How To Use Japanese Throughout Your Day

If you want to get good at Japanese then you will need to put a lot of time and effort in to it …and really the only way you are going to be able to do this is by making the language a part of your life, and actually using it throughout your day.

So let’s look at some ways you can actually do this, as while it might seem difficult to add more Japanese into your day, it’s actually pretty easy to achieve. 

Make Your Life More Japanese

To use more Japanese throughout your day, you simply need to make your life more Japanese.

You can interpret this in two ways, one being to actually do more physical things that are Japanese like eating more ramen or using chops sticks and really anything else you like form the culture.

However, these will not really help you improve your language skills, so the better way to make your life more Japanese is linguistically.

Your goal here should be to remove as much of your native language from your life and replace it with Japanese. Whatever you normally do throughout your day …can you do it in Japanese?

This is not easy, especially at the start, but it can be done and the more you do it, the easier it gets and pretty much everything I talk about below are ways you can make this happen.  

Have A Language Partner

Having a language partner is such an easy way to add Japanese into your daily life. A language partner is really just a friend that you meet online and you help each other with the language you are learning. They help you with Japanese, and you help them with English.

Really all you are doing is chatting to your friend either through text, voice messages or phone calls and while you might use both languages you are still going to be using Japanese.  

This also never really feels like study as you are just chatting to a friend, but it is a form of practice and it is extremely easy to reply to a couple of messages throughout the day.

It just gives you a very easy excuse to actually try and speak Japanese every day.     

Take A Japanese Lesson

If you are learning Japanese …you should probably be doing some sort of lesson every day. I know I talk about immersion being the king (it is) but you should still spend some time every day doing some sort of active study where you are looking at some part of the language and actually learning about it.

This could be self study, some sort of set lesson or even time with a tutor. It also doesn’t matter if this is a text book or an app and you don’t even need to spend that long on it. It is more about the consistency of just doing something.  

I know most of you are already doing this anyway, but this is a way that you are adding Japanese into your life, even if it is more “study” than “life”. 

Anki Reviews

Reviewing Anki is another thing you should be doing daily (or any other sort of kanji/ word review).

I guess this also counts as “study” but it is an easy way you can get a little bit more Japanese into your life and no matter how you see it, it is beneficial for your progress, so do it!

(You can read more about – How To Download Anki and Set It Up For Japanese Language Learning)

Japanese Immersion Should Be A Daily Activity

If you really want to get a lot of Japanese into your life, then the bulk of this is probably going to come from immersion.

You can call immersion a form of study, but when you look at what I will mention below, it can also be seen as just living life.

You shouldn’t see immersion as some sort of extra task you need to squeeze into your day on top of everything else. You should instead see it as just “life” and most of the things I’m about to mention will probably be things you do anyway …so just do them in Japanese, now you have hit two birds with one stone, or whatever the saying is.

You are living your life, while also improving your Japanese skills at the same time …and I know it’s hard at first and you may need to do some of these things in English as well as Japanese, but over time it will get easier. 

Watch The News

I’m not really a fan of the news, but if you are going to watch it …watch it in Japanese. Most of the big international stories are going to be the same so you are not going to miss out on anything.

This is one of those areas where it will be hard at first, and you may need to also watch some of the news in English still, but as I said, over time it will get easier.

You will also find that a lot of the smaller stories are going to be Japan based, so you are also getting a good dose of culture and better understanding of what is happening throughout Japan.

This can be done through reading if you prefer and you can practice your kanji. The news is mostly only going to use the most common 2200 kanji, so while its difficult, it’s not going to be impossible to read.

Listen To Japanese Music

I would imagine most of you listen to music at some point throughout your day and there is nothing stopping you from listening to Japanese music. I listen to a lot of City Pop, the 80’s vibe just feeds my soul and the fact that a lot of the lyrics are in Japanese just makes it even better.

You probably will find the lyrics are too difficult, but that is fine as you can still enjoy the music and if you listen to the same songs enough, you will start to pick up on what is being sung. At the very least you can enjoy the random peppering of English that every song seems to have.

You will probably not learn a lot from music, but it is nice to listen to and the fact there is some Japanese is beneficial. You subconscious is hearing Japanese and this is what we want more of throughout the day.

Make Your Entertainment Japanese

I think immersion can really just be summed as ….make whatever you do for entertainment …Japanese.

This is such a broad spectrum of things that it doesn’t matter who you are, or what you like to do, there is going to be something you can do in Japanese.

All that matters is you look at whatever you do for entertainment, and try to do this using the Japanese language. You might need to put a little bit of effort into finding some content, but it will be there.

Things like movies, tv shows and anime are all easily sourced online and you can easily avoid English content in exchange for the Japanese versions. Most amine is dubbed into English …just don’t watch this and instead watch the original version.

You can do the same elsewhere online, instead of watching English youtubers or listening to English podcasts …try and find Japanese ones instead.

If you are more of a reader …there are plenty of books in Japanese you can dive into and you also have the whole world of manga too. I know the physical paper versions are harder to come by, but you can still get plenty of manga and books online in a digital format and if you really can’t stand these, you can get the real versions shipped to you.

You also have video games, where you can easily change the language into Japanese or if you are doing that whole online playing thing …join a Japanese server and play with actual Japanese people.

All of these are things you are probably doing anyway …so start doing them in Japanese

(You can read more about – Is Anime Bad For Learning Japanese?)

Think As Much As You Can In Japanese

Another way to get more Japanese into your life is to think more in Japanese. This sounds kind of stupid, but it does make a lot of sense.

I know a lot of you will say “but I don’t know enough Japanese” and maybe that is so, but it is still possible. Really all you need to do is use what Japanese you have and use it as much as you can.

This really means that you need to either talk out loud, or just quietly narrate in your head everything you are doing. Even if you only say one or two words, that is fine and it all helps, it is all a form or practice and as you learn more and more, you will only get better.

You are going to be with yourself all day long, so it is a very easy way to be constantly practicing and getting comfortable with the things you already know.

Conclusion

Hopefully you can see that it is really easy to get more Japanese into your daily life.

There is nothing here that I have mentioned that is extreme or an inconvenience, it’s all simple stuff, most of which you probably do anyway and really you just need to make some small tweaks to do these things in Japanese.

I also wouldn’t underestimate the power of this, they may be small changes, but they will all add up and make a big difference to your Japanese skills.      

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