How To Learn Japanese Quickly

This is a collection of skillful old-fashioned hacks, where you'll discover how to acquire Japanese fast.

They range from the down-to-earth, to the insane!

I started this post with over 100 entries, but I've whittled them down to only 42. I've aimed for variety and a bit of provocation.

My favourite tip is at the end, merely exist warned – it's simply for the brave!

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All-time Ways To Learn Japanese

1. Mind To 10,000 Hours Of Japanese O ver The Next eighteen Months

Just keep listening until yous sympathize! How is this possible? Khatzumotoexplains himself: "One of the more than apparently "controversial" pieces of advice I've offered is to simply immerse in audio – keep listening whether or non you understand the target language. Information technology'll all simply showtime to brand sense. No doubt I am not the get-go person to have suggested this. At all-time I only pushed the idea to its logical extreme…"

2. Become Your Daily News Fix From A Japanese Source

NHK News Spider web Like shooting fish in a barrel is the kind of site that the internet was fabricated for. Up-to-engagement news fabricated easier for Japanese learners, with sound recording and accompanying text (consummate with furigana, definitions and some word filtering tools). In one case you've mastered the easy version, you can click on the link to view the original full-length news report in black-belt level Japanese. Amazing stuff!

3. Don't Become To Schoolhouse

John Fotheringham from Linguistic communication Mastery got in touch on with this interesting accept on Japanese learning and motivation:

"Today'south Japanese learner has unprecedented admission to high quality teachers and resources, but it is critical to understand that no volume, course, or instructor tin e'er go the language into your head for yous. This is not The Matrix, Neo. Languages are acquired, not taught, significant that fluency rests not on how many hours your butt has been in a classroom, just by how much meaningful exposure and exercise you've had. Fortunately, the Cyberspace allows you lot to find interesting listening and reading input and opportunities to practise speaking and writing output no affair where in the earth y'all live or how lilliputian money yous take. The limiting factor is no longer access, but motivation."

John's written a guide on how to learn Japanese that is essential reading for anyone learning the language – click here to check information technology out.

4. Avoid Kanji

Benny Lewis fromfluentin3months.comsent me this contribution:

"Controversial every bit this may exist, and equally much equally others will definitely disagree with me, I highly recommend avoiding learning Kanjifor the initial months (not always) if your goals in the language are more spoken based. If you lot are more focused on reading, ignore this tip, but working through just Kana (and Romaji) means that I have almost the same amount of work I'd have to learn a non-related European language to go to the same spoken level."

5. Speak Japanese Every Day

He adds: "Likewise, speak with a real native every unmarried day! Private tutors who live in Japan on iTalki are just $5/60 minutes – and you thought everything in Japan was expensive!"

6. Enjoy The Japanese Learning Process

The secret is to use things or do things that you lotalready like. Khatzumotogives more item:

"If you lack certain strengths or accept a lot of weaknesses, thenexploit your weaknesses for the purpose of learning Japanese. If you like playing video games, watching movies or fifty-fifty playing sports, merely make sure you practice all those things in Japanese and/or with Japanese people (I played with a soccer team fabricated up entirely of Japanese students plus me; too bad I don't like soccer). You could get running and play Japanese music while you lot do it…there'due south enough stuff out there for all your tastes."

vii. Relax In Japanese

Once you've finished the final season of Breaking Bad, beginning getting your daily TV set up with Japanese dramas. If y'all've been studying with text books, this approach will give y'all some valuable exposure to less formal, everyday linguistic communication.Gooddrama.net is your i-stop-shop.

8. Avoid Japanese Burn down-Out

Japanese tin fry your brain. Judith Meyer got in bear upon to offer some ideas for what to do when that happens:

"If you're having an off day or if your brain is already tired of studying, see if yous might be able to watch Japanese videos, for example your favourite anime. This is a way to keep Japanese active in your brain without the strain of studying a textbook or doing Anki. Some recommended video resources: For accented beginners: Let'south Acquire Japanese. For upper beginners: Erin's Challenge. For everyone: Understand Your Favourite Television Series in thirty days.

Judith's put down 71 other ideas for learning Japanese in a an eastward-book.

9. Free Japanese Q&A

Get your Japanese questions answered for free atstackexchange.com.

EXTRA: Learn these 28 insane Japanese chat starters to start talking with anyone!

Larn Japanese Civilisation

[Useful mail: Japanese Culture for Foreigners: 19 Insider Secrets You lot Need To Know]

ten. Don't Blame The Japanese For Speaking To Yous In English language!

