Japanese Study Methods Review - 15 Dec, 2008

Posted on 15 Dec 2008 by Chris

10 Comments

Learning Japanese

I had a busy weekend and failed to fit in time to study kanji. I’ve got a lot of revision to do today! The one major lesson I’ve learned this week is that studying Japanese is not going to take me a year, it’s going to take me 3 or more years of constant study before I am reasonably fluent. Then I have a lifetime of further study.

It’s a life skill, not a job skill. It’s not something I will learn for a particular job and forget the next month or year. This is a skill I want to keep and use for the rest of my life.

Putting pressure on myself to be fluent in a year is only going to make me burnout. So I’ve set myself a goal. Each year in December I will take the JLPT. I’ll probably skip JLPT level 4 and go straight to level 3 next year. This gives me something else to aim for and should help keep me motivated.

The key is to be constant. If you study it casually it could take you 5, 8, maybe 10 years and you still won’t be fluent. I’ve found I work best at around 10 kanji a day. However once my revision is back on track I will attempt to increase it to 15 a day and see how that goes.

I’ve also set aside a bit of time at the weekend to do a quick study session. Hopefully this will keep me at a steady pace and I won’t have such large stacks of kanji to revise on a Monday!

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Comments

Neil Duckett

Bearing in mind the "NEW" test scale comes into practice in 2010 next year is the last year with 4 levels it's a good idea to push yourself for level 3 next year ... otherwise you'll be doing what i do, level 4 for a few years in a row!

Chris Gaunt

Good point Neil, I forgot about the new scale. Definitely aiming for level 3 next year then!

yonasu

Well said Chris! You shouldn't push yourself too hard, as you said it'll only make you burn out, remember to have fun too. Seeing it as a life skill, if you're learning 10 or 15 kanji a day doesn't really matter much. But a language can be a job skill as well, being bilingual is always a positive thing and being a foreigner in Japan, it's absolutely considered a job skill. But I guess you know that already.

I think that even if you're constant with your studies, it'll take you at least 5 years to become fully fluent in the language, and that is if you're residing in Japan. I believe that if you're studying Japanese in your home country and rarely visit the country itself, you'll never be fluent in the language. Sure you might be able to translate complicated science articles, but there's so much more than that to it.

What you're doing now is the best thing one can do to learn a language, any language. Constant studying while residing in the country will give you great results as well as change you as a person, as long as you're passionate about it. I'm not talking out of experience though, this is just my own thoughts on the matter, but I'm planning on doing just what you're doing now after I've finished the second course in Japanese here in Sweden.

Haha, this is probably the longest comment I've ever written by the way!

Chris Gaunt

@yonasu: Thanks for sharing your thoughts! I think you're right, it will most likely take 5 years or more whilst being in Japan. It'll be interesting to read these reviews again in 5 years time :)

Daniel

I took JLPT 4 this year. I was afraid to do JLPT 3 because I hadn't spent any time studying Kanji and work was keeping me busy.

I'm aiming for JLTP 3 next year. First step, I need to do something like you have... make a plan.

Daniel

By the way, all of my learning will be outside Japan. I don't expect I'll ever be fluent. I'll never live there, though I'm just going through the stages of planning a trip in the spring. I look forward to that.

KC

All japanese all the time.

This guy tells you what he did to become fluent in 18 months BEFORE he moved to Japan.

Fernando | Tohn

These posts on learning and becoming fluent in Japanese remind me that that too was one of the goals I've been considering for quite a while. True. I'm thinking I'll set up something regular for myself as well so that a year from now I'll have some improvement to point to.

SEO

Making your aim constant will always let you to achieve your goal efficiently.. Once you become relaxed or show carelessness, you will actually lose your goal.. Things are difficult but not impossible.. Everything always requires a particular time so give proper time to your goal and you will definitely get it sooner or later depending on your effort..

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