Learning a new language is a great way to exercise your brain, and Japanese is a perfect place to start! Luckily, learning Japanese can be broken down into steps that are easy to follow, and the process can be a lot of fun if you enjoy Japanese culture!
So, how do you learn Japanese step-by-step? Here’s how you can teach yourself Japanese step-by-step:
- Research Japanese Culture
- Practice Japanese Pronunciations
- Learn Hiragana
- Explore Kanji
- Learn Katakana
- Practice typing both Hiragana and Katakana
- Start Learning Basic Vocabulary
- Add in Japanese Grammar
- Find a Good Textbook or Program
- Keep Pushing Through
Japanese is a difficult language to learn for a multitude of reasons. You’ll have to clear your brain of any information you think you know about languages to start.
Let’s Learn Japanese
Before you get started on the steps to learning Japanese, it’s important to approach the process with the correct mindset. Japanese differs from English and other Western languages in many different ways.
Japanese uses an entirely different set of letters that look nothing like the English alphabet. In fact, there are three writing systems that you’ll need to learn. Don’t be surprised when you struggle with basic lettering.
If you’re ready to go, then strap in. It’s time to learn Japanese!
1. Study Japanese Culture
This might sound like a strange place to start when you’re trying to learn a language, but it’s the most crucial step to ensuring your success as you try to teach yourself Japanese. If you’ve tried learning another language before, then you know how important this step is.
Languages tend to reflect the culture of the area it’s spoken in; this is why people oftentimes talk about languages as living. If you want to learn a language, it’s difficult to do if you don’t understand the ‘why’ behind things like sentence structures and grammar.
When you start learning a language, you’ll find out that most things don’t translate perfectly. Most languages don’t have the exact same set of vocabulary, and it’s hard to understand diction when you don’t understand the culture properly.
If you can start analyzing the language and understanding the reasons behind certain phrases, then you’ll have a much easier time compared to trying to directly translate all the time.
If you’ve ever learned a second language from English, it’s more than likely another Indo-European language (see this language tree here). This includes languages such as Spanish, Russian, and even Greek.
While these languages might not sound similar to your ears, they all share a common root language, making it easier to learn them after you know another. Japanese is not one of these languages, making it a difficult language to learn for English speakers.
You’ll have to dedicate yourself to really understand Japanese culture before you try jumping into this difficult language. Japanese culture differs from most Western cultures, so it’s even more important when you’re learning Japanese compared to other languages. However, if you’re trying to teach yourself Japanese, you probably know a little bit about Japanese culture from popular media.
You should do this before and during your study of Japanese. Immersing yourself as much as possible is the best idea when you’re learning any language, and pop culture things like movies, small books, and music can help you out.
2. Practice Japanese Pronunciations
Japanese sounds are very different from English sounds in a variety of ways, and it’s important that you understand the various sounds before you really get into the nuts and bolts of the language.
For instance, some people get tripped up by the fact that some Japanese characters that are represented in English by one letter sound like a completely different letter (like ‘r’ and ‘d’). Japanese can also be confusing because letters don’t fit together with consonants and vowels the same way that they do in English.
There are several sounds in Japanese that simply don’t exist in English. You’ll have to learn these sounds, and you’ll need to give your mouth and vocal region time to get used to making the noises. It’s not something you can do in 10 minutes—at least give yourself a few days before moving on to more complicated sounds.
Step two and step three go somewhat together; you’ll more than likely want to start learning the hiragana with the correct sounds. While you’re doing this, you’ll probably feel frustrated, and that’s ok.
In general, when you’re learning a new language, you have to try and rely on your primary language as little as possible. For example, you can’t learn each letter or sound by associating it with the English version (and in Japanese, it’s impossible in several instances). Instead, try to focus solely on the character and sound in Japanese. Once you get your brain adjusted to learning like this, it’s a lot easier to remember and digest new languages.
You’ll find that popular Japanese media will be a huge help here. You’ll start to understand how the pronunciations and how the language flows if you’re listening to Japanese music or watching Japanese movies and TV shows.
