Hello all,
Some context I would like to tell you before asking my questions: I’ve planned in 2018 to go on a trip to Japan for the first time, for three weeks with my cousin. Plan was to go in april 2020. I decided to learn Japanese for a full year from april 2019 to april 2020. For fun, as a hobby, just to see how much I could learn and use during my three weeks in Japan. I know I wouldn’t be great, but being able to read some words written out, and being able to speak a few words to break the ice with Japanese people is alright for me. Then of course Covid happend and the trip was cancelled. All my motivation was lost on learning. I studied weekly around 10-15 hours and was really motivated.
I did my daily Anki, Wanikani voor Kanji, and used the Genki books a few times a week.
Last week we finally booked tickets for Japan, in October this year. I told myself I would this time pick-up Japanese again, for half a year. I’m honestly not as motivated to put in again the same amount of time and effort as I did before, but I still would like to have a grasp of Japanese in my repetoire.
I used to learn most used Kanji, and a few decks from Anki, I think it was the 2000 or 4k words decks. Honestly, most words I would NEVER use in daily life, or during my holliday, so I rather want to have a deck which is more suited to my needs.
Questions:
* Do you have any tips for how I can plan learning Japanese for half a year, suited to a holiday for 3 weeks for basic conversations, reading, etc.? Again, I know I won’t be great, but I feel it’s more fun to at least having some basics.
* Any tips to make custom decks? I definitely have some phrases I would like to study, but the thing is, it is difficult to find a good Japanese translation and Google Translate wouldn’t probably be any good lol.
Right now my “plan” is to at least work through Genki 1 again, which I almost had finished before + custom Anki decks and maybe a few common Kanji. Also I want to pick up my reading skills for Kana. I have some vocabulary knowledge from years of watching anime. When I started learning the decks, I was surprised how many words I already knew.
Well, thanks for your advice!
3 comments
If you are not super motivated I would just do Pimsleur. It is a 5 month audio-course and is specifically designed to teach basic convo to people who visit Japan for a short duration, e.g. a vacation or a business trip. It’s only 30 min/day, but you might want to listen to it twice and it will stick better.
Then, optionally, I would do as much kanji/reading as you feel like. I think that for just a 3 week trip this is not really essential. For example work through Genki 1 and learn the Genki vocabulary. Genki vocab is all words that are good to know (if you ignore the “additional vocabulary” sections). Also, the “cultural notes” sections in Genki are useful, because they have some travel-related vocabulary, e.g. for public transportation.
I hadn’t heard of Pimsleur, but that makes sense.
My advise, get your katakana on point. You won’t be able to get your kanji up to the level of reading a Japanese menu in that short of a period but you’d be able to order at most non-Japanese restaurants. Also, make sure you have numbers up to 10,000 down. After that, going through Genki I doesn’t seem like a bad idea. It’s been so long since I’ve gone through it, but I imagine they had some dialogues about shopping and riding the bus.
If you just want some basic vocabulary words and phrases, but aren’t too concerned with grammar and reading the local newspaper, DuoLingo Japanese is a fine place to start.
If you want to practice your conversational listening skills, you can find a Japanese language radio show on radio.garden (this is the URL) and browse various cities and stations until you find a talk show. I have particularly enjoyed some radio shows reading haiku written by listeners around a common theme/prompt. Stations outside the big metropolitan areas may be heard conversing about local festivals and artists. You can encounter some fascinating topics and use the vocabulary you know to try to guess what they are talking about. Hearing repetitive broadcasts such as weather forecasts and train schedules, even commercials, will add to your listening comprehension.
If you are looking to improve your grammar, check out videos on Youtube by ThatJapaneseManYuta and JapaneseAmmo with Misa. You don’t have to subscribe to either of their premium courses, but if you find yourself once again feeling highly motivated and curious, the option is there, and both offer high quality classes for native English speakers.
If you feel confident enough using just Google Translate / jisho.org for your on-the-fly vocab lookup, but want a reference guide to help you review basic grammar so you can form your own sentences on the fly, Barron’s Japanese Grammar will fit easily into your personal bag. It has been a personal favorite through my beginner/intermediate journey, offering a great quick review to brush up with whenever you have fallen out with your studies for a while. If you think there’s any chance you may get stuck without tech/smartphone service while visiting Japan, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with a more pocket size phrase book to replace Genki when you travel, too. Something like a Tuttle Pocket Dictionary or Japanese for Travelers, for example.