We’ll explore the pros and cons of common approaches as a first step to helping you choose the best fit. In an upcoming post, we’ll go on to look at other things you’ll be glad you knew before you jump. If you’re still not sure whether you should use a language course at all, check out the first instalment in this mini-series: Language textbooks: good or bad?

Grammar translation language courses

Most older course-books use the “grammar-translation” approach. The term comes from the way Latin and Greek were taught in the nineteenth century, with the whole emphasis on learning generalised grammar rules (plus exceptions) and translating into your native modern language.

No living language textbook will follow this approach in the extreme, but some of the older, more “traditional” course books do tend towards it. They give pride of place to grammatical explanations with lots of written exercises (mainly translation).

Many of the old-style Teach Yourself books from the seventies, sixties or before, fall into this category.

Here’s my copy of J.T.Bowen and T.J Rhys Jones’s Welsh (1975 imprint, first published 1960).

In the main, the organisation of the lessons/chapters follows the grammatical “parts of speech” with lesson titles such as “Nouns and Gender” or “Imperfect Tense of BOD, Negative, Interrogative”.

Each lesson begins with a clear explanation of the new structures.

Then there are exercise tasks such as “Put the above nouns in the plural”, “Write in Welsh: 1. He is sitting, he has sat, he sat.” “Read aloud and translate into English” (there follow twenty short sentences). The Welsh talk is more literary in form.

There are no dialogues or even pieces to read (except the exercises). Neither is there a new vocab list for each unit (though there is a good glossary of all the vocab at the back).

Another older book taking a similar approach is Maria Emilia de Alvelos Naar’s Colloquial Portuguese (first edition 1968, my copy is a 1989 reprint of the second edition (1972)).

Again, we have lesson titled by “parts of speech” such as Lesson 8 “Imperfect and Future Subjunctive” (my voice may sound critical, but for language geeks like me, that unique future subjunctive is one of the main selling points of Portuguese ).

Each unit of the old Colloquial Portuguese opens with an explanation of the new grammar. You get one form of exercise only in each lesson: twenty short sentences in English which you have to translate into English.

Unlike my old Welsh book, you’ll also find a vocab list in each unit plus a “Conversational matter” section. This is two short exchanges in a “dialogue” format, followed by an English translation. Each dialogue does have a particular topic theme.

It’s not just old books that work from the grammar outwards. The five books in the Bakarka self-study course that I use for Basque is very much in this tradition. Each Lesson in Bakarka 1 (2013) begins with a grammar explanation. There are lots of varied exercise, including translation into Basque. There are also long reading passages (mainly dialogues).

Pros

Often concise: The older courses in the “grammar-translation tradition are often pack a great deal of learning into a small space. You can cover “the whole language” (in the sense of a skeleton of the grammar) and core vocab in one volume. This can help keep you focussed on essentials. Plus, some of the older Teach Yourself or Colloquial books will literally fit into your pocket.

Systematic, explicit instruction: With a course book organised to follow the grammatical “parts of speech”, it’s clear how you’re moving through the structures of the language and you get extensive explicit instruction in why and how the nuts and bolts of the language work.

There’s an argument that you’ll remember that better if you “discover it” for yourself, but I’m not so sure. That’s a different debate but, for now, if you want explanations you’ll get them in spades in this type of course.

Practise difficulties head on: Lots of practice exercises and translation will get you focussing on the patterns head on. This puts a premium on early accuracy and gives you a chance to be interactive with the material.

Cons

Confusing grammatical terms: More traditional books, especially the older ones, tend to use more grammatical terms in their explanations. Each specialist field has its jargon and, to be honest, if you can’t master the difference between a noun, verb, adjective and so on, you’re unlikely to have the strength of character to get fluent in a language. That doesn’t mean, though, that you have to do this to learn a language. It doesn’t mean, either, that the author should be trying to blind us with science. When the jargon becomes a block or a distraction, it’s gone too far. When that point is, you need to decide.

