Beginner Tips for Learning Japanese

*Drop romaji NOW (the sooner the better)

Romaji will get you nowhere, so better to let go it sooner rather than later. Hiragana and katakana are not that hard once you get of it. You won’t know how to pronounce things correctly it you aren’t aware of silent お, う, って, ん, etc. like in こんにちは、大阪 (おおさか), 東京 (とうきょう).

*Learn katakana

As much as we all hate it as foreigners, DON’T skip it (because you won’t be to read a drink menu, カラオケ, or ラーメン otherwise)

*Enroll in a beginner class, get a tutor, or have a language partner to help with speech and pronunciation

It’s important to work on pronunciation early on. The accent won’t ever be perfectly native unfortunately (unless you grew up hearing/speaking it), but you can definitely improve the accent over time. For example, understanding です (desu) the “u” is silent (except when you want to be VERY formal you can say the “u”)

*Learn how to write N5 kanji (at the very least)

These are the very basic-level kanji, so you should know relatively how to write it from memory (above that is up to you because of smartphones and computers). Knowing how to write the basics will help you get used to kanji. It’s really hard to just see a kanji and memorize the meaning without writing it down in my opinion. 

*Get as much exposure to Japanese conversation as possible

Whether it be anime, dramas, podcasts, etc. you NEED to constantly listen to it. This will not only improve your accent because you remember how certain words are pronounced, but also you will notice the words you heard when you study, thus reconfirming what you already are familiar with. 

For example, you hear ここ or そこ in the drama and then you read about it in the textbook. You are already familiar with it even though you didn’t know what it meant before. 

I highly recommend watching dramas or variety shows over anime because the way anime characters speak is often unnatural. It’s done for effect or for kids. (The exception is Ghibli and the more recent Shinkai Makoto films).

Japanese is incredibly difficult, but you got this!