Tips for Learning Japanese?

I'm currently taking a Japanese Language course, my first ever! However, it is an intensive course at my University, so it basically sticks a whole year of Japanese into 2 months, and it also satisfies the pre-req for Japanese if I intend to study abroad.

The course is very fast paced. We have quizzes every day, and I feel like I am falling behind. I am usually the last person in class to finish quizzes. We are given 5-10minutes to complete, and I take all that time, while most other students finish in a minute or two. I know some people in my class have some Japanese background, even though this course is very strict towards those who have taken it because you're not supposed to have any background, and if you do, they make you take a placement test (which you could by all means just fail to stay in the class). But regardless, it seems like I am absorbing the information very slowly.

I would like to know if there are any tips to learning the language faster? The classes themselves are 4 hours long everyday. The first two hours are a lecture to cover topics, and the next 2 hours are taught in Japanese and review and apply the topics covered in lecture. I go home and study about 2 hours a day as well. I spend a lot of time commuting, so I listen to Japanese music on my phone, although I feel like there must be a better media source for me to listen to for picking up the language faster. What are some very reliable ways to learn this language effectively?

so I listen to Japanese music on my phone

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I don't recommend this. It is entertaining but not attaining.

I'd feel more like spending my time to give you a serious answer if you had ever once revisited your previous threads and at least acknowledged that you have read the replies, even if you do lack the manners to say "thanks" or participate in them beyond your initial post.

If you flunk, you flunk. Retake the class at a regular pace if you can't keep up with the intensive course. It's not the end of the world and you're (currently) barred from entering Japan so there's hardly any hurry about your learning the language.

(I flunked the first Japanese course I ever took. I got over it).

Mike Cash said:

I'd feel more like spending my time to give you a serious answer if you had ever once revisited your previous threads and at least acknowledged that you have read the replies, even if you do lack the manners to say "thanks" or participate in them beyond your initial post.

If you flunk, you flunk. Retake the class at a regular pace if you can't keep up with the intensive course. It's not the end of the world and you're (currently) barred from entering Japan so there's hardly any hurry about your learning the language.

(I flunked the first Japanese course I ever took. I got over it).

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I'm not sure if it's a lack of manners of more of a cultural thing. The way I interact with my friends, family, and everyone I know is, I never say thanks or acknowledge having heard anything, but it's pretty much implied. If I give advice to my friends, they don't say anything back or even thank me, but I know they heard me. If I send messages to friends online, I know they read it due to Facebook's "read" feature, but they don't acknowledge or say thanks, so it's just normal. But, people from other countries have told me that Americans come off as rude, but I never noticed it. If it does bother you, I can find something to respond to in this threads, but I just want to get across that I didn't mean any disrespect, but rather that is just how I and the people around me communicate.

My 2 main reasons for learning Japanese were because: 1, I have always wanted to. And 2, my girlfriend communicates better in Japanese, and she has difficult expressing some ideas in English, so not only do I want to understand her difficulty, but also alleviate it somewhat. I probably won't go there any time soon, but I can easily make short visits.

I currently don't have time to take it at a normal pace if I want to graduate in my 4th year. I understand that if I flunk, I flunk, but the point is that I am looking for advice. One of my friends learned Korean and Japanese on a basic level, and was fluent with what he knew, in 6 months, so I know there are ways to learn it effectively.

Don't blame it on being an American. I'm an American and was raised with the importance of "please" and "thank you" well hammered into me from earliest childhood.

(And Japan is one of the most "please" and "thank you" intensive societies you'll find anywhere on the planet, so if you want to learn the language....develop the habit).

We aren't your friends and family and this isn't Facebook. The minimum expected from a person starting a thread is that he participate in it. The minimum expected from a person asking for information is acknowledgement that replies were seen. That is usually and most briefly handled by saying "thanks", though any other indication will serve in the case of people who lack the upbringing or who think it will break their jaw to say it.

You're an intelligent and well-spoken fellow and I'm glad to have you with us; I'm just letting you know that people do notice it when someone makes a habit of "drive-by" posting and will in short order either openly resent it or just totally ignore the person in the future.

Have you spoken to the teacher about your difficulties and sought advice there? Are there Japanese exchange students or perhaps some students who have taken higher levels of the Japanese courses you could ask to tutor you or help drill you on the material? What specifically do you find difficult? Memorizing vocabulary? Grasping grammar points? If you have specific problems from your course material that you just can't figure out, feel free to post them here and we'll do what we can to help you with them.

First, stop comparing yourself to other students/your supposedly fluent friend (unless you're planning to ask him about study methods). Your grades and language abilities are not influenced by how fast someone else finishes a test.

Second, talk to your teacher(s). Maybe from their perspective, you're doing fine. Maybe they can suggest extra practice materials or a tutor or something.

Third, be honest with yourself about what you're doing in your classes and study sessions. Are you participating and asking questions or just sitting at the back hoping they don't call on you?

Last, there is no quick option.

nekojita said:

First, stop comparing yourself to other students/your supposedly fluent friend (unless you're planning to ask him about study methods). Your grades and language abilities are not influenced by how fast someone else finishes a test.

Second, talk to your teacher(s). Maybe from their perspective, you're doing fine. Maybe they can suggest extra practice materials or a tutor or something.

Third, be honest with yourself about what you're doing in your classes and study sessions. Are you participating and asking questions or just sitting at the back hoping they don't call on you?

Last, there is no quick option.

