There are a lot of books to learn Japanese from, but not all of them are good. I even portrayed one in “Why Your Language Book is Holding Your Japanese Back” where I show what the book has, and why it is a problem for learning Japanese.

Something I came to terms with a long time ago is I learn differently than most other people so I have gone through a lot of books as I try and the books I can learn from the best, and reference. Below is a list of books I suggest and use to learn.

Text Books

• Elementary Japanese Vol 1
• Elementary Japanese Vol 2
• An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese
• Dirty Japanese: Everyday Slang (not a textbook, but good reference)

I’ll be honest, I haven’t had a lot of time with intermediate japanese, but the book I do have seems good so far.

Dictionaries

• Random House Japanese-English English-Japanese Dictionary

Kanji Books

• Remembering the Kanji
• The Kodonsha Kanji Learner’s Dictionary

I hope this list helps others in what they deice to learn from, and hopefully save them some money I had to spend.

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In my last post I mentioned I was starting over with Hesig Remembering the Kanji, and I did. However, the amount of time I was dedicating to studying wasn’t as much as I had hoped, or as efficient. So it has taken me a lot longer to study and get through kanji, however while I am making progress I realized I was studying kanji wrong, but my personal feelings about paper were getting in the way.

Enter Actually Writing Kanji

The main thing I was doing wrong with studying, is not writing down the kanji, much. I just kind of aimlessly try to review based on how it looks every time. Considering I got up to about 1500 kanji last time around, and I didn’t remember as much as I should have, I decided to change it up over the last couple of weeks and write down every kanji as I review it, usually multiple times.

What About the Tablet?

I really don’t like paper at all, its like sand, it gets everywhere. I really like anki so I use it a lot as it makes repetitive study easier. What I have been doing is running anki on my computer while writing down all the kanji on my iPad.

One of the annoyances with having a tablet is using a finger to write, which is why I recommend getting a pen that is made to write on tablets. While it doesn’t write with the precision I would want it to, it does do better than a finger (apple really fell down on pen support, and most other tablet/slate makers as well).

The Best Part of the Tablet

While having a tablet, and being able to write on it is a great tool, and I really enjoy it, the best part of being able to use it to write with is you have infinite pages to write on and deleting a page is a simple click. The great thing is you can read something, switch over to anki, add a card and switch back. While there is a bit of pain doing this, sometimes, its nice because it is all-in-one. You don’t have to carry around a whole bunch of materials everywhere, I used to care three or four books on average.

Conclusion

Of all the ways I have used technology to study I would honestly have to say the tablet has been the most useful thing I have used in a long time. The key thing is it doesn’t have to be an iPad, in fact I was thinking about getting another one as well. If you can lay down the money for a tablet, you can write on, do it for sure. You might even consider a kindle fire the little bit I played with it at the store it seems pretty good, if I didn’t feel bad for my kindle keyboard I would probably get the fire. A couple of my friends have the Galaxy Tab and like it a lot as well, so look at that too.

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One of the hardest parts about learning, blogging, or even living life is losing focus on what you want. Losing site of the goal, getting distracted and veering off course. Over the last year and half I have done that with learning Japanese. Its time to get back on a path and start again. This has had me thinking for a while in order to accomplish what I want to do, where do I need to go?

Finding Your Failings

Before you know where you want to go you kind of need to know where you have been, cliche right, but its true. I started by figuring out I was getting hung up in the monotony learning instead of working for the goals. I have even blogged a few times about keeping your eye on the goals, but even still I got caught up in it and burned myself out.

Focusing

One of the biggest things in learning Japanese for long term consumption/use is you need to know the kanji, you really do. That has been a major hurdle for me because it is where I constantly get hung up while learning. Vocabulary can be a factor, but not knowing the kanji really limits comprehension of text. So for me kanji is a big deal I need to deal with.

Finding Your Attainable Thing

Knowing kanji is where I need to go it is what I am going to work on. I am going to finish Remembering the Kanji and not do any other type of studying until it is done. For other people to figure out what to work on you have see what is available to you and compare them to your goals. I have the book Remembering the Kanji so it is an easy fit to just jump right in to reach my goal. For you there might be a bit more searching involved, the key is to know where you want to go.

