My Plan to Learn Japanese, pt. I
Many of you know that I have been learning Korean over the course of the last several years. Due to some personal life changes and decisions, my emphasis has switched over from Korean to Japanese. Although I will continue to be somewhat interested in Korean, my overall attention has been dramatically switched to Japanese. With that, I have had to make some major linguistic adjustments.
So, let me share with you how I have approached this so far, how I feel about it, and my goals for the future.
First, I learned hiragana. As you may (or may not) know, Japanese uses three written scripts: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. In brief, hiragana is a phonetic writing system used to write sounds in Japanese. The basics are a, i, u, e, o. Then, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko. Then, sa, shi, su, se, so. Then, ta, chi, tsu, te, to. Then, na, ni, nu, ne, no. Then, ha, hi, hu, he, ho. Then, ma, mi, mu, me, mo. The, ya, yu, yo. Then, ra, ri, ru, re, ro. Then, wa, wo, and n. There's more to it, but those are the basic sounds of the language, which you can see on display here: https://www.japanesepod101.com/japanese-alphabet/
Switching over to hiragana from knowing hangeul (the Korean script) was a bit tricky at first, but I used Duolingo to help me game-ify the process. Duolingo also helped me develop an ear for some of the sounds of the language. The JapanesePod resources were particularly helpful in the early stages, too.
I also picked up some phrasebooks, including a particularly helpful one called Instant Japanese. These helped me get started on some basic expressions and they gave me a general understanding of how Japanese sentences work, which happens to be somewhat similar to Korean.
Eventually, I found the Tofugu website, and their guide for learning Japanese (https://www.tofugu.com/learn-japanese/), which helped me check my progress. And the Tofugu website, of course, encouraged me to use their own kanji learning web-learning tool. I'll share more on that in a moment.
The biggest hurdle that I've had so far in learning Japanese is that switching between three written scripts can be a challenge. Due to my Korean language learning, my brain has become somewhat adept and used to following along in a foreign script once it has been wired into my brain. But, with Japanese, I've had to do this with hiragana, katakana, and kanji, and kanji takes a loooonnnggg time to learn.
To tackle kanji, I first developed an interest by starting Remembering the Kanji (Heisig), but since then I've signed up and continued to use WaniKani, and have even just paid for a lifetime subscription (which was worth my personal investment, in my case). The website has helped me learn to read kanji, and more importantly, it has also strengthened my hiragana reading skills. At this stage, I have become much more comfortable reading hiragana, so I have learned to rely less and less on romaji (Roman alphabetic letters used to display Japanese sounds). So, I've gotten to where I can read hiragana and figure out how words should (roughly) sound. And with WaniKani, I've been building up my vocabulary and general kanji reading skills. I now know what a 1st grader in elementary school learns of kanji, and much of what 2nd and 3rd graders learn (plus random kanji known by a few higher grade levels). All in all, I've picked up about 1,000 vocabulary words to a decent level, based on about 300~500 kanji that I've been introduced to and 'know' how to read/identify at varying levels.
The trick, now, for me is to develop my grammar. I'm actually using multiple sources. Some may say it's better to focus on one, but I have the time and resources to the 'multiple track attack' and am mixing these resources: Genki, Japanese for Busy People, Japanese from Zero, and Japanese Demystified. In addition, I have a few other supplemental resources I've found online to help explain the concepts, but these are the main resources I'm using to learn how to read and build sentences.
The next step for me in this respect is to develop a more thorough understanding of Japanese verbs. In Korean, it took me quite a while to get comfortable with some verb endings, and I really did not even finish mastering the intermediate levels of verb formation. With Japanese, I feel like I'm just beyond step 1, and maybe onto step 2 or 3, but I feel like there are at least 20 or 30 steps still to take! Maybe more!? But I don't know.... One step at a time.
So, that's where things stand. I'm beyond the 'Absolute Beginner' phase, but I have quite a ways to go. My next major goal is to start reading graded readers more. I've found some very basic ones that have been good (!), but I need to find much more to help me get to where I want to be... In the meantime, I'm going to keep using the resources I've already started (textbooks, WaniKani, phrasebooks, online resources, etc.) and hope to find the time and focus to keep going once my life becomes busier.
