How to Learn Japanese

It isn’t easy to learn Japanese. In fact, it can be down right difficult; however, it can also be extremely rewarding. To get started, you’ll need to first understand how the Japanese sound and writing systems work. Then you’ll want to learn the Japanese equivalent to the English alphabet, otherwise known as kana. There are two sets of kana syllabaries, hiragana and katakana. Next, you’ll want to split your time between learning kanji, grammar, and vocab. These can all be done together and they collectively take a long time to master. Fortunately, there are a ton of free resources out there to help with each step!

Japanese Writing Systems

Japanese has three writing systems: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Both hiragana and katakana are composed of 46 base characters. There are the 5 vowels (a, i, u, e, o), 40 consonants with their vowel combinations (k, g, s, z, t, d, n, h, b, p, m, y, r, and w), and one stand-alone consonant (n). Then there is kanji, which is derived from the Chinese system called hanzi. There are thousands of kanji to memorize and not just their meanings, but also their pronunciations. Each kanji has multiple pronunciations, some are common and others hardly ever used. To learn more about Japan’s writing systems check out my other article here.

Learning Kanji

There are over 50,000 kanji that exist, but only about 2,000-3,000 are used regularly. The Japanese government has a list of recommended kanji called jōyō kanji that consists of 2,136 that one should know after finishing compulsory education. Thus, learning the jōyō kanji is a good goal to set for yourself.

There are a lot of tools and websites that can help with learning kanji. Most of them use SRS, which is explained more in the section below. If you’re looking for a free method, I would recommend either Memrise or downloading an Anki deck. For paid options, I highly recommend WaniKani, which is free to try for the first 4 levels. There are 60 levels total and their system uses SRS, but gameifies it more, which helps keep its users motivated to keep learning.

Spaced Repetition System for Vocabulary

Spaced Repetition System (SRS) is a system for learning based on flashcards. Users are shown a flashcard and must translate it, either into English or into Japanese. If you’re correct, then it goes back into your “deck” and won’t show up until a certain interval of time has passed. As you keep getting a specific card correct the interval you don’t see it increases to days, weeks and eventually months. If you get the card wrong, the card goes down an interval step and will appear sooner than the last time.

This system works for both learning kanji and learning vocabulary. WaniKani focuses mostly on kanji, but part of that is giving you vocabulary that uses the kanji you’re learning. However, I don’t recommended solely relying on WaniKani for vocab. I would lean more towards downloading Anki and the Core2k deck, which contains 2,000 of the most common words used in Japanese. The decks grow up to 6k and 10k words as you progress. You can download Anki for your phone or your computer here. Just google for the deck you want, like the Japanese core2k deck, and download it. You can also make your own decks and fill them with words you pick up in your day-to-day life that you want to memorize.

Beginning Grammar

After learning some kanji and vocab, you should start to incorporate grammar. Aim to learn about 100 kanji and 500 of the core 2,000 vocab before adding grammar lessons.  This will help prevent you from having to constantly look up words during a grammar lesson, which can be very distracting.

There are numerous websites and textbooks that cover learning grammar. Imabi is a great free, online resource, and Genki I and Genki II are awesome textbooks combined with their respective workbooks for extra practice. I have used Genki myself and it does a great job of teaching you Japanese. It’s great not only for grammar, but also as a more comprehensive studying approach to learn Japanese. You’ll learn grammar, kanji, and vocab as you read it. Another great textbook option is Tae Kim’s Guide to Learning Japanese, which can also be purchased on Amazon.

Goals and JLPT

I highly suggest setting a goal and milestones for yourself and don’t rely on vaguely wanting to learn Japanese. As I said before, learning Japanese is hard, especially for native English speakers. According to a study from the Foreign Service Institute on the website Effective Language Learning, Japanese takes 2,200 hours to reach Speaking/Reading 3 (General Professional Proficiency). That is not even for native fluency; that is just to speak and read competently. 2,200 hours makes it a Category V language, which is the hardest category to learn.

I don’t bring up the difficulty of learning Japanese to scare you, but rather to inform you that it will take a lot of time, studying, and dedication to be competent. This is why I believe having goals beyond just “learning” the language are important to help motivate you and to help celebrate your milestones. JLPT or Japanese-Language Proficiency Test is a very common and great goal to set. The JLPT is a standardized test held annually or bi-annually, depending on location, by the Japanese government. They have 5 levels: N5-N1, with N5 being the easiest. Many jobs in Japan require foreigners to have N2 proficiency making it a great overall goal. N5-N3 would be good milestones to track progress. Many people obsess over JLPT, but it isn’t a requirement learn Japanese unless you need it for a job in Japan.

Less formal, simpler goals could be to be able to read manga without having to look up any words, or be able to speak to someone in Japanese competently. By setting these goals, as well as other smaller milestones you’ll be able to continue the grind to learn Japanese fluently and celebrate your progress along the way.