Chances are, you’ve probably met a few non-native English speakers in some of your classes who were learning Japanese or Spanish or Swahili alongside you. You probably thought, “Rad. I don’t think I could learn Spanish or Swahili if the teacher was instructing in Japanese.” I’m here to tell you that you definitely could do such a thing, that it will help your Japanese abilities if you try, and then I’ll outline an easy way for you to get started.

This post will be helpful for intermediate and advanced learners, but beginners who are reading this should still find useful information here. This also might be one of the strangest Tofugu posts yet because I’m talking about how to learn a language that isn’t Japanese: Japanese Sign Language (JSL / shuwa 手話). While there are generally awesome things to be gained from learning a language through another language, shuwa makes the task easier because of 1) an abundance of learning materials with subtitles and 2) grammatical similarities to spoken Japanese.

Agar Mode: Learning A Language Through Another Language

In microbiology, agar is the jelly-like algae medium used to hold bacteria in petri dishes so they can be observed (without destroying the world). It’s also used in Japanese confections, like yōkan. So, as a way to shorten the phrase “Learning a language through another language”, let’s just call that “Agar Mode.” While there isn’t a lot of research on the added benefits of this mode of learning, there is research that suggests foreign language learning is easier the second time around.

Why is that? How does that even work when you’ve been stuffing the jōyō-kanji plus hundreds (thousands?) of vocabulary words and shadowing dramas and news programs for pronunciation? How can you learn a third language more easily, with a still-in-progress Nihongo squeezing up against whatever English knowledge, physics equations, quilt patterns, and “that one story that makes everyone I’m drinking with do a spit-take”?

It comes down to practice… kind of. Second language learning is one area of research that has a lot of conflicting evidence. Some of the surer things are “We don’t know what kind of motivation works best for everyone, but we know there has to be some of it somewhere for people to get anywhere in language learning.” Similarly, it’s been concluded that people who do okay at picking up one foreign language do okay a little more easily at the second because they’ve already learned and practiced successful study habits. The reason it goes smoother the second time around is because you already know that you need: vocabulary lists, listening practice, writing practice, websites and apps to feed you new challenges, and maybe small increments work best, etc. Believe it or not, the specifics of these study habits, and which ones work best for you, are the non-language things you’re learning while learning Japanese.

Okay. So you can get started with another language easily. Now you might be thinking, “Why should I?”

There are some people out there (again, the research is hard to find, but this guy backs me up) who find that the Agar Mode makes you practice Japanese in a new and impressive way. While immersive experiences are great (e.g., taking photography in Japanese, or taking Japanese in Japanese), the immersive language-learning experience specifically draws on vocabulary and expressions you’re already familiar with in Japanese: verbs, adjectives, modifying phrases, て-form, formality, etc. In the end, your head isn’t translating Japanese > English, English > Japanese, it’s translating Japanese > Language-X, Language-X > Japanese. Other posts on Tofugu mention passive learning, translating all the time, and thinking in Japanese. Sounds similar. Sounds like an integrated way to get better at Nihongo.

Exhibit A: Japanese Sign Language

Obviously, any language would work as the specimen in the Nihongo agar. But I’m going to outline resources for use with Japanese Sign Language in this article. In addition to working well with Agar Mode (so many subtitled materials!), Shuwa is as much a part of Japan as Shinto shrines and Kansai-ben. The people who use it daily read and often speak Japanese regardless of whether they can hear or not. Some Shuwa users went to schools for the deaf, but many such schools have been closed down over the years (see Karen Nakamura’s Deaf in Japan for more background on this), and now many have gone to the same schools as any other Japanese person you might meet.

For those interested in going to or living in Kyoto or Tokyo, you’ll run into a few more people using shuwa; the first Japanese school for the deaf was established in Kyoto, while Tokyo boasts the headquarters of the Japan Federation for the Deaf, as well as a number of active college circles and even academic programs (Tsukuba University, for example) for shuwa users. Furthermore, you’ll see shuwa lessons on Japanese TV and on the railways, not to mention in the popular 2004 drama Orange Days.

Again, the best part about trying this Agar Mode out with Japanese Sign Language is what kind of materials you’ll have available. Also, the grammar is going to be similar.

It should be noted that at the beginner level, most of what you’ll run into is a pidgin between shuwa and spoken Japanese called Nihongo Taiou Shuwa (日本語対応手話), which is more like Signed Japanese than Japanese Sign Language. But for getting started and practicing Japanese, this will do just fine.

Getting Started

Just like you start Japanese by learning hiragana and basic vocabulary, most people start learning shuwa with yubi-moji (‘finger-spelling’, 指文字) and vocabulary in categories like colors, food, places, relationships, etc. Here’s a chart for the yubi-moji; illustrations depict someone facing you directly with these hand shapes. Right or left-handedness doesn’t matter.

When you’ve learned all the hand shapes for the hiragana and have properly associated them, try spelling out some words that you know. By hand-spelling out たべます, for example, you’re not only cementing the hand shapes into your mind, but the concept and idea of たべます as well. When you do this, たべます isn’t “to eat” in English, it’s the idea of “to eat” without the “to eat.” You’re helping your brain to really know the word and idea, rather than telling it to recall the information based off some other information that’s in your brain. It’s Agar Mode in action.

This can help you to learn words you are having trouble memorizing too. For example, when I was having trouble remembering 都/みやこ, I found that when I started signing the word I could suddenly memorize it. So, this concept can have benefits even when used in small doses as well.

Continuing Your JSL Education

There isn’t going to be one single way to learn JSL along with your Japanese, especially if you’re looking to supplement it in this Agar Mode way. It really depends on how you’re learning Japanese. Luckily, Agar Mode is flexible and can mold (ha ha!) to just about any Japanese learning method that you do.

If you’re looking to move beyond the yubi-moji hand shapes, there are a number of resources I’ve found to help you out:

Youtube:

• Shuwa songs: Search for these with 「手話ソング」 or 「手話歌」. My favorite so far is this.
• HeartfulPowerHideo channel: This couple is funny, adorable, and effective at teaching Shuwa through subbed skits.
• Clark Chiba: You won’t be alone in the crowd of foreigners seeking to learn JSL. This person, American, has done some lessons, in Japanese, for people wanting to learn, along with some Shuwa Songs.
• jslvideodayo: this Japanese woman knows Shuwa and learned ASL after coming to the U.S. Her videos feature translations between each (JSL/ASL) with English subs

Drama:

Orange Days: In the words of most Japanese people I talk to about this show, it’s filled with all the great and also difficult things about college life in Japan, especially when facing the dreaded job hunting, but adds in the dilemma a semi-pro musician faces now that she’s deaf.

Shuwa Jiten

Like any other language, there are dialects and regional differences, and the list of words isn’t exhaustive, but this is helpful for looking up illustrations and videos of Shuwa words you want to learn. Try learning the JSL version of a word as you learn the Japanese version of a word at the same time. Or, as you make sentences in Japanese, throw in JSL words as you’re speaking it out loud. Even one or two per sentence will surely help! [Shuwa Jiten]

Academics:

• How about the Wikipedia page on Shuwa?
• Ichida Yasuhiro is a sign linguistics researcher who lectures at places like Todai and Osaka University. His website features a glossary of terms relating to sign language and the linguistics of it. Try out your reading comprehension! For advanced Japanese learners / linguistics students, check out his reference section.

