Since then, I’ve continued with this fascinating language.

My aim has been to put in at least thirty minutes of focussed study and practice, at least five times a week.

Japanese learning language log

By the end of July this year, I’d clocked up 299 hours, 30 minutes.

Here’s an update of the numbers on the clock:

August 2020: 18 hours, ten minutes (including 3.5 hours conversation) over 23 days.

September 2020: 21 hours, twenty-five minutes (including 4 hours conversation) over 23 days.

October 2020: 13 hours (including 30 mins conversation) over 20 days.

Running total (1 January 2019 to 31 October 2020): 352 hours, 5 minutes

My approach

Whether or not you should start speaking your target language early depends on your personality and how you motivate yourself to learn.

The last language I started learning seriously was Basque.

I put a lot of emphasis on speaking early and often. From the early stages I had regular, live one-to-one lessons via Skype, booked through the excellent italki platform.

With Japanese, I’ve returned to my “traditional method” of internalising the key grammar patterns, a core bank of key phrases and the most frequent vocab before starting to speak.

I’ve done this by working through several courses in as interactive as possible a way (using audio for listening practice, developing my listening skills through dictation, using the shadowing method to practise the pronunciation and rhythm of Japanese; doing self-correct exercises).

Speaking practice

I did some basic spoken Japanese on the ground in Japan after nine months of preparation, of course.

I only started with some one-to-one speaking sessions in summer 2020, though.

The push that got me trying to speak was participation in my friend John Fotheringham’s Language Accelerator programme, which ran through July.

In July I took had ten live one-to-ones with a Japanese native-speaker teacher as part of the Accelerator. Then I continued with John’s follow-on programme in August and September, which involved taking another four sessions in August and four in September. Now that programme has finished too and in October I deliberately switched back to my previous mode of operation and only did one live session.

My summer 2020 foray into speaking confirmed that my Japanese is still very basic but it was fun to see that, yes, it does work, after a fashion.

Shouldn’t I be better by now?

In my last update vid, I shared the clip of me practising my basic Japanese “self-introduction” phrases (for John’s Accelerator programme). I wasn’t reading the phrases out but I did need to rehearse them a lot.

Commenting on my very elementary performance, one regular viewer over on the YouTube channel suggested that by holding back on speaking, speaking for me had become “almost as a review activity”.

She added: “You are here going through the very basic sentence structures of early A1 and practising those. I would think that you will advance through the rest of A1 and A2 now with a reasonable pace, as you have already accumulated so much more vocabulary and grammar, and have trained your eyes and ears to take in more advanced material in the language.”

I think there’s a lot in this. In the vid, I’m a bit like a foal trying to stand up for the first time on fully formed, but very, very shaky legs.

The experience got me thinking “Am I ‘on target’ with my Japanese?”. What’s reasonable to expect at this stage?

It’s estimated that to get to a “upper beginner” (A2) level in Western European language on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, you need to put in 180 to 200 hours. To get to the top of “B1” (lower intermediate), you need another 400 hours.

When I shot my “self-intro” vid in early July, I had 286 hours on the clock. So, could I expect to be well into B1 with a bit more speaking “activation practice”?

Just how well formed can I expect my “legs” to be at this stage?

First, I need to recalibrate that 286 hour total.

Some of that time has gone on thoroughly learning the two phonetic alphabets (more accurately “syllabaries”) that are used in Japanese’s eclectic writing system.

A lot of time has gone on learning the third ingredient in the mix that is written Japanese: the kanji (that’s to say, the Chinese characters). In the first months of my project I studied the first 200 in James Heisig’s classic Remembering the Kanji book. The 80 characters taught in my core textbook, Japanese from Zero 3, were nearly all from within those 200, but it still quite a lot of time to go through the six or seven that the authors presented in each lesson (and to do the reading and writing exercises in the book that use the characters).

Most European languages are, of course written in Latin script and both the Cyrillic and Greek scripts are quite simple to learn. So, I think it’s fair to deduct “kana time” and “kanji time” were to be deduced from my running total. If I did that, I’d guess my total in early July would still be at, say, 240 hours.

On the other hand, I have also done about 50 hours listening to the Pimsleur audio only course (not included in my time log), so that might push my total back to around 300 hours.

A running total of 300 hour suggest I “should” be able to activate my language even to mid B1 if I keep speaking.

This is especially so given that, compared with French or German, Japanese has some very easy aspects: no word “gender”, no cases, a simple and regular system of verb tenses), a great many loan words from English.

On the other hand, the way that Japanese works (and most of the core vocabulary) is very different from the European languages and it often seems to take Europeans longer to learn (even if you factor out the writing system).

On balance, then, I’d say I should be able to advance “at a reasonable pace” to A2 with more activation practice. But with these time totals on the clock, I shouldn’t be beating myself up for not being further on than that yet.

Main course: Japanese from Zero

My main course book is Japanese from Zero. by George Trombley Jr and Yukari Takenaka. It’s a five volume course and at the end of June I’d finished Lesson 11 (of 13) of Book Three. I didn’t use the book at all in July. The time went on the “Accelerator” instead.

I got back to Book 3 towards the end of September and finished the course on 27 October.

Lesson 12 was very light on new grammar. For some reason, the series really rations out the verbs as if they’re a special treat. Lesson 12 introduced two very useful new verbs できる (to be able, can do) and かわる (to change, turn into). Lesson 12 also covers how to turn adjectives into adverbs (final -い changes to -く).

In the Lesson’s “Culture Clip” introduced the traditional way of counting years. The reign of each Emperor is an “era”. The Heisei Emperor reigned 1989-2019, Western style. So, if you were born in 1995, you’d say “Heisei 6” and so on. This system is still very much in use, though the Christian date system is also widely used.

I knew all this before from my other courses, so Lesson 12 was consolidation for me (none the less important for that).

Lesson 13 introduced something new: the potential form of the verb (can/could)(the “eru” form). Like all the Japanese verb forms I’ve met so far, it is very regular and not difficult to form. Using it correctly will no doubt be a different matter.

There were also some more useful verbs. I’d met three of these before elsewhere:なくす (to lose),　めつける (to find),　めつかる (to be found) and おやぐ (to swim). The fourth was new to me: がきんする (to have patience, endure, bear with). This verb, says the course, has a lot of cultural significance. The Japanese are known for their ability to hold back their emotions in public and to endure.

When I started this project, my aim was to complete the first three books of Japanese from Zero before I left for Japan (so, by the end of September 2019). Erm, I was just over a year out. I have lots of thoughts about the series, but I’ll come back to those another time.

For now, I have not ordered Japanese from Zero Book 4. Instead, I’ll be spending some time between now and the end of the year to review the first three books (as a secondary activity, rather than my main focus).

Assimil’s Le japonais

My complementary course is Assimil’s Le japonais

At the end of July I’d worked thoroughly through the first 37 lessons (of 98). I’d also doubled back and reviewed many of the lessons. By the end of October I had completed to the end of Lesson 44. I’m still enjoying the course. One of the main ways I interact with it is by using the excellent audio for dictation exercises.

Pimsleur

Pimsleur is a five-level, audio only course.

In June I completed Level Four (of Five), Lessons 23 and 24 (of 30). As I reported in July, I hadn’t used the at all since June and didn’t use it during August to October either.

This isn’t a negative comment on the course.

Until mid March I’d been listening to the course on my walks to and from the underground station on my commute to work and on my daily run or walk round the local park. Since then, I’ve been working from home, so the commute has vanished. Also, I’ve been using my time in the park to listen to native-level Basque talk radio (either live or podcasted).

As I write this (early November), I’ve started fitting a little Pimsleur in again on my walks. I do intend to get back more fully to Pimsleur Level Four before too long. I also bought Level Five, so won’t want to let that go to waste.

Teach Yourself Japanese

Since April, I’ve also been working a very old version of Teach Yourself Japanese (C J Dunn and S Yanada) (1958, reprinted 1971). Some of the vocab is dated and some of the phrases stilted but it’s still a great reference work and a source of extra grammar explanations and exercises.

I finished Lesson 18 in mid August. Since then, I haven’t moved forward with any of the remaining Lessons (19 to 30). Instead, I’ve doubled back on some of the exercises. I used some of my live lesson time to have my teacher record sentences from the book for me and I’ve been doing dictation with the aid of those recordings.

Colloquial Japanese

In September, I acquired another older course, Colloquial Japanese by H D B Clarke and Motoko Hamamura. (1987 reprint of 1981 edition). This has is much more conversational in focus than Dunn and Yamada. It also comes with an audio cassette (which I’ve copied onto .mp3). There’s lots that I really like about this book and so I’m planning to use it a lot for the rest of this year.

Like Teach Yourself, this edition of Colloquial Japanese uses romanisation rather than the kanji and kana.

Kana and kanji writing practice?

I’m continuing to get reading exposure to the kana phonetic syllabaries (and some of the kanji characters) as I read Japanese from Zero and Assimil. I do quite a bit of kana writing as I use them for the written exercises from all the courses and my own dictation practice with the Assimil, Teach Yourself and Colloquial audio.

I also try and incorporate the 80 kanji I’ve consolidated in Japanese from Zero 3 Aside from the eight kanji taught in Japanese from Zero 3, even though “Project kanji” is very much on hold. It’s a question of what to prioritise in the time I have available for Japanese.

Goals for November and December

The plan is to continue with my thirty-minute focussed study slots through November and December.

Part of the time will go on review as I dip in and out of all three of the Japanese from Zero books that I’ve completed.

I’m also aiming to work through the whole of Colloquial Japanese, in a very active way (flashcarding and/or speaking the answers to the written exercises into my phone’s voice recorder and self-correcting them). I anticipate moving very fast through at least the first three quarters of the book, as it will be mainly consolidation.

I’ll also use Teach Yourself Japanese whenever I can fit it in.

I’ll continue to work with Assimil, and I’d like to have completed as far as least to Lesson 50 (that’s half way through the course).

In January, maybe I’ll be ready for a new phase: a lot more listening to authentic (non course-book) audio and maybe booking regular speaking practice sessions again…. Watch this space

If you’re a Japanese learner (or a teacher), let me know what you think of my approach so far. How is what you’re doing (or what you’d recommend to your students) different? What are your favourite materials? I’d love to hear in the comments below.

