Studying Japanese, One Year Later
Hello all! It’s been a while since I’ve written a post here. I’ve been busy moving back home and reacclimating to the life I left here when I went to Japan. But now I’m settled back in, found myself some work before I go back to school and have gotten the Japanese study ball rolling again. I figured since this blog is a Japan-focused one, I’d reflect on a year of studying Japanese more or less full time and what’s worked and what hasn’t. Hit the jump below to read on.
I’ve been studying Japanese hardcore for about one year now, and softcore for another year before that. For all that effort, I’ve now received my JLPT 3 certificate (which I passed easily), can quite comfortably converse with friends, and am beginning to be able to read manga and some novels without much dictionary assistance. I’d say I’m solidly at an intermediate level, but I still have a long ways to go before I can proclaim myself fluent. Movies and TV, for example, are tough and I can only usually get a gist of what’s going on in the plot. However, during this time, I’ve found some things that have worked well for me in terms of studying Japanese and I thought I’d share those now.
First, I’ll start at the beginning. Having a knowledge of a language’s writing system is usually the starting point, and to that end I found that James Heisig’s books, Remembering The Kanji and Remembering the Kana, have worked wonderfully for me. I can’t even imagine tackling kana or kanji using any other method. The methods prescribed in these books work so effectively one could presumably be up and running with a full (albeit basic) knowledge of the Japanese writing system in half a year or less. I’ve encountered some criticism from friends about Heisig’s methods, especially for kanji. They wondered how you were supposed to learn the readings for the kanij, since Heisig focuses entirely on meaning and writing. What good is meaning and writing if you can’t read the characters? A whole lot, if you ask me. For one, whenever I encounter new words when reading, I can usually deduce a simple meaning based on the meanings given by Heisig, and since I already know how to write, I can focus on the reading. Plus, you have to understand, you are just starting out on the journey the Japanese literacy. You have to learn how to write and understand the underlying meaning of the kanji at some point. Why not do this part separately? I can safely say that I would have given up on reading Japanese a long time about without Remembering the Kanji, which I was seriously ready to do until I found this series of books. Do Heisig’s method, take the couple months, believe me, in the end it’ll be worth it.
Okay, now you know how to read and write at a basic level, now what? Well, it was at this point that I’ve found a few things that have worked for me in terms of building vocabulary and comprehension. Since I was an exchange student, the daily interactions I had with friends was invaluable for speaking and listening practice. However, you may not be in such an easy position to get out and interact with Japanese people. Thankfully, if you are reading this, you have all the tools you need. There are a number of great websites out there that promote language exchange. The most interesting one I’ve found is Lang-8, where users post blogs in the language they are trying to learn and native speakers can offer corrections. There are also websites out there where people can connect to speak, such as at xLingo. I think that constant interaction with natives of the language is incredibly important, not just for the obvious benefits to your language skills. It is also your number one motivator to continue to learn. You can only sit in your room by yourself studying so long without wondering if it’s all worth it. If you can make even one friend who speaks the language you want to learn, I guarantee you will work that much harder to speak with them than if you didn’t have such a friend.
So Joe, then, you may ask, how about some concrete techniques and tools to use when studying? Well, I am personally a major fan of the method prescribed at AllJapaneseAllTheTime.com, with a few caveats. The basis of the AJATT method is “sentence mining,” wherein you scour native texts (in the form of movies, video games, comics, and the like) and enter full sentences containing words or grammar that you do not understand into an SRS, or Spaced Repetition System, which is basically a fancy flashcard program. By doing so, you simultaneously immerse yourself in the language you are studying, learning in a way not unlike a child would their first language, and actively study unknown material. The SRS is great because unlike regular flashcards, an SRS will gauge your performance over time and display cards for you exactly at the moment you would have forgotten, so that you get to the point where you have whole years before seeing the same card again. It is at this point that the words/grammar in question are invariably burned into your memory for all eternity. Using sentence mining, I have drastically increased my reading and comprehension to the point where I can more or less breeze through manga and read a short news article in 10 minutes or so. My favorite SRS is Anki, particularly for its Japanese-specific functionality. Whenever you put in a sentence, like one full of kanji, the program automatically generates the readings and puts it on the “answer” side of the card.
