So you want to learn Japanese? …good choice, but it will take some effort.
I am going to try and give you everything you need to get the ball rolling. I am still learning myself, but I have pulled all my personal experience together to make this plan along with the lessons. (A full list of All The Lessons is further down the page)
You could say it is a lot of the JLPT N5 type material, which really means “the basics” and while that sounds easy it will still require a lot of time and effort to get to grips with things. Put the effort in and you will see progress.
The Structure Of This “Course”
I will just quickly go over this, but really you need to do immersion style learning when it comes to Japanese …but you do also need to learn some words and understand the grammar, so that you know what is going on when you are immersing.
I have created 34 free lessons, with the idea that you do 1 a day. I go through some simple grammar and give you some words to learn each day and then I will follow this up with some immersion content for you to watch.
This does mean this course is more focused on listening, but some reading will be involved, but most of the immersion is listening.
I will cover speaking and writing a little further down on this page, but for this introduction course, it is not so important. I won’t be pushing you to do it.
The goal here is to get you to to start understanding the language and getting that ball rolling. I am going to spoon feed you at the start, but my aim is to get you to the point where you can go off on your own and do your own input and then go at your own pace and own adventure with the language.
Don’t Get Caught Up On Memorising
While I am giving you words to learn each day and some grammar, don’t get too stressed out about this.
Put the effort in and use anki to help you, but don’t panic if some words are not sticking or you just can’t recall them. I won’t be testing you on them and to be honest, they are basic words so they will keep showing up when you are immersing and with time they will become stronger in your mind.
You don’t need to sit for hours and memorise everything I am teaching you. You can do this if you want, just don’t stress yourself out. With enough exposure, you will learn these words.
You can also go back and forth through these lessons as many times as you want and whatever pace you want. I will be giving you only 8 new words a day, if you want to push on and do more, go for it. The same applies if it is too much, slow down and do less each day.
I am just giving you some structure, you can use this however you want, so long as you go through everything and stick at it, things will stick in your memory.
Immersion Is Hard At The Start
I think it is really important to note that immersion is REALLY hard at the start. You know nothing, you are not used to the sounds and everything is just a blur.
Stick with it! Keep listening and I promise things become clearer. The reality is that this may be after hundreds of hours, but keep listening and it will get easier.
You will also find the more words you learn, the easier things become.
I know it is hard to find content as a beginner and if you do, it can often be above your level and can fatigue you quickly.
I have tried to find as many videos for you as possible, but we will start off slow and build up how much we are listening to every day.
In an ideal world I would go to Japan and make some immersion videos myself with my Japanese friends for you all to use …but for now I will just give you links to what is available on youtube, there is plenty out there, so we can use this to learn!
You Can Do Extra Immersion On Top
I’ve already mentioned you can go at your own place with my “lessons” and the same is true for immersion.
I will try and give you a handful of videos every day to watch, but if you want to watch more …do it.
The key to immersion is – the more the better. If there is something you want to watch on top of what I’ve suggested, do it, it will only benefit you.
I will Give You Extra Resources
As I go though my lessons I will try and explain the grammar in my own way, hopefully making it all fairly simply.
This should be enough, but I will link other teachers if you need more explanation on a topic.
However, don’t get caught up on the grammar. You don’t need to memorise it or really understand it perfectly. For now just see it as an introduction, so you know certain things exist and your job is to look out for them when immersing.
You will see and hear these grammar topics over and over again, so it will make sense and stick eventually. It’s okay if it feels a little blurry at first, that will fade.
What About Reading?
You will quickly notice there is not much Japanese reading on this course. I am going to give you the vocabulary in Japanese and some examples of the grammar being used, but apart from this, there isn’t much reading.
This does mean you need to be able to read, but we are not really focusing on that. This just comes down to the fact that I prefer to immerse via listening.
I also think listening is more important as a beginner so that you can hear the sounds properly. It is easy to kind of mispronounce things in your own mind if you are not that experienced with the language yet.
However, if you want to read more, please feel free to read as much as you want. It is an excellent from of immersion and it will help you significantly.
What About Speaking and Writing?
You will also notice that this course is lacking output. I am not getting you to speak or write.
This may shock some of you, but really we can focus on this later. Our first mission is to get to basic grasp of the language, which means just understanding what is what, then we can start tackling speaking and writing after this.
However, if you want to say the words you are learning out loud, or even go and try to join a language exchange to speak or write to Japanese people, go for it.
I think it is better to be patient and have a bit of a base of understanding, but if you feel like you want to write and speak and you think it can help you progress, do it!
We will all have to do this at some point, so if you feel like getting started earlier there is nothing wrong with this.
Start At Day Zero
Okay, so now you know the basic plan and what to expect, you can get started.
However, you need to start at day zero, which is really setting everything up and more importantly, learning the alphabet so we can actually read and understand the sounds of Japanese.
Day Zero may take you a few weeks to complete, but this is your first steps into Japanese, so enjoy it, then after that you can start Day 1.
List Of Lessons
You will probably want to bookmark this page and come back to it daily.
Here are the lessons, day by day. Just work your way through them and slowly things will make more sense. Good luck and let me know how you get on.