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[ASK] The Proper Routes To Learn Japanese

keanurefresh

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3 Mar 2015
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When I decided to learn japanese, I then realize how many things I could encounter along the way.
But still I have no idea what should I do next, after finish with some materials.

This is the planning routes so far :
1. Memorize Hiragana & Katakana
2. Make words with Hiragana / Katakana or Both.
3. ..................
4. Learning the easiest Kanji [kind of 1st Elementary School grade]
5. ....
6. ...
Not sure anymore

Because I'm not really sure about another routes,
It really make me really frustrated,
coz I have no idea what routes should I take,

So, I'd like to know,
what's kind of routes do you use to learn japanese?
 
1. Go through a beginner's textbook like "Genki" which will teach you hiragana, katakana, vocabulary, grammar (which seems to be missing from your list) and basic kanji, not to mention offer simple texts to read.
2. Go through an intermediate textbook like "An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese" which will teach you more grammar and give you more complex texts to read.
3. On the way, learn kanji from a dedicated list like KanjiDamage.
4. Start reading and listening to "real" (not made for foreign students) Japanese material.
5. If you're also interested in speaking and writing Japanese, consider signing up to Lang-8 to find a Japanese study partner who is willing to correct your sentences (and in return, is interested in writing your native language and has you correct their sentences).

The first three steps took two years for me personally, so it should be enough to keep you busy for a while :)
 
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I would also suggest starting on the Kanji in a starter book as well. (I also recommend Genki for this as it gives you Kanji from very early on.) You need them read Japanese properly, so start on them alongside the rest of your studies. That way you pick them over time as you go rather than trying to learn them all at the end.
Don't worry about offical/school order or anything like that. Learn them with the topics you are covering so that you see them in use and they sink in better.
And don't worry if you can't remember a kana or Kanji form - they will come with time the more you use them.
 
Get Anki and use it for flashcards. There are plenty of shared decks you can download and tweak to your liking, as well as make your own of course. (Desktop app gives far more function here than the android app. No idea about web or iOS)
Listening to Japanese podcasts can be good for tuning your ear to the language, even if you don't understand what they're saying. I listen to NHK news, and a number of the JUNK podcasts.
I recently started using Lang-8, though I've only posted a few times. Feeling like I may have jumped in a little early yet. It can be quite depressing to see all the red in the corrections.
If you want to practice reading, look more into stuff oriented at children. This way you can avoid the need for Kanji early on. (but don't not study it. I'll be the first to admit I lack Kanji study)
 
If you want to practice reading, look more into stuff oriented at children. This way you can avoid the need for Kanji early on. (but don't not study it. I'll be the first to admit I lack Kanji study)

The idea of using children's books is universal among beginning students, who typically seem to presume they will be easy to read due to restricted vocabulary, heavy use of kana, and a mistaken notion that native speaking children learn grammatical structures in an order from easy-> hard as they mature (analogous to the way foreign learners do).

It doesn't take long to find using children's books is boring, frustrating, and largely a fruitless waste of time and effort.
 
Do I need to buy that textbooks?
Coz I kinda hoping some kind of free / online.

And also, because I'm not really gonna live in japan for near future,
I kinda just want to have good the listening and the writing, maybe a little bit of the reading,
So, I'm not really gonna use the speaking.

But then my question, Is that really possible? Only good on listening & writing but not on speaking?
 
The idea of using children's books is universal among beginning students, who typically seem to presume they will be easy to read due to restricted vocabulary, heavy use of kana, and a mistaken notion that native speaking children learn grammatical structures in an order from easy-> hard as they mature (analogous to the way foreign learners do).

It doesn't take long to find using children's books is boring, frustrating, and largely a fruitless waste of time and effort.
I never said it would be fun. And I'm sure many would argue that any form of study is boring and frustrating. Doing flashcards everyday isn't exactly exciting, but is a necessity.
Reading is also a necessity, and you have to start somewhere. I'm not saying children's books will be easy to read, but you must admit that they are easier than say articles on NHK.
Yes, even children's material jumps right into a good deal of grammatical structure, etc. By the time Japanese children learn to read, they've already learned more than the basics of the language.
I would highly disagree that reading children's material is a fruitless waste of time. It will help reinforce kana, sentence structure, grammar, vocabulary, ... basically everything other than listening, speaking and kanji.
You need to immerse yourself in the language as best you can, at an appropriate level, and work your way up.
I'd be interested to know how you mastered the language, without having to take baby steps. Did you just read through Genki and magically conquer JLPT3?
 
I'd be interested in knowing how I mastered the language as well, as I was not aware that I had.

