Beginner needing opinions about his approach to Japanese learning

Japanese
#1

[Disclaimer: my English writing skills are far from perfect. It’s not my native language, please be patient :pray:]

Hi everyone! I’d have a lot to say, but I want this to be a not-too-cluttered post, so I’ll be a bit dry.

About me
I’m an Italian college student. I’ll flight to Tokyo in one month for an exchange program and I’ll stay in Japan for 5 months in total (4 months of college + 15 “fitting days” + 15 “get ready to get the fuck out” days).

I’m one of those guys who thinks that learning the language of the host countries is not really necessary to live a fully fulfilling experience, it’s just a choice which can take you to different situations.
I bought the yearly WaniKani subscription and plan to do the same with BunPro because I see this as an opportunity to learn an extremely difficult foreign language in an extremely efficient way (naturally getting native input-output everyday). So I’m not learning Japanese just as a “I need it for my stay” way, but it’s a long-term vision with a rushed start because of this a-few-times-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Obviously it’s not a language like any other for me. I’ve watched a lot of anime and listen to vocaloid music a lot, and also considering applying for MEXT during my last year of bachelor’s, so it has a certain grade of importance for me.

I’d say I don’t have others experiences with foreign languages. In middle school I had a very good attitude towards English and Spanish learning compared to my classmates, but tbh I just browsed the internet the whole day and really liked Spanish (which is almost identical to Italian), so I wouldn’t say that this makes me an experienced or a gifted language learner.

I started learning 16 days ago. I studied for 10 days in December, but temporarily quit to take a tough exam. Japanese learning completely eats my time, if I start doing it in the morning, I just continue to do it until I go to sleep. I’m starting to find a minimum balance, going to the gym again and hanging out with friends at least 2 times a week again after 2 weeks of studying in my room.

I had a bad grade in an exam and will give up on another to get ready for the trip, take some time for myself and learn Japanese.

My current goals
I’d like to take the N2 in December. I’ve seen that by learning a bit less than 20 words, 3 grammar points a day and keeping up the pace with WaniKani (3,5 levels a month) + self-learning 100 kanjis I can reach this goal by the end of November.

The things is, I’m not considering listening and reading practice, and to be honest I would also like to be able to use the language.

I would add up that I don’t really feel like I’m really understanding the grammar points I’m filling in during reviews, and had to switch from eng → jap fill-in reviews to jap → eng because I wouldn’t read the sentences anyways, and being able to read Japanese words faster feels more rewarding to me.

My doubts
I have a lot of questions. I’ll include the most important here, I’m sure I’ll get the reply to every of my doubts just from your considerations and experiences.

  • I would like to know if my goal is unreachable on its own, and if it’s unreachable considering the fact that I also want to be able to use the language, to speak to natives.
  • jap → eng practice is bad compared to fill-in eng → jap? Is it just personal preference, or it’s a bad habit?
  • Is it ok to just get a lot of input by doing SRS and such when just starting learning such a different language, and starting to output (writing and speaking) when I’m along natives?
  • In my situation, what do you think are the biggest behavioural and thinking pitfalls that can undermine my language learning journey?
  • For grammar, should I switch to “reading”? I’ve read from previous post that it’s commonly considered the best option to grasp how grammar points work. Is this valid even for low-N5 learners like myself?
  • Tomorrow I’ll wake up with 94 vocab reviews, 15 grammar reviews, 95 WaniKani reviews. It’s not always like this, I’m on a high peak, but is it too much? Am I risking to burn-out?

Thanks for the patience, I do understand this is a long post and those are a lot of questions

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Weekly Log: JLPT N1 in A Year Or So Speedrun Attempt
#2

It is possible. People have done it. It will take a fair amount of dedication, though. Keep in mind you may end up being weaker in some areas than others by the end so don’t expect uniform improvement.

In your case I would suggest trying the reading review mode for vocabulary and then the fill-in type for grammar. If your reviews are taking too long then consider switching everything to reading mode however the fill-in mode for grammar will pay dividends later on if you stick with it, in my opinion. Reading mode for vocabulary also means you can recall the meaning in Italian (and then use the English translation as a reference) which may reduce the mental load. I would recommend trying out minimal hints for the grammar fill-in type. You can cycle through the hint levels with a keyboard shortcut but having it at minimal by default will help force you to engage with the Japanese and not immediately use the English hint/translation as a prompt.