The best way I have found to find my problems that I need to fix is to write down my frustrations on a piece of paper, no typing. Just write them down until I can’t write them anymore they can be paragraphs or sentences or words. Then go through and tag them with a word or two, each frustration can have multiple tags. Then look at all your tags and you should start to see what is most aggravating to you while learning. Fix That.

Hard-work and Guts

Okay, guts maybe not so much, but hard work for sure is what it is going to take. Usually your weakness in an area is there for a good reason, “We, actually, don’t want to do it”. Therefore, it is going to take some hard work and effort to get past it and do what you don’t want to do, but it will be worth it in the end. Take a look at my post Make Your Strengths Your Weakness to get a little more detail on why you should work on one area only for a while.

In the End

So as of this moment I am dedicating my Japanese study time to kanji only, until I get done with remembering the kanji. I have already started over with it using anki and am progressing fairly quickly. I have previously made it through 1100, but most of that I never got in my brain enough to stick for over a year. This time. I will consider myself “done” and ready to move on when every-time I review the kanji move to at least 5 days before its time to see it again.

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Rosetta Stone has some very interesting things going for it. From being sold all over the place to their “unique” selling proposition of being the perfect way to learn a new language. I got it a long time ago, and to be honest found a bit of success.

Over the last year my study of Japanese has tapered off, well stopped. From “life” and work to forgetting to study I just got out of practice. Recently, I have gotten the bug again and decided I wanted to do something differently from normal to jump back into studying, I decided lets give Rosetta Stone a shot again.

The Good

Game LikeI think one of the strong points is it can almost be like a game at times when you are given text and spoken language and you choose a picture. It forces you to make connections and find context based on what you see. This is very good for learning vocab because you get a bit of context.

Spoken LanguageFor a long time my weakness has been, and still is, listening comprehension. While I can get phrases, and small basic words fairly simply, when it comes to any type of conversation count me out. With everything having spoken language it really helps me practice listening and has gotten my ear going again.

Level CompletionWhen I first got Rosetta Stone I could never get past Level 1 – Unit 1 – Lesson 1. I honestly thought the thing was broken. After coming back to it I zoomed through all of level 1 – Unit 1, and am now 80% of the way through Level 1 – Unit 2 with still more to go I can do. With something like 11 units for Level 1 I have a long way to go.

A Lot to ReviewI’ll be honest from a business perspective I can understand why Rosetta Stone is so expensive ($379 on Amazon at 20% off). The shear amount of content there is is staggering, and they had to pay someone to develop the content, hire speaker to speak for hours, not to mention cost of software developers. There is a lot there and I am no longer bitter about the price, just annoyed(lol).

The Bad

Repetitive Actions Granted this is the nature of the beast and how you learn in a lot of ways, but you kind of get into a bit of tunnel vision when doing it where after a while the task is so repetitive you almost forget what you are doing and just start clicking, without paying attention.

Writing System While it is awesome you can choose to review in romaji, hiragana, and kanji they don’t actually teach you anything about it. They need a quick primer on hiragana and kanji to get you started. I know they have their “context is king” mentality, but sometimes an intro is a good thing. Also wish they wouldn’t allow romaji.

The Ugly

Grammar The biggest problem there is with Rosetta Stone is grammar. While the speaker and text are using great grammar if you don’t have a basic understanding you will spend hours struggling to make connections. Even a basic review of grammar can considerably speed up what you get out Rosetta Stone, but alas nothing like that is available in app.

Conclusion

If you have Rosetta Stone, or can get it for cheap, I recommend it as a complement to everything else you do. As an all out replacement, absolutely not. I do think there is value with it, but not enough to justify the cost for those who don’t have the money to throw down for it. It might be a good buy for the jet-setter who just wants to learn another language while on a plane, but if you want to get fluent and really flourish with the language I would use other resources first.

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Knowing where to start learning Japanese is rough for someone new to the language, below is hopefully a good starting location for the journey of learning Japanese.

