Learning Japanese has slowly grown from an interest into a serious long-term project for me. I'm currently working toward JLPT N1 - or actually have been working for it for about 10 years - but more importantly, I'm finally refining / finally found a study system that fits how my brain learns best. Having a full-time job and family while learning Japanese is not easy, but I'm finding it to be a very rewarding experience now that words are finally sticking.
Here are my tips:
1. Daily Contact With Japanese - But Always Meaningful
- Reading something every day
- Mining every unknown word into Anki
- Listening to natural Japanese content
What matters is not the number of minutes but the quality of input. I'd rather read a paragraph registering one new word per day than doing 30 minutes of randomized app exercises.
2. Reading as the Core of My Learning
I don't watch much anime or read tons of manga. My main driver is reading, because it gives me:
- More time to immerse myself in the language. I have to let my brain digest the language. More importantly, more time to input unknown words into Anki. This is probably the biggest thing that I lack when I watch TV - there just isn't time to add unknown words to Anki while watching live content.
- A wider variety of vocabulary and sentence structures than I would get elsewhere
I put every unknown word into Anki, and I try to use it in conversation as much as possible.
3. Creating my own content - Why I Don't Use Duolingo or Gamified Apps
This is the most important part of my study system.
Learning something is all about the connections the brain makes. Your brain isn't going to build any connections of its own just by staring at words on a screen.
The brain is a silly beast. It will only build connections if it sees a pattern. The memories have to be unique to you. You can spend 10 hours memoizing a grammar rule, but if you don't see a pattern, it won't stick. If you can bind the rule to a pattern you already know, you'll remember it. For me the best way to remember a new word is to come up with example sentences I find memorable and to additionally Google for images with the word. The key is to find the sentences / images that are memorable to me.
Googling, browsing the dictionary, and really thinking about words is much more rewarding than zombing on ready-made content. Anki might feel old-fashioned, but give it a go!
What my Anki cards look like
I have a few different card types:
- Word cards. These are the most basic cards, and they contain the word, the reading, the meaning, and the example sentence
- Grammar cards. These contain the grammar point, the meaning, and the example sentence.
- Example sentence cards. These contain the example sentence, and the translation. I usually black out a part of the sentence, so that I can recall the difficult part of it. Eg. Front: 私は◯◯◯◯でそれが好きだ, Back: (理屈抜きで) I just like it. I find filling in the blank with a combination of a sentence that I can imagine myself using much more memorable than just a simple word card.
Summary: I don't use Duolingo or gamified apps because I don't think they're effective. I find it more rewarding to learn Japanese by reading and using Anki.