Study Habits

[Half-n-Half]

Just out of curiosity, how do you study Japanese?

Right now I'm taking a class, which means quizzes, homework and exams. But apart from that I have my own study routine. It usually consists of:

• Listening to Japanese TV or radio via KeyHoleTV
• Watching the occasional movie or TV show
• Reading Japanese websites
• Using an electronic flashcard program like Anki to study sentences

I don't know how well this routine works, but I've learned a lot more than I would have through just classes. In the beginning I read Tae Kim's grammar guide religiously and that is where I picked up a lot of my grammar points. I don't visit it as often, but I still use it as a helpful reference guide. What I didn't pick up from his guide I have learned from reading and listening and using an online dictionary plus a program called Rikaichan. My vocabulary is still pretty poor and I don't understand most conversations, but I think I'm improving steadily. It's been less than a year so what can I expect.

So what about your study habits?

 

[larvi77]

wow

I don't know about everybody else, but I think your study habits are とても すごい！！

You know what, I think I'm actually gonna pattern my study habits on yours. Obviously time constraints will limit me, but what the heck. I find it amazing though that you have time for all that.

Keep it up! がんばって ね！！

 

[Jncocontrol]

Right now i'm just using rosetta stone, And reading japanese websites. Though i would like to take a course in japanese in japan.

 

[GreenCat]

I'm studying English, not Japanese, but I do

Memorise a book line by line(Not always though, it's too stressful):

It helps to learn how words are used and in what context, as well as sentence structures.​

Use a Flash Card Program:

It helps to track how many words I've learnt and to refresh my memory:usually I put up an entire paragraph rather than a word, so I can learn how words are supposed to be used.​

Listening to audio books and Radio to train my ear and learn sounds

It's rather intimidating to think of learning a language by ear, but that's how kids learn a language and learning by ear is a more efficient approach than learning from written materials in the long run. It's less tiring too.​

Asking questions and finding differences

There are few different ways to say a same thing. And often times, they carry different connotations. Finding why and how helps​

Writing regularly

It's hard but must be done​

P.S
They provide free Japanese course here:
http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/courses/courses/index.htm#Mathematics

 

[huru]

Maybe try finding a pen pal on linguar.com?
or i reckon skype pal would also be very useful.. they also have a pretty decent kanji trainer there.
Gambatte!

 

[nhk9]

All roads lead to Rome. I think the question is not if a method works, but if it's efficient (given limited time).

If you want to improve you comprehension, get books specifically targetting that. The "kanzen masuta-" series available on Amazon.co.jp is a set of bible like books. They target foreigners weekness in vocabulary, grammatical expressions, and all the necessary kanjis. One hundred hours on those books will be better than 500hours watching Japanese TV.

Watching TV is not too bad if you want to "fine tune" your language.

 

[Glenn]

You may be right about the greater efficiency of using the books over just watching TV, but I don't think they should be used in exclusion of each other in the first place (or thought of that way). Books that explain grammar and grammar patterns don't normally give you pronunciation and the cadence, rhythm, flow, and timing of conversation. Plus, hearing something and then looking it up has the advantage of being immediately and obviously beneficial, because it applies directly to something you've experienced. Conversely, reading about some grammar point and then hearing it used in a show that you like helps to drive the point home, as it gives you a real world example of what you learned so you can see how it applies to you in the real world (well, a virtual real world. But in the absence of actual Japanese people TV will have to do), and it allows you to enjoy the show you already enjoy even more. Plus it's always exciting to come across something in the real world you just learned (I suppose because it gives you unmoveable evidence that it is used and you didn't learn it for nothing).

 

[Green44]

I'm sooo glad this thread was started!

There was this podcast I was listening to called 'the Japanese Learner' and I had a 4 hour car ride back home and I figured I'd pick something up from the podcast Unfortunately, it turned out to be a bunch of English speaking people talking about their journey of learning Japanese, and it was amazing! Every episode was pure gold and it talked about things like this, they actually mention Anki like religiously. Regardless.

I started by just watching anime and wanting to know the language. Then I planned a trip for Japan which is this May ^_^ and I luckily got in an Elementary Japanese 1 class at my college.
So for me retaining my words is the worst thing. I use something similar to Anki (i would suppose) called iFlipr which is just an iphone flashcard app and I have a bunch of words on there, they are all shared so if you search... nevermind i can't figure out how to tell you my cards.
I'm pretty horrible at grammar. I bought a book titled "Read Real Japanese," it's way to advanced for me but I try to peek at it every once in a while.