3. Learn Hiragana
Think of Hiragana as the Japanese alphabet. While there are three writing systems, hiragana is the best place to start, and it’s going to be required before you can study from any textbook or online resource.
While most traditional classes would spend months learning how to read and write hiragana, you can choose what you’d like to do. Learning to write hiragana can be strange, and it’ll be difficult for your hands to get used to writing such different letters.
Some people find it easier to wait until later on to start practicing writing; besides, once you can read a language, writing comes a lot easier. Besides, it’s more beneficial to learn how to type hiragana compared to writing it.
While it’s a good idea to think about how professionals teach Japanese, remember that you’re not sitting at a desk in a classroom. You can set your own pace as long as you’re honest with yourself about your process, and you can use whatever techniques best help you, whether you’re a visual, kinetic, auditory, or writing learner.
This is a pillar of your Japanese learning; don’t advance before you’re ready. Make sure you’ve got hiragana memorized; no matter how slow you are, as long as you don’t cheat, you’re ready to move on!
While you don’t want to move too fast, you don’t want to move too slow either. Moving too slow can take away your motivation and cause you to get ready to give up.
You’ll want to learn how to read and pronounce these letters; see how step two is helping already? Once you’ve gotten to where you can pronounce and read through the letters without any additional help, even if it takes you a few seconds, then you’re ready to move on!
4. Explore Kanji
Kanji is singlehandedly the most difficult part of learning Japanese. In fact, most native Japanese speakers don’t know every single kanji that exists, and many kanjis have multiple definitions. You can learn more about kanji’s history and uses here.
Expect to spend a lot of time here, and you’ll want to keep adding to your kanji vocabulary as you go. The official kanji for everyday use includes 2,136 characters. Don’t worry; you don’t have to learn all of these before deepening your studies, but you’ll want to get a good start.
Kanji is combined with hiragana and katakana to create full, grammatical-correct sentences. Therefore, before you learn how to read Japanese, you’ll have to learn some kanji. By getting a good grasp of kanji early on, you’ll save yourself time and frustration further down the road.
Here are a few different things you’ll need to pay attention to when you’re learning kanji:
- The English Meaning. On average, each kanji character has three English translations. This means that things can get confusing quickly. You’ll want to pay attention to the most common meaning while tucking away some of the lesser-used meanings of each character.
- Japanese Context. As expected, you can tell which kanji meaning is being assumed by the surrounding Japanese vocabulary. While you’re learning what each kanji represents, try memorizing what vocabulary is used with each meaning. This will make things a lot easier when you get to Japanese grammar.
This step requires a lot of memorization, so make sure you set a pace that works for you. Try not to go too fast or too slow; you don’t want to get bored or burn yourself out. Learning a new language, especially Japanese, requires motivation and perseverance. Pacing yourself can help you maintain these feelings.
5. Learn Katakana
Finally, it’s time to learn the third and final writing system in Japanese: katakana! This step is extremely similar to learning hiragana; you’ll more than likely have an easy time deciphering these characters, and the process will be quicker compared to the beginning. Hooray for progress!
This is the perfect thing to do while you’re still adjusting to learning kanji characters. Because it’ll be easier for you at this stage in the game, you’ll be able to get the hang of kanji characters while still progressing with your study of Japanese language.
While you’ll probably grasp katakana quicker, be prepared for it to be challenging. Katakana is actually harder than hiragana to learn—however, once you’re at this stage of the game, your brain will be more flexible and will digest the learning easier.
Once you’ve gotten to where you can read katakana with no help, go ahead and move on. You may have to revisit this step in the future because katakana isn’t used as much as hiragana and kanji in simple sentences, so don’t waste too much time perfecting this area.
Even though you won’t really start using katakana until later on, it’s a good idea to go ahead and get versed in it now compared to later. It’ll be easier to brush up on later compared to trying to learn it all when it starts showing up. Plus, it’s a natural step since you’ll know the other two Japanese writing systems!
Once you’ve completed this step, recognize how far you’ve come! Learning one writing system is difficult; imagine learning three different alphabets. At this stage, you should have a decent grasp on three different writing systems. Remember to celebrate the victories along the way to becoming fluent in Japanese; this is how you’ll be able to push yourself when things get tough.
