Okay. It’s time for me to come clean on why I started this blog: Over the past year, I’ve tried studying Japanese dozens of different ways. During my learning journey, I discovered the one absolute fail-proof, 100% surefire way to become fluent FAST in Japanese. We’re talking 6 months OR LESS.
It’s easy to do but hard to explain, so I outline all the details here.
Okay. I’m just kidding. That link leads to a wholesome Rick Astley hit. I’m just writing this because it’s April 1st, and I want to remind you that anyone promising:
A SUPER FAST way to learn Japanese or
The SINGLE CORRECT way to learn Japanese
…is messing with you. (Usually for money.)
That being said, here’s my real advice:
The best way to learn Japanese is the way that you learn Japanese.
Which may be—but is not necessarily—the way your friends did it, the way that seems like it should work, the way that has great marketing behind it.
Let’s use some examples.
The first is theoretical: Mike-kun knows that if he just got his life together and started doing his WaniKani reviews three times a day, he’d definitely learn kanji. And he’s probably right—he surely would—but here’s the thing: Mike has not consistently opened his WaniKani app in three months.
So that’s not the way he’s going to learn kanji. He needs to find a different way, one that doesn’t first depend on him getting his life together.
A real example: I know lots of people who have had tremendous success with Anki, the flashcard app. I know that Anki is great.
But…I don’t use it. I’ve downloaded and re-downloaded it. I’ve watched review cards pile up and I’ve scheduled study sessions into my calendar. But for whatever reason, I’ve never been able to consistently use it.
What did actually work for me?
Memrise.
I am not recommending Memrise (in fact I specifically recommend against it). It has very few features, the decks are sometimes inaccurate, the company stripped away the mnemonic devices for every card—an insane top-down corporate decision that nullifies the very reason they’re called Memrise. And they blast wretched ads in your face every 10 cards or so. It’s a terrible app.
But for whatever reason, it’s the one I used. I learned 5,000 words on Memrise and easily passed the N3 and N2 vocab sections of the JLPT. It was not the most effective way to learn Japanese; it was just the thing that, for whatever reason, I actually did.
You don’t need to justify, even to yourself, why you’re studying Japanese a particular way. Instead, try to notice what does and does not work for you; embrace the former and cut out the latter. Don’t be like Mike-kun and create study plans based on an aspirational version of yourself.
I know so many people who’ve taken so many paths to Japanese. The interview series How I Learned Japanese shows the wide variety of methods people have used successfully.
So anyone promising the best way? If it’s not the best for you, let it serenely pass you by.
That being said, here’s some stuff I’ve enjoyed recently and think is worth sharing:
This is yet another flashcard site. What makes this one unique is that it has tons of well-organized, pre-downloaded vocab decks for different anime, light novels, et cetera. You can choose what you want to read or watch ahead of time and study from a ready-made deck. I’m personally far too lazy to make my own decks as I encounter new words, so I’m enjoying this one.
Don’t know what to read? The Dokusho Club has tons of recommendations based on your Japanese level.
Two translators, Heidi Karino and Yukari Watanabe, have started the podcast Global Success with Japanese Translation.
And recently I’ve been really enjoying my cooking classes, and it’s made me put me in the mood for Japanese food dramas.
Shinya Shokudou, about the regular customers at a Tokyo bar, will show you exactly what izakaya food is like. (It’s called Midnight Diner in English. Shokudou are nothing like diners, but I digress).
Makanai/舞妓さんちのまかないさん came out this year, about two girls training as maiko entertainers in Kyoto.
The Japanese food recipe website, Just One Cookbook, has fun collections of recipes inspired by Shinya Shokudou and Makanai. If you’d rather practice reading recipes in Japanese, try this oyakodon or any of these recipes, all inspired by Makanai.
For N4-3 readers, the パンダのポンポン series by Nonaka Hirage makes a great introduction to reading chapter books. It’s about a panda who owns a restaurant and cooks for his animal friends. It’s light on plot but has lots of sweet and cozy vibes—with far more practical vocabulary and conversations than most books offer, making it great Japanese practice.
The same author also has a really cute book about a tiny cat who lives in a bookstore. It’s called 本屋さんのルビねこ.
泣きたい夜の甘味処 is a comic collection of short stories about a nighttime sweet shops that people find when they’re in distress. It’s free on Amazon KU, but it’s also stocked in the front displays of all the bookstores in my city right now, so I’m thinking it’s quite popular. It’s sweet, simple, and has recipes after every story:
And finally, I’m slowly reading the bilingual book Japanese Cooking for Everyone, studying how to translate Japanese recipes well into English (something I already do regularly but think I could do better).
Probably the most washoku washoku I’ve ever made:
Spring is the season for sea bream, cherry blossoms, rapeseed, and firefly squid (鯛/tai, 桜/sakura, 菜の花,/na no hana, and ホタルイカ). Atop the squid is egg yolk mixed with vinegar, which transforms the egg into a sweet-tasting sauce (黄身酢掛け, kimisukake). In the center is the hardest thing to cook, 胡麻豆腐/gomadoufu/sesame tofu, which is made of dashi, sesame paste, and kudzu.
That’s all for this time around!