My Japanese Journey

My name’s Ryan and I’ve been in Japan for just over 3 years, going on 4. When I first came to Japan, I was a headless chicken when it came to the language. I hadn’t studied a lick of anything, and the only hints of knowledge I had prior to coming were some bits and pieces I picked up from watching Japanese anime since my college days. Which is to say, not much at all. To be honest with you, I had never been the academic type, and I always viewed studying as more of a chore and preferred to learn by doing. This can work well for several things but with others, such as learning a language, will only get you so far as I realized at an early point in my life in Japan.

Working in Japan

Like many others, I came to Japan as an Assistant Language Teacher (ALT). This meant I’d be working, in my case, in Junior High and Elementary schools. My first days at those schools were polarizing in comparison. Junior High schools have at least 1 to 2 English teachers. This meant I had at least 2 people with which to talk to at a comprehensible level.

Their English level, while not superb, was enough to converse and get our ideas across. With the rest of the school population, however, things were not so easy. The English level at my JHS was fairly low, and there was only one other teacher who had any interest in speaking English. The rest had little to no English skills and appeared shy to converse with me. Now some would argue that you don’t need Japanese to be an ALT, and perhaps it’s better not having a crutch to speak to the students which force them to use English to speak with the ALT. I would argue the opposite, but further on that later. Despite all this, life in my JHS was fairly smooth as the English teachers would communicate anything relevant to me and the students at least had a bit of English under their belt to use with me.

In my first visit to Elementary school, I was more concerned as it was already noted to me that there was hardly any or no English experience among the students and staff. I was brought to the principal’s office along with my handler, (who for reference was a Japanese person who could speak a decent bit of English) for my first meeting at the school.

The conversations going back and forth completely went over my head, as they turned to look at me from time to time as I sat there in oblivion trying to keep a smile I hoped would get me past this. I started to wonder then and there… how was I going to work here for an entire year, not being able to communicate with anyone?

Would I be in this perpetual state of awkward confusion the entire time? And as if to make matters worse, I would have to be in Elementary school for 3 entire days per week? It was after this meeting that life had thrown me a boon I learned I would work with an English teacher in Elementary school also! What luck!

At the time this was not the case with most elementary schools, so I counted myself a lucky duck. The person in question didn’t have the greatest English capability but at a basic level I could still communicate with them and that was enough. Hell, that was a godsent, as this was the first time they had had one. The days that followed in elementary school, with the exception of classes, were much the same as the first day.

The English teacher was also not there for 1 of the 3 days, so I was on my own for a bit every week. Some folks tried to talk to me, and I tried my best to be myself and answer any question thrown at me. But it was almost always a very awkward interaction as I struggled with Google Translate, trying to first figure out what they were saying to me and how to give some feedback. It didn’t take long to realize that this was them being nice and trying to make me feel welcome. Looking back now, I really appreciate their effort as they didn’t really have to do any of that.

Getting back to the point—How I study Japanese

The first couple of months had been a tad rough and while at school I always felt awkward being unable to communicate effectively with folks. One of my fellow ALTs 3 years senior to me, Nick, had always recommended getting a textbook and studying Japanese. He always noted that knowing even just a bit resulted in a significant quality of life improvement. Watching him speak with Japanese people and seeing him earnestly study and get better gave me the motivation to give it a shot for myself.

How to Learn Japanese Fast- Resource 1:

He recommended the same textbook he had studied at the beginning of his studies. A textbook called “Genki”. It’s a book written by Japanese people who surveyed non-Japanese residents in Japan about what points they thought would be most effective to learn for their daily life. It looks a little something like this:

And let me tell you, it really covers the basics of Japanese from the perspective of someone who hasn’t seen or heard the language a day in their life. It starts by covering first the basics of the Japanese writing systems of Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji. There is however an entirely different section at the back portion of the book dedicated to studying and practicing the 3 of them.

After this beginning portion, there follows 12 chapters each of Grammar / Vocabulary, and Reading / Writing. I would recommend if you decide to take up studying Japanese from Genki, to go between studying 1 chapter of Grammar and Vocabulary, and 1 chapter of Reading and Writing, interchanging upon completion of each chapter.

I say this because as you proceed forward in the book, within the Grammar / Vocabulary portion, the level of Japanese used ramps up and it helps knowing more and more Kanji and very importantly hiragana and katakana to keep going. It does however give you a greater sense of satisfaction being able to interpret more and more Japanese as you go further, without having to depend on looking up words every now and then. But fear not, as this happens in stages and they don’t throw you into a pool of unrecognizable kanji all at once and keep many words written in Hiragana for ease of reading.

Genki covers many useful grammar points and doesn’t make assumptions about the reader’s knowledge. There are currently 2 books available and they’ll get you from beginner to intermediate level Japanese. They’re primarily designed to teach the most relevant things for new learners and get you to a level where you can understand and use Japanese in your daily life.