Beginners don't yet even have the structures to be reinforced, so that point is specious at best.

The books are boring because they are thematically aimed at small children. They are frustrating because they contain lots of onomatopoeia, the lack of spaces and presence of unlearned conjugations and vocabulary items conspire conspire to make maddening to even know where one word ends and another begins, and grammatical structures which require tons of looking things up and turn the "reading" into a decoding session....at the end of which you learn how the bunny rabbit got the turnip out of the garden or some such equally inane thing.

Children's books suck as learning materials.
 
Do I need to buy that textbooks?
Depends on where you look for them. Either way, remember that these books are for more than just reading: they also include exercises and listening CD's, which the average free online course usually doesn't.

But then my question, Is that really possible? Only good on listening & writing but not on speaking?
Of course. Listening is harder than reading, and speaking is harder than writing, for the simple reason of time constraints: while you can spend as much time as you want analyzing someone's written sentence or composing the perfect email/forum post, you don't get that luxury in speech. It requires that you get so familiar with the language that you can understand and (more difficult) construct it in real time; and of course it takes practice.

Side note on children's books: after completing the textbooks I went straight to reading slashdot.jp, a tech news site. Fast forward just a few months later and I can now read most articles with hardly any dictionary lookups, which makes me very happy (as this was one of my goals for starting to learn the language). I can't say whether children's books are rubbish as practice since I never read any, but I can say they aren't necessary as an in-between step. Indeed, as a serious news site, Slashdot has full sentences, no "babyfied" words and (almost) no 擬態語/擬音語. And kanji-wise, apart from proper names there's not too much exotic stuff going on either. Most characters I already knew from the comparatively small KanjiDamage list.
 
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The suggestion from lanthasさん is a pretty good (and fairly standard) way to go. Assuming that you didn't even start studying yet, before you get ahead of yourself I suggest you follow that plan for a few weeks and see if you quit or not. I had like 5 friends eager to study Japanese like there's no tomorrow. They pretty much quit when the "oh crap, this will take a lot of time and effort" realization hit them, i.e., at the start of Genki. It's fairly common.

Also, I agree with Mikeさん about children's books. Just to add one more thing. Be sure to read something that's fun for you. Textbook study and grammar study in general can be fairly boring and/or frustrating at times so if you add some boring material to go along with that, you're looking at some very unhappy times. You can probably find something you like that's fairly easy instead of bothering with children's books. My advice, don't read/watch/listen to stuff that you wouldn't in English, i.e., don't read books in Japanese if you don't generally do that, don't read Japanese news articles if you find that sort of thing boring, etc.
 
You guys are entitled to your own opinion, even if they are wrong. Your basic advice with regards to reading is 'either don't do it, or read college level books'.
The whole 'it's boring' argument is BS. The vast majority of Japanese study is boring. Yes, I would enjoy reading a good sci-fi novel much more, but the writing can get highly complex.
And I don't necessarily mean preschool level books, but something you might give a ~10 year old.
Yes, if you're in week one of studies, you shouldn't be doing any real reading yet. But once you start getting down the basic fundamentals, some real reading will help. The short examples in your textbooks will only take you so far.
Children's stories are boring, but when you're start your adventures in reading, you are basically at the reading level of a child. If you can't stomach some boring text, perhaps you should give up in your endeavours.
Once you're able to read the boring stuff at a good speed and comprehension, move on to something better.
It would be like telling someone 'If you can't speak Japanese at a business level, then shut your mouth. Don't talk about your day, that's boring and dumb.'
 
There are graded readers aimed at adult learners. I found them more interesting, easier and more useful as learning materials than the children's books.
 
You guys are entitled to your own opinion, even if they are wrong. Your basic advice with regards to reading is 'either don't do it, or read college level books'.

Putting words in the mouths of those who disagree with you in a deliberate effort to misrepresent what they have said is not conducive to a genial discourse.

The whole 'it's boring' argument is BS. The vast majority of Japanese study is boring. Yes, I would enjoy reading a good sci-fi novel much more, but the writing can get highly complex.

Can you read Japanese novels? It is hard to tell from what you wrote.

And I don't necessarily mean preschool level books, but something you might give a ~10 year old.
Yes, if you're in week one of studies, you shouldn't be doing any real reading yet. But once you start getting down the basic fundamentals, some real reading will help. The short examples in your textbooks will only take you so far.

Beginners can't do any reading for quite a good bit into their studies, which is one of the discouraging factors of tackling the language and part of why so many quit. Sitting with a dictionary and sweating through a couple of poorly understood paragraphs full of unknown vocabulary and grammar per hour isn't reading; it is decryption.

