I now have my own kanji series here on KZfaq! I'd recommend THIS (amzn.to/3AI21t7 ) game INSTEAD of 漢検トレーニング２ for Kanji now. I didn't have it when I filmed this video, but it's DEFINITELY better.

I started learning about a year ago, and haven't made much progress simply because it is very difficult to learn one language when you're surrounded by another. My girlfriend (who happens to be Japanese) also has this issue, she speaks great English, but it overwhelms her on occasions. She does communicate with me in Japanese, and I can more-or-less understand her, which personally I think is strange, as when she messages me in Japanese, I usually have to translate certain words. I'm on a very slow roll, but some of the options presented today may help me slide back into the learning process.

“I’m gonna learn Japanese!” “I have to learn how to learn Japanese!” “I have to learn how to learn a language!” “I have to learn how to look for language learning resources!” “so… when do I start?”

Im nearing the end of Genki 2 and can say that playing games and reading definitely improves your Japanese!! Seeing Japanese in context is just way more beneficial then drilling grammar. I do need waaaay more listening/speaking practice though which is the hard part so Im trying to listen more and write more so I can actually easily speak sentences. Sometimes I still struggle to get words out for basic sentences haha

I see, I shall now start using duolingo

Been learning it for 2 years now, and the best i can do is memorize common kanji (ex 行 ), write in fluent hiragana/katakana, and understand very very simple phrases. Its been difficult but also fun! Tofugo has been SO helpful for me

Tips to learn Japanese more efficiently: - Do NOT attempt to learn more than one language at once. If in doubt, learn the one that you're most interested in. - Repeat every letter/word/sentence out loud to get a closer pronunciation (tip from Teuida). - Avoid trying to learn everything at one sitting to prevent yourself from forgetting words. - Try to memorize kana/kanji stroke order for more efficient writing. - If you feel unmotivated and/or tired, take a break and proceed your learning after a while and remember: you can do it! - Watch anime and practice singing in Japanese. They will help you to increase your vocabulary. - Try not to skip the difficult parts of learning. They may be essential. - Get yourself a partner conversation or use Teuida! - Use your Japanese knowledge in daily occasions (Example: whenever you're going upstairs, count every step in Japanese). - After finishing your studying session, write out everything you have learned so far, physically (pencil and paper) or virtually (note pad app on phone/computer) - Keep watching this video as many times as possible for days or weeks. It is not possible to learn everything in a few moments. Now, I wish you, the reader, a very happy learning, do not give up and give it your all! がんばってください! 💪✌️

I agree with these tips! One thing I want to emphasize is shadowing! My goal in learning Japanese was to be able to read and listen so I didn't really much pay attention to speaking. But if I were to start again, I definitely would, because right now, after two years of learning, I began to appreciate how speaking dramatically improves reading and listening. So yeah, speak speak speak, rinse and repeat. Your Japanese brain will thank you. Don't make the same mistakes like I did.

Respect for not underestimating what you did do as a beginner. Many people say they would have just skipped RTK because, imo, they don't know how badly off they'd be without it.

Hey Andy, loving the direction you're taking the channel. Your early Genki guides helped me start my journey a year back, glad you're still making content!

The Organic Japanese youtube channel is absolutely mindblowing - I've been studying for five years and the textbooks did not tell us these logical tips to "conjugations". Great suggestions. Subscribed for more great resources!

Thanks for this. I'm about to start learning Japanese myself, and I appreciate anything helpful like this.

Been self studying for 2.5 years. I definitely have weak points because I’ve often switched my method/materials to keep myself engaged. Trust the process. I’m still years away from my desired level.

The kanji are pretty time consuming but very important to building vocabulary, since so much of Japanese is compound kanji from their Chinese readings. And you feel kinda stupid when you can't read words you know. Otherwise it just takes time and consistent interest. The kanji are really what make people learn on again off again over years and years, and without a scheduling program to help you review them gradually over an extended period of time, hard to just chip away at. Otherwise I think more people would succeed, given their strong interest.

Thank you so much for this information and all the work you put in. Have a great 2023!

