How to learn Japanese?

20 comments

1. Japanese classes.

2. Paying for a good language school and working hard at it is the best option

3. I went to a language school to learn Japanese. Not from scratch, but my foundations were so shaky, I had to relearn a lot of my basics.

   If you have the money, do enroll in a proper language school. They’ll be able to help.

   Took me 3 years of learning to be comfortable in speaking/explaining to my colleagues. I’m still learning while working in a Japanese company.

4. I’ll put in a vote for online tutors. They’re pretty cheap, the classes are one on one, and you can do them from home.

   I’ve never been to a language school so I can’t speak to those, but I’ve had nothing but good experiences from online classes. I’ve been doing them since the very beginning of my studies and continue to this day.

5. School, classes and tutors have all been mentioned. In addition to those, I found putting myself in situations where communication was an imperative but English was not an option help tremendously, albeit stressfully. Some suggestions might be volunteering, joining sports clubs, or becoming a regular at your local sentō or okonomiyaki shop.

6. Dates

7. Online lessons are very available and one to one. I did with apprentus (online platform)

8. SRS (flash cards, Anki is recommended highly) for vocab, textbook (genki 1 and 2 at minimum) for grammar, immersion such as watching tv shows with and without subtitles, reading books, speaking regularly with a native speaker to help reach fluency (speaking/listening in japanese without actively thinking about it).

   Classroom lessons helps give structure to all these things but isnt required if you have enough self discipline.

9. There’s good stuff in r/learnjapanese.
   I personally like [this website ](https://learnjapanese.moe/1) it is really good IMO.
   But be aware these self learning guides usually prioritize input first so if you’re living in Japan is not ideal.
   Also a teacher won’t hurt of course.

10. My job pays for a tutor, so I’m taking lessons twice a week. only been here four months, but already finding the small amount i’ve learned helpful.

    for me, so far, it’s been:
    start with basic phrases & learn Hiragana 5 characters at a time
    learning a basic introduction & 5 Katakana characters at a time
    following a text book walking through specific situations like it has a chapter ordering at a restaurant, asking for directions, shopping, etc. I try to use the phrases I learn in every day life and if there’s a particular phrase I want to memorize I write in on my palm so I can look for it easily that day – I use this method to independently add specific phrases like “I don’t know but I will check” I use at work a lot!
    also learned numbers, days of the week, saying the time, counting items – all of that is very practical.
    from there, recently, I’ve been learning verb conjugation for present/future or past and negative or positive. Slowly but surely, it’s not as hard as it seems

11. Depends on you. Some people do well at studying and language schools. Other people do well just going out at night and chatting with people.

    Then there’s me; terrible at both methods.

12. Treat it like the military for a year, same training regimen everyday for a set number of hours, drills drills drills with flash cards of whatever else your teacher suggests. Consistency and staying hungry for it will get you there real fast. Just immerse yourself into the language and you will be fine in a year or less.

13. Most cities have free, volunteer teacher lessons. But, unless you’re going to self-study *a lot* to supplement that, enrolling in a paid lesson is likely going to do more for you. The free classes generally lack the structure of paid lessons.

    In the end, you’ll get out of it what you’re willing to put in. The result will depend on your personal motivation.