Stilted language: the language presented is often quite artificial and far-removed from actual speech. This is a good point, though it’s true to an extent of most courses, as they all tend to simplify the specimens of language they present in the early stages. It may be that how long ago the course was written rather than the approach taken is a bigger variable.

Not dialogue based: Because there isn’t always a dialogue or conversational approach, you may also think that these books will be worse at teaching you to speak. Fact is, though, no course can teach you to speak on its own. That’s not the role of the book.

Sequential not “spiral” coverage of grammar: If the book sticks too rigidly to a “parts of speech” layout so that first you learn about adjectives, then verbs, then numerals or whatever, you won’t be able to use much of the language in full phrases at all until you’ve completed the whole thing. Most modern course books introduce the simpler or more frequent structures in a useable context early on, then reinforce them (and build out from them) later on in the course as you work “upwards and outwards” as your linguistic horizons expand. That’s better for motivation, gives you something to work with and ensures that elements of recall are built in.

Dry and boring: This is the clincher point. For you, it may flow from my first three “cons”.

It’s true, many of the older courses don’t look like “fun”. They consist of pages and pages of relatively dense print. Things aren’t broken up with illustrations. There are no bright colours to cheer up the mood.

I’d argue that you can actually take pretty dull material and make it fascinating. You use your imagination in how you interact with it (doing your own illustrations, making your own exercises and questions or trying to use the material with a tutor or exchange partner….). The excitement comes from the creativity and the feeling of learning.

But that’s Dr P for you! If you find a course unappealing and dense, you aren’t going to get very far with it. It’s not going to be the best language course for you. That’s true whatever methodological approach the author has taken.

Communicative approach (1) “situational”

It’s much more common now to find courses stressing “communicative” needs and goals, with “grammar-translation” downplayed. Often a “realistic” dialogue is central (though the language will be simplified, standardised and possible atypical in that certain new grammar points may be foregrounded).

One common organising principle is “situational”. Each lesson puts you, the learner, in a specific common situation that you’re likely to have to deal with.

Here, we’re talking Lesson headings like these from my Teach Yourself Complete Portuguese (Manuela Cook, 1987 (2010 reprint)): “Ida e volta, por favor. A return ticket please” (centred around brief dialogues in the train and bus stations) or “Ao voltarmos, abrirei conta bancária. On our return, I shall open a bank account” (opens with a dialogue between a customer and bank clerk).

Daisy L. Neijmann’s Colloquial Icelandic is also structured around specific common situations, with units such as “Föt. Clothing” (conversation between two friends preparing for a hiking trip) or “Gisting. Accommodation” (starts with a phone conversation between a tourist and a guesthouse owner).

Pros

Great if you need the language for specific situations: In a sense, this is true of all of us, at least in the beginner and intermediate levels. We all need to be able to talk about ourselves, ask for directions, buy groceries, take a taxi).

As upper intermediate and advanced learners our needs are much more varied. We’ve already covered all the structures and common general vocab and expressions. We tend to have very specific needs relating either to those aspects of the language that are sticking points for us or to what we need the language for.

At this level could make a book (or electronic course) that takes a specialist situational approach the bast language course for you.

If you need the language for your job, you may also find specialist course books on sale with a focus in sector-relevant situations (German for Medicine, Japanese for the Travel Industry etc). For some languages there are even specialist books like this aimed at beginners (the general stuff + specialism-specific situations and vocab).

Great for a themed approach to vocab: The situational approach is a great way to introduce blocks of vocab by theme, if you like that approach.

Cons

Contrived situations: On the flip side, the concrete situation presented may feel contrived and unrealistic. Take, for example, the typical “checking into a hotel”-type dialogue, a beloved early lesson in many beginners’ course books. This is one situation where, as a tourist, you’re pretty likely to find a receptionist speaks English (though not always, as I found out in Japan! ).