Children's stories are boring, but when you're start your adventures in reading, you are basically at the reading level of a child. If you can't stomach some boring text, perhaps you should give up in your endeavours.

There is no parallel between the reading level of a native speaking child and a foreign learner of Japanese.

I've managed over the years to read dozens of Japanese books, fiction and non-fiction, all aimed at adults. I've done it without looking stuff up and without having gone through the step of reading children's books. May I be excused from giving up my endeavors? Or should I go back and read some kids' books so my experience matches up with your suggested curriculum?

Once you're able to read the boring stuff at a good speed and comprehension, move on to something better.

What sort of better things have you moved on to after completing your kids' books step? Suggestions of good titles are always welcome.

It would be like telling someone 'If you can't speak Japanese at a business level, then shut your mouth. Don't talk about your day, that's boring and dumb.'

I fail to see the parallel.
 
Can you read Japanese novels? It is hard to tell from what you wrote.
No I can't, and I never tried to claim I could. I even stated I'm a <i>beginner</i>. But I do find reading younger oriented books to be helping in increasing my reading comprehension


There is no parallel between the reading level of a native speaking child and a foreign learner of Japanese.
I would disagree. It may not be huge, but its there. Young children read slower, and often have to sound things out, and their vocabulary is smaller. Just like a foreigner


I've managed over the years to read dozens of Japanese books, fiction and non-fiction, all aimed at adults. I've done it without looking stuff up and without having gone through the step of reading children's books.
Good for you. You probably put in many many hours reading textbooks, maybe even took real classes. I do not know the route you took, I'm just saying that working on reading comprehension in a varety of ways can only help. Its not a neccessity, but a helpful step. Good for you for skipping it, I guess.
It's this elitest attitude of yours that I find most disheartening. Because you are good at Japanese, somehow that makes you the master. You're attitude wasn't 'I don't care for it', but 'thats stupid and anyone who does it is stupid.'
The poster came looking for suggestions, but you present your feelings as cold hard fact.


I fail to see the parallel.
The parallel is that you're telling someone not to try and do something because they're not good at it. "Don't try and read anything unless you can do it very well"
You need to practice reading to become better at it.
 
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No I can't, and I never tried to claim I could. I even stated I'm a <i>beginner</i>. But I do find reading younger oriented books to be helping in increasing my reading comprehension

That's nice. But you can't extrapolate that into it being a necessary step on the path to Japanese literacy.



I would disagree. It may not be huge, but its there. Young children read slower, and often have to sound things out, and their vocabulary is smaller. Just like a foreigner

Old people and toddlers both need help walking and sometimes have accidents in their pants. Be careful what assumptions you draw from irrelevant commonalities.

Young Japanese children run circles around foreign learners in terms of vocabulary and grammar. If you are truly talking about kids of around ten years old, as you state earlier, and not diaper-clad urchins then there is simply no comparison. I've raised a pair of monolingual Japanese children of my own and seen them into adulthood. The age at which their facility with the written language outstripped that of their foreign father who had a decade long head start on them is nothing short of humbling.

Good for you. You probably put in many many hours reading textbooks, maybe even took real classes.

I flunked the first Japanese course I ever took. I purchased all four volumes of "Learn Japanese: New College Text" (long out of print, and I never got the cassettes), which committed the currently unforgivable sin of using romaji throughout the first volume. I self-studied the first two volumes and the other two are untouched.

I thumbed through a Tuttle volume on the 当用漢字 (a term not even used any more), never really studied it. By today's standards it was a thoroughly inadequate reference book. Most stuff I just picked up through observation in daily life.


It's this elitest attitude of yours that I find most disheartening. Because you are good at Japanese, somehow that makes you the master. You're attitude wasn't 'I don't care for it', but 'thats stupid and anyone who does it is stupid.'

If you will review the thread, you will find that I listed specific points which make children's books inadequate learning materials for foreign learners. Instead of refuting them, you choose to be offended and misrepresent my objective statements as personal insults. I made no statement that can be construed as calling you or anyone else "stupid" and I really don't appreciate the mischaracterization.

The poster came looking for suggestions, but you present your feelings as cold hard fact.

As did you.

The difference is that I gave specific reasons why I find children's books inadequate learning materials and speak from the perspective of being able with some degree of facility to read Japanese intended for adult native speakers and extensive experience of actually doing so. You, on the other hand, posit that thematically juvenile and boring materials are a necessary step on the way to a place you haven't even reached yet and thus are speaking entirely from conjecture and not experience. You then tell us that anybody not willing to wade through boring children's books should just just give up learning to read Japanese at all.