14. It depends on your learning style. If you can hunker down and learn on your own, there are many different ways.

    1. Drill hiragana and katakana (although you may already know these).
    2. Learn to understand Kanji (note, not read all kanji). I enjoyed the Heisig method and using the site Kanji Koohi (google it). It took me about 3 months to review the 2000 or so standard kanji. People have varying opinions about this method, but this made Kanji a heck more digestible for me and my literacy and future studies seemed to really take off from there.
    3. Get a textbook series like Genki. Study at least 1 unit a day.
    4. Get some supplementary books. I liked イメージでわかる！日本語の助詞 (search Amazon) to better understand particles. Tae Kim’s online grammar guide (free) is also a decent resource for explanations you don’t understand from your main text book.
    5. Practice anything you learn. Write sentences in a notebook (have a Japanese friend check them, or check out someplace like HiNative.com). Use what you can in real life (you live here).
    6. Once you’ve learned the writing systems (incl. recognizing and understanding how Kanji are constructed and their basic meanings in English), buy some JLPT N3 text books and study for 3+ months to take the JLPT N3. Keep studying with JLPT N3 text books until you pass it (if you don’t the first time–but you probably will).
    7. Now you’re somewhat functional. Make more Japanese friends. Join social clubs (kendo, weight training…or whatever you’re interested in.)
    8. Start consuming as much Japanese media as you can tolerate, youtube, games, TV, movies, music, light novels, etc. Produce content in Japanese (e.g., Journal, emailsFind something you enjoy.
    9. Repeat 7 and 8 while supplementing with other textbooks (e.g., business Japanese, how to write emails, JLPT N2…) and then take JLPT N2.
    Congrats, you’re now proficient to live and work (in most cases) in Japan. Depending on your daily hours, you should be able to achieve this in 2 years. The key is consistency. Using a SRS tool like Anki can help you stay on task and review, although constantly reviewing flashcards gets old after a year. By then hopefully you are using and consuming enough Japanese that you won’t need SRS to reinforce vocabulary, kanji, etc.

15. American military, yeah? If you were stationed anywhere in the south ish area (Iwakuni, etc) find a local tutor, use podcasts while driving and devote time.

    If you were stationed in a major city, leave that major city.

    I have met people fluent in Japanese who lived in Tokyo/Osaka/etc.

    I have met very few people who weren’t fluent having lived in Aomori or Yamaguchi. Plus it’s far cheaper to have a private teacher in the countryside than a language school in a metropolis.

16. I went to Human Academy full time (which is actually half a day, but sometimes mornings, sometimes afternoons). Great school if you have good kanji skills. If your kanji is lacking or you’re a bit older and can’t learn/Memorise/internalise 10 kanji every day, you get buried really quick as it’s a school for Chinese students, so kanji is kind of glossed over. For me, kanji was the big bastard. Learning Japanese was fine. I spent 3/4 of my time on kanji and barely kept up. I’m certain that is just me being absolute shit at memorising kanji, so that experience may not be anyone else’s. If I were to talk to my younger self, I would give myself a kanji book and tell me to get to it. Also a verb book. For me, once I have a verb and can read the kanji if that verb, I’m rolling. Of course everyone’s learning style is different and I in no way claim my way is the right way, especially in light of the fact that my Japanese is shit!

17. Forget about being perfect before speaking. Throw away your ego and embrace talking like a dumb baby.

    I found that textbooks never helped me, and classes often focused too much on teaching grammar before anything else and I couldn’t wrap my head around it.

    Moving to the inaka, using the wanikani kanji app, carry a notebook to write down new vocabulary, and listening to podcasts, like Japanese with Shun, is what really helped me find my footing.

    Find out how you learn best. It doesn’t have to be from textbooks or in a classroom.

18. Since you live here, I’d say another layer you can add to the tips everyone gave here is to be curious and interact with your surroundings. Take like a couple minutes in a train ride or while you’re waiting in line somewhere to try to read the Japanese around you. It’ll get familiar over time and then when you’ll start to recognize it across your other study material! 🙂 This counts for listening too! Don’t just tune out Japanese you can’t understand yet. You need the input !

19. For me what worked the best is using Anki app to first learn kanji and then mine sentences (ie. finding sentences that you don’t understand, turning them into flashcards and learning them until you do).

    So first, I learnt the jouyou kanji (using the Heisig method); and then I just went through textbooks and manga and newspapers putting sentences into Anki. And every day I go through my Anki sentences while walking to the station or working out at the gym. First I typed in a bunch of sentences from textbooks, then I typed in a bunch of sentences from Meitantei Konan (because when I came to Japan it was easy to find 100yen books in book-off), then I typed in a bunch of sentences from Ghibli (because when I was learning the internet had a lot of parallel translations), and then I used the Yomiuri editorial to find sentences (because it is available in English and Japanese).

20. Language school full time is the fastest way to fluency by fire hose and only requires you to show up each day and don’t have to overthink study methods materials etc.