It's interesting to see how different everyone approaches Japanese learning. Your Yomichan+Anki guide was the golden ticket for me a while back! Thanks for that ^^

Another awesome video! While I'm not looking to start over, I'm pretty early in my Japanese learning journey so it's good to hear what you would have changed if you were to start from the beginning. :)

Really lulled me in with that Made in Abyss in the thumbnail

This is so helpful! I've just started Genki 2 and I feel like I'm constantly changing up my study routine, I only recently started doing graded listening practice and its been a game changer for me. It's so hard to find effective ways of studying when you're a beginner. I did find a really good app for ipad called Kanji!. It teaches you the stroke order so you drill each kanji by writing it out correctly, and it includes words that contain the kanji you have learned so far. Would definitely recommend it :)

Thank you so much! I’m definitely incorporating the shadowing practice. Also I didn’t know about the other books except for GENKI 1 and 2. I’m going to look them up! Thank you for the video!

Thank you for the advice Andy! I've been enjoying your content for about a year and a half now and your content has helped me so much on my Japanese learning journey!! Tank you so much!!

I bought Remebering the Kanji 1 and 2 this last month and i'm blasting through kanjis. Enjoyed a lot the way this book gives you directives on how to learn them as a foreigner. Seeing how i have seen recommended the other books from this videos in several other videos i will also get them. Just subscribed too!

Thanks for this video is helped me a lot. I only started studying Japanese at the end of last year and haven't made much progress, but after watching your video I felt like I might be able to get a bit further, more quickly.

Thank you for the video. I am grateful for your time and contribution. Kind regards, Akira.

Some great advice here. Thanks!

nah youre the goat. this is every bit of information i was looking for. Thank You 👑

I won’t be able to take full advantage of everything you laid out here but I’m really thankful for thIs video! I got my mission call three weeks ago and I’m going to tokyo next month so not a lot of time to familiarize myself with the language before I go to the mtc, but this has given me an idea of what I could/should be doing! Thanks again!

This showed up on my recommendation. I feel like my phone heard me TT. I told my mother that I'm gonna enroll to some free japanese lesson in my country. Thank you so much for this! I'm now much motivated and know where to start.

I've been using Santori Reader for quite awhile now and it's been fantastic. All of the stories are written in a way that supplements their Japanese teaching apps Human Japanese, and Human Japanese Intermediate. These gave me an amazing base understanding of the Japanese language. Great recommendations, cheers!

GREAT VIDEO! There's the good content, which I appreciate.

Moving the goal post was a comforting factoid. ありがとうございました。

This video is very timely for me considering I am basically starting my Japanese language learning over again. I had studied Japanese many moons ago while I was on Okinawa for a year but got overwhelmed and dropped it once I was back in the states. Recently I became interested in learning Japanese language again to understand the lyrics in Japanese music and possibly attending a Robotic convention in Kyoto in October. I did purchase the Genki 3rd edition book and am finding the Genki Lesson videos and material on ToKini Andy with Andy, Yuki and now Mami very helpful. I will certainly be signing up for the ToKini Andy course which I believe will help greatly in my learning. Also, it looks like I have more books to buy and an another reason to break out the DS again. Any thoughts on the Japanese for Busy People series by AJALT? Thanks for sharing this video.

I appreciate the videos coming out! Your video games, manga, and this one are solid gold!

Thanks this video helped me a lot!

This video is fantastic thank you -found it from Ritchi recommending - I'd never heard of Language Reactor extension and it is blowing my MIND! Thank you!

I am a Chinese and have been learning Japanese for 1 month already. There is a super friendly Chinese app called 小语大师 which is the most useful Japanese-learning app for me!! So addictive

Thanks a million! I just started learning Japanese, since I will visit Japan in about 1½ year from now. This was great!

Thks for the recommendations 🤝🇯🇵

This shadowing technique you speak of is what I’ve been trying to do, and it’s so hard at first. I was trying to learn a sentence from one of your other videos, and at first I had to rewind and slow down the video a lot. I would also get certain sounds wrong. Once I tried to listen and speak at the same time it was even harder. But after spending an afternoon practice while I did my chores, I was able to follow what you said while listening. Still hard

such a great resource

Thanks for the video!