It is definitely okay to focus mainly on comprehension and input through the beginner stages. If you are really really wanting to get speaking (for fun) then probably you can start having a go around the end of N4 however it is around an N3/N2 level of comprehension that basic conversation starts to become more viable. As a basic rule, comprehension always comes before output; you can’t say something spontaneously if you can’t even understand it.

Consistency is important. Doing anything is better than doing nothing. No need to burn yourself out on things that don’t interest you. Basically, stick with what is interesting and fun for you. Also, keep your expectations realistic for the amount of work you put in.

That sounds like a normal workload for someone who is trying to work at your pace. Whether it will lead to burnout or not depends on your personal circumstances so you’ll have to judge that for yourself as you proceed.

Your timeline is quite ambitious but not unrealistic and you are asking the right questions at this stage so I would say you have a good shot at achieving your goals if you stick with it. The main thing is just to not quit (even if you start to fall short of your own expectations) so I strongly recommend doing what you personally find interesting and useful and don’t stress too much about being perfect. Good luck!

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#3

So you are aiming for N2 and want to speak with locals?

The issue rises when the JLPT isn’t really based around everyday conversation. If you are planning a tourist style trip, that is more than enough though. Just remember that you’re going to be shocked because a lot of japanese people don’t speak like they do for the JLPT or in Tokyo dialect. It is sometimes like some dude speaking sicilian accent in when you grew up in Florence, it will feel super strange and out of place . In my experience older rural people are often unintelligable despite my rather extensive study in rural japan. so be ready for the ocassional old man trying to ask you something and you ask 何？！ six or seven times before they give up.

For this, definitely depends on your intentions. You may not need to learn French for living in canada or anything, but Japan is quite different and be prepared for a lot of places that offer no English or anything except Japanese itself.

Careful with this, SRS is tricky. It may not seem like a lot until you get to the one-month in between review cards. one day you may wake up with a nice stack of 400 reviews when yesterday was like 75.

Best of luck with your studies!

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#4

Honestly, I would start right away with the help of a text book that gives you writing/talking exercises like genki for example, but I think most textbooks have short texts to read and exercises to write/talk. Graded readers are also nice for beginners, tadoku has a lot of free ones.

With such an accelerated schedule you have, putting the focus on SRS to build a grammar and vocab base is totally fine. Just keep in mind, that this mostly build your passive skills of recognition. Adding some easy input (graded readers) and some easy output (textbook exercises ) once in a while will help you bridge the gap towards active language use.

I wish you the best of luck!

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#5

That’s a great point, after learning the super basics- output is the fastest way to learn things. Ofcourse if you go too fast and/or learn it wrong it’s a great form of self-sabotage, too.

#6

I saw that you like going to the gym, I do my reviews between sets, It’s a great way to make the most of your time, if it’s a vocab review you should be aiming at spending 10s max per cards, so in between sets you can review up to 9 cards. (1m30 rest) Your goal is tough, N2 in a year is a big challenge, but as long as you don’t burn out and that you enjoy the process, anything is possible.
I’m currently on this routine: 150 vocab review /day 10 new vocab/day.
50 grammar review per day/ 3 new grammar per day
1-2 hours native content (reading + podcast/ drama)
my goal is to reach N2 too but I had a slow start using genki and mina no nihongo textbook first, it was a great intro to the japanese language

#7

Thank you everyone for your replies. I’ve read them all and they were really useful.

I was already doing that with grammar, even if in some particular beginner-friendly/extremely short sentences is hard to guess what the meaning of the sentence should be. I’ll just keep doing it that way.

The reading review mode feels actually slower than the fill-in mode for me, because instead of focusing on translating I actually read and try to understand the whole sentence. That on it’s own is not a problem, but I often guess the meaning of the word by the context of the sentence. When this happens, should I click on “good”? I’m doing that and my average of correct responses skyrocketed from 70 to 85%. On the long run, I might be actually saving time, but I don’t know if I’m using the system the right way.