So you're mad at me for characterizing people as stupid...which I never did....and give yourself a pass for telling others to quit if they're not going to do it your way?

That seems a bit of a double standard, don't you think?

The parallel is that you're telling someone not to try and do something because they're not good at it. "Don't try and read anything unless you can do it very well"

Again with the self-serving mischaracterizations and putting words into my mouth....

Please point out where I told anyone not to try to do something unless they're good at it. You can't do it. Would you like me to point out where you told others in no uncertain terms to quit unless they do things your way?

And before you lecture me on what the OP came here for, ask yourself how pertinent it was to suggest acquiring books for reading practice to a person who hasn't even started yet.
 
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I'm just saying the impression I get from you is elitism. You act as though your views are correct and mine are wrong, due to you being further along than I. I speak as a fellow learner, about what I find useful. I gave my reasonings, which you either ignore or dismiss as wrong.
I also fail to see how telling me you succeeded with poor materials helps any. Other than to act as a humble brag. Just because you're better at Japanese than me, does not mean you are right, and that I am wrong. I may still be learning, but that doesn't make my experience and opinions useless and wrong.
I don't tell anyone to quit. I know its hard. You though, give the impression of don't do it if you can't do it good. If I can't breeze through a 500 page novel, then I have no right trying to read anything.

Its becoming painfully clear that you have no interest in the views of someone younger than you, that is still learning. Its your way or the highway. And since you lack the ability to entertain other peoples feelings on a subject, and only tell them they're wrong, I'll just wish the OP good luck and hard work, and take my leave.
 
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I also fail to see how telling me you succeeded with poor materials helps any. Other than to act as a humble brag.

Jesus H. Christ, dude...YOU brought it up!!!

Just because you're better at Japanese than me, does not mean you are right, and that I am wrong.

On that point you are absolutely correct. The specific points I raised about the inadequate nature of children's books and which are entirely independent of who is better. Can you refute the points in a objective manner, rather than with the subjective (and thus irrelevant) points such as your finding them helpful and than we have to suffer boredom along the path?

I may still be learning, but that doesn't make my experience and opinions useless and wrong.

No, it makes them uninformed and subjective.

I don't tell anyone to quit. I know its hard. You though, give the impression of don't do it if you can't do it good. If I can't breeze through a 500 page novel, then I have no right trying to read anything.

You most clearly said that anyone who can't take the boredom should quit. You can't weasel out of that.

And you need to learn to react to what is written on the page instead of what your wounded pride tells you is on the page and quit making sh!t up that I neither said nor implied.

Its becoming painfully clear that you have no interest in the views of someone younger than you, that is still learning. Its your way or the highway. And since you lack the ability to entertain other peoples feelings on a subject, and only tell them they're wrong, I'll just wish the OP good luck and hard work, and take my leave.

I have no idea how old you are, nor do I care.

How am I not entertaining your "feelings" on the subject? I've presented clear points which can be rationally discussed as FACT, but since you can't address them you resort to pulling every juvenile argument-winning trump card you can think of....mischaracterizations, false claims of insults, false claims of elitism, false claims of not engaging you, false claims of mistreating you because of your age (which I don't even know), and the I've-been-victimized-enough-I'll-go-sulk-now card. The only thing left is to call me a misogynist or a racist.
 
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(I'll probably get flamed at this point not matter what I write, but anyway...)
There was one more thing suggested that was not really discussed - Anki.
Doing flashcards everyday isn't exactly exciting, but is a necessity.
It's not exactly a necessity, but that's just me. To be honest, when I was starting I had similar ideas about the way to study as you do. It can be partially blamed on my ignorance and also the sites/forums/blogs that consider Anki/SRS to be the best thing ever.
I saw a lot of people say that you NEED to do it otherwise you'll be at some disadvantage or something. Some people even came up with some learning efficiency percentages, saying that you learn at 20% less efficiency without Anki or something silly like that. Incidentally, the same people also started to sell pre-made Anki decks. Make of that what you will.
For me personally, it really depends. If I was taking a long bus ride to work, using it on the phone would a nice way to burn an hour or so. I found doing Anki on the PC at home really dull after some time to the point where it became unproductive.

