Are you considering setting off on a journey of learning Japanese? Well, I thought I would give you a little advice from my experiences. In the previous post, I wrote about why I started learning Japanese and also about what difficulties I have come across on my journey. In this post, I will discuss what I would do if I was starting out from scratch.
1) Why do you want to learn Japanese?
Over the last decade, I have been an ESL teacher in my home country as well as overseas. When I meet my class for the first time, I always ask them what their motivation is for learning English. Some of my students had some very good reasons why they wanted to learn English, however many of the others had no idea what use they would have for English in their futures. My very first lesson focusses on how English can benefit their lives. From then on, whenever there is an aspect of English that poses a challenge, the students can look back to the first lesson and remind themselves of their personal reasons for learning.
For me, I studied Japanese for the following reasons:
- I wanted to learn an Asian language
- I wanted to understand Spirited Away
Those are very simple reasons, but in those early days, they were my motivation. Later on, I fell in love with kanji and I had a new reason - I wanted to be able to read as many kanji as I could. Of course, back then I had not considered the bigger picture, but now I have many more reasons. I recommend really asking yourself what Japanese language could do for you. If you love Japanese pop culture and really want to be able to understand the new song by the latest visual kei artist, keep motivating yourself with that in mind.
However, don't forget that one day, if you try your very, very best with your studies, your language skills might enable you to go to Japan for work. If that is the case, it will be life-changing, and you will open up so many doors for yourself and your future career. Japanese is also a wonderful language to learn for communicating with millions of people outside of Japan as well. This can help you if you ever go travelling around the world as well as if the company you work for in the future has Japanese speaking clients etc.
To keep reminding yourself why you are studying, write your reasons on a piece of paper and try and glance at it just before you start studying or whenever you find something challenging.
2) Buy a notebook!
Buy yourself a little notebook or one of those wonderful vocabulary notebooks, and note down words that you find applicable to you and your situation / interests in life. For example, if you really, really like watching movies, find out what the word is for 'movie' and note it down. If you play the drums, find out how to say 'drums' or 'I play drums' and note it down in your notebook.
Try also to note down random words that you come across that you like or find interesting. I remember seeing the word 'shy' in a vocabulary list at the end of my textbook and after a few weeks of having wanted to say that word and having forgotten to look it up, I had finally found it, and after noting it down in my notebook, I found it easier to remember and knew where it was if I ever was to forget it.
I also recommend compiling the words you have noted at the end of each month and drilling them either as a separate vocabulary list or by making them into flash cards.
3) Buy yourself a dictionary and a phrasebook.
In the early days of my Japanese learning adventure, I spent hours and hours flicking through my dictionary and familiarising myself with words. I did not try to memorise any words, but I looked up this and that and noted this or that down in my notebook. I also focussed on the beginning sounds of words.
For example, I started at the sound 'kan' and had a good look at all the words that started with 'kan'. Have a look at the kanji and compare it to the kanji for 'kan' in the previous dictionary entry. Then look at the following entry, find all the words that begin with 'kan' and glance at the English meaning of those words. Perhaps you'll notice the words share a similar meaning or idea.
Obviously this is not about memorising the words, but I believe that from doing this, I managed to remember some things that I had noticed. I managed to familiarise myself with certain kanji which shared similar ideas and every so often I see a kanji and I somehow miraculously remember it has something to do with 'extinguishing' or 'ice'.
Phrasebooks are also great to flip through in the early days of language study. Once again, don't obsess about remembering things. Just spend your time noticing the language and how things are said. Have a look at the restaurant section and try and notice sentence structures that are repeated, or have a little look at what the Japanese word for 'coffee' is. Phrasebooks also offer a little cultural insight into Japanese customs which are always good to know. When I first ventured into studying a second language, I actually started learning with a phrasebook as that was all I could afford at that time.
4) Flashcards, Vocabulary Lists and Labels.
I tried to use flashcards, but after all the effort of making them, I quickly got bored of them and they ended up being shoved in a box in my spare room. I do know that they are worth sticking with. If you can't be bothered making cards, a vocabulary list works just as well and you can hide the answers with a piece of scrap paper. While I was in Japan, I spent most of the year making lists and learning words that way and found it worked very well.
After a few months, find your old flashcards or vocabulary lists, revise them and test yourself. A good friend might give you an hour or two and test you on your vocabulary lists if you buy them a milkshake at your local cafe. You might want to write the words in romaji unless you know some native Japanese speakers.
I have no suggestions in regards to flashcards, but for vocabulary lists, it is good to put all your lists in a folder so they're all together. I have been studying languages for years and have so many random lists hidden in books here and there and all over my house. It gets a little messy...
Don't forget Anki! It is a wonderful free online resource which enables you to create your own flashcard decks, or you can find other peoples' decks and use them. It uses spaced repetition to test you on ten or so words at a time until you manage to remember them.
Another good way of learning vocabulary is by labelling everything that you own in your home. (Be careful when labelling the toaster!) I did this, and although it is sometimes easy to become accustomed to the labels so much so that you overlook them completely as you walk to your fridge to eat the leftover chicken drumsticks from last night's dinner, I learned many of my first words with the help of my labels. Perhaps to avoid becoming used to the labels around the house, label one item in each room one week and then remove that label and label a different item in each room the following week. That way, you are more likely to notice them as you pass them on your way to the fridge.
5) Language courses.