Your Experiment

JSL would help you learn more about Japanese culture while practicing Nihongo, but at the end of the day, it’s your experiment. If you aren’t interested in JSL, have you ever wanted to learn French? Korean? Chinese? Consider using the Agar Mode as a way to start thinking in Japanese more. Crawl the internet with Japanese search terms, and you’ll be taking a dynamic new approach to your studies as you pick through the results.

Or maybe you’re reading this and are yawning because you’ve been here, done this. If so, tell us about your ‘learning a language through Japanese medium’ experiences in the comments!
We want to know: Was this approach effective? What kind of challenges did you face, and how did you navigate them?

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Bonus JSL Hiragana Chart!

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Cram schools are specialized schools that train their students to meet particular goals such as achieving good marks or passing the entrance examinations of high schools or universities. Many Japanese students feel relentless pressure to get ahead of the 受験戦争 (Juken-sensou), also known as the “entrance examination war,” so many kids attend a full day at school and then a few additional hours of cram school in the evening before doing a couple more hours of study at home so they can get to bed right around midnight. That’s a pretty heavy load for a child, isn’t it?

KUMON

Look at how sad that Kumon logo face looks…

My first cram school was 公文 (KUMON), which is a math and reading cram school. I forget exactly when I started it, but I’m going to say it was around my third grade of elementary school. Following that, I moved on to another cram school when I began junior high school. Unlike usual cram schools, KUMON is intended to supplement rather than replace school lessons, so students work individually and progress through the program at their own pace, advancing to the next level when they have mastered of the previous level.

The system was pretty well suited for me since I prefer studying at my own pace and the sheets that we worked on were kind of like a fun puzzle for me to complete. When I was a university student, I even worked at KUMON as an assistant teacher, so I’ve spent a lot of time at Kumon schools. It’s now even present worldwide, and I was even able to find a couple in the Canadian city close to the town that I’m currently living in. So maybe you’ve seen it before even in your own home country?

For The Entrance Examinations

Despite all this Kumon time, I found myself wanting to go to a different cram school when I reached junior high school. I needed something that would specialize in high school entrance examinations. In order to go to the new cram school, I had to take a train every evening, so my parents at first didn’t want to enroll me there. However, I begged them because many of my friends were there. Wanting to hang out with my friends was not the only reason, though. I also didn’t want to find myself academically lagging behind my friends. Keep your friends close and your high school entrance examination enemies closer, eh?

Although the new cram school was much more competitive, and everyone could see how well you did on the mock examinations by looking at a board with all the student’s names on it, I honestly didn’t dislike the school. As I mentioned earlier, the school was a couple of stations away from my town so I had to take the train which was sometimes a bit troublesome, but it also allowed me to make new friends from different schools. The teachers were great, too. I enjoyed that school a lot and was glad that I made the move. When I became a high school student, I once again changed cram schools to focus on the upcoming university entrance exam. At this point it wasn’t that big of a change, so I enjoyed the new school as well.

Special Events

As for special events, both KUMON and the cram school I attended during junior high school had a “New Year’s Eve All-Night Studying Event” (年越し徹夜勉強会/toshikoshi-testuya-benkyoukai). The teachers encouraged us not to fall asleep and to keep studying until morning. There were even a few games to help stimulate and relax students as well. It was a lot of fun to stay up late with my friends, but everyone reaches a wall and you would get sleepy at some point and find it nearly impossible to keep studying. Granted, it wasn’t an effective way to study at all, but it did teach us some discipline.

I know you’re probably sarcastically thinking “Right on! That sounds like a fantastic way to spend New Years Eve!” However, after saying that, studying all night together actually made us feel as though we achieved something great and it was a real confidence booster. The New Year’s sunrise, known as 初日の出 (hatsuhinode) was quite memorable, too. Everyone made the same New Years resolution: study hard to achieve good marks on the entrance exam.

The Interview With Juku-experienced People

Now, you may think I’m a bit of an oddball because I actually liked juku (cram school), but I’m not the only one. I interviewed some people who attended cram schools when they were younger and I found that every single one of these girls really enjoyed going, at least in retrospect.

Rina (pen-name), who is 19-year-old female, went to cram schools while she was in elementary and junior high school. Although she had to go there every day, except on Sundays and summer vacations, she said she liked it. 

塾は好きでした。他の人と楽しく勉強できて行くのが好きだし楽しかったから。勇気づけるための言葉とか目標とかをいつも言ってくれたり、壁に紙がはってあったり、先生が面白いから毎日塾に行きたがってた！
I liked my cram schools. It was enjoyable to study with my friends. Teachers also gave us many quotes, posted phrases on the wall and set goals for us, all with the purpose of encouraging us.  I found it fun and funny so I wanted to go to the cram school every day.

Paeja (pen-name), who is 28-year-old female, also liked her cram school. She went to her cram schools during all of her elementary, junior, and high school years. Her cram school also had a New Years Eve camp-in for working on a collection of past entrance exams from many choice schools.

他校の友達としりあえたし、塾の先生が好きだったから塾は好きでした。
I liked my cram schools because I was able to get to know students from other schools and I also liked the cram school teachers.

I also asked her why she liked the teachers. She answered they were nice and funny and she gave me a couple examples of why she thought so.

・夏期講習の最終日に友達が家出をしたが、塾の先生が親身に面倒をみてくれていた。
・同じ塾に通っていた兄が通塾を拒否し無断欠席を繰り返したら、塾の先生と学年主任が夜中にアポ無しで家庭訪問に来た。
・地理の授業で地図の特産物マークを「ワカメちゃん」「綿花ちゃん」と擬人化する先生がいた。
・On the last day of the summer program, one of my friends ran away from home. The cram school teachers were genuinely worried about her and looked after her after she was found.
・My brother went to the same cram school I did, but he rejected the idea of cram school and was repeatedly truant. His teacher and the head teacher of his grade worried about him and unexpectedly visited our home at night after the cram school closed.
・In a geography class, I had a teacher who always personified the principal product of each country’s district like ‘Wakame-chan (Seaweed-chan)’ or ‘Menka-chan (Cotton-chan)’. I found it funny and it helped me memorize them.

Surprisingly, she confessed to liking the cram school teachers so much that she even fell in love with one of them. She ran into him 10 years down the line and they actually dated for a while. She also told me that it’s fairly common for a student to develop a crush on a cram school teacher. She had a friend who had a crush on a teacher while going there, too. She remembers that she dreamt up an imaginary love story between her friend and the teacher and wrote the short story out for her, but it was discovered by the teacher somehow and both of them felt monstrously embarrassed.

Yukari (pen-name), who is 28-year-old female, also liked her cram school, though she had a rather bitter experience there.  The teacher scolded her for having a secret Christmas party in the self-study room with her friends. As you might presume, she had a lot of friends there and that was the reason that she liked the cram school so much. She also worked at a cram school when she was a university student. She often looks back on that period in her life and remembers how busy her days were. 

