You have a finite amount and you have to use it right. That’s why I spend so much time (hurr hurrr) on TextFugu going over ways you can study more efficiently and gain more time. It’s also why we cut out unnecessary readings, vocab, and even handwriting from WaniKani, because your time should be spent learning things that will give you the most impact first (and then you can come back around when you have more of that “time” thing). This is also why I wrote the “30 Days To Becoming A Better Japanese Student” ebook. You can definitely save a ridiculous amount of study time just by changing a few small things. You’re trading time for more time. What a nice deal!

The thing is, though, learning Japanese requires a lot of time. Like, a ton. Learning Japanese is measured in years, not days or months. Time, along with “motivation,” are perhaps the two biggest factors for people when learning Japanese. They are also the two things that come up time and time again as you study, so they never really leave you once you start. There will be days where you feel like time is your best friend. There will be others where it’s your mortal enemy. I’m here to help you, though. I’ve put together two lists. One is “I don’t have enough time” and the other is “I want to spend my time efficiently.” For your sake and the sake of time, I’ll put everything into bullet points.

I don’t have enough time

This is for those of you who are using this excuse to avoid starting studying Japanese (or continuing). If you feel overwhelmed and feel like you never have enough time you should probably stop reading things on the Internet like this article, but only after you’ve finished reading this article. Okay? Good.

• Start a “ritual.” This is something you just “do” instead of “have to do.” This is like, “when I get home, I do my WaniKani reviews.” It’s not an option, it’s just what you do. Rituals don’t feel like they take time but chores do. What part of your Japanese studies can you change into a ritual?
• Do you walk places? Do you ride things? Do you take showers? If so, you should be using those opportunities to try out some passive learning. Also, consider talking to yourself like a crazy person.
• Remember that it’s about the small, consistent chunks. Don’t study 8 hours all at once, one time a week. Study 30 minutes a day or 15 minutes a day twice, or something along those lines. The time between study sessions is important for that giant brain of yours to process things. Plus, smaller chunks are easier to manage, time-wise. Do you have 15 minutes today?
• Consider your current responsibilities. Humans have a hard time quitting. But, sometimes quitting something is the best thing to do. Even though it hurts to quit, take a look at the things that take up your time. What wouldn’t kill you to stop doing? What could you pay someone else to do? Imagine how nice it would be if you had that time for Japanese. No seriously, imagine it!
• Do you have “repetitive responsibilities?” Things like Facebook, Twitter, and email? Those things take up a ton of time, especially if you are viewing them all the time / in real time. Compress these things into very strict batches. For example, 12:30-1:00pm is generally my email time. I don’t get it all done during that time, but I get a lot more of it done than if I just check it constantly. Also, I’ve only spent 30 minutes on it and I don’t feel stressed out about “whether or not I have any email to check” the rest of the day.
• Don’t let yourself get interrupted. I read somewhere that each time you’re interrupted it takes around 30 minutes to get focused back into what you were doing before you got interrupted. Do things like close the door, put on headphones, or hide/close social media and email (previous bullet point will help). Interruptions are your enemy, and they destroy huge time chunks every time they occur. Take this very seriously and you’ll find yourself with a lot more time.
• Give yourself less time. This may seem unintuitive, but the less time you give yourself the more focused you become. Also, forcing yourself to cut off what you’re doing makes you want to do it more.
• Plan a little bit. Although I’m personally not a huge planner, planning helps a ton. Deciding what you’re going to do before you do it then turning it into actionable tasks is a great way to give yourself more time. Most people spend all their time deciding what they want to do and never do what they should be doing. You should decide what you want to do and then do it.
• If you haven’t yet, learn hiragana. It makes it so you have access to all the best Japanese language resources. If you can only study with crap, you’ll only poop out slightly more digested crap, and that’s a waste of time.
• Did you read this article? Okay, you have some time then, no excuses.

Hopefully some of these were helpful. So now how about efficiency?

I want to spend my time efficiently

This is if you’re studying Japanese, but think / know you’re spending way too much time studying it. I mean, you should spend a lot of time studying Japanese, but the more efficient you are the more you’ll learn and be able to use, which will help you to get better faster. Suffice to say, efficiency is helpful for time in the long run.