Steps to Start Learning Japanese

1. Define Your Goals
2. Learn About Learning AJATT is a Good Place to Start
3. Start Listening to Japanese
4. Learn Katakana and Hiragana
5. Try to Forget Romaji
6. Start Learning Kanji
7. Seek Out Friends Learning Japanese
8. Get a Good Book
9. Vocab Is A Key
10. Be Aware

Note: During this whole process you should be trying to read and learn vocab

Define your Goals

One of the most important things for people to realize is why they are doing something. So the first step is to figure out why you are learning Japanese so you can stay motivated to continue. Write down your goal on a post-it, and post it somewhere you will see it everyday. Every time you get another reason add it to another post-it note next to the last one. That should help to keep you focused.

Learn About Learning – AJATT is a good place to start

Everyone always talks about learning something new, but often people don’t realize knowing “how to learn” is almost as important as learning. So I recommend visiting the AJATT (All Japanese All The Time) site and reading his site to learn more about learning. You can maybe also pick up a few pointers on where to start learning Japanese

Start Listening to Japanese

If you aren’t watching Anime, Japanese Dramas or listening to Japanese Music it is recommended to start, now. Start surrounding yourself with Japanese video, audio, and as much culture as you can. The more you hear Japanese the more learning new Japanese will be easier for you. For example during a local Language club meeting people will use phrases I hear all the time or say things with specific tones and I’ll recognize them because I hear them a lot in Anime or J-Dramas, so it makes figuring out the language easier. I recommend first just start listing to Japanese Music by finding some Japanese radio stations.

Learn Katakana and Hiragana

One of the most important steps to learning Japanese is learning the writing systems. There are 3 to learn (hiragana, katakana, and kanji) the first 2 are the easiest, and can get you started quite well. It is very important to learn Hiragana and Katakana over romaji since it is native to Japan and you wont go to Japan or to Japanese sites and see romaji. I also made a post about how to Learn Katakana and Hiragana in 2 weeks, please feel free to check it out and give it a shot.

Try to FORGET Romaji

Romaji is the devil, Waterboy reference there. One of the biggest problems is too many people rely on romaji. It hinders not only their reading of Japanese, but also their speaking. I expand a lot more on this in a post on Why Your Language Book is Holding you Back. Suffice it to say remove romaji from your daily use as quick as possible.

Start Learning Kanji

I used to fight Kanji a lot, still do at times. I always felt like some drunk Chinese dude sat down one day and said “Hey, I am going to make a screwed up writing system just to mess with foreigners”, still do feel that way at times. Some of the kanji just makes you go “What?”. However, as I learn more and more Kanji I understand the importance of kanji, and that kanji makes japanese easy, believe it or not.

I recommend to at least start learning Kanji from the Hesig book “Remembering the Kanji“. It is an easy book to follow and gets you started down the path of learning some of the most important Kanji to learn. The book teaches 2047 in total.

Seek Out Friends Learning Japanese

This I think is one of the most important aspects of learning Japanese. If you can’t share it with anyone then what is the point in learning it. So either start looking for friends who are Japanese or others learning Japanese, or both. For in person local friends checkout Meetup.com. It is how I found our local city based Language group, maybe even start one if there isn’t one. Also here are some online ways to connect with others too.

• Smart.fm
• Twitter – Follow Me
• Lang-8
• EduFire

Get a Good Book

One of the things I disagree with the AJATT method on is how to learn grammar. While it is entirely possible to learn proper grammar from finding patterns, have done it a bit. I personally feel it takes a bit too long, plus I like to be a bit nerdy and learn grammar. So I recommend finding a good solid text book to follow. Remember the link above,Why Your Language Book is Holding you Back, when selecting your book. There are 2 textbooks I recommend you choose between Elementary Japanese and/or Genki. I plan to do a review on both of them in the future as to why I recommend them specifically.

Vocabulary Is A Key

I analogize this to golf. One thing you hear all the time in golf is “Work on the short game”. My problem for the longest is if I can’t get off the tee-box close enough to the green to use my short game, the short game doesn’t matter. You can learn grammar, writing system, culture, everything, but if you don’t have a vocabulary then it is all useless. The biggest hindrance for a lot of people is knowing enough words to understand what is going on around you. So learn vocab and keep at it.

Be Aware

Finally, be aware of your learning and your progress. How you study, habits, and your personal life change over time. As you learn newer and better ways to do things you will tweak things in your life. The key thing is to be aware of these changes and the changes around you and to adjust your learning accordingly. Also be sure to pay attention to your goals of why you are learning Japanese. Many times our goals and reasons for learning new things change. It isn’t bad to change, but it is important to realize the importance of ever changing goals. So just be aware, and go with the flow. most of all have fun.