By the way, although John Fotheringham has now paused his Japanese Accelerator programme but if you’re beginning Japanese or are a more experienced learner wanting to get back into it, you should definitely check out his Master Japanese guide. I’ve partnered with him as an affiliate, so if you buy it with my link, it will benefit my work here at the site, at no extra cost to you. You can check out the offer here:

=> John Fotheringham’s Master Japanese

Here’s my August to October “Project Basic Japanese” update vid:

Related posts

For the most recent post on the project, check Update August 2021 to March 2022 (another one coming soon! Dr P, January 2023).

The post Japanese update: August to October appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

I started learning the language eighteen months ago in advance of my first visit to Japan (last October). In Japan, I certainly had a lot of “orientation” in the language, but didn’t say very much beyond the absolute basics.

The way I’ve been learning Japanese is in many ways typical of the approach I took to get fluent in Welsh, French, Russian and German: slow but steady conscious study, deliberate vocab building and a lot of listening practice.

As usual, I like have a focussed study slot, daily where possible. For Japanese in recent months it’s been thirty minutes a day at least five days a week.

Month 19: week-by-week log

I managed at least thirty minutes on twenty-six days of July.

Here’s the month’s breakdown:

Week 1 (Wednesday 1st July to Sunday 5th July): 1 hour, thirty minutes (missed two days).
Week 2 (Monday 6th July to Sunday 12 July): 4 hours, thirty minutes (studied every day).
Week 3 (Monday 13th July to Sunday 19th July):
3 hours, thirty minutes (missed three days).
Week 4 (Monday 20th July to Sunday 26th July): 7 hours, forty minutes (studied every day).
Week 5 (Monday 27th July to Friday 31st June): 2 hours (studied every day)

July 2020 Total: 19 hours, ten minutes over 26 days (so averaging about forty-four minutes a day, on those 26 days).

Running total (1st January 2019 to 31st July 2020): 299 hours, 30 minutes

When to start speaking Japanese?

I’ve just mentioned key components of my approach to language learning but I experiment with different approaches and methods as well.

One “moving part” has been how early I start speaking.

With Basque, I put a lot of emphasis on speaking from day one.

With Japanese, I’ve once again delayed speaking, which is a return to my previous approach. The reasoning was that I was spending a lot of time (and money) in the early years of my Basque journey, saying very basic things over and over again because I didn’t have enough vocab or patterns to do much more.

Why I started speaking Japanese in July

Towards the end of June I heard that my friend John Fotheringham of Language Mastery was running a new “Japanese Accelerator” programme for the month of July. The aim of the “Accelerator” was to get beginner to lower intermediate students of Japanese actually speaking the language.

I got to know John personally a couple of years ago (and then had him as a guest on the Howtogetfluent YouTube channel).

But before that I already know how big an expert he is on learning Japanese and how good his material is, as I’d been a regular reader of his blog and a podcast listener and I’d already bought his Japanese Mastery book.

So, I thought “why not now”? Let’s see how John runs this and spice things up a little in my Japanese journey.

The four “Japanese Accelerator” conversation challenges

In Week One our task was to work up a brief “self introduction” script and have a one-to-one session with a teacher. We were to use the session to have our self introduction corrected and to get the teacher to record it for us. Then we used the recording for practise before posting a recording in the Accelerator Facebook Group of us saying our spiel.

Here’s my attempt from my corrected script (full disclosure: it took about 40 takes for me to memorise it off to this level).

In Week Two we had to book another session with a different teacher.

Our task was to stay in Japanese for at least five minutes and to have a conversation based on our week one self introduction and using some high-frequency phrases to keep the conversation moving.

For this, John provided us with a list of high frequency “getting to know you” questions (e.g. What’s your name? おなめはなんですか; What is your hometown?　どちらのしょっしんですか; Where do you work?　どこではたらいていますか and so on), fillers　and connectors (e.g. that’s correct/right　そうそう ; of course もちろん; well　さあ)(I covered strategies like using fillers and connectors a few months ago in a post here on the site on how to sound more fluent).

In Week Three we had to book a further two sessions and have two 10 minute conversations. The challenge was to practising the same material and questions but using additional questions and phrases to talk to the tutors about their family and hobbies as well.

In Week Four we had to find three more tutors and have three ten minute+ conversations.

As well as repeating the basic self-introduction and questions about them, we had to prepare sentences on three topics in advance. One for each session. I chose two of my hobbies (gardening and, erm language learning) and the COVID-19 crisis (keep things cheerful, eh?).

In sessions two to six I stayed in Japanese for thirty minutes (some of the lessons were one-hour slots and I did switch to English for the last ten minutes or so sometimes).

I was at a very basic me-Tarzan, you-Jane sort of level but it was really exciting to get speaking for the first time.

It was useful to work up a number of mini “islands of fluency” (bespoke topics in which you feel confident to say something). It was great to “test drive” six different teachers. The idea of that was to find people you “clicked” with for the future. John encouraged us to find teachers of the same gender (because Japanese language is very gendered and you probably don’t want to end up sounding like a boy/girl if you’re not).

I was lucky with my teacher choices. They were all native speakers (not actually that important at this level), patient and encouraging and I could see myself working with any of them on an ongoing basis.

Without the Accelerator, I’d probably have continued building up my word and grammar pattern power for several more months.

From an efficiency perspective, that may also have made sense for somebody who’s highly motivated, good at efficient focussed study and who isn’t going to fall into the trap of postponing speaking just because of a reluctance to have a go.

I’m very glad I got started. The Accelerator injected some variety into my efforts. The weekly group Zoom calls with John and the other participants gave me a bit of “community” in my language learning. It was great, too to be really “doing Japanese”.

From now, I plan to continue include one-to-one practice sessions in my routine. More about that in a minute.

First, a quick look at what else went on on this project in July.

Focussed Japanese study with my usual course materials

My main course book is Japanese from Zero. It’s a five volume course and at the end of June I’d finished Lesson 11 (of 13) of Book Three. In July, due to work in the “Accelerator”, I put Japanese from Zero on hold and didn’t work with it at all.

My complementary course is Assimil’s Le japonais

In June I’d worked thoroughly through the first 37 lessons (of 98). I didn’t break any new ground in July but I did quite a bit of review of earlier lessons (and re-doing the exercises in my head). This action took place in bed (either on waking in a morning or last thing at night).

Pimsleur’s Conversational Japanese is a five-level, audio only course. In June I completed Level Four (of Five), Lessons 23 and 24 (of 30). I didn’t use the course at all in July. All my listening time on my thirty- to forty-minute daily runs and walks went on Basque. That’s great for my Basque but not at all ideal for Japanese.

I do intend to get back to Pimsleur Level Four, when I can fit it in. I’ve got Level Five lined up ready, too.

Since April, I’ve also been working with the original version of Teach Yourself Japanese (C J Dunn and S Yanada) (1958, reprinted 1971). It’s a dated course but useful if you like detailed explanations and lots of two-way translation exercises.

In July I worked through the whole of Lesson 17 (out of 30) and started Lesson 18.

Goals for August

In August, John invited Accelerator participants to enrol in his new ongoing Japanese Academy School which is an expansion of the “Accelerator” concept (and also replaces it).

I’ve joined with the intention of giving it a further go for a few months and that will mean more sessions speaking Japanese with a teacher coming right down the track.

I certainly felt that I got more out of the Accelerator thanks to my previous focussed study and I’ll be trying to juggle building out my word and pattern power in my usual focussed study slots with a new weekly “Japanese Academy” speaking challenge.

The Academy speaking challenges similar to those in the Accelerator but on different themes. The first, for August, is Japanese cuisine.

Watch this space to see how things go from here.

By the way, you can check out John’s Master Japanese guide. I’ve partnered with him as an affiliate, so if you buy it with my link, it will benefit my work here at the site, at no extra cost to you. You can check out the offer here:

=> John Fotheringham’s Master Japanese

Are you a beginning Japanese learner? Have you started speaking yet? If you’re an older hand, how soon did you start speaking? What were the challenges, what were the rewards? Let me know in the comments below!

And finally, for those of you who like your blogs as videos, here goes :

The post Learning Japanese: Month 19 update appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

As I write this, the COVID-19 lockdown has eased somewhat in England but I’m in my sixteenth week of working from home. I’ve gained some time for language learning as I’m saving about six hours a week commuting time. That said, I used to use some of that for listening to Japanese audio and reviewing flashcards. The latter, in particular, I’m not really managing to do otherwise. So, I’d say the energy I’m saving from the overcrowded and sometimes stressful journeys on the London underground are my main working from home benefit.

Month 18: week-by-week log

I managed at least thirty minutes focussed, interactive study on twenty-eight of June’s thirty days. I beat my May daily record (three days missed) but didn’t equal the “full house” of thirty days that I clocked up in April.

Here’s the June breakdown:

Week 1 (Monday 1st June to Sunday 7th June): 3 hours, forty minutes (studied every day but one).
Week 2 (Monday 8th June to Sunday 14 June): 3 hours, fifty minutes (studied every day but one).
Week 3 (Monday 15th June to Sunday 21st June):
4 hours, thirty minutes (studied every day).
Week 4 (Monday 22nd June to Sunday 28th June): 4 hours, twenty minutes (studied every day).
Week 5 (Monday 29th June and Tuesday 30th June): 1 hour, ten minutes (studied both days)

May 2020 Total: 17 hours, thirty minutes over 28 days (so averaging about thirty seven minutes a day, on those 28 days).

Running total (1st January 2019 to 30th June 2020): 280 hours, thirty minutes

A range of Japanese materials

I like to have a core course and I’m cautious dissipating my focus with two many materials. Still, it helps to have some supplementary materials as no course is perfect and it’s good to come at things from different angles and in a varied order.

Next: an overview on what I’ve been up to with my chosen resources.

Japanese from Zero Book 3

I started with Japanese from Zero Book One way back in January last year and it’s testament to my progress that the book all now seems relatively easy to me.

I’m still on Book Three of this five volume series and reporting on progress for June is simple: I started Lesson 11 (of 13) at the beginning of the month and had completed it by the end.