• A good SRS is going to be key. If studied with on a daily basis, this will make sure that you study what you need to when you need to, and make sure you don’t see things too often (thus wasting time). We recommend Anki / Memrise for general SRS systems, and our very own WaniKani for the radicals/kanji/vocab system. Over a long period, an SRS will save you many months, possibly years of study time.
• Learning in the correct order is important, though this is hard for a beginner to figure out on their own because they have no idea what is used and what is not. There are “order” vocab / kanji lists out there, though. iKnow has a “Core 2000″ list which seems like it’s based on the most common words from newspapers (you can get this on Anki as well). There are also other lists out there that do similar things. Doing this for kanji is important too (what we do on WaniKani / TextFugu). The idea here is to study the words that will give you the most impact right away so that you understand more, earlier, allowing you to study with more advanced and realistic resources earlier as well.
• Early on, study kanji more than you think (or more than anyone tells you). The fact is, the more kanji you know the easier and everything else will become. Literally every part of Japanese has some reliance on your ability to read kanji. You should absolutely be learning this as quickly as possible, even if it’s the only thing you focus on for a while. Try WaniKani, Remembering The Kanji, or KanjiDamage for this.
• Sometimes spending some money will make things more efficient. While there are plenty of free resources out there that will get the job done, one drawback is that they are very disorganized and require you to do a lot of the footwork. While this is fine for some people it is very inefficient for others. Time ain’t free, as they say.
• Really focus on “why” something works the way it does. Even if you have to spend extra time doing this, the time it will save you in the long run is incalculable.
• Focus on the things you’re bad at. The things that you’re bad at are holding you back and slowing you down. People who are really good at something aren’t good because they ignored what they’re bad at, obviously. Figure out what these are and tackle them head on. Then, everything moving forward will go quicker, saving you more time.
• Fix the things that slow most people down. They eat away at your study speed over a long period of time but they really shouldn’t.
• Spend some time learning how memory works. For example, learning that “recall” (pulling something out of your head) is what builds memory was a big breakthrough for me. It’s not about what you put in (or how many times you put it in… I’m looking at you people who write kanji over and over again), it’s what you pull out.
• Forget about writing Japanese. Although a little bit helpful (people type these days anyways), it doubles or triples the amount of time you have to study. Instead, focus on reading because this is something you can use right away. With all the time saved from not writing things, you can learn twice as much Japanese.
• Also don’t forget, there is no speed limit.

As the venerable Douglas Adams once said, “Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” While time can be dicey at times, all of you have some time to study Japanese if that’s what you want to do. Don’t let time be an excuse. In fact, you’ll make time for anything you want time for, so the question is, do you really want it? Maybe you should JFDI.

Like this? You should see Tofugu’s “Studying Japanese With Drama Guide” – it’s like this post, but bigger (and better!).

Okay, so I’ve been known to say that people should get off the couch and stop claiming they were learning Japanese from watching anime with subtitles. I think 99% of the time this is still true, because most people aren’t actively studying with the subtitles (and instead just watching as much TV as possible catching a few things here or there, then using “learning” as an excuse for consuming so much media). Today I’m going to sort of take the opposite stance from where I usually am and tell you how I think you can use Japanese TV/movies/anime to learn Japanese, and subtitles actually play a big part in this, surprisingly!

Who This Is For

I don’t think everyone can use subtitles to learn Japanese. I’d say that someone who’s at more of an intermediate/advanced level will get way more out of this than someone who’s a beginner at Japanese (if you’re a beginner at Japanese, I recommend TextFugu to get started, especially if you’re self-teaching yourself). This is because it takes a while to be knowledgeable enough to actually be able to look things up, figure things out, and know what to search for when you need to find / learn something. If you don’t have this experience, learning from Japanese TV/Movies/Anime will most likely just be plain discouraging (and if it’s not, you’re probably not trying hard enough).

Update: Some good points made in the comments! Also good to be intermediate / advanced level before doing this because then you know about gendered language, how to avoid copying cartoony weird voices, and so on. You basically will have to knowledge to know what not to do while using this method!

Also, in terms of time spent, beginners will get a lot more out of other resources in the same amount of time (versus spending time watching video). Intermediate / advanced level Japanese students will get a lot more out of that same amount of time, making it a lot more worth while.

Where To Find Japanese Media

There are a bunch of ways to get your hands on Japanese television, movies, or anime, most of which I can’t really talk much about. A lot of Japanese movies can be bought on Amazon, in local video stores, and so on. There are even a good number of Japanese movies on Netflix. Of course, being the netizens that you are, I’m guessing you’re finding these things elsewhere. Point is, the Internet is a great place to find something interesting that you can study with. I’m sure a lot of you have many gigs of Japanese content on your computers already… all legal of course… ahem.

