My experience about learning Japanese and why should you find your own way

Japanese
#1

Hey,

I tried learning Japanese 6 years ago once. I started on a famous Kanji learning website, after few weeks I thought “yeah, this is just too much work” after realizing there are multiple ways to read same Kanji and I quit.

4 years ago I decided to try again. This time I thought “I just want to talk and understand what I hear”, that is why I ignored Kanji. I didn’t even touch it. For around 2 years I have focused on grammar and I have studied vocabulary with Anki daily. I have been studying around 1 hour per day so I am not that fast but yesterday I was talking with my Japanese friend on phone for more than 1 hour. When I went to Japan I was able talk to them in a cafe for hours. This was my goal, even though I am not very good yet and I make very simple mistakes, being able to do small talk with a native Japanese speaker feels nice.

When I talked about my plans 4 years ago, people said “you can’t learn Japanese without Kanji”. Now I think, if I have listened them, I wouldn’t be able to speak this much just by studying 1 hour per day and I don’t have much more extra time anyways. My goals were set and I created my own way of study for myself and it worked.

That is why I wanted to create this topic. Don’t allow people to gatekeep you from doing anything. We are smart enough to find our own ways. Do you want to read manga? Obviously focus on Kanji. Do you want to sit in a cafe and talk in Japanese? Maybe not so much. Even I started learning Kanji in last 2 years because I saw actual progress in other areas. Not studying Kanji for 2 years allowed me to learn how to speak so I had enough motivation for Kanji again.

Again, don’t allow people to decide anything for you.

27 Likes
#2

I love learning kanji, but if I could like this post a hundred times I would. Congratulations on learning your own way, and getting what you wanted out of it.

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#3

I dont recommend anyone do this.
There are only like 1500 actually important kanji
That is like 3 Kanji a day for 2 years aka 5 minutes a day at max.
There is no reason to not do that. Take your time, sure, but not caring to learn any kanji at all will make learning vocab alot harder since they are 99% of the time based on kanji.

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#4

I’ve done well without learning kanji so far. I’m two years in and have a blast reading manga (with furigana), playing games (with furigana) and watching anime without subtitles. Focusing on vocab and grammar first and then dive into whatever beginner manga I could find did work really well so far :slight_smile:

I now reached a point, where the stuff I want to read doesn’t come with furigana anymore, so I decided to add kanji with the next wanikani lifetime sale. When I browse their forum, there are tons of people who are already level 30+ and never touched native materials cause they lack the grammar and skipped the vocab. Sounds weird to me, but I bet they would think the same about me: learning japanese for 2 years, reading and watching native materials without kanji knowledge :sweat_smile:

Both ways are valid and I wholeheartedly agree with you: everybody should find their own way :slight_smile:

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#5

While I agree to you to a certain extent, ppl can do what ppl want to do. I know a guy living in japan for more than a decade and has little kanji knowledge, but he survives and has amazing communication skills. On the other hand, I am like you; without kanji knowledge, it would make learning new vocab much harder.

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#6

I’d say it takes more than 5 minutes to learn “3 kanji a day”. Not only do you have to learn to recognize the Kanji, you need to learn the meaning and pronunciation in different words. This also means learning vocab at the same time assuming you don’t know all of it beforehand.

In any case, learning just a few of the more common kanji can be very rewarding since you will see them everywhere.

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#8

I dont recommend learning the Onyomi of every kanji whatsoever. You will pick the readings up via Vocab and in context. Recognition is enough.
Without Onyomi you will have an easy time learning them in 5 minutes, maybe even less.

Im also not talking about a “completely different Way to learn Japanese.” or “A change in approach of learning Japanese.” neither “To be as efficient as possible.”

I am talking 2-3 Kanji, absolute max 5 minutes, a day.
There is no excuse to not do that. 5 minutes a day wont lead to burn-out, it wont halt your progress in any other field, it is literally just 5 minutes.

A small investment in Kanji pays off exponentially and doesn’t interfere with other study goals. It also builds a habit since it is just a small investment each time. There are no downsides to it. (Since 90% of all vocab is based on this one writing system).

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#9

I think it can interfere with other study goals quite a bit, mostly listening comprehension. I’ve seen a lot of posts of people who despite having learned a lot of kanji and vocab and understanding anime great with subtitles who are suddenly lost when disabling them. I even notice this in myself sometimes. A lot of time they associate the kanji with the vocab instead of the sound of vocab with meaning. So if your focus is on listening comprehension, it might actually be smarter to learn kanji later.

#10

I’m still quite new to studying Japanese (though I already have some background with ideograms thanks to Chinese), but so far, my daily routine is studying 3 grammar points and 5 vocab words on Bunpro, then 10 kanji or radicals on Wanikani. I actually really enjoy learning kanji, it helps me remember some words (at least when the kanji doesn’t have six different readings). That said, I do think grammar and vocab are more important for sure, kanji can come after. And honestly, I feel like we end up learning a lot of kanji naturally anyway just by going through vocab on Bunpro or Anki.

