What do you wish you learned sooner when you started studying Japanese?

Japanese
#1

Hey BunPro community,

I’ve been learning Japanese for almost 2 years now, and while I’ve still got a long way to go in my personal journey, I’ve reached a point where I’m comfortable helping some of my friends to start their journey of learning Japanese.

I have a few friends currently taking Japanese as a college class, and every week I’ll bring them into a voice call and go over some things I think could be taught better in generalized Japanese curriculum (think る and う-verbs versus the superior Ichidan and Godan method).

As I’ve been learning, occasionally I’ll come across a video on YouTube that’ll explain a concept to me that I wish I could’ve seen waaaaay earlier in my journey, just so I could be conscious of them as I enriched my vocabulary/grammar knowledge/etc. A great example of this was finally learning Pitch Accent about 8 months ago, where even if I don’t look up the pitch accent for every word I come across, I at least know to listen for it when I’m immersing/studying vocab. I’ve been using these experiences to help guide some of the curriculum I’ve been preparing for my friends, so I can at least introduce them to ideas that will benefit them over the long run, as well as trying to enrich what they’re currently learning in class.

This is where I get to this topic’s main question. For everyone currently learning, no matter where you are in your learning journey, are there any pieces of information, concepts, videos, etc. that you’ve come across over time that you wish you’d seen earlier? Or, if you were to go back in time to the you that first began their journey, what would you tell them to help jumpstart their learning?

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#2

Those are good examples.
4 years in myself and 100% the Ichidan and Godan method would have helped a lot rather than what Genki was teaching me early on.

Another one for me was probably a classic one - force myself to immerse in easy stuff early on.
I remember I grinded a year vocab and grammer and only then did I start reading manga like 15 minutes a day.

In general the amount of tools (e.g.
ッツ Ebook Reader for Yomitan lookups, what OCR is and how it helps with manga enjoyment, etc), spreadsheets with immersion material etc that you over time accumulate are invaluable so if you can provide information like that to your friends who are getting started thats increadibly helpful.

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#3

Hi! What does this mean? Aren’t they just different names for the same thing?

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#4

Technically yes, but I consider the “Ichidan/Godan” Naming structure to be less confusing than the “る/う-verb” descriptor as some verbs ending with 「る」are actually 「う」 verbs, like 「要る」as well as many others. Plus, 一段 and 五段 are the names used for the verb-types in Japanese, so why wouldn’t you learn it the way it’s taught in Japan?
Reasons like that are why I think the る/う verb naming scheme is just a worse way to learn the concept as a whole.

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#5

It’s super simple: use the language. No matter what level, comfort, pronunciation, etc., go talk to people in Japanese, and you will have a leg up on others who may be an N3 but never speak Japanese. I know it can be terrifying and embarrassing, but you’re doomed to mediocrity without getting in there and using the language. Some say, "I just want to read/write/watch anime in Japanese, so practicing conversation is not essential. I’m afraid I have to disagree with that thinking, and I believe even the minimal dialogues or group discussions are far superior to learning than any grammar program can offer.

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#6

Don’t get bogged down in SRS. Ive seen people talk online about spending multiple hours a day on it, or planning to do like a 10k anki deck before wanting to immerse, which is completely insane and will most likely kill any joy you find in the language.

Use the language, reading and listening is a natural form of srs after all.

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#7

As always I recommend this series to any beginner of Japanese:

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#8

I’ve never seen this channel before! I might have to see what other videos there are and sneak some of them into my lessons going forward, thanks for posting!

#9

Also this is a cool video that helps demystify the writing system:

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#10

Only memorizing Kanji is not learning Japanese and that you’ll burn out way before you get to level 60.

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#12
  • Start listening to or reading media sooner.
  • Not being a perfectionist about every sentence I say.
  • Don’t compare your learning to others.
  • Stay consistent! I always used to learn in mad bursts followed by long breaks
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#13

I’ll share an embarrassing one because I went for years without being corrected and then found it myself when deciding to review a beginners textbook.

