Learning Japanese: What to do after having learnt the Kana

[Kamlari]

Short free lessons for beginners. You can certainly cover one in 30 minutes.

https://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/english/download/

[Kamlari]

OK, I started watching YouTube video clips on how people learned or are learning Japanese.
Some say it's easy, some say it's difficult, some say it takes no time at all, some say it takes years. Some say it's fun all along, some say it's toil and trouble.

And surprise, surprise, I didn't do anything the way any of them did.

So OP, the only sensible piece of advice I can give you:
FIND YOUR OWN WAY ON YOUR OWN.

[reineke]

Wow way to be discouraging. 30 minutes day IS going to make progress, and once you can start enjoying a language in your relaxation time, or making productive use of listening during busywork, it gets easier to fit in more time. No one knows what their future will hold. Telling people not to bother starting until they have X block of time available for study is pretty awful.

You're absolutely right. 30 minutes equals 1800 seconds. It's pretty impressive.

At ninety seconds a minute our 30-minutes-a-day student has got...like... three hours at his disposal.

Ani is of course both right and wrong. We shouldn't be discouraging. That should include not discouraging people from offering well-meant, honest advice. I also think we are way too quick here to support some questionable decisions.

If all you have is 30 minutes a day and you're studying Japanese you'll hit the so-called plateau early. Fill a v-shaped glass with a pipette and you'll see what I mean. After a few years of this even an inveterate optimist would likely conclude that the glass is half empty.

Pimsleur was made for clueless beginners and each lesson is about 30 minutes long. Most graded resources were conceived to cater to busy adults. After finishing Pimsleur our OP can say hi and ask for further suggestions.

[smallwhite]

Is the OP's 30 minutes continuous?

[Ani]

Ani is of course both right and wrong. We shouldn't be discouraging. That should include not discouraging people from offering well-meant, honest advice. I also think we are way too quick here to support some questionable decisions.

pshhh. If "well-meant honest advice" includes the general idea that basically everyone who tries, fails, I'll continue along my path of optimism tyvm. Is the questionable decision here to try and learn Japanese despite having intense time constraints? Personally, I have regretted every single time I put something off "until I had more time available", so that is my bias. No magical time ever shows up for me, but the things that I have let slowly take hold have found a way to come through.

I don't think anyone has asked the OP yet if he is able to wear headphones on his commute, or get a shower speaker or find an extra hour every Saturday morning for italki sessions. I think we have a thread around here somewhere with ideas for finding more time in your day. Maybe the OP should have been referred there first. I thought AndyMeg's suggestion for the OP to work intensively to get his listening & phonetics sorted out ASAP was spot on.

[Xmmm]

Never studied 30 minutes a day, it would drive me crazy. But I do remember Dr Arguelles saying somewhere that he spent 15 minutes a day on Russian for years.
http://foreignlanguageexpertise.com/

Dr. Arguelles had learnt Russian by simply fitting it into his schedule, studying for no more than 15 minutes a day, while pursuing other languages as well. After six months he felt ready for full immersion, and went to St. Petersburg to live with a family for a futher three months, but had then barely spoken it since. That was nearly twelve years ago. Last weekend I had several long conversations with Dr. Arguelles in Russian and despite occasional small grammar slips, I was amazed at the broad range of topics he felt comfortable discussing and the enormous vocabulary he had at his disposal.

http://rawlangs.com/2013/09/16/what-is-a-polyglot/

[Commentary from Xmmm: Это неправда. Я не верю этому.]

[Xmmm]

Never studied 30 minutes a day, it would drive me crazy. But I do remember Dr Arguelles saying somewhere that he spent 15 minutes a day on Russian for years.
http://foreignlanguageexpertise.com/

Dr. Arguelles had learnt Russian by simply fitting it into his schedule, studying for no more than 15 minutes a day, while pursuing other languages as well. After six months he felt ready for full immersion, and went to St. Petersburg to live with a family for a futher three months, but had then barely spoken it since. That was nearly twelve years ago. Last weekend I had several long conversations with Dr. Arguelles in Russian and despite occasional small grammar slips, I was amazed at the broad range of topics he felt comfortable discussing and the enormous vocabulary he had at his disposal.

http://rawlangs.com/2013/09/16/what-is-a-polyglot/

[Commentary from Xmmm: Это неправда. Я не верю этому.]

Arguelles seems like the straight-arrow type so I'm trying to think how it could be true:

1. He puts in about 50 hours over the course of six months with his 15 minute a day thing. Decides he likes Russian.
2. He goes to Russia for three months of full immersion -- and since he's Arguelles, full immersion means 15 hours a day. That would be 1350 hours.

So, okay that's 1400 hours. It's a little light, but maybe that gets him to C1 passive skills. Or maybe he did 18 hours a day. But how come he's fluent after twelve years of not speaking? That doesn't seem to square with the general accounts of productive skills dropping off fast when not used ...

[smallwhite]

Telling people not to bother starting until they have X block of time available for study is pretty awful.

Personally, I have regretted every single time I put something off "until I had more time available", so that is my bias.

To be fair, no one said that. They said:

Some will disagree, but I don't think it's enough.

Of course, as leosmith said above, 30 minutes a day is not enough.

And when you say:

I don't think anyone has asked the OP yet if he is able to wear headphones on his commute, or get a shower speaker or find an extra hour every Saturday morning for italki sessions. I think we have a thread around here somewhere with ideas for finding more time in your day.

, you're effectively also suggesting the OP to study for more than 30 minutes a day, no? You 3 are actually in agreement.

[smallwhite]

... studying for no more than 15 minutes a day, while pursuing other languages as well. After six months he...

"No more than 15 mins" means "between 10 to 15 mins" to me in practice, let's say 13.
180 days x 13 mins / 60 mins = 39 hours

But I thought Dr Arguelles said 15 mins for 5 years on his own website?

[Ani]

Telling people not to bother starting until they have X block of time available for study is pretty awful.

Personally, I have regretted every single time I put something off "until I had more time available", so that is my bias.

To be fair, no one said that. They said:

Some will disagree, but I don't think it's enough.

Of course, as leosmith said above, 30 minutes a day is not enough.

And when you say:

I don't think anyone has asked the OP yet if he is able to wear headphones on his commute, or get a shower speaker or find an extra hour every Saturday morning for italki sessions. I think we have a thread around here somewhere with ideas for finding more time in your day.

, you're effectively also suggesting the OP to study for more than 30 minutes a day, no? You 3 are actually in agreement.

I don't have enough free hands to play the quoting game, but what I said in my earlier post was that no one knows what their future holds and how their schedule may change, for better or worse. I believe getting started with 30 minutes a day is valuable. I also said that it is easier to fit in more opportunities to study as your listening improves. That is why I thought AndyMeg's advice was great. When I mentioned the thread about ways to fit in more time in my second post, I was subtly suggesting that instead of giving a blunt "30 minutes is not enough anyway" type answer (ESPECIALLY following it with "95% of people fail anyway so do whatever you want" type discouragement), those posters who felt 30 minutes was not enough could give the more useful advice on how to find more time.