Great suggestions! Thanks Andy!

I just learned some of the greetings in Japanese and it was so satisfying, and surprisingly I’m having so much fun learning Japanese especially with my learning disability

It's been almost 2 years since I personally started learning Japanese and I am looking to take the N2 this december (fingers crossed). And I can relate with many of your points in this video! Especially for me speaking has been a huge problem when learning languages (Chinese is my second language but I don't have confidence in speaking it). So in order to avoid that for Japanese, I started making it a point to take conversation lessons this year during summer break.

I would like to throw in the idea of the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course. The book uses mneomics and radicals, but it also gives you vocab. Each kanji has about 2 vocab words that have an O so you know which one is one of the more important ones to learn. RTK teaches you basically meanings and recognition, but you literally gain no vocab. The KKLC though is supported with the fantastic kanji study app and it has all the graded reading sets in one convenient place. Not only that, but learning about 5 kanji a day will be tremendously helpful so long as you can keep up with it.

Ah I've been studying Japanese for just over a year now and there have been so many days where I doubt myself and feel like I haven't made any progress. I have one friend who lives in Japan and that helps me a lot, but even with only listening to Japanese music, podcasts,shows and playing all of my games in Japanese I still feel like I have barely scratched the surface 🥲 I dedicate a lot of my time to this because it's very important to me. I'm finally getting to a point where I can recognize patterns, hear/tell the difference between similar words and very basic sentences😅 I do have ADHD and learning disabilities so I try to be patient with myself, it takes me a very long time to really learn things🥲 the language makes me very happy and I appreciate studying it☺️ I'll focus more on these tips!😭

I am moving to Okinawa soon and this video really helped with my anxiety on how to start learning. I’d love to pick your brain

Really helpful video thanks. I’ve been learning Japanese for a year and honestly was afraid to watch this video in case I’d missed something huge 😂 as you say I’ve also found the key is to get used to being a continual learner cos it’s one of the hardest languages I’ve studied, there really isn’t a ‘quick fix’. I have an online tutor and that has helped me to keep moving forward. Hoping in another year things will be a bit clearer 😂

thank you so much for this, I took to studying Hiragana last week, just so I can play blue protocol which is region locked in Japan until next year. the guides on youtube helped me understand some of the characters to where I can make out full sentences without having to look up a dictionary or photo translator. but I am glad you reccomended the tofugu book, as I feel I would be able to understand it.

It worked love you!

From my experience living in Japan for 15 years and speaking Japanese , my best tips would be , speak speak speak , learn substitute words and learn how to explain something rather than focus only on subjectives. Stuff like , if you don’t know what scissors are , you can explain it and people will fill in the blanks for you and over time your vocabulary will grow. A very useful word I recommend is やつ。 Explanations -> Insert やつ People will ohhh you mean scissors ? It’s tedious early on but it’s really helpful. Don’t feel discouraged when you sound like a 4 year old for the first half a year. Focus on listening Comprehension and speaking. Reading later unless it’s your prime focus. Find something you enjoy consuming but do it in Japanese . Game reviews , KZfaq , etc. Obviously you would need to start with regular basic grammar and than apply above. People who only sit through books studying kanji in my experience rarly excel later on when you actually get exposed to Japanese in real life

Great intro video for folks and awesome editing andy!

Very enjoyable to watch Andy, well done! When I first started, I used an audio course called Total Japanese by Michelle Thomas, which I liked and think might have benefited my pronunciation since it encourages some mild shadowing. I also used Remembering the Kana by James Heisig, which helped me verify if I liked the method. I did and went with Heisig for the Kanji as well. Today, I’m not sure if I wouldn’t go with Wani Kani instead though.

Great video! I started Japanese a little over a month ago on Duolingo just to see if it would stick with me, which it certainly has. It's also good to hear that it might take years to start becoming fluent in the language, makes it easier to have realistic goals and expectations. Also love that just consuming media in Japanese is also a tip. The main reason why I started to learn is because I got super into the video game Elden Ring and the Yakuza series games, I also had started reading my first manga, Inuyasha, and started the anime as well. Once I realized that almost all of the media I was consuming was coming from Japan I felt like I should try to learn the language and more about the culture and history of Japan too.