Conclusion

A lot of the time when people want to learn something new they aren’t sure where to start. Hopefully these 10 steps provide you the starting point to at least get far enough to know where the next step is in learning Japanese is. Just remember this is a place to start and isn’t a definitive guide.

If you have any recommendations or questions please leave a comment. Especially if you disagree let me know why and where.

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Only use this when something catastrophic happens. I tend to have things come up where days on end I am unable to hit anki. Some is dealing with family during a death, another is a vacation where I am camping for a week or even a weekend. This method should be used only for those times when something happens, but it is not for a time when you just don’t study for a while.

One of the biggest problems with long breaks from SRS is the annoyance of having to catch back up with anki even though the reasons may have been out of your control as to why you couldn’t do your reviews. Because of running into the situations like this, unfortunately fairly regularly, I needed to figure out a way to lessen the mental impact of returning.

After trying a few things the least negative impact way I have come up with is what I am going to go over. It isn’t full proof and takes some concentration and extra work, but after about 2 or 3 days you will be back on track “normally”.

Step 1

First take an assessment of how many reviews you have. If you are sitting around 200 to 300 just do them normally. If you are like me and had about 700 then this method is for you.

Step 2

Now you have taken a look at your number and determined there are too many to do effectively you need to make a decision. Ask yourself “How can I modify my score structure?” what is acceptable to you in modifying your scoring temporarily to zero out anki.

*I must point out you are going to review all 600 just a bit differently

Step 3

Since I had around 600 to review I realized I have a lot to review, but there are mature cards I know. So I don’t want to just go through and hit the hard button on them all. So I changed my scoring structure.

• Again: If I have no mental image at all, period, of the kanji to review I would hit this one.
• Hard:
  • If the kanji had a slight image but really didn’t know what it was. I would normally hit Again, but this time hit Hard.
  • If you are able to get it and it is hard. A “I know I know this” moment in your head and you get it go ahead and click hard.
• Good: Treat this one like normal
• Easy: Treat this one like normal

It is important to treat Good and Easy the same as normal because those are the most important ones to filter out at this time because a majority of your “hard” and “again” ones you will see in the next few days anyway. Good and Easy are just inflating your numbers to a point you are concerned. In all likelihood you remember these, but if not hit hard.

Step 4

At this point you should be through your whole deck. It probably took you an hour or longer to get through it, but your mature cards are filtered out and you can now concentrate on the next couple of days getting through, like normal, your cards you don’t understand as well.

Conclusion

While this method may take some time it is much much quicker than doing all the reviews like normal. Just remember this can mess with your stats a bit. But which is more important mental sanity or stats? For a long time I was concerned about the stats until I realized I want to be relaxed while doing my reviews. Just remember this is a shortcut that can have negative consequences on your overall learning if overused. I don’t overuse it, but can feel some of the effects. Use with caution, but don’t forget it should be fun to learn.

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Your next goal is to become weak where you are strong. Learning is a long process with a lot of different directions and forks to go. Usually there is one constant in the learning process when it comes to larger subjects, such as a language, and that is being stronger in one area and weaker in another.

When I started learning Japanese grammar was a huge problem for me, but after some effort it became a strength. I really enjoyed that I knew the grammar I knew and the fact I knew it well. However, I quickly realized while I knew the grammar I wasn’t doing so hot with vocab.

So, after realizing my problem with vocab I spent extended time learning and working on vocab, and it soon became my strongest point. Fortunately I never forgot the grammar so the vocab just fell into place.

Shortly after the increase in vocab ability to my new strong suit I started trying to read Japanese more and more, only to realize yet again a new weak point. This time I was having a huge problem with kanji. After some hard work and effort kanji became my strong point with grammar and vocab becoming my weak points again.

By now you probably see a pattern. Notice a weak link strengthen it, notice a new one strengthen it, etc. Instead of continually trying to improve my strengths I was working at making my weaknesses my strengths so they were no longer a problem. This has created a snowball effect and while there are odd ups and downs and ebbs and flows of Japanese ability it helps you see your progress as you learn.