I really need to get on the ball, but unfortunately I do not know any native Japanese speaker to converse with. I spent my spring break with some foreign exchange students from Japan, but I was too nervous to try my speaking skills. So i just taught English slang to the other students.

 

[nhk9]

I enjoy reading your opinions.

When you speak with natives, just make sure you can get your points across instead of getting all the grammatical structures right. The latter will come with time.

Try to know certain set phrases before you talk to them. Record your voice and try to see what you say often in English. If you use the phrases "on the other hand", or "you know.." often, try to look up how they are said (this is easily done if you have a good electronic dictionary -- a must for any serious learner).

Watching TV is good entertainment, and does allow one to confirm one's knowledge of certain words. The downside though is more pronounced than the upside. With the wide spectrum of things being said, any normal student may only be able to pick up a fraction of the things being said. It is not particularly useful for the student to say, oh wow, I understand 5 words out of every 10 words being said. As time passes the student can become less and less confident. Simply put, watching TV can be a method of learning, but a slow one at best. It should not be used as the main method of learning, but only as a type of side learning.

I have to say one thing about reading books. Reading is good but you must know what to read. Some publishers like ALC publish books with things that can be quite irrelevant (such as rarely-used idioms, outrageous kansai slang/gyaru-go and anachronistic conjunctions). I think that these publishers have the intent to make students believe that they are always deficient in the language so to make them buy more books. I have nothing against ALC personally and I do enjoy their Nihongo-jyaanaru series, but you've got to watch out for books/publishers that publish these types of book. Avoid at all costs.

 

[Glenn]

I don't know, perhaps it depends on the learner. I've watched shows in Chinese without understanding too much of what's going on, but being thrilled that I got as much as I did, and I can understand more now than I could when I first started. Granted, there's a huge advantage with Chinese shows, because for the most part they're subtitled. It's hard to find Japanese shows that are -- you pretty much have to buy DVDs blindly and check. Anyway, I didn't find it discouraging at all, and still don't, really. Of course, I'm not limiting my exposure to Chinese to just TV shows (I watch movies, too. )

I agree about a good electronic dictionary, although the online ones can be substituted if you have a good internet connection. The downside there, though, is that I have yet to find a good 漢和辞典 online. (Really, it's annoying. 大辞林 and 大辞泉 are available online, but not 漢字源 or 新漢語林?)

That last paragraph made me laugh. haha

Try to know certain set phrases before you talk to them. Record your voice and try to see what you say often in English. If you use the phrases "on the other hand", or "you know.." often, try to look up how they are said

Regarding this, I've picked up 那(我走了), 那麼, 這個 (filler), 那個 (filler), 老實說, and other sorts of patterns (有意思的事, 說得也是／對／有道理, etc.) just from watching shows and listening to podcasts. It may have been more efficient to just look them up, but I believe picking them up in their natural environment cuts down on L1 interference* when trying to use them (that's my own hypothesis, not sure if it's right or not).

But I do want to make clear that I'm not knocking books here, especially awesome ones like the Dictionaries of Japanese Grammar. Those two books really pushed forward my Japanese ability.

*Or L2, as sometimes happens with Japanese word order and particles creeping their ways into a Chinese sentence.

 

[tummai]

I study Japanese mostly by watching dramas on TV (no subtitles) and reading books/magazines. I try to aim for nonfiction books that have a lot of pictures and diagrams so that I can understand what is written even if I don't know all the words. I try to avoid using a dictionary or looking things up as much as possible.

 

[Glenn]

When you get to the point that you can use monolingual dictionaries, though, I recommend them. The language is a bit stiff, but you get to see how words are described in Japanese. They also give examples, and many times lead to new words. I can spend a lot of time looking at 広辞苑 or 大辞林.

Another benefit is that you'll find new meanings for a word you thought you knew. It's happened to me a few times, like with 断る, for instance (I wasn't aware of the second usage). And then there are the workhorses, like かける, つける, their intransitive counterparts かかる and つく, and then the other words that have the same pronunciations as all of those. Monolingual dictionaries give you the skinny on all the uses of them (or close to all of them, at least).