３年間進学塾で中学理科を教えていました。塾の講師は自分のプライベートな時間はほとんど取れなくて塾内でのコミュニティが全てという感じになっていました。
そのため、昼ドラのようなドロドロした恋愛模様がそこら中でありました。”
I taught junior high school level science at a cram school for three years. Being a teacher at a cram school means being very busy. I barely had any private time and  neither did the other teachers. Our whole lives existed within the cram school. Therefore, there were actually a lot of complicated, soap opera-esque relationships among the cram school staff.

However, there are of course some people who don’t like cram schools and 8-chilis (pen-name) is one of them. He didn’t like cram school because you are bound to a lot of things. He once attended a winter session when he was in junior high school, but he thought he could do it by himself because a cram school is just a tool and not necessary.

稲田塾憲法249条: Article 294 of the Inada-Juku Constitution

Although he succeeded in doing well on his high school entrance exam, he failed the entrance exam for university which resulted in him becoming a 浪人(rounin). Rounin means a masterless samurai, or a jobless person / high-school graduate who has failed to enter a university and is waiting for another chance to obtain a place. While he was a “rounin,” he finally went to a cram school because he felt that he needed to regiment his studying and also thought it would have been fruitless to continue studying by himself for one year without seeking any assistance. After doing so, he successfully rewrote the entrance examination and was accepted to Kyoto University a.k.a Kyoudai, which is the second oldest Japanese university and one of the highest ranked universities in economics in all of Asia. It is also one of Japan’s Seven National Universities. However, he told me that he still didn’t regret his decision of not going to cram school when he was younger.

たらればで、もし塾いってたらどうなってたかなーとは考えたけど、行ってても落ちてたと思うわ。
ちゃんと受かった人って志望校も目的意識もはっきりしてたけど、俺にはそれがなかったから何回やっても結果はだめやったと思うねん┐(￣ヘ￣）┌
そんな状況でよく浪人して受かったな～と思ってるぐらい(笑)
He continued, “Of course I imagined the “what if” stories, but I probably still would have failed the exam, even if I did go to a cram school. The people who did move on to university had a clear goal in their minds, but I had no such goals. I figure that even if I could go back to that time and try the exam again, I would fail it. So I kind of impressed myself when ended up passing the exam after one year of being a rounin”, he chuckles.

Remember, he still ended up going to Kyoto University, so he was a smart guy after all, but we can’t be sure how a cram school may have benefited him on his first exam, if he had gone to one. Initially he told me that he disapproved of cram schools because he didn’t want to feel bound to it in order to succeed, however, after one year of being a “rounin,” that is the exact reason why he placed himself there. He utilized his time and motivation very well. Anyways, I’d say that becoming a cram school student is a very wise path to walk down, although it is often an arduous and uphill one. Whatever your reasons for going, rest assured they are probably good ones.

The Importance To Be Liked By Students

Granted, there may be some drama among the cram school staff, like Yukari mentioned, but there are many teachers beloved by their students and it is one of the main reasons why students continue to go back to cram school, as Rina and Paeja did.  I think it’s fair to say that most teachers would agree, to some extent, that being liked by students creates a better learning environment and eases the job of being an effective teacher.  However, there is a secondary truth to that, as well, which is that if teachers are not well liked or accepted among the students, they face the possibility of losing their jobs.

According to a research study conducted by Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry about cram schools, of 2,071 parents who have one or more children attending a cram school, over 90% of them agreed that teaching methods are incredibly important, but they also believed the eagerness of the teachers and how intently they take care for their children is critical.

Additionally, another research study, conducted by the Japan Juku Association, administered a questionnaire to over 5,000 separate cram schools with the intent of discovering what criterion they hold as the most important in the evaluation of teachers. The results showed that 46.6% of employers consider teacher reputation among students as the main benchmark and it was the single most important criterion. Surprisingly, academic improvement was secondary to reputation with a score of (45.8%) and the third most important consideration when evaluating teacher performance was teacher reputation among the students’ parents (41.3%).

So it seems that the primary requirement for a teacher’s longevity in a cram school is that they are liked by the students.  This study may not be something that those teachers should read as it might add a whole new level of stress as they attempt to cross off yet another strenuous goal on their list of career accomplishments – acceptance.

I can just imagine all the elderly teachers wearing parachute pants walking into a classroom with a boom box blaring AC/DC or Run-D.M.C. planted firmly on their shoulder and saying “Ah yeah, this is my jam!” while passing out sticks of peppermint bubble gum and yoyos to a room of bewildered students. 

‘Hayashi Osamu’ Boom

47-year-old Osamu Hayashi is probably the most famous and successful teacher currently working in Japan. He teaches contemporary Japanese literature at a nationwide cram school called Toshin High School that mainly focuses on preparing students for university entrance exams. 

Toshin High School is known for its unique TV commercial series, which focuses on some of their most popular teachers and shows a few quick clips of their actual classes. Each teacher has their own distinct character and uses strong words to encourage their students. Hayashi is one of the teachers that appears on Toshin‘s commercial series, and his  signature phrase during class and on the commercial is: “Itsu yaru ka? Ima desho!“, meaning “When will you act? It should be right now!”

The message was originally intended for students planning on taking college entrance exams and, in fact, he was already famous among students even before making his way into the TV world. Yet, some business people recognized the phrase’s great potential and thought of how to use it. He started  appearing in a number of TV commercials and campaigns, and the phrase became a nationwide catchphrase, especially among the younger generation.

The phrase is now used in many places such as drinking parties or even business situations. For example, some people ask their colleagues, “If you don’t drink now, then when will you?” in order to make them answer, “Imadesho“.   Salesmen try to encourage their clients who are hesitating on signing a contract, “We have a great campaign rate at the moment and if you don’t sign up now, when will you sign up? It should be done right now!”

So what does the fad of Hayashi tell us about Japanese cram school education? After all, is cram school a business whose “product” quality is solely based on their number of admissions? If the reputation of a school is decided upon by children and their parents, and if advertising helps to develop a positive reputation for your school, then all the more power to you. Thanks to its commercials, Toshin High School is now famous for having “unique” teachers, though its mission is simply to help their students to pass the entrance exams for some of the top universities in Japan, including the University of Tokyo from which Hayashi himself graduated.

From my experience, I felt that my teachers were in it for more than just money. You could probably pick that up from Paeja’s comments, as well. Some teachers even visited a family for one student because they worried about her brother’s future. It may have been a part of their business’ protocol, but to me, it’s more than that. If things like this were done solely for business purposes, I don’t think that they would have bothered to take so much care of a runaway girl, either.

Now, what do you think of the Japanese cram school? Do you think that it’s too much work load for children? Or, have you had harder experiences in your country? As for the teachers, do you think that they are doing favors for themselves? Or, do you think that they are truly worried about children?

Bonus Wallpapers!

