come up or when I’m not busy but a few minutes here and there throughout the day. Then I just study what and when I want.
It helps that when I get interested in something I’m pretty obsessive and enjoy the hell out of it whether it’s learning how to grow a plant, or playing certain games a ton in a short period of time and then never touching it again, or getting in shape, or learning a language. So I do flashcards every day, then there are periods where thats all I do along with maybe like a 10 or 15 minute grammar study and that’s it for a couple weeks while something else snagged my interest. Then there are times when I’m obsessed with japanese and I easily put in like multiple hours a day learning grammar, watching japanese content, playing video games in japanese, etc. I’m in that obsessive period lately and finally feel like I’m making lots of progress pretty quickly.
You want to definitely avoid burnout too. Sometimes if I get too excited and obsessed then I’ll burn out and completely drop whatever hobby or whatever either permanently or for a long time, so I’ve learned to limit myself. Leave myself wanting more, and that makes me excited to come back to it and so I don’t feel I’ve burnt out. I am not good at doing things I don’t want to do, so this works for me. I never sit down and force myself to study if I don’t want to. Even with the flashcards, but I like them so it’s easy to keep up on usually.
As for starting, this sub has tons of resources and advice and points to resources that link to even more resources. It’s incredibly convenient. Also some people are anal about how you study or what you start with or all sorts of dumb shit, but I think for the most part as long as you are spending time with the language you will improve, even if it’s imperceptible day by day. There could be more efficient methods, in fact there almost certainly are for everyone since no one method is perfect, but I think the most important thing is that you enjoy yourself because, well, that’s what a hobby is all about at the end of the day.
I only feel I started to really improve when I found resources I really really enjoy, and because I enjoyed them I spent more time with them so I improved more and retained the information better. Some people will say you have to do boring grammar study at least enough to have a foundation or base in the language and then can do stuff you enjoy, and I kind of agree to some extent that the foundation is necessary and won’t necessarily be the most enjoyable thing, but I’ve even found resources that teach grammar in a fun and interesting way. I don’t think there’s really any part of learning japanese that HAS to be boring, even as a complete beginner.
I’ve never touched a japanese textbook or did any formal study but I’m happy with where I’m at for what I’ve done. And maybe you learn best from textbooks, I’m not putting them down, just saying that you can improve and build a foundation while enjoying yourself at the same time, whatever that means to you. Good luck in your Japanese studies and at University! Take Uni seriously but have fun!
It’s going to take some planning and dedication, like going to the gym.
I normally would say three 60-minute chunks throughout the day is ideal – but YOU DO YOU.
A few notes on Anki: It’s a lot better if you make sure to do your reviews every day. Skipping days can cause a big pileup. If you get too many or need to slow down on Anki, set the new cards to 0 and only do the reviews and after a few days you should only have a handful of reviews. There’s also add-ons you can install that allow you to “pause” everything in case you suddenly need to stop for a bit. Also, don’t just do Anki. It’s not so much a “studying” tool as a way to memorize things and keep them fresh in your memory to make it easier to cement them in permanently as you do your proper studying or immersion.
As to fitting learning into your schedule. Let’s say you’re only able to do X amount of time of grammar study or reading a textbook or whatever it is you want to do because finals are coming up or whatever. There’s tons of stuff you can do outside of reading a textbook that are helpful, and arguably necessary (you gotta get some immersion in at some point). Take those little unused chunks of your day and fill them with things to do in Japanese. Listen to a podcast while walking/driving to school. Read a manga on your phone while waiting for class to start. Play a kanji learning app or something while sitting on the toilet. Instead of watching cute cat videos on Youtube while you unwind, and instead watch cute cat videos on Youtube in Japanese.
I’d be sure to look at different tools and resources that cut out busy work and save time, especially around Anki. A few notable examples:
[Migaku](https://www.migaku.io/) – $5/month, $200/lifetime subscription. It allows you to open webpages and watch streaming video (only Youtube and Netflix right now) and video files and quickly look up words you come across as well as automatically create Anki cards from that content. Only Chrome is currently supported.
Yomichan – A browser extension that allows you to hold shift or control and hover words to pop up a dictionary entry. Supports any dictionary files you can find. It also is able to connect to a bunch of different programs and plug-ins that let you do stuff like create Anki cards. [Here’s one site that show you how to set it up](https://learnjapanese.moe/yomichan/). [Here’s another one.](https://animecards.site/yomichansetup/)
AnimeCards script – This is a script that works with the MPV player and Yomichan to let you automatically create Anki cards, much like Migaku, except free. I find Migaku more convenient and fast to use, but I used the AnimeCards method previously and it was still great. [Go to their site to learn how to set it up](https://animecards.site/).
Kaku – A phone app that uses OCR to pop up dictionary entries on Android (IDK if it’s on Apple, but there’s probably at least a different app that’s similar). It’s like Yomichan but for your phone.
[WaniKani](https://www.wanikani.com/) – It’s an online flashcard based system for learning Kanji similar to Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji or KKLC. Some people like it, some don’t, but if you want to do something similar to RTK or KKLC, this is a really convenient way to do it. If you don’t like it and still want to do a similar type of program, Migaku has an Anki add-on that let’s you build your own RTK type of deal.
I’m only a few months in, but feeling progress being made. I only have 30-60 minutes of dedicated learning time a day which I’m currently using for Anki&kanji! drills and manga reading (I used to use the manga time for Duolingo before I felt i grew past it). I really try to keep my drills down to limit the time spent on that, if I’m spending more than 15 minutes on them it’s time to stop new cards until it dips back down. However, i do as much immersion as I can throughout the day even if I’m half paying attention. My job doesn’t care if i watch stuff while I work so that makes it easy; but commute, work out, or chores work too. Also, I’m slowly working my way through Cure Dolly’s grammar course in the same way, just one video a day then back to immersion.
If you don’t get a too early class for uni, I personally like to start my day or end my day with Japanese. I always found spending 30 minutes to an hour after I woke up or finished everything else made it easier for me to make progress. And don’t stress if you have to miss a day because you got too busy, any progress is good.