Tips for learning Japanese

I started learning Japanese in high school. The class was only one hour per week and the pace was super slow (we learn 5 hiragana per week, then katakana), so after 3 years of learning, the best I could do was introducing myself and my family, and say what’s on the table or under the chair. It wasn’t very useful for daily conversation—strangers are not going to ask you how many brothers you have—but it was a good base to start my journey in learning Japanese.

After high school, I didn’t continue studying Japanese straight away until around half a year before my graduation from my college in Malaysia. I started learning Japanese again because at that time I knew I was going to Japan to live, so this time I learned at a normal pace. After 3 months, I wanted to take the easiest level in Japanese-Language Proficiency Test or JLPT, which is N5, but my sensei said I should register for N4 because N5 is too easy, and I didn’t know why I agreed. That day I had just finished the N5 lesson, which means only 1 month to prepare for N4! And somehow I passed!

A month after I finished my study in Malaysia, I went to Osaka to study Japanese in preparation for either further study or work. I was proud of my N4, I thought at least I could order something in the restaurant without a problem, or talk to people about basic stuff, but N4 really wasn’t enough. So my journey in the Japanese language continues from there, and I passed the highest level which is N1 a few years ago!

I took only N4, N2, and N1 because of some reasons:

• N5 was too easy, although it is the minimum requirement for you to get a part-time job permit from the government if you live in Japan to study Japanese, so I took N4.
• N3 was useless for me because most universities and companies only accept N2. Now with the new specified skilled labor visa, having N3 could be useful. Maybe. Perhaps. I don’t know. I don’t use it and I don’t have friends with that visa.
• N2 was the minimum requirement for most universities. That, and EJU, and interview, plus portfolio presentation for me because I applied for design school.
• I took N1 because my friends have N1, and it’s cool to have it. N2 is enough for daily conversation and limited professional conversation in Japan, but when you tell people you have N1 and you are not from a country that uses kanji on daily basis (read: China), it helps to impress your interviewers and boost your resume.
  
  

Although I didn’t take N5 and N3, I studied Japanese in a structured syllabus, and I have some tips to share. But just to let you know, this is not some magical tips like “How to pass N1 in a month” or “How to be fluent in Japanese in no time” tips, but more of a “How to start, to improve, and to be fluent in Japanese GRADUALLY and yes it takes time unless you are blessed with language learning magical talent” tips. If you are ready, here we go!

To start :

Tips for remembering hiragana and katakana

I tried to write my friends’ names in hiragana and katakana every day for fun. It helps me memorize similar-looking hiragana like ら(ra)・ち(chi)・さ(sa)・き(ki), and also with katakana like マ(ma)・ム(mu)・シ(shi)・ン(n)・ソ(so)・ツ(tsu). If you’ve never learned Japanese, can you differentiate katakana シ(shi) and ツ(tsu) if I didn’t tell you they were different? Because I couldn’t, until I practice writing them every day.

Tips for early grammar

If you are studying for N5 or N4, make sure you are comfortable with the Japanese verbs conjugations. If you can master that, you are set to learn even more complicated grammar in the future. The books I used for N5 and N4 are Minna No Nihongo I and Minna No Nihongo II.

Tips for listening and speaking

If you are learning Japanese in Japan itself, you are lucky. Every day you are surrounded by Japanese and you’ll get used to listening to Japanese every day even if you don’t want to. If you are like me when I was studying for N5 and N4, I was in Malaysia, surrounded by Chinese-English speakers, so I need to create some time to listen to Japanese language. Find some short news, or Japanese YouTubers, or drama that you like, and listen to it every day even if you don’t understand. I used to listen to a drama called “One Litre of Tears” when I was cramming for N4. I listened to it over and over, I think more than 100 times that I can imagine the scene without watching it and I know what’s going to happen minutes by minutes. Crazy? Yes. But it helps.