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(My Ideal Guy: (Johnny Depp + Orlando Bloom)/2 drawn by Mami)

This sounds like a dream, doesn’t it? I wish this was true, but unfortunately not…

“Tell me about your greatest moment as a student.” That was my homework from the ESL school that I used to go to. As you can probably tell, I wasn’t particularly ‘diligent’ and that is why I made up a silly short story for my homework. Getting a high grade or making a great presentation could be thought of as a “great moment” for most students, but honestly I couldn’t come up with any good examples at the time no matter how much I thought about it.

Education is often analyzed in terms of outcomes, results, or as a process. But here I would like to put this assumption aside, and just concentrate on the experience itself, specifically in Japan. Wouldn’t you like to know what it is like?

Educational system in Japan

In Japan, the educational system in is the same as it is where I am now (Canada).

6 years of elementary school
3 years of junior high school
3 years of high school
4 years of university

This was actually reformed after WWII from the old 6-5-3-3 system to what you see above. Of these years of education, high school and university are not mandatory, though high school enrollment is over 96% nationwide in nearly all cities of Japan. Around 46% of Japanese high school graduates go on to college or university.

Most schools operate on a three-term system with the academic year starting in April when the cherry blossom bloom, and end in March of the following year. So in March there is a graduation ceremony, and I remember a lot of students were crying because of hay fever creating a very grave atmosphere.

There are some people who claim that Japan should change the school-year system to be the same as North America, because this difference sometimes causes inconveniences to students who wish to study abroad in places such as the US, Canada, and so on. The same problem would happen to foreigners who wish to study in Japan as well. They graduate from their school in June or July, but have to wait until April to go to a Japanese school.

Personally I would be a little sad if the Japanese school-year system was changed. It’s such a beautiful moment to say goodbye to your friends underneath the cherry blossoms in full bloom.There are so many good songs about graduation and cherry blossoms, too, and they would all be ruined! Although I understand the student side of perspective, I’d like them to leave that system as a Japanese culture.

「さくら（独唱）」／森山直太朗

卒園式の歌(さよなら僕たちの幼稚園) 号泣

Too Many Study Hours

Other than the lower grades of elementary school, an average school day on weekdays in Japan is seven to eight hours depending on the school and what grade you’re in. That’s one of the longest school days in the world! Despite this, a student’s studying doesn’t usually finish even after school lets out. Not only do they have drills and other homework after school, but there’s also extra classes to attend at their public schools or at private “cram schools” known as 塾 (じゅく/juku). Especially with junior high and high school students, much extra time outside of regular school is spent studying and preparing for their entrance examinations. Even during vacations (six weeks in the summer and two weeks for both winter and spring) there is often homework to be done and jukus to attend. Hours outside of school hours are spent at juku.

If my memory serves me correctly, I started going to a cram school in my third grade of elementary school. I still remember when we had a “New Year’s Eve all-night studying (年越し徹夜勉強会：としこしてつやべんきょうかい/toshikoshi-testuya-benkyoukai)” event in my fifth grade. Teachers encouraged us not to fall asleep but to keep studying until the morning. It would have been very fun to stay up later with friends, if only we weren’t studying. However, 初日の出 (hatsu-hinode), which means “the new year sunrise,” was quite memorable and made everyone’s new year resolution the same: achieve better grades and study hard. I found it pretty fun at first, because teachers actually prepared a little games for us, too. However, maybe around one o’clock, my eyelids started getting more and more heavy. I tried to study but couldn’t concentrate on it anymore and I doubt that it was only me. It wasn’t a efficient way to study at all. It was all about discipline.

Although studying itself is good for everyone, studying too much can make people stressed out. Therefore, if I could change the Japanese school system, I would remove the big entrance examinations and cut down the amount of private school education, because I think that is an overload of work for children. Second only to bullying, the number of children committing suicide due to “anxiety for the future” is increasing. Most of this is due to worry about how one will perform on examinations.

Japanese Classroom System

I was surprised that many schools in Canada don’t seem to have fixed classrooms because in Japan every class has its own fixed classroom. In most cases in Japan, the students take all the courses in the same classroom with the same classmates, except for practical trainings and laboratory works. In my case, grades 3-4 and grades 5-6 were 2-year fixed classrooms, though it’s usually just a 1-year fixed classroom system.

In elementary school, one teacher teaches all the subjects in each class, whereas the teacher changes depending on a subject in junior high and high school. Instead of the students moving around to the teachers, the teachers move around to the student (besides the exceptions I mentioned earlier).

Another thing that’s different about the Japanese classroom system is that most elementary and/or junior high schools provide lunches on a standardized menus known as the 給食 (きゅうしょく / kyuushoku). The students are all divided into groups called 班 (はん / han). With lunch, this is important because one han is the 給食当番 (きゅうしょくとうばん / kyuushoku-touban). This particular han’s job is to take responsibility for the 給食. They pick up their classmates’ lunches in the school kitchen / lunch delivery area, carry the lunches to the classroom, serve their fellow classmates, makes sure that the food settles down into each kids’ stomachs, and then carries everything back. There is usually about a week rotation for which each han is the 給食当番.

If you’re not on the lunch duty han, your han could be doing something else that’s helpful. For example, students in a Japanese school are responsible for doing the cleaning of their own school. Sometimes there is a han that takes on the duty of cleaning (掃除/そうじ/souji), and they are known as the 掃除当番 (そうじとうばん / soujitouban). I think this is a great system because it is a good way for kids to learn how to socialize and be responsible. It also makes them more aware about causing a mess, since either they or a friend will have to clean it up!

School Uniforms

Some elementary schools and nearly all junior and high schools require their students to wear school uniforms. In my case, I wore school uniforms from kindergarten to high school.

Although some people believe that students, or at least high school students, should be able to choose the clothes they want to wear in school, I’d say that the best policy is that they wear uniforms because it’s more affordable and convenient.

Students tend to be very concerned about fashion and fitting in, so if they can choose the clothes they want to wear at school, they will prefer to wear brand-name clothing. For example, I remember that girls put a lot of money into brand-name socks or loose socks, which are a style of baggy socks. A pair of socks are sometimes 1,000-2,000yen. What a rip off! Thank goodness socks are the only brand-name thing for us to put on due to the uniform. If we were allowed to wear whatever we wanted, people would have certainly added hundreds of thousands of yen in clothing costs in a single year.

Also, uniforms are very convenient. Students do not need to worry about what they will wear to school. For instance, they do not need to consider what colors match with what, which style looks best, and what their classmate will think of their clothing. If everyone wears the same uniform, all of these choices are made in advance , so you don’t have to feel self conscious about your clothes. It saves more time for students and they can concentrate on studying more, though it just gave me longer sleep in the morning.

Furthermore, uniforms tend to be made of strong materials and they are easy to clean. I wore uniforms from kindergarten to high school and I had two uniforms for each warm season and cold season. When one was dirty I would wash it and wear the other one. This way my school clothes were always clean and ready to be worn. Uniforms are very practical!

They are not good all the time, though. As in many countries, uniform policy is strictly adhered to. There is a set length for skirts and teachers would take out tape measures to check. Japan has four seasons and its weather and temperature can vary greatly. However, uniforms usually only come in two varieties: winter and summer. Anything in-between can be a bit uncomfortable.