To be honest I feel a bit shy and demotivated about it. Since I’ll start Japanese classes on 1st April (I’m not a language student, but my host Uni seems really accomodating and offered me free extra-curricular courses) I prefer to wait for my first shots at output. Thank you for mentioning graded readers, I try to read for an hour or so every 2-3 days but I can’t understand 80% of the content, even if I manage to broadly guess the context and concepts.
Since you mentioned them tho, after gym I’ll take a look at some of the Genki I first chapter’s exersises.

I also tried to when I had fill-in reviews and couldn’t really focus. I’m an high-volume low-rest type of guy so It can be harder I guess. I’ll give it another shot in my next training (one hour or so) and let you know if it’s better now that I’m trying the reading mode

#8

I think it’s also important that you enjoy what you are reading. I like reading manga, so I first started with Karakai Jyouzu no Takagi-san to slowly increase my reading and understanding skills. But you can also watch Netflix with Japanese subtitles (for easy-to-understand shows like Sakamoto Days or Spy Family).

I think that the most important part as a beginner is to learn the language while enjoying how you learn it. I hated reading news articles in Japanese, but I loved reading easy novels. I made more progress consuming native content that I enjoy rather than forcing myself to read something that I don’t even have an interest in, even in my mother tongue!

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#9

I understand. I just started spy family season 2 yesterday with the official Italian dub which is stellar, I think I’ll rewatch the first episode in Japanese and see how it goes. I’ve already seen that the Italian adaption drastically changed some signs and written sentences, it’ll be interesting

#10

For easy reading, I highly recommend Natively. There are a ton of books available for free, and you can sort them by difficulty. If reading feels like it would be too hard and you don’t know where to start, I would start there.

3 Likes
#11

Don’t spend more than 15 mins on reviews.

This channel gives sentence by sentence breakdown and you can watch these videos on lower levels too:

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#12

Huh? Why, though? I actually do enjoy 45 minutes review sessions regularily. I’m taking them slow, though, reading the sentence, listen to the audio, thinking about the grammar used. I was wondering if that’s just your experience or if this has some backing.

On a tight time schedule with high goals it’s really hard to decide what’s worth your time and what’s the most efficient route and I bet that’s highly dependent on the individual. For some it might be doing exercises, for others it might be reading and some might thrive from doing lots of reviews and cram stuff fast.

What works for you is something you get to know with experience and trying a few different things.

#13

In short, reviewing is not effective if you haven’t actually learned the item/term you are reviewing. Japanese is heavy context dependent language too. The insight for that comes by directly getting exposed to the language in a natural environment.

I studied English in school but really didn’t get comfortable with it until I started reading novels and watching movies.
Instead of thinking what form of verb or adjective I should use by remembering the grammar rules, what I want to say just comes to me naturally because I have been exposed to the context and learned from it.

If you’re goal is passing jlpt, reading is your main enemy. I have seen exam candidates that didn’t get to reading section and didn’t have any time to attempt the section.

There are really only 2 sections about grammar (fill in the blanks and sentence rearranging).

It needs your time but not as much as reading practice. (And you might have trouble with it if you don’t know the vocab being used)

For starters this could be a great resource:

Exactly, and the amount of vocab is extremely huge. The better way to learn vocab is always reading (subtitles on a video is better option than books for beginners)

When you read any book or watch a show with jp subs, you are essentially reviewing what you already know
and focusing on what you don’t know by looking the unknown terms in the dict.

I have seen ppl on this forum have problems where they know the grammar structure and all the vocab used in a sentence but they need a surprising amount of time to get the meaning.

So watching shows might be a good idea.

1 Like
#14

I agree with the idea here but I don’t agree with “15 minutes”.

When you’re learning a language, a majority of you time should be spend immersing, whether that be reading passages, watching shows in the target language, or speaking/listening to locals. If you find that you’re spending 2-3 hours a day on reviews and you get no time to immerse, or you’re so burnt out from reviewing that you don’t want to immerse, you’re slowing down your learning drastically.

Different people can manage different amounts of review time. 15 minutes of reviews is worthless if it’s all you do in a day, and if you proceed to spend the next 10 hours immersing, 15 minutes can be not enough for people who struggle to recall information they’ve already learned.