The Lesson started off by teaching three new verbs:　てんきんに なる　(to be transferred – e.g. to a new job), さがす (to look for),　やる (a second way of saying to do besides する　(which was taught in Book 2)), はなせる　(to be able to speak (a language)).

In grammar there was more about using adjectives that end in -な　and more examples of the -でしょう verb ending. This can variously mean “I think”, “I hope”, “I guess”, “Don’t you agree?” and “I thought you’d say that!”… As the course authors explain “Of course this all depends on the context of the sentence”. Yes, Japanese is a very context-dependent language (and a lot of expression is indirect, with implied meaning).

The Lesson finished with the usual good range of reading comprehension and questions and some drill-style written exercises.

In Book Three the kanji (“Chinese” characters) are taught for the first time (80 in total). I’d already learned　早　(haya, nu, se)(early, fast) early in my project when I was working with James Heisig’s book Remembering the Kanji.　

入　(i, hai, nyuu) and 出 (de, ta, shyo, sui) are used in 入る (hairu: to enter, join); 出る(deru – to come out, leave) and I remember seeing these characters a lot when in the metro in Japan (and also in Beijing).

A very useful new character is　本　(moto, hon)(a book, main), not least because it’s used in 日本 (Nihon – Japan).

Although I’m now taking it very easy with the kanji characters, I should stress that I get a lot of practice reading the two kana syllabaries in Japanese from Zero and Assimil. I also write them a lot. Even though Teach Yourself Japanese is just in Latin script (“romanji”) I also do the translation sentence in each unit in kana.

Assimil’s Le japonais

I acquired Assimil’s Le japonais as a second course right at the beginning of this project.

I’m an Assimil fan in general and the strength of its audio is a particular appeal. The JFZ audio is “bitty” and is only available online (some of it is free, some premium).

At the end of May I’d reached the end of Assimil Lesson 35 (first time coverage). In June I covered Lessons 36 and 37 thoroughly.

The key work for me in each Assimil lesson is a dictation exercise. This is not actually part of the Assimil for the “first phase” (working through the first half of the course), though the Le japonais authors recommend it for the “second phase” as a way of revising the first half. I agree with their assesment:”C’est classique, mais efficace.”

I think splitting up your daily slot so that you have a “main” and a “satellite” slot can be really effective. I haven’t done this with Japanese so far but in May I started at least a “satellite slot lite”, actually two of them: on more days than not I’ve reviewed one or two Assimil lessons in bed shortly after waking up in the morning or before my head hits the pillow in the evening.

Pimsleur Japanese

Pimsleur Japanese is a five-level, audio only course. Each level is made up of thirty lessons, thirty minutes in length. So far, I’ve worked through the second half of Level One and Levels Two, Three and a lot of Level Four. I have already bought level five.

I haven’t been sitting in an armchair attentively working through each level. Instead it’s been on through the earbuds of my phone on my daily walk or jog round the local park.

In the first half of June I completed Level Four, Lessons 23 and 24.

In the second half of the month I didn’t use Pimsleur at all.

This was simply because I switched to using the thirty to forty minutes during my daily run/walk for listening to Basque radio.

I do intend to get back to Pimsleur Level Four. I’ve already bought Level Five in readiness, as well.

Teach Yourself Japanese

Since April, I’ve also been working with the original version of Teach Yourself Japanese (C J Dunn and S Yanada) (1958, reprinted 1971).

This is a very traditional course with detailed explanation of grammar usage (always with example sentences). It’s dated but the sheer number of translation exercises make it useful for internalising structures and vocab. Handle with care though! Only recommended for experienced language learners as a supplementary resource.

In June I read and did all the translation exercises in Lessons 15 and 16.

Goals for July

That last few months my goals section has been “more of the same”.

Not so in July!

As I’ve explained in earlier monthly updates, I’ve been deliberately putting off speaking on this project so far (except for attempting to use the language on my trip to Japan last October).

This was because my Basque experience suggested that it might make more sense for me to continue to limit myself to building the mental scaffolding of the language in my head and learning more vocab before I start spending money on one-to-one Skype sessions with a teacher.

Thinking in this vein, I was fully intending to continue without trying to speak for several months yet.

Then, about a week ago, I heard that John Fotheringham of Language Mastery was running a new “Japanese Accelerator” programme for July, the aim of which is to get you speaking.

I’ve known John personally for a couple of years and interviewed him over Skype for the HowtoGetFluent YouTube channel.

Before I ever met John, I’d bought his Japanese Mastery book and I was hugely impressed with the quality of the content. The sheer volume of “on point” guidance, hard info about how to learn the language and useful links testify to John’s own “mastery” of the field.

So, when I read about this “Live 4-week training course to give you the courage, strategies, language, consistency and accountability you need to start having basic but flowing conversations in just 1 month”, I thought it would be a great opportunity to give myself a bit of a push on the speaking side.

I signed right on up.

It’s a one-month programme and John recommends that participants put in at least thirty minutes a day on the tasks that he’s setting us from week to week. So will, it fits very nicely into my Japanese schedule for July and will be my main focus for July. More in the next update (maybe with some clips of the conversations with natives that we have to record a part of the programme) 🙂

By the way, I think you too would be very impressed with the advice and guidance (on motivation, methods and a whole range of Japanese materials) in John’s Master Japanese guide. For that reason, I’ve partnered with him, so that if you make a purchase through my link, it will benefit my work here at the site, at no extra cost to you. You can check out the offer here:

=> John Fotheringham’s Master Japanese

As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on my monthly update. Also, don’t be shy to share your learning Japanese experiences in the comments below.

Here’s “Monthly update: the movie” 😉 :

The post Learning Japanese: Month 18 update appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

I’m a firm believer in the power of habit in language learning and the core of my Japanese learning has been a thirty-minute focussed study slot (usually first thing in the morning).

Since I returned from my first trip to Japan last October, my goal has been at least one such slot, at least five days a week.

This is my third monthly update since London went into semi-lockdown due to COVID-19. For seven weeks, we were only allowed outside for limited reasons, such as to buy food and medicines. Mercifully, we were also allowed out for exercise once a day. Since mid-May, things have slackened somewhat and you are allowed out for exercise when you want, provided that you maintain social distancing. By the way, if you’re interested in some low-key slices of “lockdown life”, check out my “Coronavlog” series over on the YouTube channel

Month 17: week-by-week log

In May, as in April, I’ve not had to commute to the office (I usually work in another part of London three days a week).

Altogether, I managed at least a thirty minute focussed study slot on all but three days of May. That’s an average of just over forty-five minutes on each of the 28 days when I studied.

Not as impressive as my unbroken run in April, but still very satisfying.

I only really fell short of a full house because of the Polyglot Gathering. So, on 14th May, I’d managed 30 mins Basque but then got sucked into editing my interview with Gathering head honcho Peter Baláš. On 30th and 31st May it was the online event itself (post and vlog coming later) .

Here’s the month’s breakdown:

Week 1 (Friday 1st May to Sunday 3rd May): thirty, minutes (studied every day).
Week 2 (Monday 4th May to Sunday 10th May): 5 hours (studied every day except one).
Week 3 (Monday 11th May to Sunday 17th May):
5 hours, forty minutes (studied every day).
Week 4 (Monday 18th May to Sunday 24th May): 5 hours, 55 minutes (studied every day).
Week 5 (Monday 25th May to Sunday 31st May): 4 hours (studied every day except two).

May 2020 Total: 21 hours, five minutes over 28 days (so averaging about forty-five minutes a day, on those 28 days).

Running total (1st January 2019 to 31st May 2020): 263 hours.

My approach to Japanese

An early decision on this project was to postpone speaking and listening much longer than I’d done with Basque, my last serious new language (and one I’m still very much learning).

In the first weeks I learned Japanese’s phonetic katakana and hiragana writing systems. However, given the limited time I’m putting into Project Japanese, I’m no longer attempting a simultaneous head on assault at the Chinese characters, called kanji in Japanese. These are essential to reading all real Japanese (except books aimed at younger children). They’re fascinating but they do take a lot of time to learn. All I’ll be doing for now are the eighty characters in my current main textbook.

Work with my core course: Japanese from Zero

I like to have one core resource to provide a roadmap and basic structure to my language self-study. This could be a printed textbook or an equivalent online course.

On this project, it’s the multi-volume Japanese from Zero book series. There are five volumes and I’m on Book Three, which is the first one to introduce some kanji. It has just eighty. There are 2,200 you need to know to graduate high school in Japan but, hey, I’ve got to start somewhere!

As reported in the previous Japanese learning update, by the end of April I had just started Lesson Ten of Japanese from Zero Book 3. All I did in May was to complete the lesson.

There wasn’t much new grammar in Lesson Ten. The focus was on how to use とき (when). There were some useful structural words: たくさん (a lot, many) and だけ (only), both of which I’d already met in the Pimsleur audio course (more on that below).

Back-up course: Assimil’s Le japonais

In May I kept using my “back-up course”, Assimil’s Le japonais, as well.

At the end of by the end of April I was in lesson 34.

In May’s focussed study sessions I revised lessons 15, 16 and 17, including making a dictation exercises on the dialogues from lesson 17 and 34. I moved on to cover lesson 35 for the first time (including doing another dictation).

Every seventh lesson in the book is a review lesson. It summarises the structures introduced in the previous six units and has some additional revision exercises. Lesson 36 was the latest of these and I covered it in May as well.

In April’s Japanese learning update I said that I wanted to get a “satellite slot” set up (a second, shorter focussed study period later on on the day). I failed to do that again but what I have been doing is carefully reading through an Assimil unit or two in bed, just after waking up and sometimes also just before putting my light out in the evening.

Audio only course: Pimsleur Japanese

I’m listening to the five-level Pimsleur audio-only course on my jogs round the local park.

Each level consists of thirty, thrity-minute lessons.

In April I’d started on Level Four.

By the end of May, I had played the first twenty-two lessons. I also did quite a bit of re-listening to earlier lessons in this level.

I can’t imagine myself learning Japanese from this course alone. I’m not saying it’d be impossible, but I prefer some direct instruction and to take my sound with dollops of written word.

Still, I’m a fan of the Pimsleur system: it’s great for preparing the ground and reinforcing what I’m learning in the courses where there’s much more explicit explanation and instruction and, of course, it’s great for pronunciation and the sound of the language.

Blast from the past: Teach Yourself Japanese (old edition)

In March, I acquired and made a start with a further course: a 1970s reprint of the 1958 version of Teach Yourself Japanese (C.J. Dunn and S. Yanada).

I made April I worked through the explanations and back and forth translation exercises in Lessons 3 to 10.

In May I continued devoting significant time to the course and covered lessons 11 to 14.

Lesson 11 was an extensive overview of the system of the Japanese counting system. As usual, the book gives it to you both barrels, stating that the topic is “of considerable complication and requires much sheer memory work.” There are then six pages of dense explanation.

This includes the traditional system of numbering years (according to the number of years since the Emperor came to the throne, when each “era” begins)).

There are extensive exercises to practise all the common “counter categories” used for counting different types of object (e.g. long and thin, round, ships, books, people…).

This would be totally overwhelming if I hadn’t already learned quite a lot about the basics of the system from Japanese from Zero.

I’d reiterate what I said about this course in the April Japanese learning update : if you’re an experienced language learner who likes explicit instruction and exercises, it’s great as a supplement to a more modern, user-friendly course (with audio).

Goals for June

It’ll be more of the same for me and Japanese in June. I’m still fired with energy and finding the language fascinating. I appreciate the reinforcement of running several courses in parallel, even though it means I’m moving through each relatively slowly.

The speaking will come…but there’s no rush. I don’t want to repeat what I did with Basque: tens of lessons one-to-one online when I was still only able to say the most basic things. With Japanese, I’d prefer to keep building the mental scaffolding of the language inside my head, learn more words and phrases and listen to them with my Assimil and Pimsleur course audio.

I welcome your thoughts and feedback on this Japanese learning update and the project overall. If you’re learning Japanese too, or you’ve already got fluent, I’d love to hear how you did it and what it means to you.

The post Learning Japanese: Month 17 update appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

Monday 12th August (1 hr Basque; 1 hr Japanese)

Week started at 6.55 with one hour’s work from Japanese from Zero 3: the Q and A section of Lesson 2 and the mini conversations. There was lot of focus on questions like How long does it take? How many minutes?

Next, an invigorating run in the park.

Later on I negated the benefit of the run with trip to my favourite Portuguese café for a bolo d’arroz and an espresso (I’m still hardly drinking any coffee at the moment). It was the first time during this month off that I’ve treated myself to a café trip. Really, I could spend the rest of my life hanging out in cafés.

Mid-afternooon I did 45 minutes Basque from Bakarka 4 Lesson 6: Nor-nor-nork in the past and verbs that always take the dative. This preparation for the Skype session with Eider at 4pm.

Shortly before the lesson was due to start I had a message from Eider that the lesson was postponed for technical reasons.

I spent the rest of the day working on an upcoming post for the blog. The topic is “talent” in language learning. It’s a development of my talk at the Polyglot Gathering last year.

Recorded the latest video diary ready for tomorrow’s slot on the YouTube channel (The vid is looking back over week three of the “sprint”).

Worked out the structure of Wednesday’s Russian webinar, which will be on telling the time and dates.

Finally, at 23.05, fifteen minutes more Basque: gold listing vocab from the Habe course, Unit 7.

Collapsed into bed shortly before midnight.

Tuesday 13th August (1 hr Basque; 1 hr Japanese)

Hit the desk at 7.20 and did another hour on Lesson 2 of Japanese from Zero 3. That involved working through three more of the mini conversations. Then I struggled over the reading comprehension.

It is the first text presented in a more traditional-looked (“paintbrush style”) of writing, top to bottom, right to left. It took ages and there were lots of gaps in my attempted translation. The problem was items of vocab I couldn’t recall more than the layout, though.

Thirty minutes Basque came next, working for the first time from the Arian B2.1 work book. There was a text to read about an accident when out walking in the hills, then some exercises.

Did further work on upcoming blog posts.

Late morning into central London, first time during this month. Pimsleur Japanese playing through the headphones as I walked to the underground station, then reviewing some flash cards while on the train. I was meeting a friend to buy him a birthday lunch at one of my favourite haunts. Afterwards, I was unable to resist a quick visit to the language section in Foyles bookshop, Charing Cross Road (London’s largest bookstore).

Tonight – working on Russian seminar for tomorrow.

Then, finished editing today’s video diary update. Did thumbnail. Uploaded and published.

By now – 10 past 11 pm. Thirty mins Basque but all I had the energy to do was read some of the passages out loud from Bakarka 4 Lesson 1 and re-read some of the texts I’ve already worked through in Arian. Crashed out at midnight.

Wednesday 14th August (30 mins Basque; 1 hr 15 mins Japanese)

Started 6.40 with 1 hour 15 minutes of Japanese from Zero 3, going through the questions to yesterday’s difficult reading passage. That was after re-reading the passage itself. Then I felt the urge to return to Assimil and read Lessons 20, 21, 22. I feel much more ready for this course than in previous months.

9am: thirty-minute Skype lesson with Gari. For the first twenty minutes talking in general, including about my Canterbury trip of last weekend. Then we did another exercise from Bakarka Lesson 1, practising “egon” (to be) in the past.

The rest of the day was very intense: full on prep for Russian webinar in time for going live at 8pm. I just managed to finish it.

I was completely drained when the webinar finished shortly before 9pm. I hadn’t left the house all day. Quick dash to the supermarket for some provisions. After a quick snack and crawled into bed.

30 mins short on Basque today

Thursday 15th August (1 hr Basque; 1 hr Japanese)

Started at 7.30 with one hour Japanese from Zero 3. Did the substitution exercises and questions and answers from Lesson 2. Vocab dredged up such as chopsticks　(おほし) and boiled rice (ごはん), that we haven’t covered for ages.

Second thirty-minute run of the week in park. The Pimsleur Japanese course playing through the earphones for the duration (as for Monday’s run).

Prep for and interview with the translator, language teacher and accomplished language learner Stefano Suigo for the YouTube channel. I’ve known Stefano for several years from the Polyglot Gathering. The conversation was flowing, such that there’s probably two instalments’ worth. A pleasure.

I then turned to touching up yesterday’s Russian webinar notes and re-recorded the webinar (screen formatting was not right last night). Edited the video and uploaded both into the student area.

In the evening I stuck with video editing: finished editing and uploading today’s vid for the Channel: a Vienna “Bookshop Safari”. It’s ages since I shot this and it was great to remind myself of the trip and to get the vlog out there at last.

By this time it was 10 to 10 and it took a lot of effort to do one hour’s Basque: reading and prep from Habe Unit 39, again, about problems around noise in society. There was no escape though, after yesterday’s fall.

Friday 16th August (1 hr Basque; 1 hr Japanese)

The final day of my “language sprint” has arrived.

8.25-9.25: made a start with Lesson 3 of Japanese from Zero 3. First, there were 7 new kanji (“Chinese” characters) to learn. Well, I was going back to Heisig to remind me of 6 of them and learning just new one: “gold”.
Then I did some of the kanji writing practice set out in the Lesson, including the days of the week Monday to Saturday, all of which use one of the new kanji as their first element with “day” (surprise, surprise) as the final element.

Quick dash down for some more herbal tea before starting my 9am lesson with Irati. As usual it was very enjoyable and chatty, though the internet connection was bad. I put this down to the rain we had mid week. Had the same connection problems for some of the conversation with Stefano yesterday. We never got on to Habe course material that I had prepared.

Much of the middle of the day went on editing the sections of video that I recorded last week for the new free webinar for people who sign up the the Howtogetfluent email club.

16.30 – 17:00 Basque exercises from the separate workbook that comes with Arian.

17:00 – 17:30 more from Japanese from Zero 3 Lesson 3. Finished the new kanji exercises and began the new grammar:　て- form verbs (“do it”-type imperative).

Looking back, looking ahead　

That’s it, then, the “sprint” is over.

In the time available, though, I did less of the “new” stuff I’d planned: no new Japanese flash cards made this week, for example. I haven’t been watching Japanese YouTube videos or getting other audio exposure (beyond some listening to the Pimsleur course when jogging or walking to the tube). Neither have I had many gold list method sessions for Basque (and have not once done a second distillation, though they will come). None of that is due to bad planning or lack of discipline. It’s just that there’s only so much you can do in one hour a day on each language.

For all that, setting an increased target and logging my progress helped me to do more that I’d otherwise have done, though, without a doubt. I had eleven thirty-minute Basque lessons on Skype. That was all great.

From Monday, I’ll be back to my on-going routine of thirty minutes (minimum) Japanese a day and such Basque as I can fit in round that, round the day job and round work on the site and Channel. Next: the run-up to Japan!

Week One totals – Basque: 6 hours, 40 mins; Japanese: 5 hours

Week Two totals – Basque 4 hours, 10 minutes; Japanese: 5 hours, 15 minutes

Week Three totals – Basque 5 hours; Japanese: 5 hours, 25 minutes

Week Four totals – Basque 4 hours, 15 minutes; Japanese: 5 hours, 15 minutes

SUMMER SPRINT GRAND TOTALS – Basque: 20 hours, 5 mins; Japanese: 20 hours, 55 minutes

Other posts in this series:

“Summer Sprint” launch

Week One Diary

Week Two Diary

Week Three Diary

The post Basque/Japanese diary: Week Four appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

Monday 29th July: Japanese time expressions, Basque conversation and harvesting blackberies (1 hr Basque; 1 hr Japanese)

Week Two kicked off at 7 am. First, an hour working at Japanese from Zero Book 2. I’m in Lesson 12, the final lesson of the book.

The first focus was on “making times less specific” looking at ごろ (around/about, used with a specific time on the clock) and ごらい (around/about, used with periods of time). Then some questions and answers exercises and the Lesson’s “mini conversation”. Finally, some writing practice of the names of countries in katakana.

I next fitted in twenty minutes Basque preparation from Habe unit 38 in advance of the first lesson of the week.

I had my first Skype lesson of the week with Irati for thirty minutes from 9am. Her holiday has now taken her from Malta to Seville. We had free conversation for the first two thirds of the lesson. Then we discussed whether how a list of factors (age, gender, education level, soberness etc) affected the riskiness of driving.

Next out to the garden to harvest more blackberries. They are coming thick and fast at the moment and I’m running out of space in the freezer.

Later on during the day I mailed the Howtogetfluent Email Club one final time to remind them that enrolment closes tonight for the first run of my new Focus in 5 A2 Russian Grammar revision course.

I spent some of the afternoon re-setting the music to the first of the two vlogs that I short at the Welsh national “eisteddfod” (cultural festive) last year. I then re-issued both of them on the channel. The eisteddfod starts on Saturday so it’s time to put them about a bit.

I put my plumber’s hat on again in the late afternoon (as happened last week) to change the flusher unit in the toilet cistern. It took quite a lot of working out and felt rather satisfying and a welcome change from all the language work. Plus, I saved myself at least £100 in plumber fees.

This evening I did another ten minutes Basque (reading about the Baztan valley in Nafarroa) from Arian B2.1 and about fifteen minutes making flashcards of Japanese from Zero 1 words and phrases.

The final job of today was to close enrolments on the Russian course. The first webinar (Russian verbs of motion) is on Wednesday (and needs to be written!).

Tuesday 30th July: more Japanese from Zero, webinar headaches and not enough Basque (10 minutes Basque, 1 hr 15 mins Japanese)

First up (from 7.30am) was just over an hour’s Japanese. Started with an anticipatory flick through Japanese from Zero 3, a copy of which arrived a while ago. There’s a very great deal in it. I cannot now see myself finishing it before my first visit to Japan in October, though by the end of the year, yes. Time will tell.

Head down with more of Japanese from Zero 2 Lesson 12. Exercises practising また (still, yet) and ごらい (about). The latter involved thinking about the counting words again (“about fifteen men”; “about five big rooms”) which we haven’t practised much.

Here’s a thing: a course alone can never provide enough repetition for learning. So, while I’m a great believer in using a structured course (why reinvent the wheel?) you have to get so much more exposure than just one run through.

Next came a run in the park.

There was only time for ten minutes looking at Lesson One of Bakarka 4 (in preparation for the lesson with Gari) before I had to pivot to preparing for an interview with Kris “the Dane” Broholm of the Actual Fluency podcast. I quizzed him about his upcoming Polyglot Cruise (it’s not till April, but sales close 15th August – here’s my affiliate link that will get you USD50 off (with the code DrPopkins).

A good couple of hours in the afternoon went on the highly frustrating task of trying to sort out the webcasting technology for the first Russian webinar. It turns out that GoogleHangouts is being absorbed into a new YouTube Live on 1st August and the new YouTube live does not let you do screen shares, so it won’t work for me.

I ended up falling back on Zoom but took about three hours to get to there.

Next, I shot the “Summer sprint” Week One catch-up vid (now embedded in last week’s diary post).

After that, time to start writing the first Russian webinar for tomorrow.

All this time, I had a nagging headache. Two of my housemates were complaining of one too. It’s either atmospheric pressure, or I’m going down with another bug.

I gave up work on the Russian webinar at half past ten and hit the sack.

I’m glad I got the Japanese in early today. It wouldn’t have happened if I’d left it till last thing…..and I didn’t with Basque. Only ten minutes Basque today and the first day so far when I haven’t met the target

Wednesday 31st July: translation into Japanese and Basque, recording a Russian webinar and the power of accountability (1 hr Basque, 1 hr Japanese)

Started at 7.30 with an hour’s Basque. Reviewing Bakarka 4 Lesson 1 in advance of the lesson with Gari tomorrow. I did a couple of “fill in the gaps” passages and a longer reading piece. Then I did the first translation exercise of the Unit: 20 short French sentences into Basque. The focus is the past of “egon” (to be, exist).

Next, more thirty minutes on Japanese from Zero 2 Lesson 12, doing translations from and into Japanese.

The rest of the day went on preparing my first Russian live webinar at 8pm. I wrote the slides and rehearsed once for timing. Then the live forty-minute webinar took place.

It went ok, or so I thought until afterwards, when I discovered afterwards that I hadn’t pressed “record” at the beginning. Doh! Nothing for it but to redo the entire forty-minute training.

I then edited the recording and uploaded it to make it accessible to course members who missed the live event.

At 22.30 I did sat down for another thirty minutes’ Japanese. One more translation into English from the book and the reading comprehensive passage (one of the last sections of the lesson). Tomorrow I should finish JFZ Book 2.

I should add that this “Summer Sprint” project and this language learner’s diary was the only reason I did this extra half hour. Without this motivation, I’d definitely not have done any more Japanese. It’s a great illustration of how public accountability can help as a motivator, at least for certain types of person….even a tired one, with a very slight fever due what now seems to be a mild bout of flu.

Thursday 1st August: second lesson with a new Basque teacher, finishing Japanese from Zero Book Two, editing the Dane (1 hr Basque, 1 hr Japanese)

Started at ten to eight with thirty minutes exercises, from Japanese from Zero Lesson 12. Next, 20 minutes Basque reading (the next pages in Arian B2.1 – about the pros and cons of renting or buying a place to live). That helped tune me in for my second lesson with Gari, which was booked in for 9am.

The lesson went well. Gari’s quite laid back but fully engaged. He does far more correction than the other two teachers do and opened a google doc for the purpose. Off his own back, he had also copied in the original message I sent him to ask to book a lesson and proceeded to to correct that as well.

Most of the morning then went on domestic and life administration, which was very frustrating. One thing I was doing was sorting out my accommodation for my business trip to Singapore and Hong Kong during the first two weeks of October (before Japan). Still haven’t sorted the Japan accommodation and now the pound is falling again, thanks to our crazed government.

I finished editing the interview about the Polyglot Cruise that I recorded yesterday with the Dane, did a thumbnail and uploaded the lot onto YouTube. (By that way, that link gets you a USD50 discount with the code DrPopkins).

Then I did a post for the blog, basically a cover note for the two vlogs from last year’s Welsh national eisteddfod in Cardiff that I re-issued on Monday. The plan is to build the post out into a fuller guide to the Eisteddfod later on. I wanted to get something up on my own site to share now, as the Eisteddfod starts on Saturday.

The next task was to wrote to Email Club members to tell them about the interview and reissued videos.

Tonight I went for a walk round our lovely local park for some mild exercise and fresh air. Running is off as, in addition to very mild fever and swollen glands, my stomach is mildly upset. Something ain’t right down there. Is the food poisoning/bug from two weeks ago still in there?

Back from my walk and I did another thirty minutes Japanese. I was going through the last task in the book: the short dialogue. Then I spent the last few minutes preparing some flashcards of Book 1 vocab.

So, Japanese from Zero Book 2 is completed, a month behind schedule.

Finally, another ten minutes Basque: reading through one of the texts in Habe unit 38, ready for the lesson with Irati tomorrow morning.

It’s now half past nine and I’m getting an early night.

Friday 2nd August: kanji dilemmas, another Basque lesson, a spot of the Gold List Method and off to Coventry (1 hr Basque, 1 hr Japanese)

Started from 7.30 with an hour of Japanese. Began a gleaming new volume of the course: Japanese from Zero, Book 3. This volume starts introducing the kanji (Chinese characters). There were just six: the numbers one to six.

I’m a little uneasy about now being on a course that is introducing kanji, as I decided to pause work on Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji back in May. Now I’ll need to do a certain amount of work on them just to progress through the book.

On the the other hand, in each of the chapters there are only six or seven kanji, so a total of about 85. I’d already covered two hundred in Remembering the Kanji. I hadn’t internalised them all, though there should already be well-laid ground work in my head.

Japanese from Zero Three is also introducing words built upon the basic kanji. For example 二階 is “second floor” (and presented along with 二 “two”). The first kanji (the two lines) is “two”. The second one is presumably “floor”. However, I don’t like the idea of trying to memorise random new kanji by sight and I can’t believe that just seeing them one or twice will bring any benefit at all.

It seems to make more sense to me to learn the the kanji with some sort of breakdown analysis of the component parts and the stroke order. Heisig bases his whole approach on imaginative and effective memory techniques (creating mental images to remember the meaning of each “primitive” character and little stories about how they are combined to from more complicated characters).

There are no such imaginative memory aids in Japanese from Zero. You are just expected to “learn” by writing out the characters several times and then meeting them in the texts and exercises.

At the beginning of Lesson One, some useful new verbs are introduced, including to work (はたらく – hataraku), to speak, talk, tell (はなす – hanasu) and to do your best at something (がんぽる – gonporu) which, the book says, “is used a lot in Japan… No matter how tough it gets, you will がんぽる.” I’d already come across hatarku and hanasu in the Pimsleur audio course.

At nine it was time for my last live Basque session of the week: thirty minutes with Irati. We were chatting for the first twenty minutes and working on converting sentences from direct into reported speech for the last ten. In Basque, the endings change according to whether you’re reporting a positive statement, a negative statement, a command or a question.

Late morning, I returned to Basque for another half an hour: “gold listing” Habe Unit 5 and part of Unit 6.

Then it was time to finish my packing and head off to Euston station and a weekend trip, my first to the city of Coventry, to visit friends. Apart from having to run back and forth to the loo (it was the stomach bug/food poisoning back from last week), I had a great time. I saw the poignant cathedral, went round the Herbert history and art museum and the Coventry Transport Museum and saw the canal basin.

Week One totals – Basque: 6 hours, 40 mins; Japanese: 5 hours

Week Two totals – Basque 4 hours ,10 minutes; Japanese: 5 hours, 15 minutes

Mini sprint running total – Basque: 10 hours, 50 mins; Japanese: 10 hours, 15 minutes

Here’s the my Week Two video diary:

Related posts

Basque/Japanese diary: Week One

Basque/Japanese diary: Week Three

Basque/Japanese diary: Week Four

The post Basque/Japanese diary: Week Two appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

My target minimum focussed study time is half an hour of Japanese daily, seven days a week or, over nine months.

A “full house” total of 30 mins x 30 April days would be fifteen hours. My actual total was twenty hours and forty-five minutes.

Here’s how my learning Japanese study breaks down for month four:

Week 1 (Monday 1st April to Sunday 7th April): 3 hours, 50 minutes (every day YAY!).
Week 2 (Monday 8th April to Sunday 14th April): 5 hours, 35 minutes (one day missed).
Week 3 (Monday 15th April to Sunday 21st April): 5 hours, 45 minutes (every day YAY!).
Week 4 (Monday 22nd April to 28th April): 7 hours, 5 minutes (every day YAY!).
Week 5 (two day rump) (Monday 29th and Tuesday 30th April): 30 minutes (30th – missed).

Total: 20 hours 45 minutes (days) Running total: 83 hours 25 minutes.

My regularity was good. I only missed two days out of thirty, whereas in March I only managed twenty-one out of thirty one days.

All in all, I was pleased with how my focussed Japanese study habit shaped up in the fourth month of the year.

Main course: Japanese from Zero

At the beginning of the year I set myself the goal of being “on top” of the language taught in the first three volumes of the Japanese from Zero textbook series by the end of September.

I started to fall behind in March. I was supposed to finish JFZ Book One at the end of that month, but I didn’t do so until 9th April.

By a lucky coincidence, that was the day JFZ Book Two arrived in the post. I was so excited, I did my first “live” in the Howtogetfluent Language Learners’ Club Facebook Group.

Well, after all that excitement, it was down to work with JFZ 2.

To get back on target – and stay there – I would have needed to be at the end of lesson (chapter) four by the end of April.

Instead, I just finished the second lesson. So, I didn’t manage to make up any time (as I also hit Pimsleur this month – see below).

The first lesson of book 2 looks at the basic “existence verbs” いる (iru/to be – living things) and ある (aru/to be, inanimates) and revises the two tenses – present and past that we covered in Book 1. There’s some more about verb conjugation. In lesson two the focus was on prepositions; very useful!

JFZ book 1 taught the “hiragana” writing system. The second book gradually introduces the second syllabary, “katakana” (used mainly for loan words and foreign proper names). The two systems together are known as the “kana”. The “Chinese” characters, kanji, don’t appear until book three.

As you’ll know if you’ve been following these updates, I’ve already learned the kana using James Heisig’s Remembering the Kana. That said, I really benefitted from the reinforcement of the hiragana that came from JFZ1 and I’m looking forward to the same thing for the katakana thanks to JFZ2.

I didn’t use online Japanese from Zero (Yes Japan) audio in April. While the Book 1 materials are available free online, it’s USD8.99 a month for access to the other levels. I haven’t upgraded yet. I found the materials fun(ish) but I’m not really a funster when it comes to learning…(or much else ). I’ll maybe give it go in May.

Trying out the Pimsleur Japanese course

In March I joined my local library to get hold of Pimsleur Level One course. Part One A was loaned out so I took out the second part of Level 1 (Part One B, Level 1 Lessons 15 to 30) on some tatty CDs. That gathered dust on my shelf for several weeks as I awaited notification that my turn had come for Part One.

Then I called by the Library and was told that Part One A was missing. Hey ho!

Despite my nonchalance about the JFZ audio materials, I was, by mid April, crawling up the walls for want of some good audio.

I dived into the Pimsleur Part One B CDs.

I found the level ok, thanks to the work I’d already done with JFZ and Assimil.

Several of my polyglot friends are great fans of Pimsleur’s audio only approach. This is the first time I’ve tried a course and I’ve been really enjoying it so far.

Each lesson lasts just under thirty minutes and starts with a short exchange between a man and a women. The conversation is broken down. The narrator will briefly explains a new word or phrase. It’s not listen and repeat so much as listen and then respond to a prompt, including a lot of revision of language from earlier lessons. It thus gets you thinking and using the language you’ve just heard.

I’ll review the course in full at a later date but I just wanted to mention the use of “back chaining“. I’ve long been familiar this pro technique but never seen it in a course before. They get you constructing a word in reverse: ing….ing..ning…ning…aining….aining…chaining…chaining….chaining.

The theory of backchaining is that it’s best to start with the “landing point” at the end of the word. Plus, with each repetition you put the new element in the word first, where it’s harder to forget.

My plan is to continue to the end of Pimsleur Level 1 (i.e. finish the CDs in May and buy Level 2 (in digital format this time).

Assimil Le Japonais

Besides the Japanese from Zero books, I’m learning Japanese with the latest, French edition of Assimil’s Le japonais (earlier editions were called “Le japonais sans peine” (with ease, ohne Mühe). I did some physical flashcarding or the first three units in March.

I binged on Assimil when I was up at my dad’s place over Easter. I pushed through, rapid fire, to the end of Chapter 20, just reading and saying the answers to the exercises out loud. Just basic familiarisation with the material, really.

I really like the course and the only reason I haven’t done a lot more is my limited daily time allocation for Japanese.

I’ve noticed some things come up in Pimsleur that I’ve seen briefly in Assimil but not yet met and focussed on in JFZ. I think the cross-fertilisation across the three courses is helping me to notice and remember as I go.

Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji

James Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji is my go-to book for the “kana” characters.

I only worked on the kanji twice in April and covered characters 185 to 200 in the book (there are 2,200 in total). As I said in the March update, learning the characters is a completely different form of activity than anything I’ve done before in language learning and I enjoy working on the characters when I get to it.

In April, though, any additional time I have for the project went on Pimsleur audio rather than Assimil or Heisig.

As I said in the March review, I’m holding off on attempts to speak until I’ve got more of a foundation and plan to start some live conversational practice only after I’ve completed book 2.

Goals for Month Five

First, I want to keep defending my daily thirty minute “learning Japanese” JFZ slot as other priorities jostle (writing my talk for the Polyglot Gathering, blogging and vlogging, keeping at my intermediate Basque and completing work on my upcoming B1 German mentored self-study course….Oh and my day job at the law firm, too).

I still expect to do occasional dips into Heisig and Assimil. I’ll complete Level 1 Pimsleur, return the tatty CDs to Brixton Library and equip myself with a shiny digital download of Level 2. That’ll be my audio input sorted for May.

Let’s see how it goes!

If you’re a beginning learning Japanese, what course or method are you using and why? If you’ve already got further with the language, do you have tips for me and other beginners? I’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

Here’s this month’s video update:

Other posts in this series:

New Project: Learning Japanese

Learning Japanese: month 1 update

Learning Japanese: month 2 update

Learning Japanese: month 3 update

The post Learning Japanese: Month Four update appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

My target minimum focussed study time is half an hour a Japanese daily, seven days a week or, over nine months.

The month in figures: my Japanese study log

Thirty minutes a day for March would amount to fifteen and a half hours. My actual total was nineteen hours and forty minutes. I’m glad that I came in over quota. However, this was thanks to a strong first half of month.

Here’s how my study breaks down:

Week 1 (Friday 1st March to Sunday 10th March): 6 hours, 45 minutes (missed three days).
Week 2 (Monday 11th March to Sunday 17th March): 7 hours, 55 minutes (every day YAY!).
Week 3 (Monday 18th March to Sunday 24th March): 3 hours, 45 minutes (missed three days).
Week 4 (Monday 25th March to Sunday 31st March): 1 hour 45 minutes (missed four days).

Total: 19 hours 40 minutes (days) . Running total (3 months): 62 hours 40 minutes.

Before we get any further, in comparing my hours with February, I’ve noticed a really freaky thing. The days of the week of each date in March are the same as in February. Does this happen often? Anyone out there with the maths to tell me?

My regularity record for March was not so good. I studied on twenty-one days of the month’s thirty-one .

That’s my worst so far.

My excuses? The third week was a heavy one in the office. For the fourth week I travelled to Berlin where I was busy working on my upcoming German mentored course and attending a conference.

Time trade offs and technical woe time wasters

One morning in the beginnig of the month I spent a whole two hours trying to work out how to use make flashcards on the Anki spaced repetition app including not only kana (the two native Japanese writing systems) but also the kanji (Chinese characters) with the pronunciation written above in tiny kana (when the kana appear this way, they are called “furigana”.

I couldn’t solve the problem. I found various YouTube explanations but none helped me crack it for English on the front, Japanese with furigana on the back. I’ll have to go back to this. I am enjoying using Anki on my commute but it really isn’t a user-friendly app if you’re not a computer geek experienced in coding and are trying to do something none standard.

To spin that a positive way: it’s an app with a lot of custom functionality if you’re prepared to invest the time to understand it.

Invest the time, invest the time…. So much of learning in all spheres boils down to this. It’s always a trade-off, though, isn’t it?

Now I’m using anki to review Japanese vocab on the commute, I’m no longer doing twenty minutes or so of native-level German reading per day. Cue a “Quick Tip Tuesday” video:

Main textbook: Japanese from Zero 1

At the end of February I correctly surmised that I’d I have my work cut out to reach my target and finish book one in the four-book Japanese from Zero series. My goal by the end of September is to be in active command of the contents of the first three volumes.

In the end, I only got to the end of Lesson 11 of 12 with hardly any reviewing of previous chapters.

Lessons 8 and 9 were quite challenging covered dates and related festival and time expressions, days of the week and months of the year. Here and in Lesson 11, more counting systems were introduced. You have to learn the words for “one to ten” several times over in Japanese, for use depending on the object counted).

Lesson 10 was focussed on how to ask for things at a shop or in a restaurant, Lesson 12 introduced the (relatively simple, it seems) Japanese verb system with just four common verbs.

I’m doing a lot of the exercises on paper and finding that I sometimes need to check the stroke order of the hiragana. I do feel on top of the syllable assigned to each symbol, though. In Unit 10 the last step with the hiragana was introduced: compound hiragana.

These are all combinations of other hiragana ending in -i (consonant + i), followed by a shrunken hiragana for ya, yu, or yo (ゃ, ゅ or ょ respectively). This changes the i vowel sound to a glide (palatalisation) to a, u or o. So, き (ki) plus ゃ (small ya) gives us きゃ (kya).

Compound hiragana are, bizarrely, not covered in Heisig’s Remembering the Kana.

I’ve noticed that reading the hiragana is getting easier with practice, though don’t just hear the sound in my head without thinking yet when I see a symbol like I would with Latin or Cyrillic script.

