Basically. I can’t learn Japanese. It’s like there’s a sheer vertical cliff in my mind that needs to be scaled for me to learn it, and I’m having a hard time doing so.
Basically, I wanted to ask if there is any utility in getting wanikani to help me learn. I’m in a Japanese language school right now and I’m just getting my ass kicked everyday with vocabulary words. I need something to help me, so that I can at least make some progress. I learn grammar *ok*, but it means nothing when I can’t read the words. It’s like I have a memory leak or something, and I simply haven’t found a way to put the words in and keep them in.
To add; I’ve been trying to study this language for several years, and I probably still didn’t pass the N3 exam.
13 comments
Gotta do it like when you learned your first language. Get some kids books and sound out the words until you can read that one book naturally. Then, make sure you understand it.
Rinse and repeat.
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Try TV shows that are about to your speed (ETV kids shows even) and put the subtitles on. Read along. If you can record them even better.
Watch your favorite movies on Netflix (or whatever platform) **BUT** change the language to Japanese.
Familiar content helps.
But as another commenter suggested – get kids books. Ebooks are great 🙂
Look man I get it, it’s hard, I know how bad it can feel.
There is no magic bullet, there’s no real study solution that can fix it. You gotta find how you learn. You seem to realize that textbook Japanese and real Japanese are white different, which is good, but unfortunately most all of the learning resources are going to be focused on textbook Japanese.
I think the best way to learn is immersion, go out, talk with people, learn by assimilation, that’s hard, and it takes a long time.
Also I don’t want to lead you on, everyone is different, some people learn languages really quick. It comes naturally to them like breathing. I took Japanese classes back in college and I found it super easy, I had classmates that worked 10 times harder than me at it and could barely manage to pass classes. You’ve got to eventually look at this and ask yourself if it is worth it for you.
We all have our skills and our talents and unfortunately language learning is kind of a rare one imho. Anyone can do it but it’s only for a very few that it comes effortlessly. And Japanese us easily one of the hardest to learn.
I’d say the plan now is to identify your weakpoints. If it’s vocabulary memorization, mnemonics, brute force method, doesn’t really matter what it is, what matters is finding whatever works for you. Everyone is different and while other people will tell you X is the best way to do it, might not actually work for you. Rather than looking for resources that can help you, it might be better to make your own resources. So like, what is it about vocabulary you find so hard? And go on from there. Is it just the Japanese words you have problems memorizing, or do you have trouble memorizing lists in general.
Use books aimed at Japanese kids, and books written in Japanese itself (eg aimed at first-language learners). This was my niche trick, works wonders for every language.
I won’t recommend a resource, but to use the language you are learning somehow. For me talking to Japanese people that didn’t know good English was the initial trick, but find what works for you.
Just studying without proper input and especially output won’t get you far I think.
If you’re having trouble cramming vocabulary for class, I’d recommend studying with a spaced repetition system like Anki. Spaced repetition is as close as we can come to “hacking” the brain. It works remarkably well if you stick with it.
If you’re specifically having trouble with kanji vocabulary, WaniKani can be a big help. Its focus on building up from radicals and integrating a spaced repetition system is much more conductive to learning than just trying to brute-force new kanji. Even just learning the radicals properly will help with memorizing kanji WaniKani hasn’t introduced to you.
If it’s vocabulary in general, then that is a more nebulous issue, but still solvable. Your brain doesn’t like expending effort on acquiring things it doesn’t feel like it needs. To conquer that it helps to understand why your situations or emotions incline you to feel like this is superfluous or undue effort, and you’ll need to create an environment that inclines your brain toward learning it. Maybe you can rely on English so much day to date that you don’t feel the pressing need of survival. Maybe you associate the learning Japanese with the stress of trying to live without it. Maybe you lack an emotional draw, like friends or a show you want to understand.
Learn kanji. Then read as much as you can… You’ll pick up loads of new words. My electronic dictionary 23 years ago had a kanji bank of words i had saved to it. It allowed me to make those words into flashcards right on the device… That’s what I did everyday, all day, while doing nothing in August at my school as a jet.
That and go talk to Japanese people and don’t hang out with only foreign people.
Can you get a homestay ?
Wanikani has helped me a ton simply because I find it fun, more than any other method of learning (includes Duolingo, both premade and custom Anki decks, learning from textbooks, in person courses etc.) but it will only help you a certain extent, because the words are taught in order of what kanji are in the word as opposed to whether it’s commonly used or not. So you end up learning words like 外交 (diplomacy / N3 level vocab) and 考古学 (archeology / N1 level vocab) which you might never need to use in casual conversation, much earlier than extremely common words like 大丈夫 (OK) or 難しい (difficult) which are extremely common in conversation.
Did you look into Anki?
Ditto all the comments about wanikani or anki. Please pace yourself, doing 5-10mins a day adds up and after breaking the hurdle and it becoming a habit, you will see rapid improvement until you hit the intermediate plateau.
I did wanikani for 1-2 hours for 10months every day and now I’ve a good foundation to connect with my wife and her family/friends and my friends.
Don’t compare yourself and just keep on going. There are some communities online that are quite helpful friendly too. Wish you the best of luck.
For me
– James Heisig’s remembering the kanji helped me IMMENSELY with kanji. And having the kanji at least in my head helped IMMENSELY with learning vocabulary and reading. People like to trash talk Heisig, but the system works very well if you’ve got half a brain and actually do what he says and don’t stop studying after finishing the book. The book fills your head with temporary placeholders for the kanji, but you must continue studying as soon as you finish to really learn how to read. The next recommendation is for that.
– There’s an app called “iknow” that teaches you 5000 words but brutally and relentlessly drilling them into your brain. It’s like Anki for people with learning disorders who also get distracted/bored easily. It has several different ways it will test the information so it’s much better, but limited than Anki imo. It will teach you readings as part of vocabulary acquisition .
– Do social media exclusively in Japanese. Thankfully I didn’t have an Instagram before moving to Japan and was able to make that from scratch in Japanese. It’s a non-stop source of constant interaction. Don’t be a faceless weirdo that nobody wants to interact with. If you’ve got one picture of a car, good luck getting engagement from people. My neighbors, the conbini staff, lots of random people I met have my Instagram with my pictures on there and I chat in Japanese constantly. Engaging in text based Japanese in short bursts is a lot easier and probably more beneficial than sitting down forcing yourself to read Harry Potter in Japanese 1-2x a week.
I spun my wheels for the first few years, but am pretty good at Japanese now imo. Good luck 👍