Whatever your reason for learning Japanese, I’ll let you in on a little secret: it’s a bit difficult.
I have been trying to learn Japanese on and off for the last 10 years or so, using various different methods. Some have been excellent; others were a complete waste of time and money. I’ll give a bit of history on my language-learning journey; the mistakes I made, the things I found that worked, and how I try to balance life with learning a language.
Being a parent and working full time as a paramedic definitely makes language learning more difficult. Though Japanese can be challenging, there are keys to success, no matter how much time you can dedicate to it. The amount of Japanese I’ve learned has enhanced my travel experience while visiting Japan and has opened doors and connections with people I never would have met otherwise.
In the Beginning: Anime Created an Interest in Japanese
My interest in Japanese culture began at the ripe old age of eight years old. I had discovered the original Naruto series on Toonami, which was a block of time on the Cartoon Network channel that played anime series. As my interest in anime began to grow, I found myself tired of waiting every week for a new episode of Naruto to air.
As I was new to the internet during the end of my elementary years and the beginning of middle school, I discovered that the Naruto series was much further along than I had thought! There was only one problem: it was in Japanese with English subtitles. I had never heard the show in Japanese before and was worried about my ability to read the subtitles and watch the show at the same time.
This was my first contact with the Japanese language. Over the years, I grew so accustomed to hearing Japanese that English-dubbed anime became incredibly off-putting.
As my time in public school was coming to an end, high school graduation looming, and university on the horizon, I discovered I could take Japanese as a language course through my university. The course would count as one of the many required credits for graduation. I figured, since I had spent so much time listening to Japanese through pop culture and anime, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if I took a language class.
Boy, did I underestimate the difficulty of language learning.
Classroom Learning: Not for the Faint of Heart
I began university in the fall of 2015 at a small university in the mountains of western North Carolina. I started my education with plans to become a paramedic through an emergency medical care bachelor’s program. I was also a huge fan of Japanese culture and would often consume Japanese media.
I found that I could take Elementary Japanese through the university’s language program, which I figured would give me an opportunity to actually learn Japanese in a structured way.
On the first day of class, I was greeted by a group of about twenty students, most of whom were in their first year of university. Pretty much every type of person you’d expect in a Japanese language class. Our professor, Otake-sensei, was a woman in her thirties and an exchange teacher from Japan. Most of the students had no Japanese ability aside from occasional words or phrases.
At the time, I didn’t realize what I had gotten myself into. I had my Genki textbook and workbook, and I was eager to jump in. We introduced ourselves to our classmates and got started. I hadn’t given much thought to the level of work I was about to face; I wish I had known.
We quickly launched into classroom etiquette and our sensei’s expectations. We began with hiragana and almost immediately jumped into grammar. Quizzes were incredibly frequent. Pages upon pages of work were assigned from the Genki textbook and workbook, many of which required audio recordings in order to complete.
At the same time, I was juggling rigorous coursework to get into the paramedic program. Our sensei was an excellent and kind teacher. She would do anything to help us, but there was no slowing down in this class. A specific amount of material had to be covered before you could move on to more advanced classes.
I quickly realized I had bitten off more than I could chew. Even if I wanted to continue studying Japanese, my degree coursework wouldn’t allow it, time was precious during those university years. I completed the course with a strong B, not my best work, but the course taught me a lot about language learning.
The classroom style of learning is not for the weary. The class will not slow down for slower learners, nor will it speed up for faster ones. This leads to a feeling of being pushed and pulled, which can become frustrating.
You’re limited to the material the sensei provides. Testing is important, but I always disliked that it was tied to a grade, which could negatively affect your GPA. Classroom learning can be beneficial if it’s your primary focus, but I met many students in the program who were only studying Japanese and had no other academic obligations. Many of them were planning to go to Japan after graduation to teach English.
It’s also a significantly more expensive way to learn a language, requiring enrollment in a formal educational institution and the purchase of learning materials. In my personal opinion, the classroom has its place in language learning, but for someone trying to become a paramedic, it wasn’t the best route for me.
Attempt Number Two: Self-Education Without a Goal
After my attempt at classroom learning, I took two and a half years off from Japanese to focus on my paramedic education. I began paramedic school in the fall of 2017 and hit the ground running. Most of my free time was taken up by coursework, studying, and clinical rotations.
My love for Japanese culture hadn’t disappeared, but intense language learning wasn’t a priority anymore. Still, I wanted a way to learn Japanese little by little on my own schedule.
That’s when I discovered Duolingo; an app so well known now that you can’t seem to escape it. I saw an opportunity to study Japanese in short bursts during the small slivers of free time I had. It even had a sense of competition: maintaining streaks, advancing in leagues. It seemed like the perfect fit.
Or at least, that’s what I told myself.
Duolingo operates on a tiered system: free users and Super Duolingo. As a college student, money was tight, so I used the free version. At first, it seemed perfect. The language course was divided into sections, with multiple units per section, and each unit had several lessons with built-in reviews.
Free users get five hearts per day, and you lose hearts with each mistake. The lessons started off easy, teaching hiragana and simple words and phrases to build pattern recognition and reading comprehension through repetition. The app introduces hiragana, katakana, and kanji in small doses to build familiarity.
I was hooked. I completed multiple lessons a day, extended my streak, and competed in the leagues as a form of passive entertainment. But after a few months, my perspective started to change.
I noticed (and later confirmed through videos online) that many of the translations weren’t what native speakers would say. Some were clunky or flat-out wrong. Japanese YouTubers were reviewing the app and pointing out bizarre or unnatural sentence structures.