I also remember that my teacher wouldn’t allow me to put pants on because of the uniform policy, even though it was a freaking cold day. It might become less practical and ununified, but I think it would be good for students’ health to wear warmer clothes on cold days and lighter clothes on warmer days. Heck, let the boys wear skirts in the summer if they want to! I still believe that I have bad circulation because of the school uniforms.

A Great Difference

A great difference between the Japanese school system and the North American School system is that the North American people respect and encourage independence whereas the Japanese people control individual responsibility by maintaining group rules. This explains one characteristic of Japanese social behavior (or maybe even Asian social behavior).

I realized this fact in ESL school in Canada. There were students from all over in the classroom: Saudis, Brazilians, Spanish, Chinese, Korean and me, Japanese. While the teacher was talking, myself, the Chinese, and the Korean students never butted in to ask questions or to announce our opinions. We waited until the teacher was completely finished, whereas students from other countries spoke out anytime.

We talked about this in the classroom once and figured out that this difference was caused by each country’s school system: in Asia, we mostly have lecture style lessons and in other countries, they spend a lot of time doing discussion style lessons.

A Joke

To finish this article, I wanted to end with a famous joke called “A Brilliant Japanese Student In An American Classroom.” I wonder if you find an odd bit in this joke… you got it? Yeah, the Japanese guy named Hideo speaks out too actively, doesn’t he? Which is pretty different from what you’ve learned about Japanese students from this article today. I don’t think the average Japanese student puts his/her hand up as much as this guy, either.

A BRILLIANT JAPANESE STUDENT IN AN AMERICAN CLASSROOM

It was the first day of school and a new student named Hideo, the son of a
Japanese businessman, entered the fourth grade. The teacher said, “Let’s
begin by reviewing some American history.”

Who said “Give me Liberty, or give me Death?” She saw a sea of blank faces,
except for Hideo, who had his hand up.

“Patrick Henry, 1775.” he said.

“Very good! Who said ‘Government of the people, by the people, for the people,
shall not perish from the earth’”? Again, no response except from Hideo:

“Abraham Lincoln, 1863.”, said Hideo

The teacher snapped at the class, “Class, you should be ashamed. Hideo, who is
new to our country, knows more about its history than you do.”

She heard a loud whisper: “F-k the Japanese.”

“Who said that?” she demanded.

Hideo put his hand up. “Lee Iacocca, 1982.”

At that point, a student in the back said, “I’m gonna puke.”

The teacher glares and asks “All right! Now, who said that?”

Again, Hideo says, “George Bush, to the Japanese Prime Minister, 1991.”

Furious, another student yells, “Oh yeah? Suck this!”

Hideo jumps out of his chair waving his hand and shouts to the teacher, “Bill
Clinton, to Monica Lewinsky, 1997!”

Now, with almost a mob hysteria, someone said, “You little sh*t, if you ever
say anything else, I will have you killed.”

Hideo yells at the top of his voice, “Gary Condit, to Chandra Levy, 2001.”

The teacher fainted

Hope you enjoyed the joke! For me, the Japanese education system is weak because it makes Japanese students get more and more conservative as time goes by. I think Japanese students should be more vocal and participate in a conversation like Hideo. Well, maybe Hideo is too much, but at least a little more. Many of them don’t have curiosity about the world or ambition to study overseas, either.

I think that this problem has been caused by the big examination system because they are forced to be in a competition to get into the better school from very early in their life. Their end goal is often set up to get into the best university by their parents and/or teachers. Hence, many of them don’t gain curiosity about anything other than getting a good mark and they become like drones.

I’m pretty sure that you all probably have such interesting personal stories about your own educational experience. Tell me about your country’s education system. How is it different? How is it the same? What do you like / dislike? I think all educational systems in the world have good parts and bad parts, so maybe if we learn from each other we can make education better around the world! Arigatou.

Bonus Wallpapers!

[2560x1600] • [1280x800] • [1280x800 Animation] • [700x438 Animation]

Now, let’s think about cheating in real life. Here, your desired outcome isn’t to get a good grade, it’s simply to get to your desired outcome. So for example, let’s say your desired outcome is “to become fluent in Japanese.” If you “cheat,” and you get to your desired outcome (becoming fluent in Japanese), you’re still getting fluent in Japanese. The cheating part is how you get there. Of course, cheating in real life can bring about very negative consequences as well, but in this case cheating is just helping you out.

Minimum Effective Dose (MED)

In order to help you to “cheat” to learn Japanese better, you are going to have to learn about something known as the “Minimum Effective Dose,” or MED. I mentioned it in my Japanese Long Breath Diet post, but it’s even more applicable here. MED, put simply, is the smallest dose that will still produce the desired outcome. In bodybuilding, it’s the amount of any particular exercise (or steroids) one can do in order to release an ideal amount of muscle building hormones. It’s also choosing the most effective exercises to get them to that point with the least amount of effort. If you exercise way too much, on the other hand, you’re not getting the same amount of results for the time put in (not to mention the way longer recovery time after).

Here are some other examples that help to explain MED, from Ferris’ book, The 4-Hour Body (he’s the guy who popularized the concept).

To boil water, the MED is 212°F (100°C) at standard air pressure. Boiled is boiled. Higher temperatures will not make it “more boiled.” Higher temperatures just consume more resources that could be used for something else more productive.

Another:

If you need 15 minutes in the sun to trigger a melanin response, 15 minutes is your MED for tanning. More than 15 minutes is redundant and will just result in burning and a forced break from the beach. During this forced break from the beach, let’s assume one week, someone else who heeded his natural 15-minute MED will be able to fit in four more tanning sessions. He is four shades darker, whereas you have returned to your pale pre-beach self. Sad little manatee. In biological systems, exceeding your MED can freeze progress for weeks, even months.

You get the idea, right? Doing more isn’t always better. In this article my goal is to show you where you’re going over the MED just in your Japanese studies. I’ll also talk about some interesting ideas you can use that relate to MED to cut your quest to Japanese fluency down considerably.

Your Inefficient Japanese Study

With Japanese study, one way to measure MED is to think about how long it takes to learn a kanji, vocab word, or grammar point. Another way to think about it is in terms of “time to fluency.” I’ll be covering both of these things, but in the end it comes down to what works best for you. Everyone’s MED is going to be a little bit different. These ideas and suggestions will need to be altered to fit you as an individual, so keep that in mind.

First, Solidify Your Pronunciation

Think about something abstract. You probably can’t, can you? This is because abstract things are things you know nothing about. You have nothing in your brain already that you can hook this “abstract” thing into, making it very difficult to memorize. This is why on TextFugu and WaniKani we make sure that everything builds on previous lessons so that nothing is abstract. New memories are attached to old memories, making everything much easier to grasp. With TextFugu, we start you off with hiragana as the very first foundational step that you get to build off of. Why? Because it teaches you Japanese pronunciation.

Now why would this be important? And how will this save you time? First of all, it helps to reduce the “abstractness” of the Japanese language. When you feel solid on pronunciation (not to mention the kana), you have something to work off of. In fact, everything works off of the pronunciation for the phonetic “alphabet” that makes up the Japanese language. When you’re not thinking about and worrying about the sounds, you can think and worry about the words and the grammar instead. These are the things that move you forward.

