Learning Japanese From Zero
Posted: Wed Jan 01, 2020 4:42 am
Hello everyone and happy New Year! Next year (i.e. tomorrow), I have set myself the goal of learning Japanese.
I have previously studied a number of Romance and Germanic languages, but it seems that Japanese will be much, much harder than anything that came before (apart from ASL, which is hard for different reasons and which I eventually gave up in frustration). My usual strategy is to use Duolingo to get the basics and start watching TL TV as soon as possible (usually within only a couple weeks of starting, thanks to the similarities of the easy European languages to English and other languages I've previously studied). However, Japanese will obviously require trying something different.
From what I've read, the Duolingo Japanese course is garbage, so I plan to use Lingodeer and Wanikani instead. I've never tried them before, but they seem to be pretty commonly recommended among Japanese learners. I expect that it will also take me much longer than usual to get comfortable watching TV in Japanese. Of course, I am for now optimistic, but I expect to be rapidly humbled once I actually start.
As far as language goals, my goal is to get to an intermediate level of listening comprehension in Japanese, i.e. be able to watch TV in Japanese and understand the majority of it. Which doesn't mean that I won't work on reading or speaking skills, just that I will not judge my success by those metrics.
I decided to start a log to hopefully provide hope and encouragement to prospective Japanese learners, especially those focused on listening skills like me, though it may instead turn out to be a cautionary tale. At any rate, see you on the other side!
Milestone status updates:
Three month update
Four month update
Six month update
Seven month update
Eight month update
Nine month update
Ten month update
Eleven month update
One year update
1.25 year update
1.5 year update
Two year update
2.5 year update
Three year update
3.5 year update
I have previously studied a number of Romance and Germanic languages, but it seems that Japanese will be much, much harder than anything that came before (apart from ASL, which is hard for different reasons and which I eventually gave up in frustration). My usual strategy is to use Duolingo to get the basics and start watching TL TV as soon as possible (usually within only a couple weeks of starting, thanks to the similarities of the easy European languages to English and other languages I've previously studied). However, Japanese will obviously require trying something different.
From what I've read, the Duolingo Japanese course is garbage, so I plan to use Lingodeer and Wanikani instead. I've never tried them before, but they seem to be pretty commonly recommended among Japanese learners. I expect that it will also take me much longer than usual to get comfortable watching TV in Japanese. Of course, I am for now optimistic, but I expect to be rapidly humbled once I actually start.
As far as language goals, my goal is to get to an intermediate level of listening comprehension in Japanese, i.e. be able to watch TV in Japanese and understand the majority of it. Which doesn't mean that I won't work on reading or speaking skills, just that I will not judge my success by those metrics.
I decided to start a log to hopefully provide hope and encouragement to prospective Japanese learners, especially those focused on listening skills like me, though it may instead turn out to be a cautionary tale. At any rate, see you on the other side!
Milestone status updates:
Three month update
Four month update
Six month update
Seven month update
Eight month update
Nine month update
Ten month update
Eleven month update
One year update
1.25 year update
1.5 year update
Two year update
2.5 year update
Three year update
3.5 year update