How To Speed Up Learning Japanese

When you start learning Japanese you will quickly realise it is a huge task and that will ultimately lead you to asking how you can hurry the whole process up.

Wanting to speed things up is natural, we all want to see some success with our studies and we want to actually be able to use Japanese and just enjoy the language and the sooner we get to that point, the better.

The reality is that it will still take a long time, but we can do things more efficiently and productively, which will get us there faster, so let’s look at some ways we can make that happen.

Have A Plan And A Goal

The first thing you need is a goal, and a plan on how to get there. This doesn’t sound like it will help speed things up, but it will.

Basically you need know where you are going and how to get there; otherwise you will be aimlessly doing nothing.

Simply saying “I want to learn Japanese” means nothing as really there is no end to this, you will never “complete” Japanese, as you will always be learning something new no matter how advanced you get.

You need an actual measurable goal that you can reach and also plan the steps on how to get there. It may seem like a small, maybe even unimportant difference, but it does matter.

Making a goal as simple as “I want to reach N5 level in Japanese” can be measured and you can plan how to get there and you will reach this level a lot quicker than someone who is just blindly going along learning little bits here and there with no structure.  

Focus On Immersion

If you focus a large part of your Japanese studies on immersion, you will get results faster.

I know this point seems like it goes against the last, but it’s not. Immersion can seem like you are just aimlessly watching things, without a plan, but it’s not. You will still have a goal to watch X amount of Japanese per day and this can be measured.

Of course you can argue that the content within your immersion is not really planned and that is true, but it doesn’t matter. You should really be watching content that is comprehensible, meaning you can understand a lot of it, so really immersion can be seen as practice, where you are getting repetition of information you already know, with a little sprinkle of new information at the same time.

So long as you are also focusing on other types of learning, such as learning new vocabulary, immersion is a very powerful tool and while it may seem like it’s very slow and hard to see the benefits, but you will end up reaching a much higher level in the language …and you will do this a lot faster than those who do not immerse.

I would even go as far to say you can’t reach a high level without immersion, it is that important and you will speed up your progress up by focusing on this.      

(You can read more about – What Are The Benefits Of Language Learning Through Immersion?)

Learn As Much Vocabulary As You Can

An easy way to speed up your studies is to simply focus on learning more vocabulary.

It’s pretty simple, the more words you can understand, the better you are at the language …so the more quickly you can increase your vocabulary, the quicker you will see success.

This goes hand in hand with the above point of focusing on immersion. If you can learn a good amount of words and then do a lot of immersion on top, you will very quickly start to get grips with Japanese.

It is also very easy to set a goal and create a plan around this. You can easily say “I want to learn 2000 words” and that’s your goal, then the plan would be breaking this down into a daily amount and then just doing it.

If you actually push yourself with this, you will see quick results.

(You can read more about – What Is The Best Way To Learn New Vocabulary When Learning A Language)

Make Sure You Cover The Basics Well

I think it is also very important to cover the basics very thoroughly if you want to get quick results.

It is easy to skim through the basic grammar and say you understand it, but it is actually going to help you in the long run if you sit down and take a little bit more time to really go through things in more detail.

Simple things like the sentence particles can be taught in seconds, and a lot of people think that is enough, but it’s not. You should take the time to really master these simple things and really make sure your basic foundation is rock solid.

While this may seem like overkill and even a waste of time, it’s not. When you go on to harder areas of Japanese, you can actually focus on what is going on there. The basic stuff will be second nature to you and will be able to progress faster than someone who is maybe not as confident with this type of stuff.

Don’t Worry About Writing In Japanese

This might sound controversial, but I think most people would agree …don’t worry about writing in Japanese.

The reality is that you are very unlikely going to need to actual hand write anything in Japanese, so you can basically avoid it. If you are really wanting to do this, or think it will be beneficial to your life then do it, but for the majority of us, it’s probably not necessary.

You will need to be able to recognise kanji, but you don’t need to spend hours practicing the stroke order.

I know some of you will ask about typing, which is very different. This is done by using the Romanised version of Japanese (Romanji) on a digital keyboard. If you want to type a word, you literally sound it out in English. If you want to write すし　you type su shi in English, on your physical English keyboard and the digital software makes すし appear on the screen, so typing is easy and you don’t really need spend any time of this, in the same way you would with handwriting.

If you want to try handwriting in the future, go ahead, it might actually be fun, but as a beginner wanting to make progress …ignore it for now.

You Need To Practice/Study Often

If you want to make fast progress in your Japanese studies then you need to actually make the effort to study Japanese.

This means you need to actually study often and more importantly …be consistent.

If you can actually put the time and effort in consistently, you will see results. There is a general rule of thumb (from the institute of foreign services) that it should take you 2200 hours to get to a good level of Japanese.

If you aim for that, the speed at which you get there all comes down to how much you study. You can study 1 hour a day and it will take you 2200 days …or you can study for 2 hours a day and the time is halved, only taking  you 1100 days.

It doesn’t really matter how you break the 2200 hours down, but the more frequently you practice and the more time you put in, the quicker you will reach this limit.

Of course there is a limit. I can say something like, just study for 12 hours a day, and you will be at Japanese in 183 days …so 6 months. While that works on paper, it probably will not in reality, but the general concept of “do as much as you can, as often as you can” will get you results faster.     

(You can read more about – How Often Should You Study Japanese?)

You Should Go To Japan

If you really want to turbo charge the speed at which you learn Japanese, you should go to Japan.

I know this is not an option for everyone, and even those who do go, it doesn’t guarantee success, but it can certainly increase your chances.  

However, if you do go you are going to be surrounded by Japanese 24/7 and quite often English is not an option, so it really is a sink or swim type situation.

It really is the ultimate form of immersion, but you do need to go out and talk to people and avoid the English speakers.

Some would argue it is easier to stay in your home country and just immerse online to get the same results, and I would say this is fairly accurate, but I do think going to Japan would be the more fun option.

It Still Is Going To Take Time

While I have talked about trying to speed things up here, you still need to understand that it is going to take a long time. Learning any language takes a lot of work and effort and you can’t avoid that.

If you look at those people who have managed to see some incredible results in a short amount of time …it has still taken them at least a year, maybe 18 months, which is not “quick”.

You also need to appreciate that they have put a phenomenal amount of effort in during that time, often studying for 8 hours a day, usually more.  While we can try and speed things up and be as efficient as possible with our studies, it will still take time.

A lot of this does just boil down to our brains and their ability to acquire knowledge. We can all learn Japanese, but we just need to give our brains enough of it and it will eventually make sense of things and it will remember everything …but to get to this level takes time.

Give your brain as much repeated exposure to comprehensible Japanese and you will learn the language, it will take time, but you will get there.

(If you are looking to learn Japanese, you can follow my plan –  Learn Japanese – The Plan For A Complete Beginner)