Now, I’d say there’s two kinds of content (at least in terms of this article), and that is hard subbed and soft subbed. We’re talking subtitles here, so we’ll ignore RAW (totally in Japanese, no subtitles) and save it for another day.

Soft subtitles are subtitles you can add and remove, whenever you want. They are sometimes separate files and sometimes part of the video file. You can use a player like VLC to play videos with subtitles (subtitles are under “video” in the menu).

Hard subtitles, on the other hand, are stuck on the video no matter what. You can’t remove them, and they’re part of the video itself. These are a little harder to work with, but do okay if that’s all you can find. If you can, though, seek out the soft subs as they tend to be better (but are a bit more rare, I’d say).

Either way, I think finding something will (hopefully) be the easiest part for you – using it to study is where things get difficult.

Studying With Subtitles

I’m sure there’s a billion ways to study with subtitles, but I think it comes down to a few important things.

1. Being active in your learning (versus being passive)
2. Watching the same thing multiple times
3. Being at a high enough level to be able to use your content as a Japanese learning resource

Here’s the step by step of how I’d recommend using Japanese subtitles to study Japanese:

1. Break Things Up Into Chunks

Depending on your level, I’d make the chunks smaller rather than bigger. I’d say if you’re “intermediate” level, keep the chunks at 30 seconds to a minute. If you’re advanced, 2 minutes to 5 minutes. If you’re better than advanced, then you probably don’t need to read this article. Go enjoy some TV subtitle free.

I know that breaking things up into smaller pieces makes it hard to enjoy the content, but the goal is to get to the point where you can enjoy it without subtitles, so it’s important to take it a piece at a time. The less Japanese you know, the smaller the chunks (and goals) should be, so that way you don’t get discouraged (and ultimately just end up quitting or taking the easy way out).

2. Listen, Compare (To The Subs), And Write Down

This is where “being active” comes in. When using subtitles to study, it’s uber-important that you’re actively comparing and thinking about the subtitles versus what is actually spoken. When you’ve listened to it enough times, it’ll be time to write down the Japanese. I’d recommend using Evernote (read about Evernote and Japanese here and here) to write out the conversations.

If you’re at too low of a level, this becomes tough to do as well. Being able to listen, remember, then write down something gets easier the better you are at Japanese, so if you’re having trouble just know that it’ll get better the more you practice. It might be really tough at first, but things will start slowing down as you listen to more of it. Pains me to say this, but anime tends to do a better job enunciating and speaking slowly, so this may be a way to start out.

3. Shadow

Now that you have the Japanese written down, it’s time to shadow. Language shadowing is a pretty great way to practice, and if you do enough of it you will really start seeing it pay off. The idea is that you have both the audio and text of something (in the language that you’re learning). As you listen to the audio, you “shadow” by speaking along with it. The text is just there to help you along (until you don’t need it). You’re basically just learning to speak like the person who is speaking on screen.

4. Repeat Chunk After Chunk

Then, when you’ve mastered one chunk, you move on to the next chunk. Before you know it, you’ve finished an episode.

5. Watch It Raw (And Understand It!)

The last step, after you’ve gone through all of the chunks, is to go back and watch it raw (without subs). In theory, you should understand everything (and it should be a really good feeling of accomplishment too, I imagine!). You should also be able to speak along with the conversations, as well, if you want! If you have something that’s hard-subbed, you’ll just want to take another window on your computer and cover up the subtitles. If you’re watching on your television, then just tape some paper / cardboard over the screen to cover most of it up. Not the best viewing experience (why I recommend soft subs) but will totally work and get you the same results.

Then, Be Consistant

If there’s anything I talk about time and time again, it’s consistency. You’ll learn so much more by studying every day (versus studying ALL day Saturday, or something like that). It’s just how your brain works. Little accomplishments made over a long period of time equals huge results. If you do this every day, you’ll surely get better at Japanese. For Intermediate / Advanced students, it definitely would have the potential of taking you from intermediate→advanced or advanced→fluent.

Good luck, and please be active when you’re watching Japanese shows! :D

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To study hastily for an impending examination

That being said, cramming sucks, and nobody should do it… that is, unless you do it right. I’ve been experimenting with something over the last couple weeks, and I think I’ve come up with a pretty effective study technique that uses cramming.