"Whether it be your significant other who won't speak to you in Japanese, or the cashier at the store who insists on practicing his 6th form-level English despite the obvious fact that your Japanese is waaaaaaaaay meliorate, never forget that you — and only you — are in charge of your language learning. If you need to enroll in Japanese classes or individual lessons to get the practise necessary, then do so. If you lot demand to immerse yourself in a Japanese-simply surroundings, then go for it. But blaming others for not speaking Japanese with you is unfair,"says Amy Chavez.

eleven. Don't Worry About Being Formal Or Polite In Nihon

William Peregoy wrote this piece of advice: "The Japanese don't like speaking formally…Drib the textbook formality, drop the complexity of polite forms, focus on the dictionary forms of the verbs commencement, speak casually, and brand friends. That way, you tin can start having fun in the language quicker, and not worry so much nigh being formal and polite."

12. Be Formal And Polite In Japan

André Pinto wrote to me from Nippon with a unlike signal of view: "Learn the -masu and polite forms before the casual ones otherwise you may terminate upwardly like some people in here who speak to the university teachers like they exercise with their friends."

[Which of these two views do y'all agree with? I have a very clear stance on this…!]

xiii. Don't Learn Japanese From (Some) Anime

Jamesexplains: "A lot of Japanese learners get quite shockingly embarrassed when they detect out that the line they just repeated from Dragonball Z in the middle of the civilised dinner is the equivalent of shouting out"you motherf*****". Some pop anime (popular in America at least, and generally reserved for little boys in Japan) uses the kind of language which is in the real world most exclusively reserved for Yakuza. Using that in polite visitor volition brand you lot look like a big foreign jerk."

fourteen. There'due south A Lot More To Learning Japanese Songs Than But The Words

As a way into a Japanese community, focus on learning songs that are relevant to your age grouping. "Karaoke is basically the unofficial national sport," says Jessica Aves. "Japanese people beloved when foreigners can belt out their songs (the older information technology is, the louder they'll react) and then get your practise in early. Karaoke groups are too a great way to make friends." She tells yousexactly which bands to listen to!

[Note: Get your Japanese song lyrics fromutamap.com ]

15. Join Activities Organised By A Japanese Clan

Whenever people ask me how to acquire Japanese, I always recommend doing this as early as possible.

A cracking thought fromlearn-japanese-risk.com. They say: "The association usually holds many activities to help the locals to learn to speak Japanese. These activities include dialogue sessions with native Japanese, speech contests, Japanese language courses and other cultural activities, aiming to foster the human relationship with the local people, as well equally helping the locals to capeesh the beauty of the language." A quick Google search revealed well over7 such groupsin New York, for example.

How To Learn Japanese Words

[Useful post: How to write in Japanese  – A beginner's guide]

sixteen. Find Out How To Use Japanese Words Naturally

Tatoeba has an extensive resource of sample sentences.

17. Exploit Romaji Before Going On To Learn Kana

Benny Lewisdescribes his dilemmain the early on stages of learning Japanese:  "I would recommend you learn lots of words and phraseskickoffin Romaji, and when you lot have but enoughto introduce yourself and ask the person to repeat themselves and go on some kind of bones flow,and thentransition to Kana only mode."

xviii. Start Reading Japanese With Graded Readers

These are short stories written entirely in Japanese. Find out more fromWired in Nippon.

xix. Employ Google Image Search To Check The Pregnant Of Japanese Words

Tofugu.com explains this groovy trick: "If you don't know what a Japanese word means, or if you simply aren't certain about the translation you're getting, put it into Google Prototype search and see what pops up. Searching for images in Japanese will too tell you a lot well-nigh the Japanese society as a whole. The results will be dissimilar from your language's search because that culture will exist reflected." Nice!

xx. Don't Learn The Japanese Writing System Without Some Supervision

Why non? The Matador Network says: "Although information technology's pretty easy to teach yourself the finite syllabaries of hiragana and katakana, the essential stroke order is often casually discarded by language learning newbies. In English, writing your letters oddly is merely a character quirk; in Japan it volition be causeless that you couldn't exist bothered to acquire it correctly. This assumption of laziness can besides exist attributed to you if you don't learn to concord your chopsticks properly. There is a difference between finishing a pen stroke with a sudden stop or with a swoosh. Stroke club is an essential of learning the basics of kanji, so don't skip information technology!"

Annotation from Olly: Kickstart your Japanese by learning hiragana in simply a few hours. Click hither to find out how.