6. Practice Typing Both Hiragana and Katakana
The next step is practicing your typing skills! This will help your knowledge of both hiragana and katakana sink in, and you’ll have a practical way to apply your expertise in Japanese. The good news is that you can practice typing with any keyboard with a Japanese keyboard program. There are plenty to choose from, so find one that looks good to you, and start going.
While it’ll be a challenge to learn to type both writing systems at once, it’ll push you to remember and cement each system into your brain. It’s also going to work out those brain muscles even more and in different ways than learning one by one would.
If you find this step challenging, then remember that it’s ok! Try slowing down your pace, or go back to just studying the writing systems on their own to get a better grasp of them. You set the pace when you’re teaching yourself a language, so don’t feel bad if you have to slow down.
The key to success is realizing how you learn best and the ideal pace for you. If you’re not someone who is strong when it comes to typing English, then this step is going to be even more difficult.
However, don’t skip it! Typing is one way that you can put these skills to good use, and it’ll help you in the long run. Imagine writing Japanese; that’s much harder and would take much more time to learn. Typing is a much easier place to start, and it’s a great way to review and end your basic Japanese instruction.
7. Start Learning Basic Vocabulary
If you’ve followed steps one through six, then you’ve been learning Japanese vocabulary this entire time! Now that you’ve learned every writing system Japanese uses, it’s time to really start dedicating as much vocabulary as you can.
There are three main steps to learning how a Japanese sentence works:
- Hiragana, kanji, and katakana
- Vocabulary
- Grammar
At this point, you’re ready to start learning Japanese grammar. However, you can’t do that unless you know the words in each sentence. Imagine trying to figure out how nouns and verbs fit together without even knowing what each word means!
While some programs will have you learn vocabulary while learning grammar, we recommend not doing so. This makes grammar much more difficult to grasp (think of how difficult English grammar can be, and you know the words!).
It also leaves you feeling frustrated more often than not, and that’s not going to help you push on. You only have yourself to rely on, so it’s important to make sure that you don’t set yourself up for failure. Really studying vocabulary before moving onto grammar is going to propel you through your grammar studies.
It’s helpful to set a vocabulary schedule for yourself. This will take some time to plan out, but it’ll make the task easier, and it’ll keep you on track without missing any major vocabulary categories.
For example, you’ll want to break down language by the words you use most. You can use these categories as a starting point:
- Pronouns
- Animals
- Clothes
- Places
- Family Titles
- Verbs
- Hobbies
- Instruments
This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it’s a great place to start. After you’ve done that, then set a goal for how many vocabulary words you want to memorize in a certain amount of time. For example, you could learn 20 vocabulary words every day. (Remember, you’ll also have to review these words every day, so make it a realistic number based on how much time you spend studying.)
A Quick Note on How Language Works:
As you learn this vocabulary, try steering away from your native language as much as possible. Instead, associate the words and characters with the visual of each one. This applies to everyone, not just visual learners. Studies show that this is the best and quickest way to commit vocabulary to memory.
While no one quite knows how children learn languages, it’s thought that they see things and correlate words for them because of the order that children learn words and sentence structures. You want to mimic this as much as possible when you’re trying to learn any language.
8. Add in Japanese Grammar
Once you feel like you have a good grasp on hiragana, kanji, katakana, and Japanese vocabulary, then it’s finally time to learn how to put sentences together! This is where you’ll really start to see yourself excel, and the progress you’ve made so far will become apparent.
This is going to be the most satisfying area of your studies. Make sure to remember the feelings of accomplishment as you’re able to understand and craft simple Japanese sentences; you’ll need that serotonin boost very soon.
Japanese grammar is similar to any other language in that it’s confusing; there are a lot of rules and a lot of things that break those rules. Grammar is hard, and it’s going to take awhile to start understanding Japanese grammar.
You can use things like lyric breakdowns and young children’s books to progress. Once you start learning basic grammar, you should be able to get through small children’s books, and even some music lyrics.
There are several ways to go about the rudimentary Japanese grammar rules; since this is a self-learning guide, we want to make sure you go as far as possible before relying on any outside programs.