But what bothered me most was how aggressive the app became. The push notifications and emails demanding that I do my daily lessons were overwhelming. Consistency is key in language learning, yes, but being bombarded with reminders while balancing work and school made me resent the app.
To make matters worse, mistakes were punished. If you ran out of hearts, you couldn’t complete more lessons for 24 hours (unless you spent in-app currency or upgraded to Super Duolingo). Want to keep learning? Too bad. No hearts, no lessons.
I kept at it until I graduated from university and the paramedic program. But by that point, the app had left a sour taste in my mouth.
I still wanted to learn Japanese, but after going through the stress of paramedic school, Duolingo only made me feel frustrated and angry. I took another break. This time for four years.
Then, after landing the best job I’d ever had and surviving a failed honeymoon attempt due to COVID, my wife and I booked our first trip to Japan in March of 2023. It was a magical experience we’ll never forget.
That trip reignited my passion and became the catalyst for giving Japanese another try. One of my dear friends also decided to take up the language, and we agreed to help keep each other on track; regardless of our pace.
We had already planned our next trip to Japan, this time with a group of friends. One of them was my friend learning Japanese with me. This would lead to the first major step in my Japanese language learning journey.
After years of trying to learn Japanese, I finally asked myself the most important question:
Why am I learning this? And what do I want to gain from it?
Attempt Number Three: Self-Learning With Purpose
With a trip to Japan planned for November of 2023, I decided I wanted to seriously commit time to learning Japanese again. After doing some self-reflection, I came to accept that it would take many years to reach the level I wanted at the pace I could realistically maintain.
This time, I was ready to dive back into Japanese; with a clear purpose.
I wanted to be able to hold conversations with Japanese people while traveling, to enhance the experience and build connections. My wife and I are focused solely on traveling to Japan and have even started talking about retiring there one day.
That purpose, meaningful connection with a country and its people through language, has helped me maintain a consistent study habit, despite my busy work schedule.
The greatest realization I had at the start of this third attempt was understanding that it will take a long time to reach a level of comfort with speaking. I also came to terms with the fact that, more often than not, I would suck at it…and that’s okay.
Mistakes are a part of learning. It’s better to fumble your way through Japanese while learning on your own than to let fear stop you altogether.
I began my self-education journey with a newfound optimism. I used multiple websites, video series, and applications to give myself a variety of lessons. I dedicated about 30 minutes a day on the days I worked 12-hour shifts, and about an hour on days I didn’t work.
This created a manageable daily goal. Enough to keep moving forward without sacrificing my responsibilities at home or work.
I quickly relearned hiragana and katakana and began learning kanji. I returned to Duolingo, and now that I could afford Super Duolingo, the experience was far less frustrating.
Self-paced learning turned out to be much more rewarding. Even after a rough day at work, just completing some Japanese lessons gave me a sense of satisfaction.
During my second trip to Japan in the fall of 2023, my ability to read signs and menu items had significantly improved. I wasn’t conversational yet, as I didn’t feel confident speaking, but I tried to read as much as I could while there.
The immersion—being surrounded by the language—helped me apply what I’d learned. I could see the fruits of my labor beginning to take shape, and it filled me with excitement.
After returning home, I realized I could do even more with my daily self-education. I went back to the drawing board, did more self-reflection, and looked for ways to improve the efficiency of my learning.
That’s when I discovered methods that took my learning to the next level. Things I wish I’d known when I first started.
Attempt 3.5: A Slight Change of Course
After watching multiple YouTube videos and reading articles from language-learning experts, I discovered I’d been leaving several powerful tools off the table.
I learned about passive and active immersion, comprehensible input, and cultural immersion.
- Cultural immersion is a simple but effective strategy: put yourself in the culture as much as possible. Practice aspects of Japanese culture at home and during your visits. In order to learn Japanese, you must think and behave like the Japanese.
- Passive and active immersion is the idea of turning your environment into the environment of the language you want to learn. Watch Japanese shows. Listen to Japanese music or podcasts. Read books in Japanese. The difference between passive and active is in how much attention you give the media.
- Active immersion is when you’re fully engaged. Like watching a movie at the cinema, where your attention is entirely on the film.
- Passive immersion is when the media is on in the background, like Japanese news playing while you cook or do chores. Even if you’re not focused on it, your brain still absorbs the sounds and patterns of the language. I do this every day.
- Comprehensible input is where spoken language is paired with visual representations to help your brain associate meaning. For example, if I say the word “akai” and give no context, you probably wouldn’t know what it means. But if I hold up a red card and say “akai,” your brain makes the connection between the word and the color red.
These new methods have significantly expanded my vocabulary and allowed me to form short sentences; improving my ability to speak in a relatively short amount of time.
Conclusion: A Work in Progress
By no means am I done learning Japanese. To be honest, I feel like I’ve only just begun.
It took many years to find a method that fits my learning style and the rhythm of my life. Now that I’ve become a father, my time is even more divided. Still, I make sure to complete my daily Japanese lessons, using many of the strategies I mentioned earlier.
I’ve just returned from my third trip to Japan. My ability to comprehend spoken Japanese has improved immensely, and my ability to speak (even a small amount) greatly enhanced my travel experience. It also helped put others at ease during our interactions.
Learning never ends, no matter how good you get at something. I’ll stay the course, knowing it will take years to become comfortable with the Japanese language.
But as long as you set a goal and break it down into realistic steps, anything is possible.
Even for me; a dad, a paramedic, and a lover of all things Japan.
また後で!
Jacob