Top 5 Tips for Beginners that will make Learning Japanese Easier

Japanese can be a hard language to learn. But, there are a few ways to make it easier, especially when just starting out. Here are my 5 tips for making Japanese easier.

Learn Kanji Early

Learning to read Kanji early makes learning Japanese a lot easier. Learning Kanji allows you to get a basic idea of what words mean before you know them. Not to mention being able to read allows you to understand context. Context lets you learn vocabulary quicker. On top of that, in Japanese the context you use certain words really matter. Reading sentences show you which words go together naturally.

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Tackle One Aspect of Japanese at a Time

When I first started learning Japanese I was fortunate not to have resource overload. I only had a textbook, Japanese dictionary, and a book for learning Kanji. So I started by reading through the textbook. That gave me a good understanding of the basic grammar and structure of the Japanese language. This allowed me to better remember vocabulary too. That is because I could make sentences which gave context for words. After that I moved onto learning Kanji, followed by learning vocabulary with my dictionary. focusing on one things at a time allowed me to see progress in those areas quicker. If I jumped around everything still would have progressed. But, it would take longer to see any change.

Read Example Sentences

Our next time is to learn example sentences. As I have stated already context is important in Japanese. Learning sentences teaches you context. So to learn sentences you have a few options. First, you can just read and try to learn that way. Or you can find sentences that have words in it you want to learn. Reading the same words in different sentences will passively teach you when you can use them.

Learn to Think in Japanese

Learning new vocabulary and lots of reading is critical for learning Japanese. Speaking, writing your own sentences or thinking in Japanese is not as important for learning to understand the language. But it is crucial for integrating what you know and for motivating you to continue. Just learning words and reading can mask the fact that you are actually learning. If you don’t have a way to tell yourself what you know, you won’t know what you know. By learning to think in Japanese does tell you though that you are learning. Let me explain through my experience. When I started learning Japanese I did not have a bunch of stuff to watch or read. So, trying to form sentences in my head kept me engaged in Japanese. Make no mistake, The Japanese that I did make was horrible. But, even my limited Japanese taught mean how to string words together more fluently. Also, by thinking in even bad Japanese I was able to use my environment to test my Japanese. As I went about my day and thought about what I saw and did, my Japanese slowly improved. I was not learning new words but strengthening my knowledge of what I did know. This exercise would later allow me to speak more fluently when I had more Japanese to back it up.

Expose Yourself to lots of Vocabulary

Vocabulary is the majority of what learning Japanese is about. The more times you see the same words the stronger that knowledge gets. As the knowledge gets stronger the quicker you can recognize words. The way I exposed myself to Japanese was through reading my dictionary over and over. I did not try to memorize them but only read them. I was unaware at the time, this would allow me later to quicker recognize and more deeply learn the vocabulary later. The more you see a word the quicker you are able to recognize it. This means that you get quicker at hearing words and saying them. When you have less time needed to hear a word you can focus more on what is being said. When you need less time to think, you can have better conversations.

If you are interested in learning Japanese I have reviewed what I consider the best resource for Japanese Grammar below: