What are some basic tips to learn Japanese quickly?

Japanese is effectively the sole language of Japan, and almost all of the 128 million natives speak it. Although there are a number of dialects and accents around Japan, the essentially monolingual status that prevails here is quite rare, experts say. Several principal languages are widely spoken within the borders of most countries. According to Nagoya University linguistics professor Ken Machida, there are between 6,000 and 7,000 living languages in the world today, which, if evenly distributed, would break down to about 30 per country. Outside of Japan, 2.98 million people in 133 countries are studying the language at 13,639 institutions, according to a 2006 survey by the Japan Foundation. This number, up 26.4 per cent from the previous survey in 2003, does not include people teaching themselves or taking private lessons. According to Nagoya University linguistics professor Ken Machida, there are between 6,000 and 7,000 living languages in the world today, which, if evenly distributed, would break down to about 30 per country. Outside of Japan, 2.98 million people in 133 countries are studying the language at 13,639 institutions, according to a 2006 survey by the Japan Foundation. This number, up 26.4 per cent from the previous survey in 2003, does not include people teaching themselves or taking private lessons.

Start by improving your listening skills with multiple online resources such as talk shows, Japanese news, audiobooks to name a few! News in Slow Japanese presents a weekly news discussion in slow Japanese. It’s a subscription service, but you can listen to the introductions to each episode for free. Put YouTube to its best use and stream Japanese radio stations! To hear curated collections of Japanese video media use FluentU. It’s a halfway point between a structured language course and full real-world Japanese media immersion.  Watch Japanese films with English subtitles and English films with Japanese subtitles to accelerate your learning. Learn with songs, podcasts and anything that you can lay your hands on to get maximum of some spare time.

Study consistently but don’t lead yourself to burnout! Set realistic measurable short and long term goals! Start with spoken Japanese if the idea is to learn for business or travel! Don’t be scared to try and make mistakes. We all do it. Why let that deter or embarrass you?! Remember self-studying is NOT meant for everybody! Identify your unique style of learning that helps you ace the language. Identify Japanese genuine and fake cognates. Learn basic phrases, connector words, conversation builders that will help you communicate and express yourself through smaller sentences. Maintain a journal of new phrases that will help you build your first conversation and not just interesting or complex words. Keep a Japanese dictionary handy. 

Read aloud to clear your pronunciation.  Avoid writing in your head. Find a conversation partner on Lingoci, Verbling, iTalki to practice speaking with and seeking feedback. Watch out for fake online Japanese learning tools! Sign up for an intensive course. It would really help you master Japanese! Restrict translating Japanese words/phrases into English to when you are just new! As you progress move away from it consciously.  Use Spaced Repetition System apps like Anki and Memrise for flashcards. Start by reading children’s storybooks. Children’s stories can be a great place to start trying to read in Japanese. Stories designed for children and young adults are likely to use simpler language and more straightforward ideas than texts designed for adults. Choose commonly used words to start a conversation rather than tougher ones that don’t find a way into day-to-day usage! Try and link Japanese words/ phrases to images and visual situations, not words in your native language or English!

Do study grammar with grammar-based software or textbook after a while. I suggest Rocket Japanese or Duolingo, to achieve the same. Study a language every day in short intervals or for about 2-4 hours, as much you can spare. Goes for Japanese too. Studying regularly, for a short time, helps dramatically than trying to do it all in one sitting over weekends!  Practice without a blink. There’s no escape from practice and no shortcuts.   Engage in constant review to measure your progress – repetition is the key!

Japanese is a mora-timed agglutinative language with straightforward phonotactics, a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and lexically important pitch-accent. Word order is usually subject–object–verb, with particles indicating grammatical function, and sentence structure is topic–comment. Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic effects, as well as to ask questions. In addition to kanji, the Japanese writing system mainly employs two syllabic (or moraic) scripts, hiragana and katakana. Latin script is used sparingly, such as for imported acronyms, and the numeral system mostly employs Arabic numerals alongside conventional Chinese numerals.

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