The katakana forms are not taught actively in JFZ but they are included in the vocab lists next to the word in Latin letters (rōmanji). As I’ve worked through them already in Remembering the Kana, I am paying attention to words written in them and also writing them when they come up in the exercises. I’m still shaky on quite a few, though. I’m glad they are covered in detail in Japanese from Zero 2.

So, the month finished with one more Unit to cover and I am a long way from having properly internalised all the structures and vocabulary from all the units. I keep pressing on, though. My reviewing is inadequate at the moment but some of this is taken care of by the design of the book, as things covered earlier crop up in texts and exercises in subsequent chapters (though not nearly enough – that’s too much to ask from any textbook writer… The onus has to be on us, the learners to interact actively with the material.

Library woes…..Still no Pimsleur

A goal for March was to get hold of the first part of Pimsleur course at last (and maybe start listening to that when I’m out jogging, for example). I joined my local library expressly for this purpose and took out the second part of the course (part 1B) on some tatty CDs. Four weeks on, I’m still waiting for notification that the first CDs have become available, so I might either crack and just buy the MP2 downloads or dive straight into part 1B).

What about Assimil Le japonais?

At the end of February I said that I wanted to start working more systematically through Assimil’s Le japonais (“sans peine” as the earlier editions of the book were called). I have done some work from the early units and some physical flashcarding, but still not much.

Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji

At the end of last month I also said that I wanted to keep it more regular with Remembering the Kanji. In the end, though, I only worked on the kanji on three days this month. I do enjoy it when I get to it. It’s a completely different form of activity than anything I’ve done before in language learning.

Still no speaking

When I started Basque and Icelandic it was “speak from Day 1”. This time, I’m holding off having italki conversation practice sessions until much later, to compare approaches. My current plan is to splutter into life after I’ve completed JFZ book 2. That should be at the beginning of July.

Goals for Month Four: Sticking to the approach?

In an ideal world, I think I’d be doing ninety minutes a day with a 30/30/30 JFZ/Assimil/RTK focussed study routine, plus listening to Pimsleur on my jog or around the house (again, at the expense of the extensive Basque listening I’m doing at the moment).

In reality, given the other things I’ve got on, it’s still only thirty minutes a day. I see real advantages in a “second” or “third” take from Assimil and Pimsleur, though and I’ll be working with them in snatches, at least. The reality is though, with this time commitment, it’s mainly just Japanese from Zero. That’s ok because it gives system and direction to my momentum. At the time of writing, JFZ Book 2 is on order. In April I want to finish Book One and do the first four chapters of Book Two.

Any other beginner Japanese Students using JFZ out there? What do you think of the course? Are you using other materials that you prefer? Are you speaking from “day one” and are you learning the writing system as you go? Let me know in the comments below. (PS: I’ll add a video update on Tuesday).

Other posts in this series:

New Project: Learning Japanese

Learning Japanese: month 1 update

Learning Japanese: month 2 update

The post Learning Japanese: Month Three update appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

This is the second of my monthly update posts: a review of how study went in February and looking ahead to my goals for March. There’s a video update too (at the bottom of this post).

Time targets and log

My aim is to do at least half an hour a day of Japanese seven days a week or, over nine months. If I achieve this, I’ll have clocked up a total of about 130 hours study over nine months.

This is a very modest amount.

To pass the “Basic Level” Japanese Language Proficiency Test N5 (the equivalent of the CEFR A2 upper elementary level) between 450 to 750 hours of study are normal (and the lower end of that range is for Chinese speakers and others who already know the kanji characters).

Thirty minutes a day for February would amount to fourteen hours. My actual total was seventeen hours. Hurrah! I studied on twenty-two of the month’s twenty-eight days.

Here’s how my study breaks down:

Week 1 (Friday 1st February to Sunday 10th February): 8 hours, 50 minutes (every day except one).
Week 2 (Monday 11th February to Sunday 17th February): 4 hours, 15 minutes (every day except one).
Week 3 (Monday 18th February to Sunday 24th February): 3 hours, 5 minutes (missed three days).
Remainder of the month (Monday 25th February to Thursday 28th February): 50 minutes (missed one day, only 10 minutes on 28th).
Total: 17 hours (22 days)   Running total: 43 hours

So, I’ve kept up a fairly regular pace, though things got a bit sticky in the last full week of the month, when I was out three evenings in a row and extra busy working on my up coming German course.

Main textbook: Japanese from Zero 1

I am structuring my project round the five-volume Japanese from Zero coursebook series. I aim to get on top of the first three volumes before I travel to Japan for the conference, so my medium term “path goal” is to complete one volume every three months.

On the 17th February I finished unit 7: a good half way through the book. Checking my calendar, I realised that there was no time to review earlier lessons if I wanted to maintain a pace of one unit a week and finish book one on target by the end of March. That said, I decided to spend a week reviewing the units up to unit 7. Targets aside, there’s no point building on shaky foundations.

I felt a bit of resistance to reviewing at first. It feels more exciting to push on to new stuff, doesn’t it? Once I kicked off by reviewing the four “pre lessons”, though, I did find it useful. Due to not putting so much time in during the week 18th – 24th, I only managed a review up to the end of chapter 5.

For the last few days I did go back to the open frontier and pushed to the end of unit 8.

This month started had another look at YesJapan.com (the website version of Japanese from Zero). You can do the first course online for free (you need to register to create an account). Each online lesson follows the content of the book (grammar, vocabulary), though there are some minor differences in exercises and some items of vocabulary are covered in one format and not in the other. You can hear native speakers pronounce all the individual grammar items and some sample sentences. There are also comprehension checking questions.

Going forward, I’ll continue to use this on-line material.

One half of the author team, George Trombley, also does video versions of the lessons on YouTube. As I noted in the first end-of-month catchup, the videos simply take too long (as there is a lot of explanation in English which I find quicker to read). If you’re going to use the course, though, try the different formats and think about ways that you could combine them. You may find GT’s explanations help you to lodge things in your mind.

Starting Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji

Anyone wondering about how to start learning Japanese comes up against the question of whether or not to learn the writing systems. I decided to do this from day one.

In the first month, I completed James Heisig’s Remembering the Kana. A Guide to Reading and Writing the Japanese Syllabaries in 3 Hours Each.

I’m practising the hiragana in particular as I work through Japanese from Zero (the katakana are only introduced gradually throughout book 2).

This month, on the writing front, it was time to start with the main gig: Heisig’s Remembering the Kanji. The kanji are the Chinese characters.

I’ll write more fully about the book at a later date. For now, I’ll just say that it uses the same system as the “Kana” book: creating mental images to help you remember the characters.

Heisig isolates what he calls “primitives”, the elemental building blocks of the more complex kanji. The more complex characters are remembered by stories involving the images associated with the relevant primitives. In the later sections of the book, the stories are no longer served up on a place. You have to create your own.

What you are doing is learning the meaning of the characters in English. The second stage – there’s a separate volume for this – is learning the actual words in Japanese and associating them with the kanji. Of course, when I come to do that, I’ll already have learned the sound of many of the words (and will already know how they are written in the kana. All Japanese words can be written just in kana, but (children’s books aside), the three systems are usually combined.

There are 2,200 kanji in the book

As I noted in last month’s update, some people manage to get through the book in six months or even less. To do that before I go to Japan, I pointed out that I’d need to do about sixty characters a week or, let’s say, ten a day.

I didn’t commit myself to that goal, as I wanted first to get a sense of what learning the kanji was going to be like. That was a wise move as, so far, I’ve done kanji 1 to 160, rather than the 280 I’d need to have covered.

At the moment, it doesn’t therefore look likely that I’ll have internalised the book before my trip. Also, I haven’t fully memorised all the characters I’ve supposedly “done”. There is some revision and doubling back as you go forward (and primitives or earlier combos reappear), but I’ll also need to start reviewing more systematically.

I have bought the RTK app for my iPhone and it seems good for review. I haven’t used it much yet though, as most of my commute goes on reviewing vocab from Japanese from Zero.

I have to say, I’m really enjoying the kanji. Learning them is a revelation and it feels like a sort of puzzle, a kind of addictive game. I like getting lost in the process.

It does take a lot of time, though. This partly explains why my progress with Japanese From Zero has been much slower this month than it was last month.

I haven’t been working with RTK every day, either. I had an eleven day gap (!) in the middle of the month.

Secondary materials

Last month I said I wanted to have a secondary course or maybe too.

I have now acquired Assimil’s Le Japonais sans peine. It’s the usual Assimil “octavo” format but pretty thick at over eight-hundred pages long (the earlier editions were published in two volumes). So far, I’ve just been dabbling a little in the early units, but it felt good to come at things from a slightly different angle, to get some different basic vocab and to see some words and phrases that I already know..

Pimsleur audio courses are best used (I understand) at the very beginning of a new language. Rather than buy yet more materials, I’ve ordered the basic course from my local library, but it hasn’t become available yet. I’ll update next month on that once I’ve tried it out.

At the language bookshop

One day this month I paid my first visit since this project began to Foyles Bookshop in Charing Cross Road. This is London’s largest bookstore and it has a great language section. Here’s a vlog I did from the store last year:

This was my first opportunity since I started learning Japanese to browse the Japanese shelves. There are a wealth of different courses and other, more specialist books on offer, but I’m glad to report that I managed to resist the temptation to buy more materials that I simply wouldn’t get round to using.

In the face of all those riches, I inevitably caught myself wondering whether I had chosen the right core course for my project. I’m sticking with Japanese From Zero, though. Consistency is king!

Looking forward to March

I have my work cut out in month three. There are four full weeks in March and five lessons of Japanese from Zero still to cover, plus reviewing (especially units six and seven). Also, I go Berlin for a week (beginning 27th March), so I certainly don’t want to fall behind before travel gets in the way.

My main goal, then, is to finish Japanese from Zero book one.

I also want to keep it more regular with Remembering the Kanji.

I’ll get hold of the Pimsleur course at last (and maybe start listening to that when I’m out jogging, for example). Also, I’ll start working more systematically through Assimil, even if it’ll only be in very short sessions.

I still don’t plan to book any live online speaking sessions. I am, by the way, still doing a couple of half-hour Basque sessions on italki.com each week and trying to fit some other focussed study of the language around my Japanese (and listening to quite a lot of native-level radio in Basque).

