Studying Japanese

Your first words.

If you've never studied Japanese before, the best place to start is with some reaction words that you can begin using instantly. genkijapan.net has some great videos and games to get you started. Here is a list of my favorites:

Cool and Useful Phrases explanation and memory game.

Watch this video to learn how to say, Hot, Cool, Fun and Interesting.

Watch this video to learn to talk about the foods you like.

How much is it? Learn how to ask this question with this funny video.

Learning Hiragana and Katakana (The Kana)

There is some debate about which one to learn first, but everyone agrees that if you'd like to learn Japanese you should learn both ASAP. So the real question is, "How do I learn the kana as quickly and painlessly as possible?" The answer is this pocket-sized book which uses clever visual associations to help you remember and distinguish between all the characters. Pick up a copy before you leave. You won't regret it.

Here is an example of the learning method in this book. The hiragana character  "む" (pronounced "moo" like a cow would say) is drawn out with a picture of a cow.

Textbooks for Further Study

Nihongo so Matome (日本語総まとめ)

There is no such thing as a perfect textbook and a lot of the textbooks out there get it completely wrong. In general, people tend, more often than not, to recommend this series of textbooks the most -- Nihongo so Matome (日本語総まとめ). They divided into four different types of books: grammar, kanji, reading and vocabulary. They are graded by the levels on the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) as well, so you can study for those tests while you learn grade-specific grammar and vocabulary. They are a bit intensive, but they do a good job at what they are designed for: cramming for the JLPT tests. You can pick up all four books at most bookstores or via amazon.jp. There are four levels, ranked from easiest to hardest: N4(easiest) , N3, N2 and N2(hardest).

With natural conversations and great word choice, this is a pretty damn good book.

Japanese for Busy People

I found this book to be really great. Their word choice for the vocabulary they teach seemed to be spot-on in a lot of places. Additionally, they cover a wide range of topics that I haven't seen very often in other textbooks -- things like how to talk about organic farming or how you can exchange some opinions about global warming. You may say to yourself, "How could I go from speaking no Japanese to talking about those intense issues??" But honestly they do a great job of covering that material in a quick and accessible way, and show how it's possible to have more serious conversations using a limited vocabulary. In fact, that is the best selling point of this book: they do a great job of turning what would otherwise be an incredibly challenging thing into something that can be done with simple vocabulary.

Lots of people tend to reccommend this book. I'm not one of them.

Minna no Nihongo (みんなの日本語)

People often recommend this book, Minna no Nihongo, as well. However, I really didn't like Minna no Nihongo because it is not very dynamic and focuses a lot of time on grammar drills. It also does a poor job of distinguishing between what is high-priority (i.e. useful in daily conversation) and what is being taught for the sake of grammar. That being said, other people I've spoken to like the book.

Speaking Japanese

The best advice I ever heard about speaking was this:

"think it's easy and it will be!" 

There will be a lot of people out there that will try to tell you that Japanese is hard. That may be true but you don't have to focus any time or energy thinking about it. Instead, if you just tell yourself that it is "easy" your brain will make it so. You will have more confidence and learn how to overcome your difficulties more easily. Studying a foreign language is a mind-over-matter type of problem. So you can say it's "difficult" and make it harder for yourself. Or you can say "This is EASY!" and make a ton more progress. In any case, there are three ways to really boost your speaking skills. I will talk a bit about each one in this section.

Finding a Conversation Partner

One of the big mistakes I made when I first came to Japan was to think that every Japanese person could teach me Japanese. I thought, well, I'm in Japan and they speak Japanese -- so everyone will be my teacher!! I quickly found out that this is not true... Just like some people are naturally coordinated and excel at sports, some people will be natural teachers, while others won't be able to help you as much. No everyone is good at teaching their language, even if they are native speakers...

That's not to say, however, that finding a person to talk with is difficult. It's just that you can save yourself a lot of time and frustration by being a bit more selective about the people you try to actually learn Japanese from.

So now you're saying, "Well, if not everyone is gonna teach me Japanese, what does a good Japanese conversation partner look like? This person could be a friend or a fellow teacher at your school, but for me a good conversation partner has two key qualities.

1) They will speak Japanese when you speak Japanese (and not switch back and forth between English and Japanese).

2) They will listen to what you say patiently and then selectively (and gently) correct mistakes.

You may find your own list of qualities that you prefer, but these two, for me anyway, have proven to be the greatest guides when deciding if someone is going to be a good conversation partner or not.

Some other things I've noticed about learning Japanese from Japanese people. People will try to teach you a lot of stuff that isn't always useful -- for example, dialectal things or historical terms or really esoteric Japanese phrases.  It stressed me out at first because I thought, "Whoa! This is way over my head!!" and "How am I supposed to remember this?!" The trick I learned for dealing with this is to not worry to much about remembering these things they are teaching. You will soon discover what is important for you to talk with people. And if what they are teaching is actually important, it will come up in later conversations, and you'll have an incentive to remember it.

I also encountered a lot of switching back and forth between English and Japanese. When I wanted to speak Japanese, people would respond to me in English. Then when I started talking in English, they would respond to me in Japanese. This really annoyed me because I thought that it wasn't good to mash up the languages like this. However, I realized later that switching back and forth established a skill in me to be able to switch between the languages more smoothly. Also, like I explained above it gave me a better understanding of who the great conversation partners really are -- i.e. the ones who will stick to one language unless you really don't understand something.

Japanese Classes

On Saturdays, beginner and intermediate lessons in Japanese are held by JAY (a group of volunteer Japanese teachers) at the International Exchange Center (Kokusai Kouryuu Sentaa) on the second floor of the Kajo central building.  Here, every Saturday morning, for a very minimal price, learners new to the language and those with some foundational study can take 13 week courses in one-on-one and small group settings to develop their everyday Japanese communicative ability. 

Tutors

Experienced JETs can also recommend private tutors to fit your schedule if weekends or certain evenings are unsuitable, though prices can be much higher than the scheduled group classes above. The same advice for conversations partners goes for tutors. You will get the most reward from a person who will stick to Japanese (unless you really need the English) and someone who will listen to you patiently and help you to communicate your ideas.