Irrelevant situations: The situations maybe realistic but just not relevant to you. For example, if a course is aimed a young adults and you’re past the first flush of youth, you may be irritated by constant references to boyfriends and girlfriends, parties and fast food outlets (I’m thinking of you here, dear Japanese From Zero course book!).

Even if “the situation fits” in a generic sense, what’s in the book is unlikely to be exactly exchange you’ll find yourself in. A course focussing exclusively on specific scenarios might end up feeling like a glorified phrase book which doesn’t make you more confident in the general patterns of the language that you can than adapt to real-life. Wouldn’t it be better either to have the grammar confidence to cobble together your own sentences or a great stock of more generic “functional” language that you can bring to bear in a wide a variety of situations?

Communicative approach (2) “functional”

A different communicative approach is to organise the course around things you might need to do in the language, regardless of the specific situation.

The BBC “Talk” books are big on this “functional” approach, for example.

They are concise and packed with realistic language. I have Talking the Talk German from this series and it has Lessons with titles like “Agreeing and disagreeing” “Sharing and experience”, “Showing empathy”. It has whole sections on expressing likes and dislikes and on making plans. There are some full dialogues but the emphasis is on lists of phrases, chunks of language with additional vocab that you can switch in and out as required.

Pros

This approach recognises that we use language to get things done (transactions, satisfying need, expressing ideas and emotions…) and that the actual context is infinitely variable. You’re learning something very flexible…All you then need to do is to have the specific vocabulary to slot in to your given situation.

Cons

Focussing just on specific communicative goals can feel a bit abstract. You’ll want to be sure that what you’re learning is tailored to relevant situations in which you are going to need to understand and speak the language.

Courses that blend the approaches

Today it’s very rare to a course that’s just pure grammar-translation. In the same way, you’re unlikely to find a course that doesn’t have any explicit grammatical explanation. The three approaches we’ve just explored are usually blended together.

My old “grammar-translation” Colloquial Portuguese has, after all, a couple of mini dialogue-based “situations” in each Lesson.

Above, I used BBC Talking the talk German to illustrate the “functional” approach. This course, though, also for focussed in on a number of particular situations such as “Health matters” or “Talking about food”. The course also has a section on German beer culture (!). There’s even a brief “traditional” grammar overview at the back.

I used Colloquial Icelandic and Complete Portuguese as examples of the situational approach, but both also have lessons (or sections within lessons) focussed on particular overarching language “functions” such as expressing wants or talking about the future. They both also have lots of explicit instruction with exercises. Complete Portuguese does not have any translation element but Colloquial Icelandic does include some “translate into Icelandic” exercises.

Assimil‘s well-known “made simple” (“sans peine”/”ohne Mühe”) course books are really quite difficult to categorise. They are focussed on mini-dialogues in a large range of situations with explicit footnoted grammatical explanations and a limited number of traditional “fill in the gaps” and translation exercises. I love them as a supplemental resource, but I like more explicit, comprehensive instruction and more exercises, as well.

My own downloadable/on-line courses take a blended approach, too.

Each lesson in my flagship course, the Weekly German Workouts starts with a situational dialogue but there are lots of functional phrases, taught mainly as easily-deployable “chunks” of language. There are also full explicit explanations and lots of exercises.

As the name suggests, my Focus in Five A2 (upper beginner) Russian Grammar takes a much more traditional explicit grammar approach but taught in the context of lots of useful examples, with practice exercises.

If you want to know when enrolment opens again on either course, make sure you’ve joined the free “Howtogetfluent Email Club” (sign up under this post – you’ll be my free language learner pro training at once).

The best language course is the one with the balance that works for you

When you’re thinking of buying a book or online course, try to work out how the approach it takes to presenting the language. Most likely it’ll be a blend of these major approaches…on paper, in an electronic format or even an “audio only” course (such as Michel Thomas or Pimsleur).