Best Study Techniques For Japanese

21. Don't Use SRS To Learn Kanji!

Instead, bombard yourself with as much reading material as possible. Tae Kim says: "I personally recommend the "deluge" method of dumping your brain with TONS of interesting content. This means ploughing through pages of books and manga, hours of dialogue, and conversation practice forgetting more words than remembering them. Don't sit effectually wasting time entering and reviewing what y'all've already seen, just get more, more, and MORE STUFF!!! Yous'll exist surprised at how much just seems to stick somehow like osmosis. Some people feel this is not constructive considering they end up forgetting and so much stuff. They don't realise that the fact that they even remember forgetting information technology ways they're learning it."

22. Employ Full Sentences In Your Japanese Flashcards

Japanese Lingualift says: "The first pillar of intensive language learning is an SRS organisation such as Anki or Kleio and agood deck of sentences. Learning from sentences instead of private words or characters will let you acquire more efficiently, force you to larn in counterbalanced manner, and motivate you lot as the additional context ofttimes makes the process more than interesting and many of the sentences are readily usable. What'southward skillful nearly sentences is that you not but acquire new words and Kanji, but besides understand how to use them in context, and what their nuance is depending on how they are used."

He goes on to say: "As yous accept no time to waste matter, information technology'southward probably best to employ a precompiled sentence deck shared by other users."

Interesting – practice y'all agree?

23. Use Cloze Sentences On Your SRS Japanese Flashcards

Instead of having single words on your flashcards, or even complete sentences, challenge yourself past having the target language as a blank in the middle of a sentence.Khatzumoto gives this example.

He goes on to talk about monolingual or bilingual flashcards: "Bilingual [flashcards] are good for when y'all lack the knowledge — or the context — to happily handle monolingual cards. Beginners, noobs and nervous nellies should focus simply on bilingual cards. Just as with old skool sentence cards,don't go writing your own translations. If you're noob enough to demand a translation, ya shouldn't exist rolling your ain."

24. Get The Japanese App For iPhone

"Every fourth dimension you hear a word you don't know, you look up it in the dictionary and then put it in the retentiveness. At present when you have 10 minutes spare on the train or whatever, yous simply remember the words and test yourself…this is dandy in itself for learning both vocab and kanji," explains Richard from genkienglish.net.

25. Write In Japanese And Take It Corrected By A Native Speaker

Guidetojapanese.orgsays: "In the past, it'due south been adequately difficult to notice Japanese speakers to correct your writing. Fortunately, there is now a social networking site built exclusively for this purpose with an excellent community:Lang-8."

26. Larn "Sound Effects" In Japanese

Why? "Unlike in English, where sound effects are simply constitute in comic books and cartoons, Japanese audio effects are part of daily spoken language and your spoken communication sounds more than natural if you larn them.Peko pekois how the Japanese describe a tum growling, and addingdesu (is/am) on the terminate turns the phrase into "I'm hungry." Did you know that in that location are at least four means of describing the sound of rain in Japanese? They even accept a sound to describe silence," explains Jessica Aves.

27. Improve your reading speed with songs

The Matador Network says this: "Following lyrics will help y'all recognize kana and kanji, increase your reading speeds and, of course, teach you how Japanese should actually sound. This is besides important because in Japan.

Olly's tip:

Learn Japanese Grammer

Take your pick from iv different perspectives on budgeted Japanese grammar!

28. Think In Patterns

Nosotros can look at Japanese grammer in a different way to other languages, according to Steve Kaufmann, who sent me this fascinating perspective on the language: "Some languages have lots of details, example or verb endings, and rules. Unlike these languages, Japanese has patterns that we only need to get used to. This takes fourth dimension and a lot of listening and reading."

And in that location's no better place to exercise this than atLingQ.

29. Learn Japanese Grammar From The Start

Don't ignore Japanese grammar – it's worth studying from the starting time, saysthis article attofugu.com. "Trust me, studying the grammer now will help you learn faster in the long run, since y'all don't have to always terminate and wonder why this particle was used here instead of that one, or what theheck is this verb class I've never seen it before."

30. Learn Japanese Grammar Bit by bit

Alternatively, take a footstep-by-step approach to grammer rules.Jorge Manoel explains: "When learning Japanese, the best thing to do is to learn grammar patterns piffling by lilliputian. Having a cognition of them, making phrases will get easier."

31. Understand Information technology, And then Move On

Jan van der Aatook time out of his +1challenge to write: "Japanese is a not an easy language, with complex grammar. Don't focus as well much on the grammar rules in the beginning, just make certain y'all understand the construction, learn words, and endeavour to make simple sentences by yourself"

Tools And Resource For Japanese Learners

32. Set up Japanese On Windows

Followthese simple steps from Japanese Lingualift

33. Set Up Japanese On Your Mac

Christopher Boltonexplains how.

