Learning Japanese

This month will mark my second year since I started learning Japanese, and I wanted to touch on that a little bit today and talk about how it's going and what I've been using to learn this language. TL;DR: I am having a lot of fun! It is a very difficult language to learn, but I am enjoying the challenge! Spanish being my native language, I feel like I could've gone with something similar like Italian and I would've picked it up much easier. But where's the challenge in that! Why not learn a new language AND a whole new writing system while I'm at it! 😂

How it started

The answer to this question is a little embarrassing. Lol. It was during the summer of 2019 and I was watching season 2 of One Punch Man, the sub, and I remember thinking to myself, "Man, I wish I could understand this so I don't have to glue my freaking eyeballs to the captions 👀" (Great anime, btw! It's a lot of fun and I highly recommend it if you like superhero stuff!)

When I watch something, I'm always doing something else, so that's where that thinking comes from. Anyway, I didn't do anything about it then, but later that same summer I participated in my library's summer program/reading challenge. It consists of a book bingo and some other fun challenges you can do around their website and even in the community. One of the challenges was to use Rosetta Stone through them. And I was like, "Ohh, this is interesting," and I decided to give it a shot! The best part is that since it's through the library, it's FREE! So that's how I got started on this journey. And it's funny because 2019 was also the first year I participated in my library's summer program, to begin with. Lol. But now I've been doing it for the last three years! (Oh! That reminds me, I gotta go update my reading challenge for this summer!)

They have a similar challenge this year!

What I'm using

As I mentioned, the very first thing I started using was Rosetta Stone. I really like using this because it just has everything. It has a bit of vocab, reading, a little bit of writing, listening, and speaking (which I have a love-hate relationship with. Lol). You basically match the sentence to the pictures and you're supposed to learn the language via context, another thing I have a love-hate relationship with. Lol. I understand, and it works mostly, but also, I do have to pull out Google Translate when I'm doing some of the lessons because I just want to know what these things mean. Lol.

As for the speaking portion, I think that's really cool. I obviously have no one at home to practice Japanese with, so this is very helpful for me. However, sometimes the computer mic doesn't pick up what I say even though I know for a fact I'm saying it correctly, and it drives me NUTS! When the speaking lessons go smoothly, I really enjoy doing them, but when the mic is being a finicky prick, I just want to throw my computer out the window. Lol.

This also has a bit of grammar, which again, you learn via context. But OMG, this language is hard! I wish it would tell you WHY the grammar is the way it is, but this doesn't do that. One thing I learned on this journey is that you should not learn a language using just ONE tool. Use many, use them ALL! So while I do like Rosetta Stone and what it has to offer (I did learn a lot using just this in the beginning, to be fair), it is lacking in some parts and I've learned to supplement it with other things.

The next thing I picked up after I used Rosetta Stone for a while is Duolingo. This is very similar to Rosetta Stone in what/how it teaches you things, so I really enjoy that. This app has gotten many upgrades since I first started, which honestly, I could've used those things way earlier on in my learning. But hey, better late than never, I guess. Lol.

One thing I mentioned with Rosetta Stone is the learning by context thing. Duolingo can be like that if you choose to, but I like the fact that you can hover over the sentence and it will give you the translation of a word. I try to not use this for everything, but I definitely do when I'm stuck or I don't remember a vocab word. It also gives you the translation after each lesson, where applicable.

Unlike Rosetta Stone, as you can see, you don't only match the sentence to pictures. Duolingo has a lot of different types of lessons, some where you do match pair, but instead of pictures, you match a word in kanji to its hiragana counterpart. You also translate sentences from Japanese to English and vice versa. There's vocab, writing, listening, and also grammar. One upgrade they made not too long ago is adding TIPS on vocab and grammar for each section, which is very helpful!

However, I don't read these very often, apparently, because de and ni are still two particles I struggle with 🙈 I'm gonna have to start reading more of these tips more often. Lol.

Next, I've been using WaniKani for just over a year now, and I really love it! This one is very different, though. With this app, you are strictly learning the kanji. Just vocab, if you will. To learn all these different kanji and their readings (sometimes one kanji can have multiple readings! 😬), it gives you some fun mnemonics to memorize! As an example, let's use the kanji for stone!

It gives you a fun little mnemonic to memorize the visualization of the kanji itself, but also to learn the two different readings of if (seki and ishi). Ridiculous things like throwing stones and seeing things you shouldn't be 😂

The next app I used is called Drops, and it's actually a very pretty-looking app. But that's not the point. Lol. This app is another one where you mostly learn vocab but without the added mnemonics. One thing I unlocked not too long ago is kanji, and for these individual kanji, you actually get to write them, which is very cool!

One of the downsides to this is that you only get 5 minutes of practice per day unless you pay, of course. But besides that, I like it! It sort of reinforces what I've learned from my other apps.

In the beginning, I started reading romaji, which is basically just writing Japanese using the Roman alphabet. Earlier, when I used 'stone' as an example, seki and ishi are the romaji counterpart of the reading. This is what they would be in hiragana: せき and いし. So to learn all of my kana (hiragana and katakana. Yes, there are three writing systems used in Japanese 🙃), I used a fun drag and drop game called Kana Bento! For this game, you just drop either your hiragana or katakana onto the romaji reading, or you can drop your romaji reading onto your hiragana/katakana counterpart.

I learned both very quickly using this! What makes it even better is that it is timed, so you can try and beat your score until you're proficient in it. Even though I've known my kana for a while now, I still have this game bookmarked to do when I think I need a refresher.

The last app I use is called Kana Dojo, which I also used for kana. You can do a couple of different things on here. There are some games you can play to help you learn the kana. But the thing I used it the most for is to quiz myself on all the kana.

I also use the Reference section from time to time to look up kana.

The last two things I've used in my learning of the language are these two books. Because the only app I use that really talks about grammar and sentence structure is Duolingo (and I don't even look at those Tips too often, to be honest), I've picked up some books to help me with that. One of the first things you learn about the Japanese language is that they always put their verbs at the end of the sentence. The other thing you need to know is that they have things called particles that have no equivalent in the English language. I got the verb thing down, but the particles? I still need help on those.

Japanese Demystified was very helpful, but it was taking me a while to get through. I mean, it's a textbook, so it read like a textbook. Lol. And because I had borrowed it from the library, I had to return it, so it remains unfinished. I definitely want to get back to it, though, because it really helped me understand the language better. And I do want to pick up more books to read because, well, books are my thing, obviously. Lol. In all seriousness, though, I can get as many apps to teach me vocab and how to say and read words, but that's gonna do me no good unless I can string together a coherent sentence.

How it's going

So after two years of learning the language, how am I actually doing? Well, I'm self-taught, so my studying isn't as strict as it would be otherwise. Plus, I'm doing this for fun. If I were to be dropped in Japan right now, I don't think I could hold down a Japanese conversation quite yet 😅 I know a couple of phrases, a fair bit of vocab, and I can even recognize quite a few kanji, but it's the grammar part of all this I need to focus on the most. I do get very excited when I'm watching subbed anime and I can pick out a few words here or recognize a phrase there.

Sometimes it doesn't feel like I'm making much progress, especially because I've been taking a lot of breaks, but I'd like to think that overall I'm making some progress. Plus, I'm just really enjoying learning a new language!

Working night shifts this month has totally thrown off my schedule, so I haven't been studying as much as I'd like. I do a Duolingo lesson here and there, but hopefully next month I can pick this back up in earnest!

Oh, and let me know if you guys have picked up a new hobby lately!