As we’ve seen, each approach has its strengths. Keep and open mind as you leaf or scroll through a potential course.

Don’t rule out “traditional” grammar-translation just because you’ve heard that this approach went out of fashion or because a book looks, on the surface, to be dull and dry. Using your own imagination is a way to turbo-charge your learning and there’s actually a lot to be said for translation and it’s enjoying something of a come-back.

Don’t rule out the situational approach just because the situations in your book don’t all seem relevant. Aspects of them surely will be and some of the language will be transferable, too.

Remember that there’s lots to be gained from the functional approach, though you’ll need to be sure to ground it in your situations and expand your vocab.

If you’re eying up a course, weigh up how balance falls in it, in the light of your own personality and needs.

Look at other important factors (such as price, availability of audio, a key to exercises etc) and make your choice.

Once you have your book or electronic course, try to stick it as your self-study mainstay. Don’t keep flitting from one course to the next in search of the “perfect course” or a magic “silver bullet”.

Instead, be aware of the strengths of the course that you’ve got and make the most of it.

You should now be better place to recognise the limitations of the course too. One way to deal with these is to find out a full secondary course (or more specific materials covering particular topics) that compensates for them.

For example, if your main course is very informal and dialogue-based, you might like to have a more descriptive, grammar-based course with lots of exercises that you can work with in parallel or to dip into now and again (I’m doing this at the moment with my lower intermediate Basque and beginner Japanese).

Whatever the balance in your course, however much you love it and wrestle with it, remember even the best language course is never enough on its own.

A subsidiary course or two won’t get you over the line to fluency either.

Even the best language course is just an (important) part of a much wider picture which has to include a whole lot of vocab building, listening, reading, writing and speaking practice.

Whatever your course’s approach, however it’s designed it’s what you do with it that counts. Even more, it’s what else you do in addition.

The post What’s the best language course for you? appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

Here on the site, I often mention the books I’m using with my languages. Yet other successful language learners give such formal textbooks or online courses a wide berth. They might prefer “authentic” materials (aimed at natives) or just get a dictionary or translation app, dive straight in and start speaking. Indeed, there are powerful arguments against using learning coursebooks which you need to consider. Let’s weigh up them up one-by-one, together. Let’s answer the question: language textbooks: good or bad?

Language textbooks are boring and demotivating…

….they focus too much on dry grammar, impenetrable explanations, interminable exercises and dull texts. It’s no wonder that so many people fall victim to “chapter three syndrome”. They start a new language full of enthusiasm and yet by the time they get to chapter three of the book, they’ve lost motivation and give up. It’s far more stimulating to start “living the language” from day one.

Yes, but…. Sort out your motivation first!

….of course some textbooks can look dusty and boring, though remember the old phrase that you shouldn’t just a book by its cover. If you’re enthused by learning – and a bookish type – you may find that even older looking volumes have a lot to offer. When motivation flags at chapter three, is this really the fault of the textbook?

Before you start your new language, sort out your motivation. That’s about thinking carefully about whether you really want to learn, what you need the language for and whether your reasons are strong enough to take you to your ultimate goal (whether that’s to order a beer on holiday or to work as a conference interpreter).

Not losing motivation is also about having a real appreciation of what is involved in terms of the time put in and dealing with the ups and downs in reaching your goal.

Remember too that having overall, motivational goals is all well and good but it can, in turn, contribute to discouragement and a feeling of overwhelm.

Breaking down a large “vision” goal into interim “path” goals make it easier to keep going with big tasks.

Textbooks can hep with motivation because they set out the route ahead.

You can set yourself the aim of doing a chapter a week, completing the book in a year, or whatever. Then there’s the warm feeling of achievement and completion when you do just that. Then you get proudly to move onto book two (when you can also enjoy that deferred gratification and indulge your acquisitive consumer instincts) once again.

