The struggles of learning Japanese

November 16, 2024

Let's face it— learning Japanese can sometimes be pretty confusing.

Makes sense at least. Japanese itself is fundamentally different from English, so there are lots of concepts we need time to understand.

And we naturally get doubts along the journey:

Am I learning the right thing?

Is this too advanced for me?

This sure is taking a while, am I doing something wrong?

Is this too easy for me?

Am I wasting my time?

今日きょうの朝あさごはん何なに食たべたっけ、、？

Maybe I should just quit…?

Why was I trying anyway…?

If you're like me, perhaps questions like the above have found their way into your head while trying to understand some Japanese.

Thankfully, these questions are completely normal and understandable to have.

After all, becoming highly proficient in Japanese, while made simple with the help of comprehensive tools like NativShark, takes a long time.

Like, 2 to 4 years+ kind of long time. Though it does depend on your goals.

I've been studying Japanese for more than 8 years and there are still many things I wish I could be doing better when it comes to interacting with or producing Japanese.

That all said, while it can be easy to feel lost on this journey, getting back on track can be equally as easy,

Clearing the confusion

Here are the most important things that have helped me keep going over these past 8+ years of studies.

Remember why you started

Was it to…

…communicate with a family member better?

…make friends who have grown up in a completely different way of life than you?

…enjoy Japanese media such as anime, books, video games, etc. in the language they were written in?

…get a more fulfilling experience while living in or visiting Japan?

…see if you could do it, or just for fun?

I know I definitely fit into a few of these. And all of these are valid reasons as to why one should study, and remembering them really can lead to a nice motivation boost.

Once you remember why you started, it's helpful to do your best to…

Be consistent

Showing up as often as possible is one of the biggest keys to success when studying Japanese there is.

Makes sense— the more you show up, the more Japanese you learn, and the more you can understand and use. Also helps us keep Japanese at the top of our minds so we aren't forgetting as much as well.

NativShark can be used on your phone, tablet, and computer as long as you have internet, so it makes showing up much more simple:

Don't try to be perfect here. I can't tell you the number of days where I did show up, but only studied for 30 seconds.

I remember this one time when I was studying in a car with my loud friends, music blaring, probably speeding down the highway to a party (don't speed down the highway, btw. The risk isn't worth the 2 minutes you can shave off).

Definitely not high-quality study time. But I read a few sentences of Japanese for that day, and that was a victory ^^

That said, there are days when you just can't show up. So always be willing to…

Forgive yourself.

None of us are perfect and we're going to miss days due to any number of things. Sometimes there's a big life event, sometimes we're just flat-out too tired or busy to study.

So instead of trying to do double the studies the day after missing your studies, just do your normal amount. Or less, even.

I've always found that piling on studies that you miss drastically increases your chances of missing even more days. Because studying becomes something you dread because now you have to do so much of it to do.

And before you know it, you haven't studied in 3 months.

So just do your normal day of studies. Who cares if you missed yesterday.

You're showing up today, and that's a victory

Stop worrying about kanji

You should learn kanji. But you shouldn't worry about learning kanji.

If you use a comprehensive resource such as NativShark, then you're going to get so much exposure to them that you can't help but learn them.

You're going to see everything important in the language time and time again, both inside NativShark and in your real-life exposure to Japanese.

If a simple and straight-forward path sounds appealing to you, you can start your journey to Japanese proficiency by going here:

↑ No payment info needed! It's free to get started with no risk of accidental charges.

Anyway, whenever I see a fellow learner stressed about learning kanji, I always remind them that learning kanji is the same as learning the rest of the language.

Just how we cannot learn the language instantly, we cannot learn kanji instantly either.

Kanji, like the rest of learning Japanese, comes with time, natural exposure, and consistency. You'll learn kanji as long as you keep learning Japanese.

I also find it helpful to keep in mind that if you can recognize that some kanji are different from other kanji, and even if you're mixing up similar kanji often, that means you're in the learning process.