If you’re reviewing a bunch of things because you missed a day or two and you take 20-40 minutes to get through it all, that’s fine. The issue becomes when your focus is on reviewing and not on immersion. You will be great at your spaced repetition and awful at meaningful conversation.

If you’re not making any progress and you tend to spend a lot of time doing reviews, consider decreasing your review-load and increasing meaningful immersion.

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#15

To add some context, I put the N2 goal just to calibrate on how many words, grammar points and kanji I should learn in a day in these first months.

I thought that after some time I would be able to practice Japanese “naturally” as I do with English (texting and reading on the internet like I’m doing right now, and bring myself in situations where I have to speak Japanese), reaching a point where I can improve by doing what y’all call immersing almost 100% of the time. In other words, I thought that after some time (I hope before I return from Tokyo) I would improve to pass JLPT N2 just by using the language, similar to what I did with English: watching YouTube videos, jumpscaring US tourists, reading niche technical articles, etc.

The equivalent for Japanese would be watching non-subbed/dubbed animes (at least not in eng/ita), reading light novels, mangas and such, watching interviews of my favourite artists and producers. I don’t know about speaking Japanese to random tourists, I know that talking to strangers is far from common in Japan, but i shouldn’t even be thinking about it now anyways.

TL;DR: If I only manage to apply for N3, or don’t pass N2, I don’t care much. The main point is managing to reach a point where I can improve Japanese by just using it ASAP. My first serious test prepping will be for MEXT (March 2026), nothing to worry about now

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#16

I don’t want to impose on your prefered learning style, I just want to chime in with my personally experience. I’m maybe around N5 and already immerse easily in native material (manga graded below L18 on natively), I also watch easy anime without subtitles, but understanding is still troublesome, since I don’t have access to subtitles and I dont pause and rewatch stuff. You really do not have to wait for a certain level before you can immerse with joy. As long as you have fun with your reading or listening it will def improve everything way faster :slight_smile:

But I know what you are saying about English. I learned it in school, but it really only clicked later in life, when I read novels, watched movies and participated in online discussions. But when you think back to your english lessons in school, you probably remember that even your very first lessons weren’t about learning vocab and grammar, it was about using what you learned, via conversation, reading, listening and exercises. But schools have a way slower pace than you intend to have, so they have the time to focus on deepening the learned materials.

As I said, I really don’t want to impose, everybody has different learning strategies. I just want to encourage to try reading something easy you think you might like early on, you can do more than you think :slight_smile: Worst thing that could happen is, you can’t read it and try again later, noticing how much you have improved since the first time :slight_smile:

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#17

Any learner at any level can improve drastically through immersion. You don’t need to reach a specific “level” of Japanese to start immersing, and I highly recommend you don’t think of it that way as it can stunt your growth.
Through watching Re:Zero early on in my learning journey, I’ve learned concepts like the あい to ええ casual contraction just by seeing a dangerous situation and having the MC say " あぶねえ!" instead of “あぶない”.
The purpose is to watch things either at your level (there are shows/books for babies to watch/read so there isn’t an excuse here) or just something you enjoy in order to prime your ears to hear Japanese Language and associate sounds with actual words.
There are many times I immerse where I don’t catch 50-70% of what I’m listening to. The remaining 30-50% is reinforcing what I already know, and if I’m actively paying attention I can start recognizing when I see what I don’t know in contexts where I can start to figure it out myself without needing a review/dictionary open.

Being surrounded by actual Japanese people and speaking the language is the best form of immersion there is. I hope you achieve your language goals moving forward.

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#18

Its a bit ambitious but very realistic just because you will be in Japan for 5 months. If you try to put yourself out there, speak and experiment as much as you can, it is very possible I think. You will be (hopefully) seeing / hearing Japanese quite a lot and it will help with reinforcement /immersion.

At the very least a solid N3 is very realistic by December.

Just while in Japan, try to go out as much as you can and experience things. Don’t pressure yourself to study all your free time.

Edit: By solid N3, I meant something like half of N3 grammar, vocab and kanji done…
The main thing is to be consistent and don’t worry and enjoy your time in Japan!

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#19

While this may be true, do not feel bad if you do not achieve even this. there’s all kinds of learners and some people learn at different speeds.

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#20

Yeah, good point!

OP, don’t worry so much and just enjoy the journey!

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