The key to it all is to try not to forget your strengths, but to bring your weaknesses up past your current strengths making your strengths your weakness. So as you move on in learning why don’t you give it a shot working more on your biggest weakness and turning that into your strength.

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I was recently put in my place this last December with the JLPT 4 test. I wrote it about it in “Why my JLPT Fail was Still a Win“. It was a very eye opening experience and a great motivational experience.

The biggest problem with it is not being able to convey my how I felt afterward to others in my class. It really is one of those things you have to experience to understand. It isn’t completely a bad feeling just one of disappointment in yourself, and the wanting to do better next time. Today friends and classmates in our local college Japanese Language club got to feel the same thing, finally.

I don’t say this to be mean at all, but our class lives in a bubble in the middle of the United States. Not a lot of opportunity to speak and practice Japanese. If you want to figure out what level you are at it probably wont happen easily unless you actively seek it out. Most people in my class don’t. What happened today burst that bubble for many and let them see the bigger one they were inside of. So I guess you are curios what happened.

On Monday I went to The Tulsa Japanese Language and Culture Meetup. It was an awesome experience since there are a couple of fluent speakers some middle of the road and me, at the bottom. Anyway, I mentioned the college club and invited the others to come if they wanted to. Well one of the fluent speakers showed up, lets call her Sarah. I was excited she showed up because she could really contribute to the group with her speaking ability. My teacher seemed excited about this too and they held a few conversations at breakneck speed in front of everyone.

While I was listening to the conversations I saw the exact expression showing up which was showing up on my face during the JLPT. The “what in the world have I gotten myself into” look. It was also awesome for Sarah to be fluent as an extra motivator to show it can be done for sure.

After the meeting I asked several people how they felt about what they just experienced, and all of them basically told me they felt like someone destroyed their brain. The best way I know to put it is they now know their place in side this bubble that is Japanese language, with me along with them.

Fortunately not one person was defeated and everyone is motivated to learn more now that they realize truly how far there is still left to go, which means good things are going to happen this year with the club.

So in conclusion to all this if you are learning try to find a couple of people that are fluent and listen to them talk in person if at all possible. It is totally different to listen to 2 people talk in person than from a computer now matter how much I or you might want to argue to the contrary. Never be discouraged by what you don’t know just realize there is something else to learn and next time you will know it.

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There are many sayings and most have some “truth” to them, but none, to me, are as powerful as this one.

Consistent action over a long period of time leads to amazing results.

I am not sure I am even saying it completely or where I heard it. However, that is the saying I remember. What it means to me is:

Consistently doing small things over a long period of time leads to something big.

Take blogging as an example posting 3 times a week leads to 150 blog posts in a year. That is some pretty good results compared to the average blog. Each blog post is also an easy small achievable thing you can do.

However, the opposite can take place leading to have to DO extraordinary things to catch up. Take my Discrete Math class. If I would have stuck with my

plan of at least 30 minute every other day of study. I would have done a lot better over the long haul. Now as it stands I have spent the last 2 weeks cramming and cramming trying to pull of a miracle of studying to pass the class. (thus I am not doing a whole lot of anything else, like blogging)

This can also come into play when studying Japanese. I find I do better when I study a bit every day and push myself a little harder everyday rather than GIANT spurts of study where it is hours on end for a few days or week then 2 weeks or 3 weeks off.

If you think about it the math kind of adds up and leads to a lot less stress. There are 2046 kanji to learn out of “Remembering the Kanji“. If you take on 30 a day, which is manageable, then in a little over 2 months you will know 2046 kanji. “Consistent action over a long period of time leads to amazing results”. The kanji is just one great example.

So the question is what are your goals and how can you break them down into small consistent things you can do to create your amazing results.

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Learning words through context has the benefit of showing you when and how to use the word from the beginning, but it can take a lot of time to learn the words this way since you are learning more than one thing at a time.

Flash cards are a quick way to gain a lot of vocabulary, but…

Above is an excerpt from my guest post over at Wide Island View check out their site and I recommend subscribing. They started as a e-zine and have recently moved to more of a blog. It is mostly for JET’s in Hiroshima. However it is in Japan and written in English so is a perfect candidate for subscribing to and reading. So seriously go visit Wide Island View.

For my post here it is:
Building Japanese vocabulary — the fun way

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