Best Way To Learn Japanese A Self-Study Guide For Beginners

As with any trend among children and pre-teens, it’s hard to say why Labubu has become so popular. It could be that they are a bit unconventional or that they come in a blind box series, so it’s a surprise as to which character you’ll bring home. Whatever the reason, kids are in love with these little forest monsters. Labubu is a popular collectible toy produced by Pop Mart. They are known for having large eyes, tall ears, elvish features, and sharp teeth.

Most likely, you’ll end up doing a hybrid of the above. No matter what you choose, your foundation of kanji, vocabulary, and pronunciation will make everything much easier. Without it, even the best Japanese textbook will be a frustrating experience. Duolingo is probably one of the most ineffective ways to learn Japanese. Even though, yes, it does teach you words, it doesn’t teach you some of the most important things needed to reach a fluent level. These things include, conjugation, sentence structure, etc.

Recognize Common Kanji

At this point, you have a strong base of kanji and vocabulary. If you are using WaniKani, you should be at level 10 or above. If you are doing kanji on your own, or using another resource, you should know the most common meaning and reading of around 300 kanji and 1,000 vocabulary words. If you are using a resource that only teaches you the meaning of a kanji (and not how to read it), that doesn’t count.

While it is important to learn how to hand write Japanese eventually, right now it will slow you down immensely with very little payoff. Typing covers 99% of modern day writing so you will learn how to type hiragana (and katakana and kanji) instead. Another route that many choose is to start studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test, or JLPT. The Japanese Language Proficiency Test is a standardized Japanese test offered by the Japanese government that is held once a year (or twice a year, in some countries).

Why Most Learners Think Japanese Is Hard To Learn

So, the first topic I would like to cover is Duolingo. A lot of people have mixed feelings about this app, so let’s do a brief review of the facts. Even this pretty shallow conversation is a conversation. Find ways to replace your everyday habits (especially the things you do in your downtime) with Japanese learning habits. A mnemonic is a tool to help people remember vast amounts of information. This ranges from rhymes to images to songs—anything can serve as a mnemonic device, as long as it helps you recall whatever you’ve been learning.

• You’ll eventually run into something you don’t know that your textbook doesn’t explain.
• But for some reason, making a mistake when you are learning Japanese feels a lot more embarrassing than with other subjects.
• When many of us start studying Japanese, we try to learn everything at once.
• When babies are learning to speak, do you think they care about originality?
• Before moving on, you should reach level 10 on WaniKani (or around 300 kanji and 1,000 vocabulary words using your own method).

Learning to Type Katakana

For now, let your kanji studies give you most of your vocabulary. Then, when stray street vocabulary does start coming up, send it through the vocabulary process you’ve built. These first steps you take are especially important because they’re going to set a foundation you can build off of. Our goal is to reach Japanese fluency as directly as possible. Unlike a teacher or a textbook, we have the freedom to be ruthless in the path we take to get there. Wordy as it was, the post was quite well received.

Learn with Real People Online

First of all, hats off to everyone who’s had the discipline to learn the lingo. I naively hoped learning Hiragana and Katakana would ‚unlock‘ the language but I’m now thinking I have bitten off more than I can chew. Want to share your travel tips and experiences in Japan? /r/JapanTravel is for any and all looking to visit Japan as a tourist — including those who have already been.

If you don’t want to buy different books, CDs, or videos, I highly recommend Japanesepod101. They have everything you need to learn Japanese, so you don’t need to buy anything else (unless you plan to take the JLPT). It is the best resource I have used to improve my Japanese on my own. However, don’t just write massive lists of vocabulary words or kanji. There’s a way to take notes that will help your learning. For the beginner who wants to just go to Japan in a month (or weeks) and speak Japanese with people—but is frustrated or annoyed with hiragana, katakana, kanji, and grammar terms.

You will benefit greatly if you think about your skill in a language as an intangible bank of intuitive understanding. When you speak or read your native language, you don’t have a grammar table you pull up in your mind. You just know what does or doesn’t sound natural.

You should be able to use these techniques to create a weekly study plan on your own for free, as long as you put in the work. But, if you would like all of the above (and then some) in one, complete package, we recommend the kanji learning program, WaniKani. This kanji-vocabulary-first route will get you to the point where you can use Japanese quickly. It feels slow at first, but soon you will rocket past your fellow Japanese learning compatriots.

• Nothing wrong with grammar, reading, or writing.
• Just try to copy the tone and flow of Japanese speakers by humming, or even making up random words.
• All in all, this is a great place to start in terms of a resource list for starting Japanese.
• Don’t be afraid to use things you heard other people say.

James Knelson has compiled a site that organizes Japanese books by reading level. They even take a sampling of 5000 characters to see how difficult the kanji is. It walks you through the very basics of the Japanese alphabet, textbooks, tests (JLPT), and links to some really great resources like the Kana study sheets.

Every time you interact with a language in a natural Stress Test context, your brain is subconsciously making a deposit into your bank of intuition. Eventually, this bank gets so full that there is no barrier between your thoughts and your speech stemming from a lack of skill. You have a thought and how to say it in Japanese appears in your mind the same way it would in English. If your end goal is to be able to speak natural Japanese and you’re not watching Terrace House regularly, you’re doing yourself a HUGE disservice. It’s still a jumbled mess when anything more complicated than an introduction becomes the topic. I integrate it into my life, calling things by their Japanese names, counting in Japanese, changing everyone’s names in my contacts list to katakana.