First, Why Cramming Doesn’t Work

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When you study last minute for something, you’re basically just trying to fill your short term memory with as much info as possible, hold on to it for as long as possible, and then regurgitate that info back onto your test before you forget it (at least, that’s how last minute my cramming always was). As soon as the test is over, you forget what it is you crammed just an hour or two before.

Sure, in school you can take the test and maybe you’ll never need any of this information again. But for a lot of you reading this blog, you’re studying Japanese because you want to and are interested in it. That means doing cheats like this won’t get you very far.

Studying “The Abstract” Is Very Difficult

My idea for using cramming (and please excuse me if everyone already does this… though I’ve never seen it anywhere else before) involves combining cramming with regular flashcard study. Cramming is best used (I think) on small bits of information, like vocabulary, so that’s what we’ll look at in this post.

There’s a problem with learning another language’s vocabulary… it’s abstract. Basically, all these words you have to learn have absolutely nothing to hook onto in your brain (especially if you’re a beginner). In English, you might learn the word cat, and then associate it with groups of other words in your memory (animals, dogs, etc). You already have something in your brain that will help you to remember this English word. In Japanese, it’s the opposite. Each Japanese word, until you build up a sizable vocabulary, pretty much gets stored on its own… if it gets stored at all. Sure, it’ll probably be stored with the English word (so, if you learn 食べます that word will probably be associated with the concept “to eat”), but that doesn’t help you to remember how to say the word or recognize the kanji.

What I’m trying to say is that learning abstract concepts just isn’t the most efficient way to learn anything. It requires way more repetition, and a lot more time. Even then, you aren’t guaranteed to remember anything. You might as well cut a hole in your head to let the information flow out if you’re banging your head against the wall in this way.

The Flashcard Cramming Technique:

Here’s my idea – it combines the best of both worlds. I’ll include an explanation of each point after I go over the process. It’s pretty simple:

1. Take your flashcard list. Identify the 5-10 cards you’re going to study (10 is probably better when using this technique, just because it helps mix things up and adds more time between your “cram cards.”). You don’t want to study more than this many new cards in one session.
2. Pick three of ten cards (can be random, or, if you aren’t feeling confident, pick the simplest looking three).
3. Before you even start studying all of them, cram just these three cards. Do whatever you can to get this information into your short term memory. Pretend you are cramming for a quiz you have no hope for, but you want to get at least a few questions right so you don’t look like too much of an idiot. Try to remember the kanji (if applicable), the pronunciation, the on’yomi, whatever. Basically, pick three things and do some last minute study on them to try and remember as much as possible with them.
4. Study the ten cards as you normally would, while trying to keep the information of three you crammed in your mind.

Here’s why (I think) it works.

First of all, you’re making three of the cards a little less abstract. That means there’s already something in your mind for the three words to hook onto when they show up in your study deck. This helps transition those three words from short term cram memory to longish / long term memory, and that’s good. When you cram for a real test, the answers you answer correctly thanks to your cramming are undoubtedly things you remember after the test (the things you don’t remember by the time you get to the question won’t be remembered, however). Because you’re using this technique in a flash card environment, however, you’re getting repetition. Couldn’t pull up the crammed information the first time? Well, you’ll probably be able to do it the next time, and then it will stick.

There are other benefits as well. Basically, you’re taking a list of ten and making it a list of seven (at least in terms of totally abstract things to study). This means there are fewer things that you have to study the old crappy way. Most likely, you’ll be able to learn and remember three or four of these seven remaining “abstract” cards as well, bringing your total number of cards learned to 6 or 7 by the end of the session. You will need to review them, for sure (any good SRS program will help you do this), but that doesn’t mean you aren’t learning them way more effectively. It just means that the next time you review, you have a way better chance of remembering these things.

In fact, if you’re a TextFugu Member, you might have noticed I’ve been adding this “cramming method” to a lot of the vocab / kanji study lists. It’s a really small change, but I think it could save you a lot of time and a decent amount of grief. I’d say it reduces time and grief by 25-30% and only requires a couple minutes extra work (that is easily won back in the long term). This is all just a hypothesis right now, but if you give it a try, let me know how it goes for you. If you study with flashcards already, I imagine you’ll see improvements right away, the first time you try (and get better at it every time).

If you’re looking for a good flashcard application to use to study Japanese, I’d recommend trying out Anki. It even tells you when you should be studying something again, depending on how well you’ve done with a particular item.

Good luck, and let me know how it goes for you / what you think! You should also tell all your teachers that you just learned that cramming for your tests is awesome.