Came here a year after watching this to say thank you. I'm definitely nowhere near fluent yet, but I can comfortably say that I'm N5 inching towards N4 level now. To everyone who is just starting, you can do it! It gets easier the more you learn.

This is great !!

Thank you very much for these videos ToKini Andy. I've started the journey to learn Japanese a month ago, and I've been immersed in the language ever since. I decided to change everything that I use for entertainment to the Japanese language, and I'm having fun with it. From navigating the menus of the Xbox console to even changing the language on both audio and text of a videogame or reading material when applicable. Your videos are an excellent tool for guidance so I appreciate the effort that you put into these. Spanish is my mother tongue, and I've learned English from watching cartoons in the 80's-90''s, and I noticed that the learning was seamless without me putting any effort since I only consumed North American media back then. Now than I'm starting to actually focus in learning a 3rd language, this is where I'm noticing that my growth will mostly depend of the effort that I put, and the motivation so thank you very much once again.

When I started learning I took a course at school that went through the first Genki textbook without teaching any kanji at all. I picked up Japanese learning again recently after 5 years and while I'm working through Genki II it feels super rough that I never learned any kanji so now I'm super motivated to cover that blind spot.

Awesome stuff

Good video Andy. I’m feeling a bit stuck in my progress, but maybe it’s because I’m trying too many things. I think this video is gonna be helpful. Thank you.

ahh tofugu is great. My daughter started learning Japanese as a grade school language and was struggling so I found that website to try and learn it on my own. Now it is a language I want to learn as well. I would say I am about 85% comfortable with katakana and hiragana with the occasional mess ups in regards to the "silent" characters. Thanks for the vid. I will go pick up these books as well

英語の勉強をするべくyoutubeを見ていたらこちらのチャンネルに辿り着きました。言語は違えど基本的な学習方法は同じということに改めて気付かされました。

I just started abt a month ago and this has helped a ton so far

In just a couple months I’m going to meet with my Japanese grandparents and family. And I felt honestly a little embarrassed knowing I might not be able to connect with them as close as I could. So I’m just reading as many books as I can and playing learning games already having a basic understanding. Hoping this helps!

This is my third time trying to learn hirigana. Tofugu has absolutely changed the game and I'm more comfortable now with it then I've ever been. Thank you so much!

Aweso tutorial bro! I like how you gets down to bus

I started a few years ago and was using Memrise as the main source of learning. Although I did take on board a fair bit of vocab I didn’t learn much sentence structure. I then realised that my method of learning was wrong and my motivation took a hit. Problem was I was just doing it for fun and with no clear reason. I still want to get back into it but may have to start from scratch even though I remember a decent amount. I’ve saved this video in my Japanese playlist for when I’m ready. Thanks for the info!

I have a language tutor. And he is pretty much taking this approach. I’m only 3 weeks but this is making me so happy.

Such a great video

ive been trying to passively learn the basics (and i mean basics-starting to learn kana on my phone on the way to school) and this has been really helpful and motovational.

Thanks for you great tips. Something else worth noting is that you can use Japanese dictionary app or other furigana apps to scan in Japanese characters and text and then you can easily add to your various lists. Quite helpful and saves lots of look up time when compared to looking up via radical etc. Thanks to your video I have decided to play all of my games in Japanese going forward and also will watch my favorite tv series in Japanese if option is there. I have been studying Japanese on and off for 5 years and now is a good as time as any to switch over. Quick edit: you can also open a picture with Google Lens from your phone and select the copy text option and paste into the Japanese dictionary.

One of my 2023 resolution is to learn Japanese and this video will greatly help me! Being fluent in English (because I'm French) already helps to reads Japanese to English book and then translate to French and it can even better my English, I guess it's a win win!

Your point on hiragana and katakana not being taught together is actually why I created my own flashcards, showing them side by side. To me, it seemed similar to how we learned the English alphabet as kids. Showing the differences between upper and lower case letters i.e Aa Bb Cc Dd...