If you can, find yourself a good course book. Many of the people I know started learning Japanese using the Genki series and Minna no Nihongo. I started with Nakama 1 and quite enjoyed its layout and structure. Make sure you have access to an audio recording of the dialogues etc, because you need to be familiarising yourself with the sound of Japanese as much as you can in those early days. By familiarising yourself with it, it will be easier to replicate sounds later on, mimic intonation, and it might even help you differentiate words and be able to work out where one word ends and the next word begins.
If you are at school, or have no access to a language course, suggest people get you a language course book for your birthday. Check out your local noticeboards or newspaper to find out if there is a class. If your motivation is there, it is possible to learn from the many free Japanese language learning resources available on the net.
6) Absorb yourself with everything Japanese.
I don't mean you should buy hundreds of Hello Kitty related items and decorate your house or workplace. Of course, if you want to do this, you definitely should. If you love pokemon, why not dedicate your back seat to a mountain of pikachu plushies!
What I really mean is, you should support your learning by read up about other aspects of Japan and Japanese culture that interest you. Listen to Japanese music and decide on a favourite band, singer or style of music from Japan. Watch Japanese films or anime. Films provide a great snapshot into the way of life in Japan and the social behaviours, expectations and beliefs. Try reading some Japanese writers in English or read some manga. All of this will help you to familiarise yourself with Japanese culture and the Japanese way of thinking.
Learning a language is not only about words and grammar, it's about understanding the context of language as well as the cultural references that are sewn tightly into the language you read or hear. Please fill your backseat with pikachu plushies. I recommend it.
7) Join a language group.
There are sometimes groups of people who meet up to practice speaking foreign languages. See if there is a local Japanese speaking group in your area. As well as being a good way of meeting people with similar interests, the groups sometimes do day trips to Japanese-related cultural activities.
Lang-8 is a great online group which enables you to practice your Japanese writing skills and in exchange for correcting entries written by others who are learning English, native Japanese speakers will correct your work and offer suggestions for you to improve your writing. Aim for a post a week and write about topics that interest you.
8) Talk to yourself.
I do this anyway, but if you are alone and making yourself a coffee, why not make those inner thoughts audible! Of course this is hard to do in the early stages of language learning, but little by little, you'll be able to say more and it will become easier and easier to verbalise your thoughts and expand on your ideas with recently learnt vocabulary.
I talk to myself about the weather, about how hungry I am, about what I want to do or what I like or hate. When I was studying French at high school, I would crawl into bed and talk to myself in French about my day or about the worries and concerns I was having. I remember it was really hard at first, but gradually my fluency improved. I even had a mini dictionary by my bed in case I wanted to look up a word. It was also a good way of falling asleep as it can be quite exhausting speaking in another language.
Speaking to yourself can be a little awkward for some, especially if you don't actually talk to yourself normally or if you live with others, but I find it helps a lot to get your brain moving faster as it searches for recently learnt words.
I used to sit in the garden with my weekly vocabulary list and discuss each word as much as I could in the foreign language. No matter how simple the phrases are, you are using the language, using the new vocabulary, and linking previously learned vocabulary to the new word. It also encourages visualising the dialogues with yourself and that in itself helps when you are testing yourself on the new words. You will find you remember saying such and such when you were talking about the Japanese word for 'house'.
9) Don't listen to your little evil cat!
Whenever you come across an aspect of Japanese language learning that is particularly difficult to get your mind around, you may feel that it is all too hard and that learning Japanese is an impossible task. Japanese is a hard language to learn and many people find it challenging. It requires a lot of time and effort and unlike some other languages like French, German and Dutch which for English speakers require less time to become fluent, it takes a little longer to reach a level of fluency in Japanese.
Remember that any Japanese you learn is an accomplishment and means you are a step closer to fluency than you were before. As I said in my previous post, I have been studying Japanese for ten years or so and I am unfortunately nowhere near fluent. However, if you are super motivated and, unlike me, are not also trying to learn four other foreign languages at the same time, your Japanese will easily be better than mine after ten years of study.
So, perseverance is key. Do not let your little evil cat tell you that your Japanese is hopeless and that you will never be able to speak to Kyary Pamyu Pamyu if she was to knock on your door.
10) Travel to Japan!
Although you are learning Japanese, there mightn't be a bone in your body that wants to visit Japan. I mean, who would want to go to the most awesome, amazing country in the whole world? Well, I really think you should go. Apart from all the obvious reasons, like having the chance of seeing Kyary Pamyu Pamyu walking around Harajuku, or doing other touristy things, you will be able to form a direct relationship with Japan. For me, after years of studying Japanese, Japan became a dream land and a few years later, I had almost forgotten that there was a country where I could actually speak what I was studying. Being in Japan will very quickly remind you of why you are learning Japanese and how awesome it is to be able to speak the language.
See if you can take part in cultural activities and festivals. There is so much culture on offer to tourists and it is easily accessible. You will return to your home country with a greater passion for Japanese than you had previously. (Well, I'm assuming you will like it over there...) Maybe you can visit some of the online friends you made on Lang-8. I met several of my friends and they introduced me to a Japan on a more personal level than that of a normal tourist. Of course, I was lucky enough to be able to go and live in Japan for a year, and got to know Japan on a greater level. There are many opportunities for students to go and study in Japan, or even teach English in Japan.
Well, I will leave it at that for the moment and maybe add a little more later on. If you have any questions, or need some more advice, feel free to send me a message.
Bon voyage on your Japanese language learning adventure!