If you weren't in the learning process, then you wouldn't even recognize them at all.

Learning is a spectrum more than a "known" or "not known", unlike school tends to lead us to believe. So when it looks familiar but you can't quite put your finger on it, then that's indicative that you know it 50 or 60% of the way, instead of 90 or 100%.

And that means you're making progress and should be kind to yourself because that's yet another victory^^

We have an article all about this that we wrote after this newsletter was sent.

Click here to learn all about the above idea!

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly…

Have fun!

I think most of us are learning, or curious about learning, because we think it would be fun or fulfilling in one way or another.

So you should do what's enjoyable for you as often as you can when learning the language.

A good example I've experienced personally is when it comes to native materials.

I used to read NHK Easy when I started but I quickly found myself dreading* doing so, to be honest.

*Don't get me wrong, this is actually a helpful thing to do if you enjoy reading the newspaper. I just... don't haha

Eventually, I came to a bit of a realization:

Why would I enjoy reading a newspaper in Japanese when I didn't enjoy reading newspapers in English, either?

So I stopped reading the news and started playing video games in Japanese instead.

I learned so much Japanese when I started doing that.

More than that, I had a ton of fun doing it because I played games all the time in English as well ^^

Also, I played the games I loved the most and knew all the dialogue to.

That really gave me an advantage when I was trying to break down the Japanese I was running into since I was already familiar with the story, setting, and so on.

We wrote a whole guide on native materials since sending this newsletter.

Be sure to check it out!!

Weekly writing prompt:

You're at a bookstore in Japan and having a bit of trouble finding what you're looking for. You walk up to the staff and say…

Post your responses here and let's talk about them!

Feel free to ask for help if you want to say something specific as well. Both myself and other learners will be in there offering advice and help~

Submit prompts you want to see here.

Great job from everyone on last week's prompt 💪

We saw a couple of things including staying consistent in our formal vs casual language.

This is a really deep topic and it's best learned by tons and tons of Japanese exposure, but if you are speaking formal language with someone and you notice them dropping back to casual only for some sentences but not others, there is often a reason behind it.

I find that casual sentences are used for sentences that are more like the speaker's inner thoughts coming out.

This includes things like quick reactions, such as すごっ！ (wow!) or sentences that might end with かな which shows that they're wondering something to themselves.

Things directed at you, (the listener in this case), will often be direct statements or questions that utilize formal language.

With the above in mind, here's a potential response you could have to last week's prompt where you got shown a picture by a stranger:

すごっ！ここの写真しゃしんなんですか？？
Woah! Is that a picture of here??

食くっちゃ寝ね

I showed this to a Japanese native recently and they laughed at seeing this sentence and said ハイレベルですね ([that Japanese is] high level, huh?)

Figured it would be nice to share haha.

One of my favorite things is showing native speakers the sentences I learn in NativShark. They're often surprised to see a resource that covers every part of the language like this ^^

If the above Japanese is difficult for you, all you need to do is keep hitting the Study Now button, and you'll understand it when you get there. Especially when using a study resource like NativShark, you'll be fine as long as you show up as much as you can. The above comes from a lesson in Phase Three, Unit 83.

NativShark goodie bag

New Units will be coming out in December!

Have you been through all of the 645 Units currently available, though? 👀

Oh woah where did this come from:

If you have extra time and want to practice more, don't forget to…

…check out the native materials list or…

…try this week's writing prompt and improve your production skills! You don't have to be a NativShark sub and you get free feedback~

The Konnichiwa Podcast

This is the final episode of the Konnichiwa Podcast.It's been a fun run and I want to thank them for having such an enjoyable podcast. I often listened to them while playing Minecraft and it was a vibe^^

今までありがとうございました！

The final episode:

The Sayonara Podcast - Pt 2 - Spotify

Thanks for reading!
Ty & the NativShark team