I would also use anki, but I would recommend always making your own anki deck, even if you are basically copying an existing one, the mental process of creating the cards themselves is a pretty important overlooked aspect for anchoring memory

Taking a trip to Japan next month, hopefully whatever I learn sticks!

Thanks for your advise, Andy sensei. Greetings from Perú.

Thank you for this video. I have very on and off relationship with learning Japanese as thanks to the Kanji I am really struggling to apply immersion concepts I used when learning English and German ( just picking up a novel in target language and enjoying the content, watching movie with target language subs)

Anki is sick, it seems like it's been getting more love recently too. Glad to see people using this amazing tool.

Thank you!

Tis the time of the year when the yt algorithm reminds me that i wanna learn the language but constantly get lost during the start and then drop it. Great video though!

Man, now I wish I watched this video before I started learning 🤭

My mindset is Japanese is the second language I want to learn and I know I’ll have to continue with it for the rest of my life. So I’m not really rushing on it. One thing I’ve grown to accept is since I live in the middle of the US my speaking will always be my weakness. The only way I’ll talk to someone is when I go back home to Hawaii.

As a begginer learner, i’m in my ~8th month of learning japanese and I still don’t even feel confident enough to do the JLPT N5 test yet. As I see other people on the internet saying “I passed N1 in just 6 months!” Really makes me feel like I’m just not made for it, and yes, from time to time I do get toughts of wanting to quit, but that’s completely normal! I know that a lot of people learning japanese might feel the same, and I just want to tell you that you’re not alone!

Wtf this is the best intro the Japanese video I’ve come across after 1.5yrs of studying, I’m gonna get back to the basics ✊

Ahh, some good tips on how to start, and since I have a Japanese 3ds, I’m already 1/5th of the way there!! Might try these someday as how I learn Japanese depends on what I feel like on said day. Sometimes I learn from videos, and sometimes I learn phrases that are related to what I want to do in Japan.

I wish you made this two years ago lol. Love your videos, thanks for your hard work!

Thank you sir

I started last year with Genki but i wasn’t that thrilled. So I gave up.This year i gave it a chance with Tobira this time and it works fine with me and has better structure and less English.Soon I’ll get the workbook which the publishers will release in less than a month. The only downside of Tobira is the lack of Answer Keys for self learners. But I’m in contact with publishers already seeking for a solution.

I just started to learn japanese a few months ago, thats how i found this channel. I recomend using memrise to memorize hiragana, katakana and vocabulary. At least i found it really helpfull until now and with other language learning

I recall when learning Spanish and Polish a while ago to always repeat words and sentences out loud. And then to write if you can. I also used this trick when I was in engineering school and it works. Your brain isn't meant to read everything in your internal monologue to learn. Saying stuff over and over really helps solidify stuff into memory.

This is so good, and it’s a new post and not a 12 year old vid

As someone with a bachelor's degree in the language with a focus on interpretation/translation, switching out things in your every-day life to the Japanese versions/equivalents and really try to just surround yourself with the language as much as possible made things a lot easier. In my case I started that off with only buying all new video games in Japanese, as opposed to English for example, essentially forcing myself to familiarize myself with words and kanji that I didn't know at the time. Sure, I had to pause a lot and write down vocabulary and kanji, but it worked. I was fortunate enough as well to have a class-mate that was already fluent in the language and only really needed that proven on paper, and she helped me to learn a lot more as well just by speaking to her through text. Granted I did have a few contacts and friends in Japan as well but I didn't feel comfortable speaking to them in Japanese until the second or third year at uni or so. If I could start over, I would have started speaking Japanese to native speakers a lot earlier, allowing myself to make the mistakes I would eventually make regardless when speaking to them a lot earlier. I did this 12 years ago now, meaning quite a few years before social media became such an integral parts of our lives as it is nowadays...where it has never been easier to reach out to people that are native speakers, etc. I would imagine learning it nowadays has never been as easy as it is now.

