I’ve seen a few threads where people give an ongoing account of their learning progress, so I thought I would give it a try. Especially since in a few months, I’ll face a challenge to my motivation - so maybe this will help keep me going!
I came to self-learning Japanese about eight months ago, when my wife and I started planning a trip to Japan with our two children. I wanted to learn some Japanese so that I wouldn’t be a complete American abroad, with the negative connotations associated with it. I didn’t expect to become as fascinated with the language as I did. Or that it would be as challenging as it was.
Those first few months ended up being more “learning how to learn” than expected, also. Or more, learning what works for me. I don’t use any of the tools I started with today. I began with DuoLingo, which I soon learned was pretty useless. I picked up a Genki I textbook and made actual physical flashcards for a bit - because I am “Unk,” as the teens say. Lots of googling led me to The Moe Way, which brought me to CureDolly and Tae Kim and the fundamental importance of immersion in addition to formal learning. Picked up Anki and tossed my physical flashcards. I used the Renshuu app for quite awhile, as well as RingoTan for kanji practice. I’ve dropped all of those.
Today, on days where I have a full amount of extra time to devote to Japanese, my learning is a mix of the following:
- SRS tools (Bunpro for grammar and vocabulary, Anki deck for Kanji practice)
- Audio immersion (Nihongo con Teppei/Japanese with Shun podcasts, mostly)
- Video immersion (anime, natch! Shirokuma Cafe, Kimi No Todoke, YuruCamp, and Freiren right now)
- Reading immersion and speak-aloud (graded readers, NHK Easy, and some AI generated scripts)
I’ve recently added in Pimsleur language courses at one a day. And I do an hour’s worth of Italki lessons with a Japanese teacher each week (shout out to Rie-Sensei!)
More output than I think many others would do this early in the process. But my goal is to be able to speak at least a little by the time we go to Japan in the summer. It’s been so difficult to get even to the level of “distracted toddler” speaking ability, but that’s part of my goal.
And that’s why I decided to start this thread. When I’m back in the states after our trip, I’d like to keep up my Japanese journey. I’ve invested a lot of time and it’s a very satisfying intellectual hobby. So hopefully, I’ll be able to keep motivated even after this trip is over. Maybe I’ll just need to start planning the return journey…