As for that “grammar” canard: different language textbooks take different approaches to teaching the language. Some are grammar-heavy. Older textbooks almost always took a grammar-translation approach. Then came audio-lingual or audio-visual courses and books that stressed practical communication. In general, the more modern the book, the more the focus will be on setting the grammar in the context of texts of various types.

Even among “modern books”, some will prefer to “teach” structures first before presenting a passage or dialogue. Others will present a dialogue first in each chapter and encourage you to work out a little out first, before jumping into the explanation (the “discovery method”).

The extent of the didactic explanations will vary. The Assimil books, for example, prefer to let the grammar emerge and only explain it in the lightest of ways.

Some courses deliberately focus on structures and teach a restricted vocabulary. Others throw a lot of vocabulary at you. Some books will have lots of exercises and others won’t.

Language textbooks teach you language you won’t need…

Language textbooks are just too far too divorced from reality. On the one hand, they are full of out-of-date or low frequency words or expressions that you’d never need in real life: “the pen of my aunt”….”my hovercraft is full of eels”….

Even if a book is new and trying to be relevant and hip, at the beginners level example texts are often simplified to the point of artificiality.

It’s not only simplification: samples of the language will often over use the grammar points that the chapter is introducing at the cost of authenticity. Far better to seek explanations of structures as you meet them in real life and look up words when you need them.

The very fact that texts are written can make for something more logical and complete than what you’d be exposed to in real life. Natural, spoken language, full, as it is, of false starts, incomplete phrases, repetition and “fillers” (such as “um…ah…”know what I mean?”).

Yes but….simplification can help at first

While it’s true that some of the language will be a bit artificial in the early stages, there’s something to be said for learning things one stage at a time and simplification can help with that…provided that you do progress on to “real” language when the time is right (and that could be sooner or later….it just depends).

Coursebooks take your time away from more authentic encounters with the language…

Yes, interacting seriously with a textbook does take a lot of time. That’s time you could be spending learning more phrases and vocab (for example with flashcards), getting lots more input (listening and reading) or actually trying to speak the language (for example by doing a language exchange or working one to one with a tutor (perhaps online, with Google translate open on screen)…

On the other hand….sometimes being taught things is quicker.

At the beginning of learning a language in particular, textbooks can help you get a bridgehead.

Once you have a basis, you can make better use of time interacting: watching videos, listening to podcasts, speaking with people.

As for vocab building, where are you going to get the phrases for flashcarding from? Could it actually be efficient better to “mine” texts you’re coming across as part of the well-through out, staged learning plan presented by a well-designed textbook?

When you’re learning a language, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel or rely on chance

Here’s something that many of us oh-so-unique individuals won’t want to hear: when it comes to you and me and you and language learning, we actually basically all need the same language.

At the beginning stage we need the most frequent structures and words and to apply them in the most common situations of life. Sure we need to supplement this with phrases particular to our own circumstances: talking about specific aspects of our reasons for learning, the specialist vocab and jargon of or our hobby or profession. Yet why just amass the essential core by chance exposure? Course creates know what’s needed and they put it in one place for us, with system.

This holds not just for beginners. At the intermediate level, there are still relatively high-frequency structures and words that can be taught systematically and that everyone needs.

As for the more advance levels things change a little.

Yes, there may be the outer-reaches of grammar to introduce and textbooks can provide a structure for some systematic revision of things that you may have forgotten.

Here’s another thing: by the advanced level, you need to be able to talk not just about the higher-frequency topics or your pet interests. There’s also a broad range of situations and subjects that an educated, adult speaker of the language needs to be linguistically equipped for.

A textbook presenting authentic texts (with audio) on a wide-range of topics, including ones you wouldn’t seek out or have even thought of can help develop your general fluency in this way. We’re talking here topics you’d be able to follow and discuss at a general level in your native tongue. You should be aiming to do the same in your target language, if you really want high-level mastery. So, no complaining from me when the topic is the history and production of chocolate in my Basque upper-intermediate textbook.

Textbooks: yes or no?

