My Japanese Learning Journey

I share how I learned Japanese and the resources I used along the way in hopes of providing insights for prospective Japanese learners.

Learning Japanese often feels overwhelming, doesn’t it? Perhaps you downloaded the Duolingo app and suddenly found yourself trying to memorize multiple writing scripts. Or perhaps you’re reading articles about the over 2,000 kanji you have to memorize.

Going to online forums also doesn’t make it much easier. It seems everyone has completely different opinions about the best ways to study Japanese.

Is pitch accent really that important? Do I have to memorize all the kanji? What even is Keigo?

Don’t worry if you’re feeling overwhelmed, that’s normal.

You’ll realize that learning Japanese is like a bell curve. When you start, it doesn’t seem so daunting. The phonetics are simple; you can easily get the hang of the grammar, and hiragana/katakana is not as bad as it first seemed.

But then, as you look to the future, the realization of everything that there is to learn feels overwhelming.

The hard part is not giving up before you reach the point when things click, and you’ll find yourself using the language instinctively.

There are many ways to learn Japanese and many tools, but sometimes, it’s hard for new learners to figure out a path they can follow. For this reason, I’d like to share resources and tools for learning Japanese in a series of articles. In this first article, I’d like to start with my own learning journey from beginner to advanced speaker.

Everyone’s learning process is naturally different, so what works for one may not work for all. But I hope that showing how I learned, the resources I used, and the different stages of my Japanese abilities might help others figure out what works for them.

Who Am I?

To start, I should contextualize who I am and the context in which I studied Japanese. I am originally from the USA. I initially went to uni for pre-med neuroscience, but switched to research psychology with a specialization in neuroscience halfway through. I graduated with a double major in psychology and philosophy (sadly I couldn’t actually minor in Japanese as that wasn’t an option).

At that time, I decided one thing I cared about was learning a foreign language, but the first language courses I took was French, not Japanese.

The shift to Japanese came from two reasons:

1. I wanted to use my study abroad opportunity to learn a second language, and Japan had a strong program.

2. I wanted to learn Hanzi/Kanji, but my university didn’t have Chinese courses.

When I spoke to my study abroad advisor, I told her I wanted to live in a foreign country at a proper university to experience a new culture and not end up trapped exclusively in a foreign bubble. At first, I considered European options, but then I realized Japan was an option when she told me about a program where I would spend a year attending courses on campus at Nara University of Education.

I signed the paperwork and left for Japan in September of 2019.

Before Leaving for Japan

When I first looked into Japanese, I knew it had three scripts: Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. Knowing that I want to develop literacy in Japanese because of my passion for reading and interest in living in Japan (the reason I started studying first), my priority was learning to read.

I downloaded a Kana app from the app store. Learning both hiragana and katakana took around a week because I constantly practiced during any break in my day. Waiting for class, using the restroom, standing in line at the cafe, even mindlessly watching TV. I liked the app style because I only needed my phone and would trace characters repeatedly until they stuck in my head. Constant repetition was the best way for me to learn because kana honestly has to be rote memorized, a skill I’m not good at.

I also took an entry-level class at my university and downloaded Duolingo to begin learning the basics of Japanese grammar in preparation. When I left for Japan, I could read and write Kana, knew a basic list of kanji (because I would learn and practice writing the kanji with every new vocabulary word), and put together simple sentences with basic verb conjugations.

The Basics of Japanese

After mastering hiragana/katakana, I began attending classes while living in Nara. The books they relied on in these courses were Genki (2nd Edition), but more recent editions have come out since then.

The books merely cover the basics of Japanese, going over vocabulary lists, grammar descriptions, examples of conversation, and practice problems. At the end of Genki II, you often have around an N5 level of Japanese (the lowest level of the JLPT, or Japanese proficiency assessment).

My biggest complaint with these books is that they focused on learning through practice with direct grammar explanations rather than teaching Japanese linguistically, which is better for how I process the information. While they are useful for entry-level books especially for people with no Japanese background, they often moved a bit too slow for my taste. However, if learning style favors taking small bites and not looking at the big picture, these may be a good option for you.

Another drawback comes from the fact that Genki has many textbook-type phrases and lacks more real-world-type conversations, but if you use these books for entry level and they aren’t where your studies end, this complaint isn’t the biggest deal in my opinion.

Also, I was not too fond of the lack of emphasis on kana and kanji, which, for my goals, was an important part of a well-rounded Japanese education. At low levels, developing strong kana/kanji skills will help you use Japanese media (like manga, novels, news sources, SNS, and so on) as studying materials. Additionally, if you wish to live in Japan, kanji profiency can be more important for navigating everyday life. However, some people only have an interest in spoken Japanese, so this may not be an issue for them.

The Kanji Rabbit Hole

My weekly course schedule was broken into grammar explanation, Japanese cultural/religious history, modern-day Japanese issues, conversation practice, and kanji. I also added an optional course on international communications to that schedule.