With that being said, this is about as far as you can go on your own. It’s going to be difficult to find comprehensive guides on beginning Japanese grammar online, and it’ll leave you with more questions than they can typically answer. Once you’ve exhausted the resources you’ve been able to find, it’s time to move onto step nine.
9. Find a Good Textbook or Program
Congratulations, you’ve finally arrived to the point where you’ve taught yourself as much as you can! If you’re ready to go further in your Japanese language studies, then you’re going to have to invest in a language learning tool.
Luckily, there are plenty of resources out there to help you. We’ve compiled a list of some of the best Japanese textbooks and programs that you can get—check these out if you’re ready to move forward.
- Japanese from Zero! 1. Proven Techniques to Learn Japanese for Students and Professionals
This is a series of books that is going to help you take your Japanese studies to the next level. These workbooks are excellent at taking the best language learning trends and applying them to Japanese for English learners. Plus, the fun art style will help you remember how Japanese culture is. The writers of this series have taught Japanese all over the world.
- Learning Japanese Hiragana and Katakana: Workbook and Practice Sheets
If you struggled with the writing systems, then this workbook will help you with grammar while reinforcing both hiragana and katakana. This book was created by both an English and Japanese writer to bring you the best learning tools whether you’re studying at home or with other people. The practice sheets will help you test your knowledge as well, which will help keep you on track with your goals.
- A Guide: A Japanese Approach to Learning Japanese
This guide is meant to help you learn Japanese as it is spoken in Japan—this is going to be a bit different than a lot of other guides out there. You’ve heard of slang in your own language; it exists in every language, and this guide is going to teach you how to learn Japanese with slang. If you’re looking to sound as native of a speaker as possible, or you’re learning Japanese for pop culture purposes, then this is a great resource.
- Japanese Hiragana & Katakana for Beginners: First Steps to Mastering the Japanese Writing System
This is another great resource for anyone who’s looking to reinforce their knowledge of hiragana and katakana while learning Japanese grammar. This guide will make sure you’re learning correctly with plenty of visuals and mnemonics; if you found yourself struggling in the earlier steps, then this is a great option for you.
- Basic Japanese: Learn to Speak Everyday Japanese in 10 Carefully Structured Lessons
If you’re an auditory learner, then this is a great resource for you. The book includes downloadable audio to help you learn Japanese grammar through listening and responses; it’s one of the most user-friendly guides on the market. With 10 lessons, you’ll be able to follow along and keep yourself on track as well.
- A dictionary of basic Japanese grammar
While we’ve discussed how important it is to have as much vocabulary memorized as possible, it’s a process that is going to take you months, if not years, to do. Having a dictionary by your side is better than googling every character, and this specific dictionary will have everything you need.
10. Keep Pushing Through
You’ve finally made it to intermediate Japanese learning! Now that you’ve gotten this far, there is a bit of bad news to share: there really aren’t many guides or textbooks that can help you take Japanese farther than a beginner’s level.
You can find a lot of instruction on advanced Japanese grammar, but most of it isn’t very user-friendly; typically, they rely on you having a teacher or mentor to help you learn at this stage of the game.
This is the most difficult part of any language-learning process; up until now, you’ve probably felt confident and excited in the progress you’ve made.
However, most people at this point begin to question how much they truly know. Earlier on, you were finding out all sorts of things, and you were more than likely focused on what you did know at any point in time. Once you’ve reached an intermediate level, the majority of people start realizing and focusing on how much they don’t know.
If you’re serious about becoming fluent in Japanese, it’s very important to recognize these feelings so that you can overcome them. The more you push through, the better you’ll be in the end. Don’t let this be something that stops your language acquisition.
Here are some next steps you can take if you’re struggling to understand the advanced books;
- Take a trip to Japan and immerse yourself in the language.
- Hire a tutor or mentor online who can help you and answer questions you have.
- Read more Japanese fiction books; this is a way to naturally progress your language skills.
- Scan Japanese forums on topics you enjoy.
Remember, the most important thing is to not give up. You’ve come this far, so don’t let language anxiety stop you from progressing
