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.

For the self-learner, there really aren’t the same sort of consequences. You skip doing Japanese for a week and you’re not punished at all. You’re actually rewarded. Rewarded with more time to play video games, watch TV, or go out with your friends. So how do you keep yourself motivated when there’s so much other fun stuff to do?

Habit, Habit, Habit

One of the most important factors of keeping motivation is developing it into a habit. Once something becomes a part of your daily routine, you’ll be much more likely to keep doing it from now until forever as it’s become second nature to you, just like walking the dog or brushing your teeth.

Lots of places on the internet say that it takes about twenty-one days to develop a habit. I personally feel that this is a very arbitrary number and how long it takes to develop a habit will very much depend on the activity and the person in question, but three weeks is a good starting point.

To make sure you stick to this habit of studying Japanese every day, every other day, or every week (especially in the beginning when the going is tough, and then once again when you reach the intermediate plateau) a great idea is to schedule your time. Actually block off time for activities during the day, or at the very least your Japanese. Physically write it down somewhere that you’re going to study Japanese from 7pm to 8pm Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and set an alarm or something to remind you when it’s time.

It also helps to be specific. Instead of just writing “Study Japanese,” write stuff like “Study Anki Deck,” “Study WaniKani,” or “Study TextFugu.” This makes it much easier to get right into your study session instead of wasting time thinking about what method you want to use because you’ve already laid it out ahead of time.

I really like this method a lot and I use it often when I have a lot of stuff to get done in one day. I’ve also used it in the past to get into the habit of working out each day and I also used it for studying Japanese (and now French). I feel like I’m much more productive when I have my whole day mapped out in an Excel file or something and I waste way less time derping around the internet. Trust me, it works. Mapping out your day is absolutely wonderful for productivity and motivation.

You don’t have to take my word for it though, just check out this list of famous people and their daily rituals and scheduled activities. If it worked for them, it can work for you too.

But of course there will always be that one night you were planning to have a study session and out of the blue your friends show up and want to go see a movie, or play video games and hang out or something and you’d feel like a real jerk blowing them off to study Japanese. You just need to promise yourself that you’ll reschedule your study time for later so you don’t get behind.

It’s important to keep up with your learning, but you don’t want to become a social outcast because of it. Unless of course you’re already a social outcast, then in that case, study away!

Keep it Fun

Fun is a huge motivator. You’re a lot more likely to do something and keep up with it if it’s fun. So, it’s important to find study methods that both work well for you and aren’t boring as all get out. Some great ways are to study with video games, anime, and dramas.

It’s also important to keep your individual study sessions short enough so that you aren’t burnt out by the end of them. The sweet spot for me is usually about thirty minutes to an hour, but you should go with what works best for you and then you can schedule that block of time into your week like I mentioned above.

Studying with these materials is also very rewarding. It may seem terrible at first when you start studying with a drama or something because there are so many new words, but in the end when you can watch the entire show and not have to look up any words and you know exactly what’s going on and what’s being said, it’s a pretty amazing feeling.

You should also be sure to select material that’s suitable for your level of learning. If you’re at expert level, you shouldn’t be reading and watching kid’s material (unless you’re just looking for an ego boost), and if you’re a beginner, you shouldn’t be diving into news reports and technical manuals.

Children’s books and TV shows are a great place to get your feet wet, and they can really make you feel a lot more accomplished. Unless of course you have trouble understanding anything that’s going on in the kid’s show, in which case you’ll feel like an idiot (it’s happened to me more than once), but that’s something you just have to get over. You’ll understand it eventually, just be patient.

Accountability

Accountability is a great motivator. Tell someone else your plan for keeping up with your Japanese studies and let them know exactly what you plan to do, when you plan to achieve milestones, and how you’re going to get there. Tell as many people as you can. You could even have some of them remind you about it, or get some really good friends to ask you if you studied Japanese today or not. Having to be accountable to people about your learning is a great way of guilting yourself into being motivated.

This way, if you fail to keep up with your studies, you’re not only letting yourself down, but you’re letting down everyone you told about your grand plans. You don’t want all your friends to be disappointed in you, right? Accountability works wonders. Plus, when you do achieve your goals, you’ll not only be proud yourself, but you’ll also have lots of other people to be proud of you and support you along the way.

Accountability is a great way to motivate yourself to achieve goals. Just don’t annoy your friends and family by talking to them about it all the time (unless they’re studying Japanese too, then by all means, bug the crap out of each other), wouldn’t want to alienate yourself or anything. Just use your best judgment.

Keep at It

Once you’ve developed a good habit of studying Japanese and having fun with it, you’ll be an unstoppable Japanese learning machine. No longer do you need a classroom, nagging teacher, or the threat of bad grades to motivate you. You have a fun schedule you created yourself, awesome self-learning materials, accountability, and the self-satisfaction of making it on your own. Learning Japanese solo is entirely possible with the right materials and the right attitude. So get out there and JFDI.

So tell me, how do you keep motivated with your Japanese self-study? Do you struggle with keeping up with it? What other tips and tricks do you use to stay motivated? Let us know and share in the comments!

1. Start with hiragana. Most class settings start you off by learning some basic words, and that’s graavvy, but when learning on your own, I think you need to take a slightly different approach. Since you are learning alone, you won’t get help with your pronunciation from your teacher. You need to start with hiragana in order to learn the basics of how Japanese sounds, and how the structure of the letters works. By learning hiragana first, you will understand how words are put together, and how they are said. If you don’t have a teacher to correct you, learning hiragana will give you the best base that you can get for starting Japanese.
2. Make sure you check your pronunciation: There are sites out there that will help you pronounce all those crazy Japanese syllables. Practice your hiragana by saying it with the computer. Once you can say all the letters perfectly, you are well on your way to having good pronunciation.
3. Start putting together words: Now you know hiragana, so start using it! If you’ve managed to get this far, you probably know a few words. Start spelling them out and say them out loud. I remember the first day I could spell sushi. That’ll be one of your first words, like a little baby.
4. Right about here is where you pick up a beginning Japanese textbook like Genki or Yokoso and do what it tells you. Those aren’t necessarily the best Japanese text books, but they’ll do the job. Remember, learn hiragana first, and then break your text book open. I guarantee you will have stronger basics and it will speed up your learning in the long run. Everyone faito!

That about does it. If you have any more questions, or anything to add, please do! There are so many things that us “classroom Japanese learners” take for granted that can’t be compared to the self-learner. I think there are a lot of people out there trying to learn on their own, so let’s support each other with ideas, mistakes, and success stories…just don’t tell me about how your love for Naruto inspired your Japanese language abilities, or you’ll get some Pepsi-man shafting.