Spending a little bit of time on the pronunciation will speed everything up quite a bit. The MED here is that you’re allowing yourself to focus in on what it needs to focus in on. Ignoring pronunciation will make you less confident down the road and make things harder and harder as you try to learn more, thus wasting time in the long run. A small dose of pronunciation has a lot of positive effect!

Instead Of Going To Japanese Class…

While joining and going to a Japanese class has its obvious benefits, think about what you’re giving up in return. First of all, it’s a lot of time, and that time is spent at a speed set by the teacher. If the teacher makes you learn faster, you learn faster. If they have you learn more slowly, you’ll learn more slowly. That’s the problem with classes, they go as fast as the teacher (or slowest student) wants. But, there’s some other things to consider as well. How much money are you spending on a semester of class? What about a year? Some Japanese classes are going to be very cheap, so good for you. Others will be in the thousands of dollars, if you consider what a college education will run you. Instead, why not take those thousands and go to Japan for a week or two?

Think about it. First of all, it will probably force you to cram a whole lot in the week or two before you leave, meaning you’ll be focusing and learning a ton during that time period. Procrastinating will do that to you. Then, when you get there, you can make it your goal to talk to as many people as you can. Listening and reading will get a huge boost too! There’s nothing like a concentrated immersion to jump you several levels up. This will vary from person to person, but if someone told me I could spend the same amount of money hanging out in Japan to learn the same amount of material (or more) in a tenth of the time… why would you not do it?

Most people bring it down to the cost, but if you’re already spending money on an expensive class, going to Japan to immerse yourself for a little bit is almost certainly a more efficient option (a lot more fun, too). The MED here is that you’re getting the most out of a shorter amount of time for a similar amount of money. Less time waste, more language gain. Win-win.

That being said, effectiveness and cost of said class will vary. Something to think about for many of you, anyways.

Kanji Repetitions… Repetitions… Repetitions…

I think we’ve all done it. “Write this kanji 100 times!” they say. “You’ll learn the kanji this way!” they say. But, in the end you don’t remember how to write the kanji you wrote all those times the next day. This is because after the first few times, your brain goes on autopilot and you write the kanji over and over again without making much memory progress. Even worse, a lot of the time you write the kanji again by looking at the previous kanji you wrote. That means you’re not performing any recall at all, which also means you’re not learning anything (memories are made stronger by recalling said memories, not by trying to stuff them into your head repeatedly).

Yet, this is how almost everyone has you “learn” kanji. It’s easy for the teachers. Also, it’s “the way its always been done,” especially if you look at Japan and how their kids learn kanji. There’s a myth, though, that Japanese kids learn all the Joyo kanji faster than anyone else. They’re Japanese! They must be able to learn the kanji faster than us! Boo. Thing is, it’s taking them 5-6 years to learn all the Joyo kanji. Sure, being in Japan they have the advantage of being around kanji all the time. But, you can learn the kanji faster than any Japanese kid if you stop learning like a Japanese kid. Adults really can learn faster than children. The reason they don’t is because they’re not smart about how they learn (kids have that sponge-brain advantage, so they learn somewhat fast despite using poor learning systems). Use your adult smarts to become an insanely good learner!

With kanji learning, there are a few things you need to do to cut out the wasteful repetition.

1. Think in terms of radicals. This means you learn pieces of the kanji that can be re-used in multiple kanji (efficient!) as well as decrease the amount of things you have to learn per kanji (3 radicals to make a kanji or 15 strokes? I’ll choose the smaller number, thank you very much). Resources that use this method include: WaniKani, KanjiDamage, Kanji Koohii, and Remembering The Kanji.
2. If you do insist on writing the kanji (more on that in a second) force yourself to recall the kanji from scratch each time you write it down. Looking at a reference while you write will not make your memory any stronger. It’s just a waste of time.
3. Use an SRS (spaced repetition system) like Anki or Memrise. These will help you to study the kanji items at ideal times. The strongest advancement of a memory you want to improve on happens right before you forget it. Forcing yourself to recall an item at this period in memory will tell your brain it’s very important to keep. Spaced repetition will help you to achieve this without having to think about when to study. It cuts down on wasteful study repetitions as well.

The main thing is… don’t do hundreds of repetitions of kanji just because everyone else does it. I know a few of you in the comments will say “well, actually it works for me,” but I promise you… there’s some inefficiency going on there. Writing a kanji three times (while forcing yourself to recall the kanji from scratch) is going to give you a lot more progress than writing a kanji 100 times that you copy over and over again. Guess which one takes less time (and cramps your hand up less)? You got it. There’s your MED for kanji repetition.

Writing By Hand

I’ve written about this before, but I think it’s important to reiterate. At least when it comes to MED, you do not need to learn how to write kanji. There are two main reasons for this:

1. When was the last time you had to hand write something? Sure, it happens sometimes, but almost all writing communication is done via cell phone or the computer.
2. It doubles (or triples) the amount of time you have to spend on each kanji. If your goal is fluency, or even just the ability to read, learning to write all the kanji by hand is a waste of time and effort, at least when you compare it to what benefit you’re getting.

I’m going to pad this “you don’t need to learn to write” statement by saying that sure, it’s nice to be able to hand write kanji, but if you’re looking to learn the most possible in the shortest amount of time, learning to write kanji is going to slow you down considerably. We’re looking at the minimum effective dose, here.

Plus, if you learn your kanji radicals really well, and then you learn the basic stroke order rules, you can learn to hand write any kanji you want later on. Don’t waste your time on something you will barely be using in exchange for getting to fluency more quickly.

On an ending note, a lot of people will say that handwriting helps with retention, and those people will indeed be right. But, in terms of the time versus benefit, I don’t think it’s a fair trade at all. Many, many WaniKani members will be able to attest to both the speed and benefit of only focusing on reading, I think. Writing may improve retention, but it will hold your overall progress back as well if you let it.

Hacking Grammar

This is something I’ve been reading up a lot on and thinking about while working on the next revisions of TextFugu (that unicorn does exist, believe it or not!). Anyways, let me share with you some of my thoughts on this, and perhaps you can apply them to your own studies right now.

One thing I’ve found is that there are a handful of grammar terms that you can learn that will give you a lot more bang for your buck. Once you’ve learned them, you’ll be able to say and understand a lot more than you’ve ever thought possible. Supposedly, these are them:

How long would it take to learn and understand these 12 grammar points? Probably not that long, if you put in the effort. I bet you could get them all down in three hours or less. How long would it take you to learn all these grammar points in a classroom? Three months? Six months? I guess it really depends on the teacher.

A couple things to note about this:

• The vocabulary is pretty much all the same across the board (meaning you can focus on the grammar part), and it’s mainly about finding and understanding the differences between them.
• It teaches you a lot more than you might think at first glance. Check out the tenses, parts of speech, and so on, and you’ll see what I mean.

