How I learned Japanese Words – Part 1

There are several ways to learn Japanese words. A beginner may learn words in a different way than an advanced learner. Someone who has lots of time may learn differently from someone who does not. Also, some people will enjoy one thing that others don’t. Everyone will be a little different so there is no single best way to do this. But, today I would like to explain how I was able to learn Japanese words.

How I learned Japanese Words

So, my experience may not work 100% for you but hopefully, it should give you a good idea of how someone who has learned Japanese was able to learn words.

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How I began learning Japanese Words

I still remember the day clearly. I was in the book store with my mom and we were looking at the dictionaries. We were planning on hosting a Japanese student around my age and we thought it would be good if I could say a few things in Japanese. There were not a lot of choices but I didn’t know the difference between one dictionary from another. So, I just picked up a small pocket dictionary. This dictionary had a Japanese to English and an English to Japanese section.

No plan, Just reading the Dictionary

For the first 6 or 7 months when I started learning Japanese, I did not have any strategy except to carry my dictionary around with me wherever I went. I did not have any set goals or plans I would just look up words every once in a while when I was curious. Or, I would sit down and just read through the dictionary if I had some downtime.

Trip to Japan made me more Serious

After taking a trip to Japan I got serious about learning Japanese. For the most part, though I learned Japanese vocabulary from the same dictionary in much the same way for the next 5 months or so. The difference was that I read it more often though. I would read it while watching TV, or during class at school, anytime I had a moment.

I did however have a textbook and a Kanji book. When I read through the textbook I would write down words and phrases. For the Kanji book, every Kanji would show a few example words that used those Kanji. I would read and try to remember those words or write them down. This was not the majority of how I learned vocabulary at that time. But it was an important supplement to my dictionary. My dictionary was my deliberate way of learning words. Learning words through the other books was how I was able to first start learning words in context.

The Beginning of Computer Learning

After about a year from getting my first dictionary, I got a CD with a digital Japanese to English Dictionary on it. This had many more words, phrases, Kanji readings, and so on.

At this point, I had learned to read, write and more importantly type Kanji. So, what I would do is search stuff online like Japanese news, comics, or whatever and try to read it. Since I could read Kanji I was able to understand several words or at least get an idea of what they meant. I did not understand everything though. So, I would use my digital dictionary to search for words I did not know.   I did not try to understand 100% of what I read or try to search 100% of the words I did not know. I just tried to read through and get a gist of what was written. Reading stuff I did not understand and using both my digital and paper dictionary was how I learned vocabulary for the next year and a half. After this time my method changed a bit which I will talk about more in part 2.