34. Install Rikaichan

…on Google Chrome to instantly look upward Kanji just by hovering the mouse over it. Go it here. The Firefox version can exist found here. Endeavor it now with this Kanji: ??

35. Learn How To Expect Up Kanji That Y'all've Never Seen Before

Fromguidetojapanese.org:  "If you're trying to find a word with Kanji you've never seen before, you need to observe each 1 and sew the word together using re-create+paste. Themulti-radical Kanjisearch is one of the easiest ways to find Kanji. You may also desire to tryhttp://jisho.org/kanji/radicals/. It has a nicer interface and offers existent-time search results."

36. Invest In Some Quality Japanese Learning Material

"Invest in a solid dictionary that has Kanji, the Hiragana for each Kanji and an English language definition. Likewise, pick upwardly Barron'sJapanese Grammarbook immediately. Wait on purchasing a Kanji dictionary or cards until afterward in your studies," saysJessica Aves

37. Apply A Skilful Online Japanese Lexicon

But which one? "Weblio is the best lexicon I've ever seen, with English-Japanese and Japanese-English translations," says Jorge Manoel.

38. Use Memrise To Learn To Read The Kanawriting Arrangement

"I dove straight into learning Kana [and] I establish the system onMemriseto present it very well," explains Benny Lewis.

39. Find An Online Japanese Tutor

"If you are learning Japanese outside of Nippon, finding an online tutor or a language partner that yous enjoy learning and speaking Japanese with makes a huge deviation and can also exist a lot more than fun," says Brian Kwong . "You tin besides discover a free language partner with this step by stride video, or if yous want to save time, you tin become quality and affordable tutor from iTalki.com."

xl. Have Time To Find The Japanese Tutor That's Right For Y'all

Benny describes his contempo feellooking for a tutor on iTalki.com:

"Another thing I've been doing this week is alternate betwixt different teachers oniTalkito determine who I would learn the most with. Sometimes they use way too much English, despite me insisting on Japanese, and if they keep information technology up then I don't request hereafter sessions. One or ii teachers showed practiced initiative and themselves were insisting on Japanese only before I could mention that I'd prefer this, and then I'll be sticking with them, even though (and precisely because) those are the sessions that admittedly exhaust me the almost."

Benny'due south got very specific criteria for choosing a tutor. What would be yours?

41. Acquire Key Japanese Phrases

Acquire phrases to keep the chat in Japanese during a language substitution. You could do a lot worse than this list, courtesy of guidetojapanese.org.

Alternatively, cheque out my guide to the 73 basic Japanese phrases yous'll need to survive your get-go chat with a native speaker. And if you're still looking for a native speaker to talk to, find how to find a language partner in Japan.

42.  Set up For Some Serious Japanese Speaking Practice?

Lindie Botes is a brave woman:

"My tips are quite odd and daring but they work for me. I use a phone application called Saito San (also known equally "Mr and Mrs Smith") to literally phone random people. It connects you via a telephone call to someone in Nippon. Through this I force myself to practise conversational Japanese and put myself in a situation where I can't use English language. After all, immersion and speaking the language is how a child learns to speak, right?"

See a video of her trying out this apphere.

42 Hacks To Learn Japanese Fast

I hope you constitute some inspiration amongst these tips. Only remember, that's all they are – tips. Whilst they can help y'all in your search for fresh ideas from solar day to day, keeping going for the length of time it takes to larn Japanese requires y'all to keep your eye on the bigger motion-picture show.

In that spirit, I'll leave you with these little gems from Khatzumoto (@ajatt):

• It is more of import to know more than Japanese at lunchtime than yous did at breakfast…than it is to take a skillful program.
• Somewhere between "requite up completely" and "do it all 100% perfectly" is the level where things actually get washed.
• Don't read a book once carefully. Read it 10 times, 100 times, sloppily.
• Don't try to improve your technique. Improve your practice (book, depth, frequency). Your technique will improve on its ain.
• Do Non get information technology right the first fourth dimension, or fifty-fifty the first 9999 times. Get it GOING the offset fourth dimension. Become it right after.

BONUS HACK: #43 Acquire Japanese Through Story

If yous'd like to speed up your Japanese learning journey, without spending all your time pouring over grammar books, and so I've got something for you.

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Instead of learning grammar rules and ending upward translating in your head when y'all speak, your learning takes place as yous read and heed to the story.

Information technology'south the same process I used to acquire Italian in 3 months from home, past just listening to and reading compelling content. I've distilled that method into a comprehensive grade where I aid you discover Japanese through story.

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Source: https://storylearning.com/learn/japanese/japanese-tips/japanese-learning-hacks

Posted by: ashleyhentitivinge.blogspot.com

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