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I actively participate in that I speak (in Japanese) in class sometimes, even if I am afraid to say it wrong. I study and take notes after class because I dedicate most of the class time to getting verbal skills down, and study the written and reading aspects at home when I have more time alone to concentrate. I would say I learn verbal skills the fastest. I feel like I am slower at reading and writing than other students. While I can read things and recognize words, I read slowly. My writing speed is okay, and I can write what I want to say in Japanese faster than I can read. I am also a poor reader in English as well, not because I don't have a good vocabulary, but just because I'm not much of a reader at all.

Mike Cash said:

Don't blame it on being an American. I'm an American and was raised with the importance of "please" and "thank you" well hammered into me from earliest childhood.

(And Japan is one of the most "please" and "thank you" intensive societies you'll find anywhere on the planet, so if you want to learn the language....develop the habit).

We aren't your friends and family and this isn't Facebook. The minimum expected from a person starting a thread is that he participate in it. The minimum expected from a person asking for information is acknowledgement that replies were seen. That is usually and most briefly handled by saying "thanks", though any other indication will serve in the case of people who lack the upbringing or who think it will break their jaw to say it.

You're an intelligent and well-spoken fellow and I'm glad to have you with us; I'm just letting you know that people do notice it when someone makes a habit of "drive-by" posting and will in short order either openly resent it or just totally ignore the person in the future.

Have you spoken to the teacher about your difficulties and sought advice there? Are there Japanese exchange students or perhaps some students who have taken higher levels of the Japanese courses you could ask to tutor you or help drill you on the material? What specifically do you find difficult? Memorizing vocabulary? Grasping grammar points? If you have specific problems from your course material that you just can't figure out, feel free to post them here and we'll do what we can to help you with them.

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Well, I appear to be bad at reading, in general. I did an oral the other day in Japanese class, where I pretty much had a conversation with the instructor. That went well, as I understand what was being asked, and I could respond, although somewhat slowly. I only failed the answer one question, which is my own problem because it was a vocabulary word I didn't recognize. I am okay with writing, as I can write at a decent speed, and when I am writing I can see if I make a mistake, so I can correct. Reading is the most difficult. I can write a any specific hiragana, katakana, or kanji character faster than I can read it.

Okay, so we have a better idea of where your weak areas are now. I would say first: don't worry. You're doing the right thing by concentrating on improving your speaking while you're in front of a teacher who can give you feedback, and it sounds like you managed fine when it came to what was basically an oral test so you're keeping up overall.

You call yourself a "poor reader"/"not much of a reader", but from the way you write in English I doubt you're that bad. Maybe you don't speed read/don't read fiction for fun, but those things are not a necessity for learning to read Japanese. You ought to tackle the reading speed issue in Japanese if you're feeling it's becoming a problem, though - e.g. if you feel or are starting to feel pressed for time in tests because of it.

First:
Talk to your teacher(s). Ask for extra reading comprehension practice you can do at home - they might have some graded readers or extra printouts or something along those lines. Ask for their honest opinion if there's any other areas you should be focusing on. Believe it or not, teachers generally like it when students take the initiative to talk to them before something becomes a real problem, rather than waiting until they're actually failing.

You can also look independently for some suitable short reading practice in a topic that interests you. e.g. non-fiction, hobby stuff is good. I think blogs are great - a bunch of posts along one theme, and short enough that you can get through them in a reasonable time. Plus a lot of the popular ones update daily - good if you want to set yourself a daily target of reading something (use Blogmura to find them). Material aimed at teaching middle/high school students about some topic you're very familiar with in English is another option.

There are two types of reading in language learning, "intensive" and "extensive". To take them to their limit, intensive reading would be where you look up every word, every grammar point, every cultural reference, until you're sure you understand 100% of 100%. Most of what people would call "studying" reading is intensive, and it's important to do at least some, but by itself it doesn't help with speed/fluency of reading.

Extensive reading is where you look nothing up, accept that you won't know every word, and just blast through using context and what you do know to fill in the blanks. Because it only works if you know enough of what's there to at least get the gist of what's going on, finding material that's the right level for extensive reading can be tricky, but it is the best way to improve your reading fluency. If you want to keep track of things to look up later, underline in pencil (if you own it) or keep a pad by your side and write down the vocab you're not sure of. With online reading, copy-paste into a document for later. Do not use things like Rikaichan, or if you must, read through without it at least once first.

It's not a quick fix, but if you put in the effort daily you will see your reading speed increase. When I first started trying to read in Japanese, I felt very frustrated - I speed/skim read in English so the difference was pretty stark. I did fine with grammar and vocabulary, or so I thought at the time, so why was this so hard? It seemed to take forever to read anything, and took way more concentration than English. A couple of pages of a book and I needed a break. It took weeks to finish a short story - a whole novel seemed like an impossibility.

I never hit a point where suddenly it was easy, and my reading speed in Japanese is still significantly slower than in English, but I'm to the point where I can read at what I'd consider a reasonable pace. There was really no trick to it other than keeping reading daily. And when I say "read" I don't just mean fiction, I am including all forms of things that can be counted as text - blogs about cats, sports coverage, recipe sites, "programming for beginners" sites, sites on rude mnemonics in Japanese for remembering historical dates (must try and find that again, that was hilarious), the fricken weather report, anything.


tl;dr basically, you seem to have good work ethics, you put the time in and you're going to be fine, just try to work a little more reading practice into your day. If you're struggling to find something to use as reading practice, let me know a bit more about your level and what sort of things you're interested in and I can try to dig something up.