We’ve seen some pretty strong criticisms of language textbooks but also that there’s another side to the story. In my language learning, they always have an important part to play.

Partly, it’s a question of personality. I’m somebody who’s quite introverted, thorough and who enjoys reading and study. If you are too, you’ll probably need little persuasion to give a textbook an important role in your language learning.

Yet if, by nature, you’re less of a student and more of, say, a singer, sportsperson or socialiser, you’ll probably use your textbook less often. I think you could still find it useful, though, if in a more limited way; for some structure, for reference and for variety.

Whoever you are, whatever your aims and interests in language learning, I think that language textbooks COULD be for you too if you get these three things right:

First: the book. What a good book is will partly depend on the science of language teaching. Much more it will depend on the material appealing to you. Better sub-optimal resources that you want to use then ones that the experts say are great that stay on your shelf. In the next in this series, we’ll look at things to look for when choosing a good book.

Second: what you do with the book. The key here is to approach it in a brain-savvy way. Don’t just read it passively. Get interactive. Use the book imaginatively with your teacher or exchange partner. Use techniques like testing and spaced recall of the material. Look out for another upcoming post on just this topic.

Third: realistic expectations of the book. If you do buy-in to the idea of a course book, remember it’s not a silver bullet. When I hear questions like “Will I be fluent when I’ve finished the book”? I want to weep.

A coursebook cannot work magic. No one book (or even one multi-volume series) can cover everything that you’re going to need. No one book can give you enough reading input or (assuming there is audio) enough listening practice.

Yes, use a textbook to maximum effect but make sure (particularly when you get to the intermediate level and have the core structures and vocab) to get lots and lots of listening and reading input.

Likewise, a textbook can never teach you to speak. Yes it can help explain pronunciation. Yes it can give you more or less useful vocab and phrases but you have to get down and dirty and use them, pushing through the discomfort zone time after time.

A language textbook is like a cookbook or a car manual. Very, very useful, but no substitute for actually cooking or driving.

Check out the next post in this mini series: What’s the best language course for you? It explores the different approaches that a textbook/online course might take.

The post Language textbooks: good or bad? appeared first on How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins.

This is the first of my monthly update posts, where I’ll be sharing how it’s going and looking ahead to the coming month.

Learning Japanese 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, a total of about 130 hours study over nine months. To keep it real, let’s remember that 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.

Thirty minutes a day for January would amount to 15.5 hours. I easily achieved that, clocking up 26 hours in total. I studied on 28 of the month’s 31 days.

Here’s how my study breaks down:

Week 1 (Monday 1st January to Sunday 6th January): six hours (every day except 1st).
Week 2 (Monday 7th January to Sunday 13th January): eight hours (every day).
Week 3 (Monday 14th January to Sunday 20th January): six hours (every day).
Week 4 (Monday 21st January to Sunday 27th January): four and a quarter hours (no study on 26th, 27th (Edinburgh language meet-up).
Remainder of month (Monday 28th to Thursday 31st): two hours (every day).
Total: 26 hours (28 days)

Main textbook: Japanese from Zero  1

I am structuring my project round Japanese from Zero, which is a five- volume course. My aim is 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.

I’m just finishing lesson 6, so I’m ahead of schedule. There are thirteen full lessons in the book and four pre-lessons. The pre-lessons are shorter, so let’s say fifteen units in total. That gives five a month. I’d only need to be at the end of the third lesson at the end of Month 1.

The style of the book is less dense and academic than I’m used to (and less so – according to the reviews – than Genki, which seems to be the other popular textbook). I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, though. I’ll do a fuller review later when I’m further into the course.

Although I’m powering on, ahead of schedule, I haven’t fully internalised all the vocab and expressions from each unit yet.

There’s always that tension between “learning thoroughly” and the attraction of what comes next, isn’t there?