Here’s my second month update vid:

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If you’re wondering yourself how to start learning Japanese and still have questions, let me know in the comments below. As always, it’s great to hear about your own projects, whatever the language and whatever your level

Other posts in this series:

New Project: Learning Japanese

Learning Japanese: month 1 update

The post Learning Japanese: Month Two update appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

Why I’ve always wanted to learn Japanese

It helps to get clear on motivation at the beginning of a language project.  Language learning, as they always say, is an endurance sport.  A pressing need or a strong desire aren’t enough in themselves. Without them, though, you’re unlikely to keep going over the longer term.   

There’s no reason why I have to learn Japanese.  The drive is all from within. 

As a language lover, I’ve been wanting to learn about Japanese for a long time out of pure curiosity as to how the language works.

First, Japanese is a totally unique language.  It isn’t related to English’s relatives French, German, Welsh, Russian…Persian…Hindu or other such “Indo-European” languages.  It’s a “language isolate”, just like Basque.  

Second, there are intriguing cultural differences which are reflected in how things are expressed and what is said in what situation. That’s true between all languages to a degree but the differences seems greater in the case of such a distinctive, non-European society such as Japan’s. 

Third, the fascinating writing system(s).  I’ve studied Russian, which has a different alphabet from ours.  But it’s still alphabet.  One letter, one sound, more or less.  Chinese characters are a completely different ball game. They are the basis of one of the Japanese systems.  But the Japanese do have three.    

Fouth, the sounds of the language. Japanese pronunciation is said to be much easier than Chinese because there are not many elemental sounds and it’s not tonal.  It does have “pitch accent”, though, which will be quite new for me.  

I could satisfy mere curiosity just by reading about the language, of course. 

Learning it offers a whole different experience and – if I manage it – direct access to Japan’s vast culture and a chance to experience Japan from the inside.  

For me as a language teacher and mentor, having a serious go at a language with very different writing and sound systems also makes a lot of sense. 

How the need to learn the writing system impacts on and interplays with my language learning is one of the big things I want to work out and share from this project.

At the moment, I can only help people learning Japanese (or another language with a similar writing system) on the basis of what I’ve read and heard from others. I want to speak from first-hand experience. 

I also want to have a better appreciation of the challenges that Japanese students of English face.

Why now?

The immediate reason that I’m starting Japanese now is that I am hoping to make my first visit to Japan in October.  That’s been more-or-less a dead cert since it was announced that the Polyglot Conference would be in Fukuoka this year.  

This gives an great reason on the horizon to learn survival Japanese. My new project has developed from that. 

The time feels right from the wider perspective of my “language learning life” as well.  

I have done some sampling projects in the last few years (Indonesian, Icelandic) but I haven’t thrown myself seriously into a language since I started Basque in 2013.  

Otherwise, since then, the focus has been on developing my advanced Russian and German.  They are both now humming along and I’m pressing on with Basque at an intermediate level. 

It’s time for another language.  

Unless you’re a fellow language-lover, the “whys” you come up with as you start will probably be very different from mine, but do remember to work them out very clearly at the beginning.  Let me know what your “whys” are in the comments below. If you’re some way into your language, have your motivations changed over time?

The destination or “vision” goal

As  you work out your “Whys” you should be aiming to come up with a concrete goal that you can envision vividly: a “vision goal”.  

That might be “enough French to communicate in daily life with the in-laws” or “enough German for citizenship” or “enough Russian to matriculate in a Russian university” or whatever.  

Unless, that is, you’re a language-lover like me, doing it “just because”.  

I see my vision goal at the moment as getting to a solid basic level, in the nine months or so before my visit to Japan. If things go well, though, I’d like to focus on Japanese as my main “beginner level” language for the next two years and to see whether I can get further in that time.

Learning Japanese is no small task.  

The US Foreign Services Institute classify Japanese in the hardest language group, category 5. In the FSI’s view, it takes 2200 hours or 88 weeks at 25 hours a week to reach ‘Speaking 3: General Professional Proficiency in Speaking (S3)’ and ‘Reading 3: General Professional Proficiency in Reading (R3) on the Interagency Language Roundtable scale (roughly the B2/C1 border on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages).  

The FSI estimate cannot be hard and fast.  There are certain obvious variables such as individual aptitude and language learning experience and whether self-study (my basic approach) is more effective than the classroom study that the FSI assumes.

All the same, the relative picture is clear.  Japanese is not a “walk in the park”. The FSI come up with an estimate of 575-600 hours – 23 to 24 weeks for French or Spanish.  For Russian or Icelandic it’s 1100 hours or 44 weeks).  For a native English speaker, much longer than a language closer to English.   

The way forward is to split up a large task into smaller intermediate “path goals”,  with clear staging posts.

My intermediate or “path” goals

The Polyglot Conference is in October, week 42 of 2019. I’m planning in some slack and assuming I’ll have till about nine months or about 38 weeks.  

From a planning perspective, nine months hence is quite long period.  Shorter goals can be more effective for planning concrete steps. 

I’ll split the time into three months periods. There will be a “path goal” at the end of each one.

Three months long enough to make real progress, even if life gets in the way at some points.  It’s not so distant that you lose focus, get run down or feel you can slack or postpone things till “next week” again and again.  

At the end of each period I can take stock and take a bit of a breather.  

My core textbook and some SMART goals

How am I going to set intermediate path goals?  They need to be “SMART” (there are various versions of this acronymn.  My prefered one is specific, meaningful, action-orientated, realistic, time-bound).

I’m a fan of having a textbook (coursebook) to provide a basic structure to my focussed study (as opposed to more casual exposure to the language).  It’s that which will give me my three, three-month milestones.  

The textbook I’ve chosen is Japanese from Zero.  This is a series of five books (plus another couple dealing with the writing systems).  

The beauty of a textbook or a textbook series is that the lessons (chapters/units) provide obvious staging posts.  

My aim is to get on top of the first three volumes before I travel to Japan for the conference.  JFZ 1 has 13 lessons (plus four shorter “pre-lessons”, JFZ 2has 12 and JFZ 3 has 13.  That’s thirty eight lessons, which means I can pace myself at one lesson a week. 

If I fall behind, the path ahead will still be clear: on through the textbooks. What matters above all is not meeting the target.  It’s to keep going.  

After the Conference, I’ll decide on other path goals.  If I’m still with JFZ by October, these later path goals may be later volumes.  Or I may aim for an exam.  

My routine

I won’t have the luxury of full time focus. 

I’m going to have to fit this in around the rest of my life.  That includes the small detail of the day job and my work on the site and as a course creator and mentor.  

Also, there’s Basque, where I currently aim for about thirty mins at least five days a week, plus lots of audio exposure.

I am aiming to do the equivalent of at least half an hour a day of Japanese seven days a week.  There will by some days I miss and others where a do an hour or more. 

Looking at my diary for 2019, I can confidently predict that there will be weeks when everything ends up on hold because I’m travelling, snowed under at the office or for as yet unanticipated reasons.

At this overall rate of three and a half hours a week, I’d clock up about 130 hours before my trip.      

More materials and resources

I don’t want to dilute my focus with too many materials.  

At the moment, the only other books I have are James W. Heisig’s Remembering the Kana and volume one of his (much larger) volume Remembering the Kanji.  

Kana is the word for the special hiragana and katakana writing systems.  Kanji are the Chinese characters.

Written Japanese uses a mixture of all three systems, which certainly looks like a challenge.    

I’ve already started using the Anki spaced repetition app for basic vocab and phrases.

I am generally a fan of Assimil, usually as a supplementary course.  I have not yet got a copy Assimil Le Japonois sans Peine but I want to have a look at it and to decide whether I should work on this (or another course) in parallel. 

I am also exploring online resources, both as a supplement and to start getting more “natural” exposure as soon as possible.  This will include YouTube and I’ll be looking for learner Podcasts as I advance. I’ll report back later.    

What about teachers/classes?  

With Basque, Indonesian and Icelandic, I have put great emphasis on speaking practice from the beginning.  I booked regular one-to-one lessons with a teacher on italki.  

This time, I may do some early samplers or a once-a-week sessions to help control pronunciation may make sense.  That said, looking back over my Basque experience, I think am going to return to my older method of trying to learn a lot of the basic structures and, especially some core vocabulary before trying to have conversations.  

This may be more efficient use of time for me as an experienced language learner with high motivation who likes working alone.  We’ll see.  

How far can I get? 

My goal for my first visit to Japan is to be able to function at a pretty basic level in the language.  I mean getting around on public transport or in taxis, ordering food at restaurants, shopping, visiting sights.

Of course, it I can get further than that, great! It’s worth having a reality check at this stage, though.  

I am anticipating about 130 hours study. 

A range of 450 to 750 hours is the estimate I have seen for students aiming to pass the easiest Japanese Language Proficiency Test.  That’s the JLPT N5 exam (the “Basic Level”, the equivalent of the CEFR A2 upper elementary level). 

In essence, it would be wonderful – and not mean achievement – to have a firm, active command of the language presented in the first three books of Japanese from Zero.  

Blogging and vlogging the Project

I will be covering the project on the blog and the YouTube channel.  The underlying plan is to do an update post and a vlog at the end of each month. I’ll review what I’ve done, how I’m feeling.  For those of you who aren’t sqeamish, I’ll post videos of me attempting to speak.   I’ll also flag up what I’ll be doing in the next month.  

Aside from reporting on my progress monthly, I’m sure I’ll want to cover specific aspects of learning Japanese as I learn more about them.  

I’m currently about ten days in and still in the exciting “honeymoon period” as I start to learn the hiragana writing system and get stuck into Japanese from Zero volume one.  I can feel vistas opening as I start to discover things about the language and start reading what others have to say about the process of learning it.  I’m even starting to recognise hirgagna as I walk past sushi shops here in London. 

Of course, reality will soon bite in the shape of the enormity of the task.  Yes, it all looks overwhelming from the bottom of the mountain.  Then again, many foreigners do manage to get fluent in Japanese, so why not me?  

Why not you, too, in your new language?  Sort out your “whys”, get clear on your vision goal set some SMART interim path goals and just get started!  

Tell me about your project in the comments below and, if you’re more experienced Japanese learner, do you have useful tips to share for those of us just in the earliest of stages?  

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