Studying Japanese as an absolute beginner

Think everyone who comes to Japan arrives with at least a rudimentary knowledge of the language? Think again. From Todd, who came to Japan on the JET Programme, an account of what it is like arriving here knowing zero Japanese:

When I arrived in Japan I didn't speak a word.  In fact, when I got picked up from the airport my friend said "konnichiwa" to someone and I had to ask her what it meant.  I didn't have a job at the time, so I usually studied for 3-5 hours a day, but my friend wasn't around for the first two weeks and I was pretty scared to go out too much, so I might have spent 8-10 hours studying for those first weeks.  The first thing I did was to learn katakana and hiragana.  With intense reading, writing, and flash cards, I was able to learn katakana in a day and hiragana in about a day and a half.

I still remember my first shopping trip after learning them: I bought nairon boxers instead of reion, got a pack of furawa, and a bunch of hourensou.  What power!

I studied hard for months but was not very communicative until the end of month three, when suddenly something in my mind shifted (I learned to think backwards?) and I was able to do some basic communication with all the vocab I had been learning. 

Another interesting moment was when I broke through a plateau in my textbook this year.  I had been working on a particular chapter on and off for quite a while but couldn't master it and so didn't go past it.  Finally I just skipped it, and it only took me a day to finish the last quarter of the entire book. I had already studied or osmosed the rest of the content but had thought I was still at the level of that chapter!

I'm now a bit past my 2-year mark in the country and am gearing up for the 2-kyu level test. 

Here are some random bits of advice based on my experience:
-Learn hiragana and katakana immediately.
-Get a textbook.  I used Japanese for Everyone (in the Japanese for Busy People series). Any well known book with a pleasing layout should be fine.
-Find a tutor who won't tiptoe around your mistakes.
-Ask coworkers lots of questions to get them used to helping you.
-Get other study books too.  It's good to give your brain a break from the layout of your main text.  Also, if you hit a plateau in your main text it doesn't mean you're not learning!  Maybe you should take a break from your main text and use something else.
-Write (don't type) your answers to the text questions in Japanese.
-Take breaks.  My biggest jumps in ability have been immediately after
absenses of varying length from Japan.
-Buy an English-Japanese picture dictionary.
-Have Japanese friends of both genders and all ages.

Tags learning japanese | studying japanese | beginner japanese | Japanese study

Comments

[Paul D]

That's a pretty good list of suggestions for learning Japanese. Although it's implied in Todd's story, I'd add that having a specific goal, like the JLPT, can keep you on track on those weeks you feel like being lazy.