Now, this only gets you grammar, though it gets you a lot of grammar in a shorter period of time. Any other grammar will probably work off of this grammar in one way or another, so it will also provide a solid base for you. One big thing is missing, though, and that’s vocabulary. Let’s cover the MED of that, next.

Japanese Vocabulary Learning

Learning the 1,000 most common words in any language is said to cover around 70% of the words used in everyday speech. Learning 2,000 will get you to somewhere more like 80%. The last 20% requires a lot more words than that, so I think you can see how ordering your vocabulary learning will increase learning efficiency.

While 70-80% of “everyday speech” isn’t quite enough to be fluent, it does get you a lot of the way there (70-80% of the way, in fact!). This is enough to talk with people, understand a lot of what’s being said or written, and giving yourself a very solid base to work from.

But, how do you know even what these 1,000 common words are?

There’s a lot of lists out there (this one is pretty good) that are worth looking at. In fact, a Google search for “most common Japanese words” will give you an overwhelming number of results. I think the main thing to do here is to not get caught up in all the lists, because they’re all somewhat similar. WaniKani could even be considered a “common words list,” though by adding kanji in there we’re complicating things quite a bit.

Speaking of kanji, Japanese isn’t like most other languages. Learning the kanji and their meanings / readings can help you to learn vocabulary as well. While combining kanji and vocab learning will require a different ordering from most “common word lists” it does have its perks, especially if you want to learn to read Japanese down the line. So, word frequency isn’t the only thing you can think about when learning Japanese vocabulary. You have to think of the kanji ordering as well. Let’s do that…

Kanji Vs. Kanji Meaning

How complicated a kanji is and how complicated the meaning of a kanji is are two completely different things. If you’re a Japanese kid, you’ll learn kanji with a less complicated meaning first then work your way up to the concepts that are more difficult to understand. It’s the same thing in English, too.

Cat: Short word, simple meaning, easy to understand, learned early in life.

Elephant: Long word, simple meaning, easy to understand, also learned early in life.

Zinc: Short word, difficult meaning, learned later in life.

Do you see the difference here? Kids will learn the word “elephant” before they learn the word “zinc,” even though it’s longer. With kanji it’s the same thing. Kids will learn 食 and 曜 before they learn 亡 or 久. Just from looking at those, you can see which one is simpler from a visual standpoint. The meaning is more difficult on those two simpler looking kanji, but the actual kanji itself is easy!

Being a non-child yourself (I’m assuming), you don’t have to learn kanji the way Japanese kids do it. You can learn kanji in an order that focuses on the difficulty of the kanji itself (at least at first) rather than the difficulty of the meaning of the kanji. From there, you can build up and learn more and more complicated kanji. As a bonus, these simpler kanji will Voltron into more complicated kanji, helping you to build up, step by step. Since the goal is to learn the joyo kanji (for most people), the order should be set up so it’s ideal for getting you to that end goal as quickly as possible

Yet, most people don’t learn it this way, going from simple meaning to difficult meaning, ignoring how complicated the kanji is. Just because Japanese kids do it a certain way doesn’t mean it’s going to be the best way for everyone (though many teachers will try to tell you otherwise, so be careful!).

Some resources that do it the good way: WaniKani, KanjiDamage, Kanji Koohii, and Remembering The Kanji.

Studying In Smaller Doses

I’ve said this a million times, but it deserves to be said again and again… consistency is going to be your best friend in language acquisition. Short, frequent bursts of study all the time are going to get you further forward than studying infrequently in bigger chunks.

There are a few reasons for this.

• First, the typical brain can only take so much at one time. You have to let information process a bit in between study sessions. Sleeping between studying helps a lot too.
• It’s harder to focus for long periods of time, but it’s easy to focus for short periods. Shorter focused study is better than a long unfocused one.
• Frequent but separated studying also allows you to recall memories in a more spread out fashion. Just like with SRS, recalling things before you forget them is more helpful than repeatedly recalling something over and over in a short span of time. It tells your brain that this information is important. Short, separate study bursts encourage this.

Studying this way takes the least amount of time overall and gives you the most benefit from the effort. As long as you make it a habit to study in all the little cracks of time you have, you’ll be making a ton of progress in no time at all. In fact, it’ll be like you aren’t even taking up more time at all, which is nice for those of you who are “forever busy.”

Do The Hard Things

Ha! Just because we’re cheating doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy! In fact, doing the hard things is what separates the successful from the unsuccessful. If you want to become fluent in Japanese, you have to do the hard things too. So, find out what your weak points are (no really, sit and write them out). Be brutal. These are the things keeping you from making any good progress. They’re the things that make MED more difficult, and you need to get them out of the way.

While I can’t speak for everyone’s weak points, here are some general ways to get rid of them.

1. Figure out what those weak points are. Enough said.
2. Break them down. Figure out what makes the concept tick. Can you identify three things that make the concept what it is? If you removed any of the three, it wouldn’t work anymore.
3. Focus on those three separate things, trying to improve them apart from each other. Then, combine them back together.
4. Repeat.

This isn’t easy, and it isn’t particularly fun, but it’s way better than just letting it sit there forever, hoping it gets better (it won’t). If you don’t focus in on the things that give you trouble you’re never going to advance. It’s better to know that now rather than later. And, once they’ve been removed, you’ll find yourself moving along faster than ever before.

Applying MED To The Rest Of Your Life

You can, of course, apply this style of thinking to the rest of your life too. While it becomes tiring to always think “MED this” and “MED that,” it can really help you to make improvements on just about anything you do on a regular basis. This will give you more time for doing the things you actually love, and maybe it will have other perks and benefits too (promotion?). As you develop this framework of thinking, you’ll naturally get better at just about everything.

But, it’s not a fast process, and it will be one that you keep refining and learning about, but that’s half the fun. I know that not all of the above techniques and methods here will be agreeable to all of you, but I hope you found something you can take away with you that will help you in your life and in your Japanese. I may be helping you to “cheat,” but you still have a lot of work to do, I promise :)

Good luck!

How come nobody’s localizing that text heavy visual novel you had your heart set on? Where’s all the fansubs for 70s shoujo anime? And would it kill a person to translate the lyrics of songs other than AKB48? It’s around this time when you may hit upon the bright idea of “hey, maybe I should figure out what they’re saying!” Well, this guide is for you, based on my own experiences in transitioning from consumer to student. For more general learning guides, check out Tofugu’s top ten resources.

Learn to Unlearn

You’ve probably spent a fair amount of time listening to Japanese, and have managed to pick up on a few words and phrases. In that case, I have some good news, and some bad news.

The bad news is that some of what you know is wrong. This can take the form of misheard words, incorrect grammar, or even not knowing when certain phrases are appropriate to say. After all, politeness is big in Japan. You don’t want to be dropping any kisamas or omaes in polite company.

Seems legit.

While you might not feel too good after learning that “kimochi” just means “feeling” and not “feels good,” it’s important to keep an open mind when learning. Subtitles and translations are for entertainment, not education. It’s unfortunate, but there are just some things you’re going to have to unlearn.

