How I Studied Japanese | learnjp
Hey guys, so I’ve received a couple of questions asking me how I studied Japanese in the beginning (and how I still study it to this day). So I wanted to make a post on the topic, to hopefully answer some of your questions and to give you guys an idea of what I did. Now, I’m not fluent in Japanese and I still struggle with a lot regarding the language, so this is in no way me saying this is how you should study Japanese - this is just what I did.
I really didn’t study that much and actually wish I tried harder and studied more because I could be a lot better than what I am now if I had only tried more.
This is my old study routine, which will definitely change up this year as I think I will be travelling to Japan for a month at the end of the year to meet my boyfriends family, so I really want to improve in order to be able to have natural and easy conversations with his family. It’s also my final year at university and we will not be using the Genki textbooks in class this year, so I will update you guys on my new routine once I have found one that I am comfortable with!
This is how I studied each chapter by myself, using my Genki textbook.
1. Vocab
I think it’s important to study vocab first. I spent about two days memorising the vocab in each chapter. I did this by writing out the words into my notebook, along with an example sentence. Writing things out by hand is the most efficient way for me to memorise something. I also liked using flashcards and apps such as Anki decks, Memrise courses, or Quizlet flashcards that focused on the vocab for each chapter.
2. Reading
Once I had memorised the vocab I then did the reading practices at the beginning of each chapter. There’s English translations there if you don’t understand the meaning of the text / or for you to use to check if you translated the sentences correctly.
3. Grammar
There’s usually about 5 - 6 grammar points in each chapter, so personally I liked to focus on about 2 - 3 grammar points each study session so as to not overload my brain with information. Each study session, I focused on the first 2 - 3 grammar points by reading their meanings and then rewriting them in my own words into my notebook, then going to the practice section of the chapter and answering the questions.
Then the next time I studied, the first thing I did was use the separate Genki workbook to answer the questions regarding the grammar points that I had previously learned. This showed me if I truly understood and had memorised the previous grammar points, or if I needed to continue studying them some more.
4. Kanji
After I had learned all the grammar points for the chapter, I would then focus on the kanji at the back of the book. Studying kanji is different for everyone - everyone has a different method that works best for them but I cannot stress enough how important learning the correct stroke order is. It really helps you to memorise the kanji easier, and makes the character easier to write. I usually rewrote the kanji and its meaning a couple of times into my notebook, as well as an example sentence I found online, and my own example sentence that I created. In the separate workbook they have a section at the back of the book for you to practice writing the kanji, which I also found useful.
It’s important to keep reviewing the material in order to actually learn it, because if you only look at it once you will forget it. So I would come back to each chapter a couple of times to review it, especially when I had exams, quizzes, or oral tests coming up.
I had two 3 hour lessons of Japanese a week - so 6 hours of Japanese a week (however 2 of these hours a week were for my “advanced” class where we did not use the Genki textbook) and we usually spent about 5 lessons on a chapter (we would spend 1 hour in the fifth lesson on the chapter, and then spend the 2nd hour of that lesson working on the next chapter), so that basically means 3 weeks on a chapter. If you’re self studying you might finish a chapter faster than this, but it doesn’t really matter how long you spend on something so long as you understand it completely and can confidentially move onto the next chapter.
This website was particularly useful for me (and still is), as they categorise their content into the JLPT levels. They have an abundance of vocab, grammar, kanji, reading, and listening tests and exercises for each level, as well as a section where you can learn Japanese from different mangas. I started from N5 and worked my way through all the different tests and exercises until I could get 100% on everything. Personally, I struggle a lot with listening so I always paid particular attention to the listening exercises.
I love watching Japanese dramas and movies, so I would generally watch a drama and write down phrases that I thought seemed really useful or important and would look them up later to get an idea of how to use those words/phrases naturally. I also follow a bunch of native Japanese people on Twitter and Instagram and find reading their tweets and captions really informative and fun. I like to save certain tweets or captions that I think are really useful and something I could say later on.
That’s about all the major things I did to study Japanese. A few other things include;
Using flashcard apps for memorising vocab, grammar, and kanji (I personally use Memrise and Quizlet).
Using dictionary apps to look up stuff that I don’t know (I personally use Shirabe Jisho).
Reading easy manga and comics in Japanese online and trying to translate the sentences myself.
Browsing /LearnJapanese on Reddit and taking notes of the stuff I found important or useful.
Talking to my boyfriend in Japanese / asking him to give me examples of how to say something in Japanese and making note of it for future reference.
Hanging out with Japanese people and listening to them talk. This was particularly useful in terms of pronunciation and intonations, as well as learning new vocab, and hearing informal and formal Japanese in action.
There’s really no secret to studying a language, or a way to save time but to learn more efficiently. If you’re serious about learning a language you just have to dedicate a lot of time and hard work towards studying that language and you’ll get there.