The difference between ごめんなさい and すみません. I had been using them interchangeably in daily life for years and nobody told me.

Here’s another embarrassing one: 毎月 isn’t read as まいげつ

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#14

I avoid group learning for this reason. It’s depressing enough feeling like you’re not improving, let alone witnessing someone else improving rapidly. Yeah, should be a better human being but I’m not. *scurries back into hermit cave

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#15

Can relate a lot to the point @jrmr50 here made about Kanji. I think I could have made a lot more progress the last few years if I focused on grammar, which is much more manageable and useful.

I think learning kanji can definitely help you get a jump start on actually understanding written sentences (wow, this sentence uses the kanji for water so its probably about water) but there is a point early on where the usefulness falls off significantly. Especially with combos of the simpler kanji where you can either guess the word or learn it by reading.

Maybe the greatest wisdom one could be granted is that you should actively seek out more perspectives and methods. Trying and knowing what doesn’t work can be just as valuable as knowing what does.

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#16

I have been studying for about 3-4 years now. One video I came across about a month ago was very good. It helped me understand a little better how to structure sentences and how to think more like a Japanese person might think. Here is this video:

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#17

Only the first section of Duolingo is useful. It’s good to give you a fun way to get an introduction to Japanese, but then beyond that it’s just a super inefficient way to learn. I finished section 2 and even did some of section 3 (there were 4 in total last time I checked) before I realized how dumb it was.

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#18

I sent this video to a Japanese friend who wants to learn English earlier but I’d say most the advice is solid, especially for beginners. Basically, listen to the advice of others but do not feel the need to copy someone who has completely different goals, interests and circumstances to you. I would say fundamentally input is king, personally, but no need to stress if you enjoy handwriting kanji (especially if learning is a hobby), etc etc. The main thing is that you don’t quit.

Something I personally wished I learned sooner was to not worry about sounding stupid when speaking. Just go for it - it can be a very humbling experience.

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#19

8 years on/off learning here, constantly exposed to the language though.

  • RTK is great but learn vocabulary immediately after, if not simultaneously don’t wait even a few weeks you want to get rid of these mnemonics fast yet have them as strong as possible learning the actual vocabulary.

  • take your time to build a solid foundation, people are getting incredibly impatient these days. lots of ego non-sense giving the inexperienced learner the impression they can be smarter and faster than everyone (thanks influencers)
    Reality is, it is a years long journey whatever the method and a solid foundation is the absolute key.
    Impatience leads to frustration, just chill out and be consistent.
    (I have “rushed” the kanji study myself, it felt solid then, but few years down the road I realised it wasn’t so much)

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#20

I wish I paid more attention to phonetic components of kanji the first time around I tried to learn them. Both the straightforward ones, and more tenuous ones like オウ 往 containing オウ 王, or nameless(?) right-hand side of ユ 愉 輸 being ユ, or several kanji with ソ 且.
It seems many resources put emphasis on learning kanji through English aliases separately and readings separately. For me it was more helpful to tie them together, something like “サ 査 is ソ 且 under a tree”, or “ユ 愉 is ユ 輸 export from heart”.

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#21

I’ll second the pacing advice from stephane and add…

The YTers/influencers you want to avoid are…

  • Non-Academic polyglots are more often then not only at a very base level of understanding and having a fling with Japanese
  • Anyone who says “Japanese is easy” or makes some other stupid claim. It’s clickbait.
  • Anyone who spends 30 minutes explaining one grammar point, mostly in English, then tries to sell you something
  • Just because they’re native doesn’t mean their English (or whatever other language) is strong enough to explain things properly

The YTs/influencers you should watch are…

  • Real, non-learning focused JP channels! Mix them in.
  • Learning channels fully in Japanese with Japanese subtitles. Watch first in JP with JP subs, then English if you need it after to see how you did.
  • Learning channels in English with TONS of sample sentences of varying difficulty, especially with Japanese subtitles included.
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