Edit: I was not expecting to be even close to fluent. Just wanted to know enough to get around, order food, and be able to ask simple questions and directions. And I was not planning to be done when we get to Japan, this is just the start of my Japanese learning journey. I was just asking for learning tips for the most basic phrases, words, etc. just the essentials if possible
My wife and I are traveling to Japan for about a week and will be visiting Zushi, Osaka, Tokyo, Shinjuku, and anywhere else we find interesting. We are leaving in 6ish months and wish to be as proficient at speaking as possible. Should we get the genki books, certain apps, listen to any specific music, podcasts, watch any specific anime? We want the most time efficient resources we can find, and I figured the people here would know better than my quick google searches. If anyone has any suggestions, they would be appreciated.
Back story if you care: We are heading to Zushi to return my great grandmother’s ashes as she was born and raised there. She’s the only person in my family that spoke Japanese, none of her children ever picked it up because she moved to the US at 18 and spoke English around family for the rest of her life because her husband was American, and they raised their kids with english. I’m the great grandson and only have 1/8 Japanese in me, but I still feel a pull to learn Japanese and engulf myself in the culture, just to be closer to her and understand her more now that she is gone. I’ve always wanted to learn Japanese to make her proud and be the one in our family to carry on her legacy by learning Japanese and keeping that in the family. She died before I ever got started. So now we will be returning her ashes to her hometown per her wishes, and I figured now is the best time to take learning Japanese seriously. We leave in about 6 months. My wife and I want to be as conversational as possible and want to know what’s going on. Ideally be able to speak, and read things like menu’s and signs. I understand that’s a LOT to learn in a little time, so we have kind of agreed that focusing on speech is better because we can always ask the meaning if we can’t read.
3 comments
It’s a tall ask. You can learn kana at https://www.realkana.com. If you need to dive head-first and skip the elementary textbook stuff there’s https://www.imabi.net. You’ll want a good EJJE dictionary, like Genius EJJE(available on iPhone via the Monokakido app) or Junior Anchor (available in print on Japanese Amazon). Note that 英和(EJ) dictionaries have English headings with Japanese glosses, while 和英 dictionaries have Japanese headings with English glosses. Both will be intended for Japanese speakers but they are usable by English speakers. 英和和英(EJJE) dictionaries have both. Ideally you’d want both.
This is just *my* recommendation and it’s not a hardcore rule. For you, 3 hours a day for 180 days and change is about 550 hours. In about 6 months, you could get to about JLPT N5 level, which is very basic survival Japanese. At best you can ask and answer questions about very familiar topics or communicate immediate needs. I based this estimate on unofficial JLPT study hours. N1 = ~4800 hours, divided by 365 days over the course of 4 years = ~3 hours daily.
“Study” can also include listening to level appropriate podcasts, reading, meeting up with Japanese friends and whatever else makes study enjoyable to you.
Genki (and other textbook) Study Plan:
Two or three 45-60 minute study sessions a daily. Example: Chunk A – vocab, kanji and dialogue; Chunk B – textbook; Chunk C – workbook.
Before studying the chapter, get the majority of the vocabulary and kanji (if any) down. Genki marks the vocabulary used in the dialogue, so it’s easy to prepare for.
Try reading the dialogue WITHOUT looking at the English translation. Try to guess the meaning from the pictures and the dialogue prompts. Check to see how you did.
Chunk A: Everyday practice vocabulary, kanji (if any) and dialogue, shadow the audio, review the previous day’s work… you can preview the exercises you’ll be doing so you can brush up on the vocab you’ll need.
Chunk B: Everyday work in one grammar point. Do the associated exercises in the textbook. If it’s a speaking exercises, do both parts.
Chunk C: Do the workbook exercises sometime later.
Don’t forget to do the reading and writing in the back of the textbook. You can get your writing checked on an app like HelloTalk. Do corrections and resubmit. Move on to the next chapter and repeat.
You can add and subtract chucks or mix things up depending on your preference and life factors. You can combine low effort and high effort study in a day or study session, or break up the hour.
For example: while making and eating breakfast, listen to a podcast (30 minutes), watch a YouTube video for grammar during lunch (30 minutes). During your commute (60 minutes) do Pimsleur. Read manga for 20 minutes a day, do the workbook for 20 minutes and meet with a tutor for 30 minutes.
It’s very time consuming to get to the point where you can have even simple conversations in Japanese. If you can dedicate many hours to study every day, it’s possible to achieve this in 6 months, but only if you are kind of obsessive about it.
For travel, the most useful thing would probably be to memorize some basic phrases and practice these often enough that you can get them across to a typical Japanese person. Get an app like Google Translate that can autotranslate text for you and practice using it. Getting around Tokyo shouldn’t be that hard, you’ll be able to find plenty of signage in Romaji/English. I’m not sure about Zushi; I’m not sure if it’s a big enough tourist spot to have signage in Romaji or English. But it looks like it’s in Kanagawa prefecture, which is pretty touristy overall, so all the major train stations will probably be OK to get around relying on Romaji, if you research how to get around carefully ahead of time. This is important: Google maps will give you directions, but if you don’t understand how the train system works, it can be tough to follow these directions (even knowing Japanese, without preparation, it’s easy to get lost in some of the huge stations or riding the more complicated train lines)
A few essential characters (e.g. 女 and 男 will help keep you out of the wrong restroom) might be useful to know, but it’s unlikely you’ll be able to achieve a useful amount of general literacy in the time available. If you pick up the kana fast, Katakana might be worth learning, since it shows up often in names of shops or food items. But if learning kana is like pulling teeth, I might suggest really just ignoring it completely for now and sticking to Romaji for learning survival phrases.
If you don’t have the time to study for multiple hours everyday, I wouldn’t stress too much about achieving conversational fluency before you get to Japan. Concentrate more on just pre-planning and making sure you can get around without being able to speak Japanese very well.
If you find you enjoy studying Japanese, just learn it slowly instead of trying to cram becoming fluent into 6 months. It’s a beautiful language, but it’s also a very difficult language for native English speakers. Most English native speakers who learn it do so by persistently studying for years.