It will be painfully slow at first: you'll have to look up every single word and will probably read 1-2 sentences per minute, but it gradually gets better. You really just have to dive right into it. Now, after that you have to stop learning and start reading anything. Meanwhile you should also read some grammar guide, Tae Kim's is pretty good. I did it for 3 months before I got sick of it but it was a great time investment in retrospect. From there it's mostly learning grammar, and your vocab is incredibly easy since you have a basic understanding of kanji meaning which is the root of most Japanese words.Īs already mentioned Heisig is good. In practice this lets you much more easily figure out what a word you don't remember means from context, and lets you more easily memorise the different readings and meanings of a given word. It's a kind of short-hand for remembering what a given kanji means. So in his system you cheat and find ways to memorise the kanji and associate them with meanings close to what they usually mean in Japanese. What Heisig realised was that Chinese students learning Japanese had a much easier time because they already knew all of those characters. It's trying to memorise 2,000 ancient Chinese characters. Consistently, what you always hear from Japanese learners is that the major roadblock isn't the confusing grammar, the massive number of homonyms, or multiple different syllabaries (basically alphabets but based on syllables). I'd look into getting James Heisig's Remembering the Kanji. Best of luck!Īs someone who attempted several times to pick up Japanese and doesn't see myself getting back into it too soon, I can say how I'd do it. Speaking, however, will require interacting with native-speakers at some point. The written part is easier to accomplish alone, and listening you can grasp if you surround yourself with audible Japanese as much as possible both while studying and just existing. Learning the language solo is a huge task. (Which is how we learn our native language as children.we keep hearing how it SHOULD sound and flow, which eases us into future concepts.) After learning your first 50 words, you will absolutely start picking up small phrases in these films, and hearing the subsequent words -even though you don't understand them- will greatly ease your understanding as you study, because you will be encountering familiar sounds and their associated intent.
This helps you familiarize yourself with intonation and the flow of the language. Henshellįinally, you should also regularly leave japanese-language movies running in the background while you do other things.
Kawashima as well as A Guide To Remembering Japanese Characters by Kenneth G. Supplemental books I also recommend are: A Dictionary of Japanese Particles by Sue A. There is also a very good workbook companion that is sort of essential for driving concepts home. You should try to acquire a teacher's edition so that you will have the answers. An excellent coursebook is Genki 1: An Integrated Course in Elementary Japanese. Otherwise, you can try and learn with a coursebook (preferably one with an audio component) and supplement with studies in ancillary texts. If time and money aer no object, obviously you could take classes at a local school or purchase rosetta stone. The next step requires you to know how much time/money you can spend on this. You should also look for audible resources to ensure you are pronouncing the sounds correctly, even if only in your own head. This will make your future efforts much easier. So your first step would be to memorize the hiragana and katakana and practice them until you can read and write them almost as easily as our alphabet. Hiragana are used for the ends of japanese words and to indicate grammar, while katakana are generally used for scientific names or cognates (words directly borrowed from other languages, for example, McDonald's is pronounced makudonarudo, and is written with katakana). Katakana and Hiragana are almost entirely the same sound system, (a, i, u, e, o.ka, ki, ku, ke, ko etc.) but they are frequently very different in appearance.
Katakana and Hiragana are the phonetic systems, similar to our own alphabet in that each symbol represents a sound, with no inherent meaning. Kanji are the classic, complex characters that were adopted and adapted from Chinese. You are literally creating alternate pathways between meanings in your brain, and if you don't reinforce that daily, it quickly dissipates.Īs for Japanese specifics, you're going to find that there are technically three writing systems. You have to touch the language in some way every day, even if it's a small way (run through some vocabulary, do some flash cards). The most important element is repetition. I was a linguist for the Army, and as such studied Japanese for several years, as well as Serbo-Croatian, Swahili and Nepalese.
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