Between chapters, there are also bonus pieces of content covering things like useful expressions to use in the bank, or cultural tidbits about Japan. There is also a disk included which one can use for verbal examples of the content being covered. For anyone who wants a ‘starting from zero’ textbook, whether you’ve been to Japan or not, I would highly recommend this book.

I do have minor complaints such as I wish the content on the disk was available online as I don’t own a CD player or anything with which to play a disk, and I also wish there was an index of verbs separated by type to make remembering and conjugating them easier. But these are minor complaints, and I got over them quickly enough.

How to Learn Japanese Fast- Resource 2:

I should also mention a resource I used before Genki, also recommended to me by Nick. That is Tofugu. You can check out their website at https://www.tofugu.com/ . I used this resource for their hiragana and Katakana guides, which you can see here:
Hiragana: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-hiragana/

Katakana: https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/learn-katakana/

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’ve got a serious problem remembering things like newly written characters. I can practice for hours and make incremental progress, but it just doesn’t stick as easily, and I’ll probably forget by the next day. This is where Tofugu came in extremely handy for me. In their Hiragana and Katakana guides, they use what’s known as mnemonics to help remember new characters. Hiragana and Katakana each have 46 characters. Combined, that’s 92 characters, which dwarfs the alphabet and it’s just the beginning of learning Japanese. It’s quite a bit for the new learner, so having a fun and easy method of remembering them really speeds things along. Their method of mnemonics works by associating each character with something that can be easily remembered, by shape for example, and with a name containing the sound associated with the respective kana character. That sounds confusing at first, but let’s look at an example from their Hiragana guide:
The character い if you look at the shape, resembles a pair of eels. Don’t believe me? Look…

This character is pronounced just the same as the “ee” from eels, or the name of the letter “E”.

Using this method, I was able to quickly get myself grounded with hiragana and katakana and accelerate my progress with the book, so much so I entirely skipped all the sections covering hiragana and katakana and didn’t have any problems. So, I’d definitely recommend checking out Tofugu if you are like me and have difficulty remembering new written characters. It may seem absurdly silly at the beginning, given their examples, but it worked!

How to Learn Japanese Fast- Resource 3

Now my third and final resource, which may or may not be available to you depending on whether you live in Japan or plan to, and that is Japanese people. I cannot stress enough how much having a Japanese person to speak with and do language exchange with has helped me along. I mentioned a bit earlier that I had a handler who brought me to my schools for my first meeting with them.

This person, Mr. Takahashi or Takahashi-san, could speak a decent level of English and enjoyed doing language exchange. He is an older retired gentleman who had a lot of free time and often contacted me to grab some coffee and talk. We would often meet at a donut shop and grab a coffee, eat some donuts, and just talk for a couple of hours exchanging funny bits of English and Japanese to each other.

It never felt like I was studying, but my time with him had a great impact on my Japanese ability. Because I wasn’t studying from a book, and instead of sipping coffee and talking to someone in a casual setting, I never felt like I was pressuring myself to learn anything or practice when in truth, and in fact I had been slowly leveling up my speaking and listening ability. Every week after having learned new things from my studies in Genki, I was gradually using more and more Japanese with him, as well as being able to fill in the gaps where he struggled to use English.

Our ability in each other’s language started complimenting each other more and more, and without realizing it, my Japanese ability was reaching new heights. I only ever realized when my elementary school teachers, whom with which I had no other choice but to use Japanese to communicate effectively, began complimenting my improvements.

Therefore being able to speak frequently with a native of the language, while this is very obvious, makes a drastic difference in how effectively we progress. Whenever I made mistakes, Takahashi-san was quick to correct them. Listening to him speak in Japanese as well, trained my ears to listen to Japanese. While there were times I could not interpret entire sentences, I could make out words and phrases and break down what the person in front of me was saying. Listening to someone speak Japanese with no holds barred, rather than the dialogue from audio, is truly a different experience.

If you want to take your Japanese to the next level, I highly recommend finding a Japanese person with whom you can speak even casually, and preferably adjust the level at which they speak so they can match and compliment your current level. I’ve found that there are many who can do this with ease and in doing so, make your Japanese learning experience one that doesn’t feel like such an uphill battle, but rather a gentle slope before you wind yourself up for the next textbook chapter.

How to Learn Japanese Fast- Resource 4 (sort of):

I wouldn’t exactly refer to the following as a learning resource, but I do still see it as something worth mentioning. This being none other than entertainment, in my case is Japanese anime. I think at this point we all understand what I’m talking about but for the sake of it; I mean Japanese cartoons. It’s become such a worldwide phenomenon and you can see references scattered all over the internet and elsewhere.

I started watching anime when I was a college student back home. I did mention this earlier in this article as well as my Japanese knowledge extrapolated from it is near nothing. But I dare also say that I underplayed it a bit.

