So I’ve been learning Japanese for 2 and a half years now but recently have been discouraged and bored based on progress. I did Duolingo heavily for 5 months and realized it only takes you so far and then moved on to Anki for the rest of the time only using the Japanese Core 2000 Step 01 flashcards. I’d say I know tons of verbs, some adjectives, and some nouns and that’s far as I have come. I am very frustrated with the outcome of barely being able to speak. I never really understood how or what to sentence mine in the first place so thats why I only do those flash cards. Does anyone know of any other methods for learning Japanese or is it really just sentencing mining (which I don’t understand)? Also does reading books or manga help?
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What is your main goals for learning and what are you willing to pay?
Some programs are better to teach you to speak while others are better for reading.
The best way to learn how to speak Japanese is to speak it. I’d recommend getting on HelloTalk and finding a speaking partner, or spend money and get a tutor on iTalki.
I did HelloTalk for a bit before JET and then on JET I was forced to interpret for new coworkers who knew no Japanese at all. That forced talking actually helped me a ton, and my Japanese abilities skyrocketed. I’m still just N3 level, but I can have simple conversations with Japanese people and got along well with my coworkers and students.
Shadowing is a strategy that may help you improve your speaking skills if you feel like the words are solidly enough in your head but don’t quite find their way out of your mouth. You can give it a Google. There are some textbooks for it, but it can really be done with anything. Otherwise, keep building vocabulary and trying to read.
From what you wrote it sounds like you’ve learnt a bunch of vocab but haven’t spent much time on grammar, am I right? There’s been this myth spread that you don’t need to study grammar and just immersing and mining enough sentences is enough for you to naturally absorb it. But Japanese grammar is so drastically different to English grammar and unintuitive to native English speakers that this approach doesn’t really work. I would recommend working though a beginners textbook like Genki to build a solid foundation of grammar.
The YouTube channel CureDolly also has some really good explanations of how Japanese grammar works, if you can get past the slightly grating voice.
r.e. sentence mining; the idea is that you pick sentences that you understand fully except for one word or grammar point. The problem is at the beginning there’s almost nothing that you understand, and you’re unable to discern for yourself what’s worth learning now and what can be left for later, so I wouldn’t really recommend unguided sentence mining as a beginner. It’s also not the only way to learn Japanese.
A lot of the stuff you see online with sentence mining etc is not super helpful when you actually live in Japan. Those are methods created by and for people who would otherwise have no interaction with Japanese in their daily life. That’s not the case for you. You want to be out interacting people, not sitting at home doing anki. If you’re feeling directionless I would recommend joining a class. Your town my offer one for local foreigners or you can get an online private tutor through something like italki
Can you write sentences in Japanese? If you can’t then no matter how much you try, you won’t be able to output sentences in a speaking context. Speaking is just extemporaneous writing. Can’t write out simple sentences in jp? You need to add to your grammar/sentence pattern arsenal to communicate your thoughts.
You also need decent listening skills to be able to communicate. You haven’t mentioned your listening level in your post. What worked for improving my listening skills is watching an episode of a show twice. First with subs off then a second time with subs on to confirm that I understood everything.
If you can’t understand regular conversations in JP, you need to:
1. learn more vocab
2. study grammar more
3. spend more time listening
The great thing about listening practice is you can do it at the same time as other tasks. Cleaning the house? Doing laundry? Commuting to work? There’s always room for listening practice via podcasts.
And yes, reading books and manga help tremendously. You need to be constantly absorbing natural jp sentences and growing your vocab base. You can’t output what you don’t know so keep reading.
It doesn’t sound like you’ve been doing any output-based learning. You need a tutor or to pair up with a native speaker.
Taking in the information and using it are two different brain processes.
Japanese is HARD yo.
You’ll learn more in Japan in a month than you will studying yourself for a year back home. Just make sure you spend most of your time in the Japanese ecosystem (few western friends, don’t watch netflix, read reddit all the time) and you’ll learn super fast. Otherwise you won’t learn much at all and be like the old guys here for 10 years + that can’t even order a beer in Japanese.
Try using a textbook to learn grammar instead of only flash cards. I recommend Genki I to start with and it also comes with a workbook. If you get the Japan Times app and search “Genki I 3rd edition” it has all of the voiceovers for the activities free. There is also this website that gamifies the Genki activities and makes them interactive
[https://sethclydesdale.github.io/genki-study-resources/lessons-3rd/](https://sethclydesdale.github.io/genki-study-resources/lessons-3rd/)
I also really like this YouTube channel. She goes along with Genki and explains grammar in depth
[https://youtube.com/@YukoSensei](https://youtube.com/@YukoSensei)
Edit: For speaking practice a friend has recommended trying to chat with Japanese players in VR Chat in specific Japanese-English language exchange worlds. I haven’t tried it myself but it sounds fun and probably takes a lot of pressure off since it’s online and not face to face