“Moving on before you’re ready” is not always bad advice. To an extent, as with every well-designed course, each subsequent chapter also makes use of earlier material, so things I’m shaky on at the end of one chapter will be reinforced in subsequent ones.

All the same, I will be doubling back in February.

There’s a companion website to the books. It includes a lot of free content, including YouTube versions of each lesson, with George Trombley teaching to camera.

I place a lot of emphasis on pronunciation and listening in the early stages of learning a language and I used the JFZ pre-lesson videos (besides pronunciation, they cover the numbers and some basic greetings).

Once I got into main part of the the book, though, the video versions of the lessons felt too slow and inefficient for me. When I only had half an hour, I didn’t want to spend twenty minutes or more listening to George Trombley (engaging though he is) explaining in English things I’d already just covered in the book.

That said, I want to return to the site in Month 2 and explore what’s there more thoroughly and give it another chance. There’s more to it than just video lectures. For example, are audio recordings of a lot of the vocab and phrases, tests and games. There’s also a membership section and I want to see what’s on offer.

Heisig’s “Remembering the Kana”

The only other resource I’ve used so far is Heisig’s Remembering the Kana, which uses mnemonics or what the author calls “imaginative memory” to get you to remember the shape (or components) and sound of each kana (kana is the collective name for the two syllable-based phonetic Japanese writing systems, the hiragana and the katakana (the third system is kanji – Chinese characters).

In the middle of the month I finished the first half of the book, so I now know the hiragana.

Did it take three hours as billed by the blurb on the cover?

No, it took four hours, thirty minutes.

Still, not bad going.

Some of the images that Heisig uses to help you remember the kana are very strained and silly. Maybe it’s partly that, though, that helps them stick!

After finishing the hiragana, I had a ten day break before returning to the book in the last few days of the month (and the first couple of days of February). A lot of the katakana are simplified forms of the hiragana, so progress was more rapid. It took just over three hours to work through.

I do feel less sure of my katakana, though.

One reason for this is that, to me, the second half of book feels a lot weaker, almost as if the author lost interest. Taken overall, though, the book works and I’m a fan. I’ll do a separate review later.

Another reason I’m less sure of the katakana is that they aren’t introduced in Japanese from Zero until book 2. In book 1, my hiragana reinforces as Twombley introduces them in batches, chapter-by-chapter.

He calls this the “progressive” system, with more and more Latin letters disappearing from words from chapter to chapter once the relevant hiragana has been taught.

It feels good to have already covered each new batch thanks to Heisig.

It’s exciting to be initiated into something that has always seemed impenetrable and to find that, once you make a start, there’s actually no magic to the kana.

Although the symbols represent whole syllables (plus the vowels and “n”) they are conceptually the same as an alphabet and can be learned almost as quickly as the Russian or Green alphabets.

It’s been a little thrill to be able to decipher the odd sign above Japanese food outlets here in London, too.

I’m really enjoying the physical act of actually writing the hiragana and katakana by hand.

I’m also finding that visual memory of the hiragana is helping me to recall individual words. I’m a little uneasy about that, because I think sound should come first, but I’ll take help where it’s on offer.

Flashcarding vocabulary

In January I started using the Anki spaced repetition app for basic vocabulary and phrases. I also want to step up its use for my Basque learning. The main resistance is that I’m a technophobe.

So far I have only created my own Japanese “deck” (set of virtual flashcards)(rather than downloading decks from the net). I’m entering individual words and phrases from JFZ in English on the front side and the Japanese on the back (I only work from English to Japanese). This takes quite a lot of time (not included in my study totals).

For the Japanese “side” of the card, I was initially just typing in transliterations in the Latin alphabet (or Romanji, as it’s known in Japanese).

By third week of the month, I’d done all the hiragana, so I could start inputting into Anki in hiragana alone.

At least, I could do that once I’d worked out how to type hiragana on the Mac (no small challenge for a technophobe like me). In English I’m a trained (and rapid) touch-typer. I delayed learning to touch-type in Russian until I was preparing for the advanced C1 exam. Despite myself, I want to be a “digital native” from the word go with Japanese.