Thank you again for this video Andy. I have been studying Japanese for about a month with another book and such and decided things just were working as well as I feel like they should/could. I decided I would start over and use Genki for Grammar/Overall language learning, Anki for vocab, that I wouldn't learn words that aren't very useful to me like Secretary, and Remembering the Kanji. I have Anki but just feel like I've finally figured out how I should rate words that I am learning for my purposes. Overall, I think I'm landing on things that work for me and that I really need more repetition on the things I'm learning. In particular, with vocabulary I'm finding that the neural plasticity I had when I tried learning Japanese 10 years ago just isn't there. ^,^;; Regardless though, I think that I'm on a good path now with the recommendations your videos make. :D I've looked at a ton of language learning videos and such over the last decade and I think that your video recommendations work the best for the way my brain functions. lol Note: The reason I am not properly learning some of the business related words right now is because my current goal is to just be able to survive in Japan for a week in about 4 months. In terms of usefulness, business terms aren't that useful for me right now.. I figure I can learn those later. My profession has so many terms that me interacting in a professional sense is going to require months of studying just industry terms. It also seems odd to me to learn how to say Newspaper before I learn a word I use, like Latte. lol

I've been studying for little over a year and my listening and reading for the most part has improved greatly. Even if I dont understand the majority, I can pick out key things that I know and kind of summarize. What has gotten me stuck is responding. Output has been the biggest hurdle for me. It has been severely frustrating and demoralizing even. I can listen to someone and know what they're saying, but it's like my brain completely empties any sort of Japanese I've heard or learned over the course of a year. I get easy grammar wrong. Particles kick my ass constantly. Remembering both Kunyomi and Onyomi is difficult. My brain still confuses English sentence structures with Japanese and somehow my English has declined since studying! It's so odd that it takes more thought to think of words in my native tongue but I can't even speak somewhat confidently even if it's basic in Japanese. I'm sure there's others who have felt this issue themselves, but it really has put a damper in my studies. Not only that, being surrounded by a language other than your target doesn't help aid in using it on a daily basis. I can't fathom the idea of doing immersion for hours a day as my brain would be fried and I'd come to resent the process.

I’m going to start learning (I just started today) and this video is useful

Thanks so much! This is amazing. I lived in Tokyo for 3 years but didn't embrace learning the language (super disappointed in myself). So now I'm determined to learn. Taking classes and studying a lot more. This is breaks it down into bite sized pieces and helps the daunting task ahead.

I’m thinking about starting finally…. Subbed :)))

My goal with Japanese is to just consume media from Japan that hasn’t been translated. Because of that, almost day one, I played Pokemon Sword after learning some higarana and kana (there’s a language option on that game specifically for no kanji, so its great for super beginners). I would try my best to read and it really helped with some words. Granted, my goal is to play and read more stuff, and probably never speak it.

i started learning japanese 4 days ago, i've been watching some jdramas - animes and i did really enjoy the language. i can understand some characters from hiragana & katakana. now i do wanna focus on pronunciation because i think i'm doing some mistakes with sounds "r" and "tsu" feels like i'm saying wrong 😅. at the same time i do study some basic things, "yes, no, thank you, meeting & greeting" etc. after learning these subjects i feel like i'm gonna go with grammar & vocabulary. but i'm in no rush to go with kanji, because ik that when i start to study kanji i'm gonna feel pressure. so whenever i feel ready i'll do that. as you said i'm trying to stay fun while learning, thank you so much for this video! i'm definitely gonna keep an eye on your channel.

I bought the Tango N5 book very early on too. it was amazing. I studied pretty hard for a year or so, but the past 2.5 years my Japanese has been on a slower burn. I just read manga for 30 minutes or more a day, I watch a lot of shows with JP subs, and I text/talk daily to my GF. though we do speak English 60-70% of the time, while more the opposite for texting. (my comprehension is leagues above my speaking.) I'm finally taking a JLPT test this December though, so I bought the N4 and N3 単語 books, as well as some practice exams, and finally finishing Genki 2's grammar, and I'm going to get into the Intermediate Genki book soon as well. The only thing I feel like I did right with Japanese is spend 10 years when I wasn't learning it, just immersing in the language, so when I did study, it unlocked that subconscious knowledge. I think Immersion is very underrated as a learning tool.