To improve :

So you have some basics and it’s getting more complicated. You might have thought Japanese was easy and fun, until it wasn’t. You started to feel like you are not improving, but trust me you are. I’ve been there. I felt old and stupid and just really bad at Japanese. I kept making the same mistakes and couldn’t understand when to use particle は and が, and even after passing N1, I still make mistakes on that.

Tips for remembering vocabularies

I bought some sticky notes and wrote all the items in my tiny apartment in Japanese and put it on the object. For a while, my apartment was full of neon pink and bright yellow notes so I couldn’t invite my friends to hang out, but by writing and looking at the words every moment I was in the room, vocabularies are so easy to remember. For other things outside my apartment, I used an app which unfortunately only available for iOS, called Midori. I made my own vocabulary list by typing out the words from my vocabulary book one by one into the app, and then shuffle them as a digital flashcard. In the app itself, there are lists of words by JLPT level, kanji by grade level, frequency, and JLPT level too.

Tips for grammar

I used this book to learn all N3 grammars. It’s a no-bullshit, a very practical book. All the grammar is explained with some examples. Your homework: write extra one or two examples using the grammar you just learned. You’ll make mistakes, you’ll need extra resources from google, you’ll feel bored and tired, but that’s the way! There’s no such thing as mastering something in no time.

Tips for listening and speaking

When I started N3, I was already in Japan, so naturally, for listening and speaking, I learn while earning money a.k.a. doing a part-time job or arubaito. In the first 3 weeks, I wanted to cry every time I have to go to work. I was so stressed because I couldn’t understand what my colleague was telling me, or what the food name is, and what the customer wants. I was so frustrated by having N4, learning N3, but still couldn’t understand a thing. It was tough, but it gets better. Suddenly my confidence in speaking improved, and my listening skill was so much better after a while. The key is to find a good place to work with understanding colleagues and a good boss.

If you are learning N3 from outside Japan, I think you can keep up with listening to more news than dramas like what I did at the start. In my language school, we started practicing with news from around this level as well.

To be fluent :

Now you know that Japanese is complicated. The onomatopoeia, the different level of politeness, the spoken and written language, and the loan words which sometimes doesn’t make sense (for example : スマート is actually from the word ‘smart’ but it means ‘slim’ in Japanese). Sometimes young people like to make some ‘new words’ from English like ‘now’ is ナウ and some other words.

What I want to say is that like any other language, Japanese keeps evolving. If you want to be fluent and keeping up from outside of Japan, you need to watch some YouTubers and news, or recent dramas. If you live in Japan, watching TV and socializing with Japanese friends might be the best way to keep up.

Tips for different level of politeness

This one is tough. I’m still on progress to master this, but all I can say it practice makes perfect. Copy what people say, take notes when they’re saying it, and try to use it when you have the chance.

I’m currently working in a Japanese company and I have to write emails or make a phone call every day, and that little daily interaction in a formal environment has helped me to understand polite speech a lot faster than studying it from books. I have a file on my computer, filled with email examples, formal greetings for each season, and some phrases to express politeness that are not in books.

Tips for kanji and vocabularies

Kanji should come first. By this time, I think you can roughly guess what the kanji means even if you don’t know how to read it. So I focused on kanji, then I move to vocabularies. I used this N2 Kanji Book and N2 Vocabulary Book. It’s the same for N1 Kanji Book and N1 Vocabulary Book.

I didn’t have much time to study N2, so I also crammed a lot of information in 3 days using this book. I passed N2 the first time by studying like crazy for 3 days, so I thought the same for N1. I didn’t study much until 1 week before the exam, and then of course, I failed. N1 is a lot harder than N2. The next year I bought the same brand of the book I used for N2, and studied for a month and I passed N1!

Tips for listening, speaking, and be fluent

Just speak! If you listen and can’t understand, look it up, or ask the person saying it. Japanese are mostly kind. They’ll understand we’re trying hard enough to learn their language, and they appreciate that.

I’m not going to say I’m fluent in Japanese. If you randomly ask me about global warming and politics, I probably won’t have the answer right away, but I will think about it and get ready the next time you or someone else asks me the same questions. I’m not fluent right now, but I’m on the way there.