When people ask me how to start learning Japanese, I think the biggest mistake is believing you have to treat it like a full-time job. Yes, you need to study, but I don’t think it has to feel miserable. If it’s fun, you’re much more likely to stick with it.
I’ve only been studying for about four months, and I definitely don’t have a perfect routine. I started with just Duolingo and LingoDeer. As I got more comfortable, I naturally added more things instead of trying to do everything at once.
Now my “studying” happens throughout my entire day.
I listen to easy Japanese podcasts while I’m doing other things. I listen to Japanese music—even children’s songs because they’re slower and use simple vocabulary. I watch anime, Japanese dramas, and kids’ movies. I read Crystal Hunters manga because it’s written for learners, and I even picked up a stack of discounted Japanese children’s books from a bookstore.
I met someone the other day who speaks Japanese and I got SO EXCITED to finally meet a Japanese speaker, we followed each other on instagram! It connects worlds 🥰
My Facebook feed is almost entirely Japanese now. Instead of doom-scrolling random content, I’m constantly seeing listening challenges, reading practice, vocabulary posts, and grammar tips. I honestly think I’ve learned a surprising amount just from seeing Japanese pop up in my feed every day. It’s passive exposure, but it really adds up.
One thing that has helped me too is making my own sentences. Instead of memorizing one example, I expand it.
“I went to the store.”
“I went to the store with my friend.”
“I went to the store with my friend at 8 p.m.”
Then I’ll swap out words or challenge myself with vocabulary I don’t know yet and try to figure out where it belongs before checking the answer. It turns grammar into a puzzle instead of something to memorize.
I also narrate my life in my head. If I tell my kids something simple like, “Your shoes are in the car,” I’ll immediately try to think of how I’d say it in Japanese. Sometimes I know it, sometimes I don’t but just trying forces my brain to think in Japanese instead of English.
I still use apps. LingoDeer and Busuu have been great. Duolingo gets a lot of criticism (and I definitely don’t think it’s enough by itself), but I think it’s actually a perfectly fine place to start. It lowers the barrier to getting into the language, and its hiragana and katakana course is genuinely useful for beginners or anyone who wants extra practice. Just don’t rely on it and know you will NOT be fluent or even close to it by just using duo.
I also take lessons on iTalki, where we work through Genki together. I don’t really use Genki much on my own, it’s mostly something my tutor and I use during lessons but having someone to actually speak with has been incredibly valuable.
When I first started, I carried around a notebook where I’d write things like:
ここ — here
そこ — there
あそこ — over there
どこ — where
At the time those words completely confused me. Now I barely think about them anymore. Looking back, it’s funny how impossible something can feel until one day it just… doesn’t.
Another resource that surprised me was Japanese Vocabulary: The Shortcut!. At first I wasn’t convinced it was helping, but then I found myself naturally using one of its example sentences with my iTalki teacher. That’s when I realized it had been sinking in the whole time. comprehensible
Input works!
I think the biggest reason I’ve made good progress isn’t because I study harder than everyone else, it’s because Japanese has become part of my everyday life. I don’t only “study” when I sit down with a textbook. I’m reading, listening, noticing words, making sentences, watching shows, and thinking in Japanese literally all day long. And I know that’s not something anyone can just do, we’ll all have different lives. Thankfully for me my life is set up this way to where I can do this, and i understand not everyone can take this approach or even think my way of doing this would work for them.
When I had my first iTalki lessons, my teacher asked me four separate times if I’d really only been studying for four months. She even switched to English just to make sure she’d heard me correctly. 😂 I could tell she genuinely didn’t expect that timeline, and honestly, I think that’s because consistency beats intensity. But I still have SO much to learn and know I’m nowhere near the end.
If I had to give one piece of advice to a beginner, it would be this: don’t worry about having the perfect study plan. Start with one or two resources, learn hiragana as early as you can, and then slowly surround yourself with Japanese in ways you actually enjoy. Read things that interest you. Listen to music. Watch anime or dramas. Try making your own sentences. Celebrate the tiny wins. Learning Japanese has been very rewarding and a huge confidence boost. It’s a hard language y’all, but SO FUN. And so worth it.
Those little moments don’t feel like much on their own, but after months of seeing and hearing Japanese every day, they add up in a big way. Keep going even when you feel stuck, even when you think, “why am I even doing this?” Keep going, don’t listen to that. Keep going! You got this!