In our kanji lessons, the professor provided worksheets printed from the Kanji Books published by Bonjinsha. Every Friday, we had a quiz covering a set of new kanji, and when we passed the quiz, we’d get a new set of kanji to learn for the next week.

However, as I mentioned before, I was uniquely interested in learning kanji. So, in addition to the kanji lists I got weekly in class, my friend, who was studying language education, also provided me with lessons every week that included a kanji quiz. He would make his list of Kanji based on the Ministry of Education's grade school kanji lists and test me on Wednesdays.

Admittedly, while I spent many hours writing kanji over and over (both for learning kanji and in my calligraphy lessons), this merely taught me how to write the kanji.

I did find learning stroke order (or the way you’d traditionally write a character) helped me develop muscle memory when writing, but reading felt like entirely separate skill for me. The actual reading of the kanji often became disconnected from the meaning. Like I said before, I am terrible at rote memorization.

Instead, the third thing I did to help learn kanji was literally reading.

Manga was perfect for this. Many mangas, especially manga for high schoolers, will have furigana (reading guides) beside the kanji. Even when you don’t necessarily know a character, you can still read them. Seeing the kanji used in context and learning vocabulary with how they were written and how they were used was a big game changer in my Japanese studies.

While novels were still overwhelming at the beginner stages because I had difficulty parsing out what was being said on the page, manga broke up the language in consumable bites and helped give me context with the images, making it incredibly useful.

Below are just four manga I personally loved when I was reading (yes, I love animals), but you can find manga in any genre you like. It’s best to pick what you’ll actually enjoy reading. There are also sources like NHK Yasashi-Kotoba News (NHKやさしいことばニュース) that provided furigana and audio readings of news articles if that’s more your speed.

Along with manga, I found karaoke was also beneficial. When singing at a karaoke booth, often the kanji and its furigana were paired, which meant I had to quickly read on the spot, increasing my instant recgonition of the characters.

When Classes Were Too Slow

While my class stuck to teaching grammar from the Genki books, I also did a lot of self-studying outside of class. As I mentioned, Genki’s books moved slowly for my taste. Of course, everyone learns at different paces, but for me, the difficult parts of the Japanese language were not necessarily learning the grammar itself. So, I decided to study ahead of my class.

Once I finished Genki II on my own, I began watching lessons from a YouTube page called 日本語の森 (Nihongo no Mori).

The page had nothing covering N5 or N4 at the time, but now days they do have N5/N4 playlist with English explanations. I instead focused on the playlist covering N3 grammar. Looking back now, I realize that the jump from Genki II to N3 grammar is a bit much, but at the time, I had to make do with what I had.

Luckily, I was used to my lessons being exclusively in Japanese as that is how my university courses were, so the Japanese explanations for N3 grammar, while difficult, were challenging enough to keep me engaged, as have the issue of losing interest easily if I’m not struggling.

Gateway to Intermediate Japanese

At the end of my first class, we entered Spring break, and at this time, I continued my private studies using the study tools I mentioned above.

I had been living in Japan and studying Japanese for nine months, and in that time I had developed a middle-school reading level and could hold basic conversations, but I struggled with major gaps in my vocabulary and had a long way to go before I could safely say I felt comfortable speaking Japanese.

However, before the spring semester could start, my study abroad program was canceled due to COVID-19, and my self-studying experience began.

Before I left Nara, my professor came to my dorm and gave me a copy of the book 中級へ行こう (Chukyu e Ikou), telling me it was a good book to transition out of Genki II.

These books are very standard in their structure, with grammar and practice problems. However, it helped fill the gap I had developed from studying N3 grammar out of Genki II.

I didn’t have the workbook. So, I had three ways of practicing:

1. I kept a diary in Japanese, so I would use new grammar points I had learned in my daily entries. I also submitted some of these entries to websites like HelloTalk to get feedback from native speakers.

2. I would read something in Japanese, such as a story from books like Japanese Stories for Language Learners and write a summary in a short paper for a professor at my university who was overseeing our studies to make up for the courses we lost when our study abroad was canceled.

3. Using the Ministry of Education's grade school kanji lists, I would select a list of kanji I wanted to learn each week and practice writing them with a brush (to also practice my calligraphy) then test my self at the end of each week.

After finishing the textbook that my professor gave me, I would say I was approximately around a JLPT N3 level where I felt comfortable reading short texts in Japanese (about a page or two at most), could hold casual conversations with friends, and could navigate daily life needs.

This is the point where I began to use the textbook 上級へのとびら (Jokyu e no Tobira), which quickly became one of my favorites.

Of course, this textbook had explanations of grammar, examples of conversations, and practice problems like any other book, but it also had a diversity of practices. My favorite is the very well-structured reading practice sections with comprehension questions. The benefit of this book is that it has multiple ways of presenting information and practices that can suit many learning styles and move at a good pace for developing advanced skills.

I actually am sad I hadn’t used this textbook from the beginner level with their 初級日本語とびら series.

Advanced Japanese

Advanced-level Japanese is where my studying style vastly shifted.

