Thanks for taking the time to leave such a full and valuable comment, Bronwyn (are you Welsh, btw?). What I’m doing is restricted by only allocating about 30 mins a day for this project. I’ve decided the emphasis has to be first on the sounds of the language, speaking and listening. I don’t doubt the value of kanji and I find them fascinating, but reading and writing are a separate system. With “easy” writing systems, I’d be combining the two because of the value of reading for vocab/phrase building but the cost/benefit balance seems different to me one the kanji are in the picture. If I had two hours a day, I’d do an hour on them. Instead, I think my plan is clear in my head now: two years getting a grasp of the lang as a sound system and the core vocab and then two years on the kanji (while continuing with listening and, later, speaking). All the same, I’m using Japanese from Zero as my main textbook and that introduces 80 kanji (book three) and more in books 4 and 5. Interesting that you describe grammar/translation as a source of “comfort”. Indeed, is part of the appeal that it feels like one is taking action. Or does the effort, elaboration and recall involved actually aid getting to grips with the nuts and bolts (do some of us get fluent despite not because of grammar/translation?).

I’m really enjoying TY Japanese, 1958 style, Carol. Stilted language and no audio, maybe, but great for internalising and practising the basics at this stage.

Glad you’re still plugging away and enjoying it, Carol. Just like me! 🙂

It’s really interesting to read in detail about the approach taken by another experienced language learner. I was especially intrigued by the different approach you’re taking to learning Japanese, as opposed to the other languages you’ve worked on or are working on, but maybe that’s part of the experiment: to observe yourself trying out different methods of language learning.

As a Japanese user who has gone through the process of learning the language, I feel obliged to warn you off Teach Yourself Japanese. Though its use of the grammar-translation method might offer some reassurance, the structures are wooden and not necessarily natural Japanese. (I think that’s a feature of most of the Teach Yourself and Linguaphone courses, and have always had the feeling that they weren’t quite designed for people who wanted to have actual contact with the languages.) Furthermore, I feel that learning Japanese via rōmaji is a bad habit to adopt, as it will slow down your response time when you read Japanese in other settings.

I’d really recommend that you include Kanji practice as part of your repertoire, as the stories behind the characters will make the acquisition of subsequent Kanji easier. You’ll find elements repeated, and – eventually – you’ll be able to deduce the meaning of unknown Kanji, too. If you have a Kinokuniya Japanese bookshop or a Daiso store near you that does mail order, you could order calligraphy practice boards that you write on … with water! The fact that your writing evaporates fairly quickly as you use these is a great memory tool, too. Here’s something similar: https://www.amazon.com.au/Magic-Water-Painting-Paper/dp/B001C0Q9MA/ref=pd_sbs_229_img_2/355-4464171-4125337?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B001C0Q9MA&pd_rd_r=de03a4d1-0486-45ca-955b-0b9ec26513fb&pd_rd_w=STiG2&pd_rd_wg=B2qrV&pf_rd_p=a7229bdc-4c52-476b-87a7-8cf10344d0a6&pf_rd_r=W4V9J9GN2B96QMMRECYC&psc=1&refRID=W4V9J9GN2B96QMMRECYC.

I’m an experienced Japanese teacher, so the comments I’m making are not just based on my own experiences, but on observing how my students learn and the brick walls they encounter on the way. When I first started learning Japanese, I principally used Introduction to Modern Japanese, by Osamu Mizutani and Nobuko Mizutani, which I found had good explanations of structure. I really liked the Power Japanese series from Kodansha, in particular Gone Fishin’ by Jay Rubin. For initial practice reading longer texts in Japanese, I loved Alfonso Japanese, Books 1 – 4, which I stumbled upon in second-hand shops.

In terms of online dictionaries, I use a combination of https://jisho.org/ and https://tangorin.com/. The latter also allows you to create your own wordlists. (You could then export them to convert into electronic flashcards, if you wanted.) As free downloads, KanjiStrokeOrders and Syunka2 are the fonts that I most use as I prepare PowerPoints or Google Slides for my Beginners to Intermediate classes. Syunka2 models good handwritten Kana for the students, as opposed to fonts that might have “cooler” visual appeal or the opposite: be the Japanese equivalent of Times New Roman or Calibri, which don’t necessarily help the students make the transition from reading to writing the words they see.

There are many, many more resources on my shelves, but the ones I’ve mentioned are the ones I’ve used the most.

じゃ、がんばってください。
ブロンより。