More often than not, I’ve remembered words and bits of dialogue from anime and used them in daily conversations, sometimes generating a buzz such as “Ryan, how do you know that word?” or “why do you know that?”. And the reaction is understandable given that at varying points of my Japanese life and Japanese experience, some words more than others, are a bit out of the scope of my then level of Japanese. While not necessary, these kinds of situations have added a bit of flavor to everyday conversations. And while one should be careful of how they use random words, they learn from a TV show as it can lead to misinterpretation. It is undeniably fun and can delightfully surprise the listener, especially if used in a funny situation.

While yes, this is just watching TV shows, it can be regarded also as listening practice, as one is technically listening to spoken Japanese. I watch anime in its original Japanese dialogue with English subtitles. I feel that more often than not, in the English dubbed versions of anime, they lose the meaning of many things in translation and it comes across differently.

That’s an argument for a different website or forum but the point I’m trying to make here is that anime for me, has been a relaxing and fun way to keep my ears open to Japanese and learn a thing or two now and then. More often than not, especially after having started studying, whilst watching I have those moments where I hear something I’ve learned from my studies and think “oh so you can use that word this way as well”, or “hey someone said that today at school”.

If you’ve never been one to venture into watching anime, I recommend giving it a shot. There are thousands upon thousands of titles to explore, and I’m sure there are one or two that pique the interest of anyone. It’s a great way to listen to spoken Japanese, especially if you don’t live in Japan or don’t have someone to speak Japanese with.

Thoughts and reflections

At present, I’m still at a level where I feel I have much to learn. But I can hold conversations and take care of basic daily life activities. I feel like I’d be at an even higher level if I stop taking so many breaks between studying regularly. But alas, studying from a textbook still remains one of my least preferred activities. I’m still not the type to go at it and hit the books frequently like I know I should. But I am still motivated to learn Japanese. From my experiences, it’s become less of a necessity, and more of a joy to learn more.

Speaking and listening is definitely my strong point. It is easier for me to remember words verbally and regurgitate them. I can much more easily remember a word from my studies, from how it sounds rather than the kanji that represents it. It’s also more of an outlet to enjoy the fruits of my labor, being the textbook studying part. Conversely, I’ve met those who are the exact opposite and have an easier time with reading and writing rather than speaking.

Perhaps the most jarring thing I realized when learning Japanese is after having learned hiragana and katakana, I still found myself in a situation where I couldn’t really read anything upwards of children’s picture books. This being the case because beyond them, the challenge really begins with kanji, a set of thousands of characters of which you need to learn hundreds at a time differentiating the levels between elementary, junior high, and high school level and beyond levels of understanding.

One can say that this is also the case when we consider that English also has hundreds of different words between the same levels, but I still think it’s different since we can still at the very least recognize the letters and easily look up words. I shudder at the thought of how difficult it must have been to search for kanji before the days of convenient apps and Google.

After I started studying and my Japanese reached a level where I could hold actual conversations, however broken or short, I realize that Nick made a proper point. That “quality of life improvement” he told me about was something I could only really understand after I made the first step to studying Japanese. I found that the Japanese people who worked with me every day took notice of my improvements and took it upon themselves to speak more with me of their own accord. And outside of the English speakers, I found that there were so many more people I could get along with and become friends with because I could communicate with them in their native tongue.

Learning Japanese Will Make Your Life Better

Learning Japanese also made my daily life a lot easier when I need to take care of things outside of the norm. Back in 2019, I made a massive change and moved from the north to the south of Japan. Having a fair bit of Japanese under my belt at the time made the move a lot easier, as I had many formalities to take care of. If I did not know Japanese, it would have made the situation a maelstrom of frustration and doubt as I had to do it all on my own.

Taking a detour back to elementary school, let me tell you about a teacher who sat right next to me in the staff room. He was the fifth-grade teacher and was in his last year before retirement.

He didn’t speak to me much at all at the beginning of the school year. However, when my Japanese ability started to go on the rise, and I began speaking more and more with everyone, I ended up having the most enjoyable conversations with him ranging from politics to drinking, and hobbies and all.

He wasn’t particularly good at tuning his Japanese level to something easy for me to deal with, but despite the fact, very patient with me as I struggled to get my ideas across and keep the conversation going. We became so friendly, in fact, that other teachers referred to him sometimes to convey things to me, to which he once responded “why? I’m speaking to him in Japanese, same as you would”.

I had a good under-my-breath chuckle from that. But after having retired, he even invited me to his home several times and even took me along to join in his kayaking hobby. I struggle to think of anyone else who had ever treated me with such kindness and respect and interest. To this day, I still exchange words with him from time to time and he always tells me to let him know when I will visit Miyagi, so we can share a drink and talk some more. I always remember that I’d have never made such a connection had I not taken the first step to learn Japanese, and it’s one of the things that keeps me motivated to continue to cultivate my language skills.

So wherever you are on your Japanese journey, remember there is hope for you. Because if I can do it, so can you.

Kanji picture Courtesy of John Hain @Pixabay

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