The good news is that you’ve had plenty of practice with what you do know. Personally, I don’t consider anything to be “learned” until I’ve read about it in a textbook or flashcard and spent some time practicing it. Normally, it would go in that order. Learn something, then memorize it. But there’s no reason it couldn’t be the other way around. You can use your experience to give you an edge in learning new vocabulary and grammar.

Kanji First, Vocab After

Some people don’t like kanji. OK, that’s an understatement. A lot of people despise kanji. And why shouldn’t they? There’re thousands of them, and they all have, like, a million strokes each! Reading would be easy without kanji. Totemo easy!

I mean, if I’m learning vocabulary, why should I have to worry about one more thing? Why not just learn vocabulary on its own, and worry about kanji later? It’ll be easy, just come up with mnemonics. For every single word in the Japanese language.

Just 24,543 more mnemonics to go!

That’s how I tried to learn vocabulary. Courage is “yuuki” because “YOU need a lot of courage to KEY people’s cars”. Weather is “tenki” because “you take TEN KEYS in case you lose a few in the bad weather”. Heaven is “tengoku” because “TEN GOKUs are flying around Heaven, and I guess I watched a few episodes of Dragon Ball once”.

So what’s the problem? Well, take a look at how those three words are spelt with kanji:

Notice a bit of repetition? This is where kanji comes in handy. Instead of creating one mnemonic per vocab word, create one per kanji. It’ll be more work at first, since each vocab word would use new kanji, but you’ll soon reach the point where one new kanji means several new words, just by combining it with kanji you’ve already learned before. There are certain jukugo (kanji compounds) that use different pronunciations, but this method covers the majority of vocab.

This will also help with learning the meaning, too. Aside from a few exceptions, most jukugo make sense, or at least have kanji relevant enough that you’ll be able to remember the meaning. And it beats out trying to make a story about keys for every jukugo that contains 気.

Trust the SRS

Alright, so you’ve done everything you were supposed to. You made sure your big list-of-words-learned-from-anime was accurate to real life. You ditched learning vocabulary mnemonics for kanji mnemonics. You’ve even grabbed one of the many spaced repetition systems to help memorize your kanji and vocab. And now you just can’t get that one answer right.

Not even close.

What gives? It’s not like the mnemonic is bad, or it’s a particularly difficult item, it just isn’t sticking. It happens. I’ve run into this problem dozens of times. And you know what I find helps? Nothing.

Wait, hold on, let me phrase that better. I do nothing, and the SRS adjusts itself so the item again sooner. This might seem obvious, seeing as how this is the entire reason the SRS was made in the first place, but less obvious is just how well it works. Without even having to go back and review the mnemonic or do any extra studying, you’ll learn the item, just because it keeps popping up over and over and over, like a bad filler episode.

Other Tips

Rikaichan for Firefox and Rikaikun for Chrome is a great way to quickly look up words you don’t know, but limit its use. Try to read the sentence a few times before using it. You can also set it to only display readings, instead of meanings.

For gamers, importing Japanese games is a good way to start immersion. The PlayStation 3*, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita, and all Nintendo handhelds prior to the 3DS are region free (save for certain games on DSi), meaning you can play import games with no hassle. Other systems require workarounds of varying difficulties. Certain games, such as the upcoming Pokemon X & Y, can have their language changed to Japanese. *(Note that the PS3 version of Persona 4 Arena is region locked, but allows the text and voices to be changed to Japanese.)

Japanese language learning, featuring Japanese Bruce Willis.

For music, I like to type out lyrics to songs with furigana for kanji I don’t know yet. Then, every month or so, go through the lyrics and remove the furigana from the kanji I’ve learned. Perhaps not the most educational of activities, but it’s a fun way to go over kanji and see your progression.

For movies, try finding movies you enjoy dubbed into Japanese. Remember, you’re looking for 日本語吹替版, dubbed versions, not 字幕版, subtitled versions. You can find movies on sites like amazon.co.jp, or digital copies on the iTunes store, but be careful with iTunes. Unlike other regions, the Japanese iTunes doesn’t allow you to redownload purchased movies. Make sure you back up! Don’t want to lose access to Japanese Bruce Willis.

I also wanted to announce this new (yet unnamed) product early because I wanted some help from any of you intermediate to advanced Japanese learners out there. More on that at the end of the post, but I was hoping you could tell me a bit about how you study your Japanese in certain situations.

Before we do that, though, here’s a little bit about the resource. We’ll call it “Kuma” because, well, I have no idea, but there are several bear pictures in the prototype version.

Intermediate / Advanced: Materials will be stories and articles in Japanese. Each will include an audio recording by the native Japanese speaker who wrote it as well as an English translation.

Variety: One thing that I thought was really important was that there was a large variety of authors writing the stories/articles. Right now there are about 25 different authors and well over 100 articles/stories, and I’m hoping for that number to grow for both of those things over time. As you become more advanced, it becomes more important to learn using different types of people. Men, women, younger, older, different viewpoints on life, different dialects… All these things are Japanese, and if you don’t hear and study with all of them, you’re only learning one type of Japanese. I want to cover many types of Japanese for you.

Flexibility & Simplicity: The goal of “Kuma” is to provide the materials. What you do with said materials is up to you. The more advanced you are at Japanese, the better you should be at knowing how you study best. I want to provide materials that allow you to study the things you need to study most. Need listening practice? Grab the audio and put it on your phone to listen to. Need reading practice? Go for it. Need to practice speaking? Why not try language shadowing? By keeping things simple, you have the flexibility to do what you want. TextFugu is more about hand-holding, “Kuma” is more about letting you do what you please.

It Is A Paid Service: Before you ask, yes, it is a paid service. Heavy discounts for early adopters. I haven’t decided on the final price point, but it will be similar to TextFugu when at full price. Probably will be a discount for TextFugu users, kind of like how WaniKani has a discount for TextFugu users.

Current TextFugu Members Get It Free: If you’re a Forever member of TextFugu before “Kuma” goes live, you’ll be getting a Forever account of “Kuma” as well. Obviously “Kuma” was supposed to be part of TextFugu before it grew into the monster size that it is, so it’s only fair that you guys get it for free as well. Monthly members at TextFugu will also be getting some free time on “Kuma” as well.

Bears: It will probably have bears. Bears are pretty cool.

I was really surprised to get as much of a response as I did from native Japanese speakers interested in making materials for advanced learners to study with. I was hoping to find one or two people. I ended up with around twenty-five. The amount of materials is still blowing me away, and it has caused this to become a very large project, much bigger than I thought it would be.

Right now I’m at the stage where I’m trying to create a template that will work for all or most of the materials, and this is where you come in (I hope!). Say you are given some Japanese text, the audio that goes with it, and an English translation… what do you do? How do you study with it? Let me know in the comments below for one hundred fugu points, redeemable for good karma at your local Buddha Bank.

Oh, and as for when you can use it… well, it will go something like this in terms of priority:

1. TextFugu Members
2. Wanikani Premium Members
3. Tofugu Newsletter Subscribers

So, if anything, be sure you’re subscribed to the newsletter so good things will happen to you. I’m hoping for the first invites to be sent out within a month. Don’t forget to tell me how you’d study with these materials in the comments below. It will help me to design a better lesson template!