Another major tenant of ATATT is 24/7 immersion in audio, hence “All Japanese All The Time.” At first I was skeptical of whether I could do such a thing, especially if I wouldn’t be able to understand the majority of what I heard. But now that I’ve been listening to more Japanese than English on a daily basis, I can say that immersing yourself in audio does wonders for just about every aspect of language learning. Being able to follow the ebb and flow of conversion, the vocal tics, pauses and intonations is essential for fluency. I’ve gotten to the point where I’ve even asked at work if I can run a small stereo in the back while I do my job, so that I am now listening to Japanese for 12+ hours a day.
However, I haven’t been using the AJATT the whole time I’ve learned Japanese and the fact that AJATT forbids studying grammar by itself bugs me. It would be so slow and painful to read anything without at least a little bit of grammar under your belt. Most of the grammar study I’ve done has been through the Minna No Nihongo textbook series while I was studying in Japan. Of course, buying a book to study grammar on your own is a bit pointless when you have the internet. Just do a search, I’m sure you will come up with some great resources to use. I’ve heard great things about this site in particular.
I’ll wrap up with a rough schedule of my daily life recently, to give you an idea of my study habits:
- 11:00am – Wake up, put on headphones running a Japanese podcast and go downstairs.
- 11:15am – Eat breakfast while continuing to listen.
- 11:45am – Go upstairs again, grab my iPod stereo.
- 12:00pm – Shower while my stereo blasts some J-Rock or some more podcasts.
- 12:30pm – Settle in front of the computer to get down to some concentrated study. Turn on KeyHoleTV to watch Japanese TV while I work.
- 12:45pm – Hit up Reviewing the Kanji, do any kanji reviews I need to do.
- 1:15~1:30pm – Fire up Anki and review expired cards.
- 2:30pm – After finished my Anki reviews, I just do whatever catches my fancy to harvest new sentences from. This could be a manga, movie, video game, website, anything. Often I’ll switch between multiple things to keep it fresh and fun.
- 5:00pm – Input the last sentences into Anki, do the final reviews.
- 6:00pm – Go to work while playing more Japanese stuff on my car stereo.
- 6:30pm – Get started at work, fire up the iPod stereo and listen listen listen.
- 1:30am~3:00am – Finish at work, go home playing Japanese on my car stereo again.
- 3:30am – Sleep while running KeyHoleTV quietly in the background.
Obviously, this might be excessive for some. But I have every intention of becoming fluent in Japanese before I graduate next year and go back to Japan to work, probably as an English teacher at first. If you have any questions or criticisms about my study techniques, please leave a comment. If you have some super-awesome study technique I’ve yet to read about, definitely leave a comment! Until next time! 頑張ろう！
…Minna no Nihongo has two things that website doesn’t:
1) written exercises and quizzes you don’t have to come up with yourself.
2) paper to write on
^_^
Although my immersion isn’t quite as deep as yours. I would agree that surrounding yourself with Japanese is incredibly important.
Don’t get too cocky about passing san-kyuu. (btw, I passed too.) You can start thinking about getting cocky when you pass i-kyuu. ;)
Haha, I wasn’t trying to come across as cocky. -_-;; 三級 was easy because it was, well, easy. :P Anyone can do it after a couple months of good study. I think I’ll give this year a pass and go for 一級 next year, after I graduate and everything.
I know you’re not cocky – it doesn’t suit you anyway. ;) Judging by your studying, I wouldn’t say you’re just anyone Joe.
Maybe this is normal among students, but if you look at the language learning endeavors of your average English speaking foreigner in Japan, it would take them years of study pass 3 kyuu.
btw, thanks for all the info and links and stuff.
You’ve got a very interesting post here. Good luck with your studies. :)
I’ve been reading your blog for a couple of days now (I stumbled upon it) and everything that I’ve read is so helpful! From your experiences with the study abroad application to your studying habits, it’s all things that I’m preparing for now (perfect timing, since I’m in my freshman year now)!
I was looking at this post and saw that you passed 3 kyu with only one (hardcore) year of studying! You’re more than an Average Joe (yes…I went for it…I couldn’t help it)! I’m currently studying for the JLPT 4 kyu…any suggestions?
Thanks for the comments Devin! If you are studying for the JLPT 4 then you might want to pick up Minna No Nihongo I, the material covered in it corresponds almost perfect to the content of the JLPT 4 test. Minna No Nihongo II takes you up to JLPT 3 level, which was a great help to me in passing that test. Try to go through that textbook and cover all the grammar points and vocabulary, I was able to do it in my class in Japan in three months, about 10 hours a week!