#11

You recommend learning 3 kanji characters a day, without supporting vocab, for 100 seconds each and then not studying them again until they appear in the wild? Or in other parts of your studies?

Aren’t we all here on an SRS app because we would forget them if we did that? Don’t you need to review them? And if so, 3 a day turns in to 20 a day after a couple weeks right?

I do agree with you on kanji being an important part of your studies, but it feels like it would take significantly more than five minutes a day to reach 1500 recognizable kanji in 2 years. Or maybe I just have a bad head. :smiley:

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#12

Couldn’t have said it better. Having hosted several study groups over the years and meeting all kinds of people, you realize there is no one size fits all way of learning no matter what the influencers and language learning preachers tell you.

There are people in these communities who like you said, would love to gatekeep you from speaking until you meet certain criteria and meets their personal standards, and throw a fit if you disagree with them.

Personally, I love Kanji, but I’ve met some people who for the most part did fine without it. And some people who knew all the kanji but couldn’t formulate a sentence. It what’s important to you.

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#13

It is not possible to learn 3 kanji a day just in 5 minutes. Not even close.

If I spent 20-30 minutes per day for 3 new kanji every day, I would have maybe half of the vocabulary I have now and I wouldn’t be able to talk to people. That’s what I am saying.

And as I said, I started learning Kanji too though I spend less time on it, that is why I learned around 500 kanji in few years and I may focus on it more when I am much more comfortable about speaking.

#14

The point of this post was to highlight a method that worked for this person because they decided to learn how they wanted to instead of how other people told them they should. And yet you’re telling other people how they should study. I think you missed the point.

They said they’re starting to learn some kanji now. Everyone takes a different path and that’s ok.

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#15

From my experience, learning can be boring, depressing, manic, insert negative comment, etc.

What really helped me a ton is always picking the path that’s most interesting to you. If you find that studying stroke order for kanji is the most exciting thing since Call of Duty double XP weekends, then that’s cool.

You can make anything an effective study metric if you are interested in it enough.

Personally, I hate how gatekeepy Japanese learning can be and the cool thing about Bunpro’s forums is that all of us from different backgrounds and goals can share aspects about Japanese that they adore the most.

As much of a trope as this is, it’s as simple as following your heart. Are there efficient study methods? Probably. Does it matter if you’re miserable when you do it? I think what’s good about a passionate community is that if they all share what they find is interesting to them, it may inspire and help others who are questioning their motivations or sanity.

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#16

Going to toss my own two cents here, FWIW. It is SOOO much easier to read when you know kanji. Without it, you’re functionally illiterate, which might be fine for your goals, but can be a problem if you planned to go to Japan for any amount of time. But more than anything, it’s just immensely easier to read when you have the meaning supplied. It’s right there. It helps with comprehension, context clues, etc.

I read once a long time ago that the average non-native only knows about 20 kanji, and based on a lot of people I knew living in Japan, it was common that people couldn’t read. But I think the comment I heard the most was what you said–it’s hard and intimidating and so people just give up on it.

It’s easier to learn if you start from the beginning. It does take time, and it takes figuring out what works for you in terms of how to learn. I recommend learning in words and associating them with vocab you are learning. I also studied all the meanings first, and then added readings later (while associating the ones I’d learned with vocab I’d picked up).

I don’t think you have to learn kanji to speak Japanese. You can converse just fine without it. But if you want to go to Japan, it’s worth being able to read even if just to be able to understand signs and directions and such. If you’re someone who likes reading in Japan, obviously you’ll have to learn it. If your goal is to be able to speak to people only, then that’s fine, too. But I do think people underestimate how helpful kanji is in day-to-day life, and it’s not as hard as people think once you figure out what works for you and start doing it. The hardest part is getting started. Even just learning elementary school kanji is worth it, in my opinion.

#17

I would say that considering the main conclusing of the OP’s post was this, there’s really no reason to agree or disagree with it on a personal level, or to recommend others not do it this way. They had their own very specific goal and found kanji a bit daunting, so focused on something different. I completely agree about the gatekeeping point. Whether it is kanji, grammar, vocab, or anything else, nobody should let the opinion of others dictate how they choose to direct their own learning, and I believe that is the main spirit of this post, so let’s just treat it as that without agreeing/disagreeing with it :bowing_man:.

I am glad that you were able to have a good time talking to your Japanese friend when you came to Japan @Kcomeby. I also hope that you are enjoying learning kanji again now that you have come back to it!

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#18

This is exactly what helps me stay grounded when studying gets too overwhelming!!

I dont have to suffer by learning how to handwrite kanji or speaking perfectly because I simply will almost never need these skills since I’m not gonna move out of my country lmao I simply want to read and listen to music, at most communicate with others ONLINE and it written form only :eyes:

people forget that for many language learning is just a hobby & fun thing they enjoy and that there actually no rules unlike school-settings… like if I dont want to learn the word “head chief” even tho its N5… nothing will happen to me lmao

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#19

I find these perspectives so interesting. Kanji is what makes me want to continue studying Japanese. I think I’d have a very hard time finding a motivating factor without it.