At the end of Tobira, I returned to Japan and entered Kyoto University for graduate school in an cognitive psychology in education course (教育認知心理学講座). At this point, I was around a JLPT N2 level where I was comfortable reading Japanese, conversing with friends, and reading texts, especially in my field of study. I could roughly handle different levels of formality, but my biggest struggles were vocabulary knowledge gaps, speech production (especially in non-casual settings), and keeping up with native-level speech outside of one-on-one conversations.

To continue developing my grammar, I have come back to my love with 日本語の森 (Nihongo no Mori), both watching their N1 playlists and using their newly released textbooks.

The textbooks themselves are standard JLPT-style books with grammar explanations, practice problems, and so on, but their benefit comes from the sheer amount of resources 日本語の森 (Nihongo no Mori) provided on the website, YouTube channel, and downloadable app. The books also have more practice material diversity than many other JLPT books I have looked through.

Outside of 日本語の森 (Nihongo no Mori), I also began reading the book 日本人のための日本語文法入門 by 原沢伊都夫 (Introduction to Japanese Grammar for Japanese People by Itsuko Harazawa).

I was interested in reading more material about Japanese linguistics at this time due to my academic studies. This has perhaps become my single favorite book for discussing Japanese grammar, with clear discussions on how grammar is used, why it is used, and common mistakes foreigners make when speaking Japanese. Although it was not aimed at L2 readers per se, it helped me immensely in my Japanese communication skills.

Along with reading grammar-based books, I pushed myself to read Japanese books instead of just manga. I aimed to develop a foundational understanding of Japanese literature. For example, I read novels like Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human (人間失格), Ichiyo Higuchi Takekurabe (たけくらべ), and Atsushi Nakajima’s The Moon Over the Mountain (山月記).

Of course, you can pick up any books you’d find interesting at this point. Or even watch movies/anime without subtitles/with Japanese subtitles or any other media that you prefer. What’s most important is choosing things that interest you and keep your attention, but also force you to take in information exclusively in Japanese.

The most difficult part of learning Japanese came from navigating different social contexts, given how context-bound the language is. As an academic researcher who lives in Japan, I have a multitude of different relationships that I have to navigate on a daily basis. For example, in one day, I can talk to superiors like professors and experts in my field, correspond with office workers, interact with senpai and classmates, visit my partner’s elderly grandma, hang out with friends, and so on. All of these relationships require different levels of formality to show various levels of respect.

However, from my experience with all the different study materials up to this point, this wasn’t ever carefully explained. So, to learn how to navigate Japanese Keigo (or honorific speech), I had to rely on a blend of mimicking others in different contexts, social learning, and using materials made for Japanese native speakers on how to conduct oneself in business settings.

However, even now, there are many times I reach out to close friends or my partner to ask questions about different social contexts, as it can still be hard to always read the room. This is where taking the time to learn the Japanese culture becomes crucial, for without a rich understanding of the context in which Japanese is used, you’ll struggle to fully master the language.

From Studying Japanese to Speaking Japanese

Quite frankly, the fact that I lived and studied in Japan incredibly influenced my Japanese skills. This does not mean living abroad will stop you from developing fluency, nor does this mean living in Japan will automatically give you Japanese expertise. Still, there is an advantage to learning Japanese within Japan.

One example is that I took all of my classes in Japanese, regardless of whether they were data analysis, neuroscience, informatics, or even my Chinese and philosophy courses.

During the two years of my Master’s course, I developed a distinct study habit because I was still studying Japanese and had to learn the contents of my course. Often I would take notes in Japanese and record each lecture, then go home and translate all of my notes and recordings into English to help me make sure I understood the content outside of the language, then translated back into my own words into Japanese so that I could write essays or respond on exams.

Similarly, the mere fact that I had to write multiple reports, submit grant applications, do presentations, and learn from lectures, all in Japanese, gave me constant exposure and opportunities to hone my Japanese skills with feedback.

After two years of living in Kyoto and four years of studying Japanese, I had completed my Master’s Course, and Japanese had become a part of my daily life.

While I’m still learning and growing in my Japanese abilities every day, the most important shift was when Japanese became a foundational communication language, not just a tool or some academic interest. This only occurred when I began using it regularly, talking with friends and my partner, expressing things in my own words, and defaulting to Japanese in social settings rather than using English as a crutch.

And the biggest part was I developing my own voice in Japanese rather than merely trying my best to mimic native speakers, even if it still carries elements of my American English background.

So, if I were to give one last bit of advice, in the beginning, your goal should be developing a solid foundation. While it’s fun when everything is new, it can become exhausting when you realize you must go through so much content. But if you dredge through parts you find less exciting, your foundation will become strong, and as you begin the transition from intermediate to advanced, your potential will be exponential.

The final goal is to balance being able to express yourself in Japanese and using the language in a way that others can understand. Perhaps the old saying, “You have to learn the rules to break the rules,” best summarizes this journey.

This article has a companion article. If you wish for more study tips or resources, feel free to check out the next article for free!