As you’ll know if you follow my vlogs over on YouTube, last weekend I went up to Edinburgh to attend a language learners’ meet-up. I used a lot of the four-and-a-half hour train journey north to add items to Anki.

I’m now reviewing with Anki on my three or four weekly commutes from home to the office. That’s maybe thirty minutes a day review (not included in the totals above).

My aims for Month 2

Japanese from Zero

When I get to the end of Japanese from Zero 1 lesson 7, I’ll be over halfway though the 13 full units of Japanese from Zero 1 and I plan to spend a week formally reviewing.

I’d only actually need to get to the end of lesson 8 to stay on track for Month 2. As I don’t have any travelling or other major commitments this month, I could well finish well ahead, even with the review week.

Some of the slack will go on to checking out more of the online audio and video resources that goes with JFZ, though.

A secondary course?

I want to be careful not to overload myself with too many materials I won’t have time to use.

Nevertheless, in February I’m also thinking of starting a second course to run in parallel with Japanese from Zero. The benefit would be to come at the language from another angle and for both courses to reinforce each other. Also, I want a course with integrated audio (given that the Japanese from Zero books do not come with audio).

Several experienced language learners I know and respect are great fans of Pimsleur for the early stages. It’s an audio only course and I’m planning to try out level 1. I’ve never used Pimsleur before, and it’s time I gave it a go.

I’m also going to get the Assimil course Japanese with Ease. I’ve used Assimil for several languages in the past (always with other materials). In English (or German) you can only get the previous (two volume) edition of their Japanese course. The latest one volume (combined) edition is only available in the original French.

Begin Heisig’s “Remembering the Kanji”

The biggest development in Month 2 will be starting with Heisig’s main course, Remembering the Kanji. This uses the same system as Remembering the Kana but was written much earlier.

There are two volumes of Remembering the Kanji. Whereas Remembering the Kana has 147 pages and teaches you the 46 hiragana and 46 katakana, Kanji weighs in at 484 pages and teaches you the meaning and stroke order for the most important 2,200 Chinese characters. And that’s only volume one. Volume two deals with how they are pronounced in Japanese.

Some people manage to get through the book in six months or even less.

I’ve got 35 weeks left, so I’d need to do about sixty characters a week or, let’s say, ten a day, to get through the book in eight months or so. I’m certainly not promising to do that at this stage. First, I’m going to make a start and see how it feels.

Remember that “slack” I was mentioning that’s come from being ahead in Japanese from Zero? I might just need it for Heisig!

No speaking yet

With Basque (and my mini projects in Icelandic and Indonesian) I started speaking “from day one”, using tutors on italki.com.

This time, I’m going to wait until I’ve got a good base.
I’ve no plans to book any sessions in Month 2 and may not even do this in Month 3 (March).

What I am doing is keeping a running list of what I call “toolkit phrases” as they come up in Japanese from Zero.

I mean things like “Could you repeat that please?”, “How do you say x in Japanese?”, “I don’t understand”. These will come in to smooth the experience when I am ready to start speaking.

So, that’s how it’s going so far. I’ve managed to maintain a regular, focussed study habit this month and am particularly pleased that I’ve learned the kana and got into the swing with Anki for Japanese. Work on my main textbook Japanese from Zero is going well and I’m enthusiastic for Month 2.

ooo-))–OO–))oo–O-oo((–OO–((-ooo

What about you? If you’re an old Japanese hand and have comments and tips to share, let me know in the comments below. If you too are just starting Japanese, how’s it going? What about other language projects? Has the year kicked off well for you and what are you plans for the coming month?

Most recent Japanese update

UPDATE Nov ’22 I’m still learning Japanese – August 21 to March 22 is my most recent post on the project (more to come!):

August 2021 – March 2022 Japanese project update

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