Hey everyone I’m 14 and my school has a sister school in japan, in about 2-3months ish a Japanese kid will be coming over to stay with my family as apart of the schools exchange program and I do know bits and pieces of Japanese from my schools classes but i’d like to start learning more and faster in preparation. Would anyone know of away I could achieve some level of communication within that time, work books, apps, shows,books really anything would be good. Thanks
2 comments
Hosting an exchange student is a super exciting opportunity! Probably one of the best things you can do to facilitate conversation with your future host sibling is to learn to simplify your English. For example:
“Hey would you, like, maybe be free to watch a movie or something?”
vs
“Do you want to watch a movie with me?”
Your host sibling is still learning English so they may have trouble understanding you if you use a lot of slang, filler words, and long sentences. Try to use short and simple sentences.
As far as improving your own Japanese goes, if you’re learning in school then that’s a really good start! Since this talking with this exchange student is a big part of your motivation, I would recommend Youtube videos, since speaking and listening are your more immediate concerns. Here are a couple of recommendations for beginner level channels:
[Miku Real Japanese](https://youtube.com/@mikurealjapanese3804)
[Japanese Ammo with Misa](https://youtube.com/@JapaneseAmmowithMisa)
Other people could probably give more reccs. I far from a beginner Japanese Youtube expert
First thing I’d suggest is pick up the Genki 1 textbook. Its an amazing book.
Another resource you can use after a bit can be
https://tadoku.org/japanese/en/free-books-en/#l0
Tadoku has lots of free jp books for learners at different levels
If you really get into learning you can use Anki, it’s a program where you can make personal study lists. Though its a bit complicated to set up