For now, it feels good to be a language learner.
So, let me share with you how I have approached this so far, how I feel about it, and my goals for the future.
First, I learned hiragana. As you may (or may not) know, Japanese uses three written scripts: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. In brief, hiragana is a phonetic writing system used to write sounds in Japanese. The basics are a, i, u, e, o. Then, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko. Then, sa, shi, su, se, so. Then, ta, chi, tsu, te, to. Then, na, ni, nu, ne, no. Then, ha, hi, hu, he, ho. Then, ma, mi, mu, me, mo. The, ya, yu, yo. Then, ra, ri, ru, re, ro. Then, wa, wo, and n. There's more to it, but those are the basic sounds of the language, which you can see on display here: https://www.japanesepod101.com/japanese-alphabet/
Switching over to hiragana from knowing hangeul (the Korean script) was a bit tricky at first, but I used Duolingo to help me game-ify the process. Duolingo also helped me develop an ear for some of the sounds of the language. The JapanesePod resources were particularly helpful in the early stages, too.
I also picked up some phrasebooks, including a particularly helpful one called Instant Japanese. These helped me get started on some basic expressions and they gave me a general understanding of how Japanese sentences work, which happens to be somewhat similar to Korean.
Eventually, I found the Tofugu website, and their guide for learning Japanese (https://www.tofugu.com/learn-japanese/), which helped me check my progress. And the Tofugu website, of course, encouraged me to use their own kanji learning web-learning tool. I'll share more on that in a moment.
The biggest hurdle that I've had so far in learning Japanese is that switching between three written scripts can be a challenge. Due to my Korean language learning, my brain has become somewhat adept and used to following along in a foreign script once it has been wired into my brain. But, with Japanese, I've had to do this with hiragana, katakana, and kanji, and kanji takes a loooonnnggg time to learn.
To tackle kanji, I first developed an interest by starting Remembering the Kanji (Heisig), but since then I've signed up and continued to use WaniKani, and have even just paid for a lifetime subscription (which was worth my personal investment, in my case). The website has helped me learn to read kanji, and more importantly, it has also strengthened my hiragana reading skills. At this stage, I have become much more comfortable reading hiragana, so I have learned to rely less and less on romaji (Roman alphabetic letters used to display Japanese sounds). So, I've gotten to where I can read hiragana and figure out how words should (roughly) sound. And with WaniKani, I've been building up my vocabulary and general kanji reading skills. I now know what a 1st grader in elementary school learns of kanji, and much of what 2nd and 3rd graders learn (plus random kanji known by a few higher grade levels). All in all, I've picked up about 1,000 vocabulary words to a decent level, based on about 300~500 kanji that I've been introduced to and 'know' how to read/identify at varying levels.
The trick, now, for me is to develop my grammar. I'm actually using multiple sources. Some may say it's better to focus on one, but I have the time and resources to the 'multiple track attack' and am mixing these resources: Genki, Japanese for Busy People, Japanese from Zero, and Japanese Demystified. In addition, I have a few other supplemental resources I've found online to help explain the concepts, but these are the main resources I'm using to learn how to read and build sentences.
The next step for me in this respect is to develop a more thorough understanding of Japanese verbs. In Korean, it took me quite a while to get comfortable with some verb endings, and I really did not even finish mastering the intermediate levels of verb formation. With Japanese, I feel like I'm just beyond step 1, and maybe onto step 2 or 3, but I feel like there are at least 20 or 30 steps still to take! Maybe more!? But I don't know.... One step at a time.
So, that's where things stand. I'm beyond the 'Absolute Beginner' phase, but I have quite a ways to go. My next major goal is to start reading graded readers more. I've found some very basic ones that have been good (!), but I need to find much more to help me get to where I want to be... In the meantime, I'm going to keep using the resources I've already started (textbooks, WaniKani, phrasebooks, online resources, etc.) and hope to find the time and focus to keep going once my life becomes busier.
For now, it feels good to be a language learner.
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