I mostly did RTK kanji reviews and words in isolation / from lists (mistake no.1),but I'm assuming that you're suggesting that the OP gets some sentence decks (e.g., Core2000/6000).
For a moment let's assume that Anki is a must and let's also throw in your children's books suggestion into the mix. That would create an odd situation if you think about it. On one hand, you would be using the Anki deck that has sentences with kanji (most likely voiced) and also the translations right there to help out (possibly furigana as well). On the other hand you have the children's books don't have kanji (most of them?) and that's about it.
You could consider the context to be an advantage over Anki sentence decks, but I'm pretty sure that context would be the last thing to worry about at that stage of learning. Using them both feels a bit redundant.
If I really had to choose, I would go for Anki since it offers a bit more than the books, but it's definitely not a must.
 
Doing flashcards is not a necessity. I never touch the things. (There are very few things which are a "necessity" - beyond putting in the time and working out what best fits your personal learning style).

For someone who is past the textbook stage and wants to get into reading, imo rather than children's books a better starting point is short non-fiction in a field you are interested in or have knowledge of in English (so the suggest of something like slashdot for someone who'd read it in English, as above, is a good one). If fiction, short stories (or short-shorts) and work your way longer.
 
Doing flashcards is not a necessity. I never touch the things. (There are very few things which are a "necessity" - beyond putting in the time and working out what best fits your personal learning style).

For someone who is past the textbook stage and wants to get into reading, imo rather than children's books a better starting point is short non-fiction in a field you are interested in or have knowledge of in English (so the suggest of something like slashdot for someone who'd read it in English, as above, is a good one). If fiction, short stories (or short-shorts) and work your way longer.

I never used flash cards when I was starting out. Frankly it was because it was the Stone Age and I was too lazy to make them myself. I recently use SRS on my iPhone as prompts for kanji recall practice (writing).

The first real Japanese book I ever read was セキセイインコの飼い方増やし方 ("The Raising and Breeding of Parakeets"). I had parakeets at the time and the information was useful.
 
Yeah, "instructables" I think are great. The cooking equivalent is the sort of material someone's mother gets them before they go to university - a book that starts off explaining what a spoon is (plenty of stuff online, too - for those who are interested, search 料理の基本). Just because it's aimed at adults doesn't mean it's War and Peace.

For the OP: it's maybe not the best for a true beginner (may be better alongside or as revision after using a textbook, I think that was the intention originally), but try Erin's Challenge:
Erin's Challenge! I can speak Japanese. | The Japan Foundation

It's probably the best beginner's listening material available online, imo. For a textbook, if money is an issue, go second-hand, ebay, etc. Textbooks don't age that quickly so a slightly older one is fine.
 
I highly recommend the Genki series. As said on this post, it explains things quite clearly, has texts adapted to your level and audios to listen to. To memorize vocabulary I use Anki in combination with pictures I find on google images (I don't like studying using Japanese-English translations)

About reading, I guess it really comes down to each person's tastes. This morning I read a folktale from the Genki book, adjusted to my level, which I found very very nice (かさじぞう) Probably other people would find it boring. I think the important point is making sure your level of Japanese is good enough to be able to read the book without having to stop every 5 seconds to check the meaning of words or, even worse, grammar expressions, in a dictionary.
 
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There are graded readers aimed at adult learners. I found them more interesting, easier and more useful as learning materials than the children's books.
I really enjoy the graded readers. I can see mikesan's point of view with respect to the lack of kanji in children's books, but I must admit I really like the children's books that feature trains and such because I have always loved trains.
 
People respond to different methods differently; I never got much out of flash cards because I learn and remember new vocabulary better through context. For me, reading actual things is a better study method than rote memorization, and also helps me feel more productive. Disregarding the efficiency of one study method over another, the fact that you are actively practicing is a huge indicator of whether you'll experience any kind of success over time; the only thing that's guaranteed is that you won't get better at what you don't practice.

I also recommend the Genki books as they set a good foundation of vocab and grammar to get you started. When you can start reading things, I recommend looking at beginner materials targeted for older JFL students, and try to expand your kanji vocabulary as soon as you can. For the reasons Mike mentioned, I also wouldn't suggest using children's stories; putting everything into hiragana actually hinders absorption unless you already know the vocabulary and grammar being used, which Japanese children have already absorbed as native speakers. Although it may seem more complicated, the three writing systems used in Japanese provide real important cues into the structure of the sentence and the function of the words in the sentence. Also, while native children are above and beyond most JFL students in terms of having a "feel" for the language, as a rational adult you have advantages over them in that you can logically grasp more complex concepts, and learn the writing systems and build your vocabulary more systematically. With that in mind, I think a children's book would be more of a crutch that doesn't really take you anywhere.

When you're ready, I recommend Japan Times' "Cultural Episodes," which are page-long essays (about Japanese culture) that get progressively more advanced (and have additional materials to ensure you understand the content).
 
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