Last time I went to Japan, my self-challenge was to speak and communicate only in Japanese. I was one year old at the time, in Japanese terms. That is to say I had only been learning the language for one year, but very intensively, the loose “system” outlined on this site.
I succeeded in this challenge, even though my Japanese was far from wonderful. Even when the police questioned me about my suspicious wanderings (I got lost and apparently had wandered where I shouldn’t be) and asked if I spoke English, I said えぇーと、ちょっーとand generally looked as if English wasn’t exactly my long suit – because really, I had disabled my English circuit board – and they decided to manage with my Japanese.
This time’s challenge is bigger. I am three now, after all. My challenge this time is to think in Japanese. Of course it is much easier to control one’s outward actions than one’s thoughts and I cannot expect to have the 100% success rate I had with only using Japanese outwardly.
But, as we discussed in How to Think in Japanese, outward usage is the key to inner thoughts. Last time I was in Japan I wrote extensively about it, in English. Some of those writings formed the basis for the new book.
However, when you are going to write about an experience in English, especially if you are a writer at heart, you can’t help thinking about the experience in English. And thus experiencing the experience in English.
You are always thinking. “Oh, this is lovely! How will I describe this?” or “These feelings are so deep and so subtle, how can I convey them?” And of course you aren’t even thinking that precisely. What you are doing is internally verbalizing the experience itself in the way that you hope to convey it.
So this time I will be writing about my Japanese experience only in Japanese, and I will be isolating myself as far as possible from written as well as spoken English. Cure Yasashiku has kindly volunteered to translate my Japan Diaries into English for a few non-Japanese-speaking friends, so that they can stay informed. Everyone who knows no or little Japanese is being very understanding about the fact that I will not be in direct contact with them during this time. The translations will not be made public, neither will I see them.
We have started a new blog, which will publicast my Japanese diaries proper, called 人形の日記 .This is the first website we have made entirely in Japanese, and I am really excited for it. Please follow it, and please feel free to comment (but only in Japanese, of course).
I will also be putting my diary entries on the Kawaii Japanese Forums. There I will likely engage in a little more dolly oshaberi at times that may not be suitable for the official Diary. Feel free to join the conversation (again, of course, in Japanese). Don’t worry if you need Rikai to help you read and don’t worry if your Japanese is a little basic. If you just say こんにちは I will be delighted!
Remember that the way to really make Japanese your language is to use it. Get your hands dirty, make mistakes. Use a fun Japanese-only identity if you are worried about silly people sneering at you, and know that you will end up way ahead of them with their sanitized “best china” Japanese that they never dare use in case they get a chip in it.
I have written a few articles in advance that will be posted when I am away, so you won’t be entirely without English Dolly blather (sorry if I raised your hopes there), and in case you don’t read Japanese, or you just want to get the backstory of what happened the first time I was in Japan, my book An Alien Doll in Japan has been released just today.
I am kind of hoping my two-year-old adventures will be a little bit less disaster-fraught. However, since the language wasn’t the main problem last time, that may be over-hopeful.
It will also be interesting to see how my Japanese reflections differ from my English ones.
So, mata aki ne, dear, dear readers. I want to thank you for supporting our humble little site over the last few years and for growing more numerous with every passing week. I always really enjoy talking to you and sharing my thoughts and findings on my Japanese journey.
That sounds a bit “farewell-y”, doesn’t it? It isn’t. I will be back during the Fall and continuing to share with you all, and I hope you will be here too (yes, you. Did you think I hadn’t noticed you? I am always happy to see your face).
And if you can manage a little Japanese, I will be very happy if you would give me a little ouen (support, cheering on) on my My Diary or on the Forums. If I’m honest, going alone to Japan is just a little scary. I am very shy and outside Japan I rarely cross a street alone. So if you just pop me the odd comment it will help me a lot! It will be good for your Japanese too!
I know there are a few hundred regular readers for every one who comments even once, but remember, even if you can’t manage a comment, Dolly loves you all!
My last piece on Japanese immersion, was entitled Massive Input vs Anki. A slightly provocative title perhaps.
I didn’t use it because I was trying to start a war. It was because I was and am interested in the interplay between an artificial learning method and the organic aquisition that comes from pure immersion.
I am not suggesting that we all give up Anki. It is a powerful system that helps us acquire and retain Japanese. However I do find that as one uses increasingly massive input one’s relation to Anki changes. I promised to report on my personal experience of intensifying my input.
I spent a month doing an unusually large quantity of input, mainly watching anime with subtitles and reading books. How did it affect my relation to Anki? Let me summarize:
I have two Anki decks. One for vocabulary and a sound-based sentences deck. I found I was actually entering more into the vocabulary deck because I was picking up vocabulary very fast from my extensive reading (strictly with pure extensive reading you don’t look words up, but I was).
Often with a new word I will enter sentences because definitions alone don’t tell you the nuance of a word or how it is used. I did this a lot less. The reason was that with a higher level of Japanese immersion input I found new words recurring much more frequently than I would have expected.
Not only do the same authors/themes tend to use the same words but I was finding words repeating across different books and anime. I felt more confidence in being able to rely on seeing the word in the wild rather than needing example sentences for it. I was popping words (but by no means all my new acquisitions) into Anki to “pin” them. But I felt more confidence in natural encounters with a steeply increased rate of input.
I was also more lenient with myself in Anki. Usually I am pretty strict with myself. “Half-right is wrong”. What I found was that again, with a higher level of Japanese immersion, I had more confidence in my input. So I would think “all right I know pretty much what that word means. I’ll recognize it in context next time I meet it”.
This, of course is how children naturally learn language. They start off knowing roughly what a word means and sometimes use it incorrectly. But with continued exposure their knowledge of the word refines down to exactitude. With confidence in our rate of input we can be less afraid of getting words half-right because we know it is a step along the road and not our “only chance”.
Another thing I noticed is how wonderful the memory really is. Reading and watch/reading quite fast through a lot of material and resisting the temptation to look up things I did really know even if a little ambiguously (tolerance of ambiguity is important here I think) I noticed that I was recognizing words I had learned two years or more ago and hadn’t drilled since. I think we tend to over-drill words for fear of forgetting them when the real drilling they need is actual Japanese immersion: input, input, input.
I might not have recognized those words on an abstract word-list or in Anki. But in context, as living parts of real sentences that were in themselves living parts of a real story, I did remember them. And there was a sense of “Gosh, so that’s what that old glassy-eyed dead word in the attic of my memory looks like when it comes to life!”
Of course, nearly all my vocabulary came from real exposure in the first place, via the Anime Method and its close relations. But some of them had ossified into “Anki words”.
Real Japanese speakers know a huge number of Japanese words. How? By having total Japanese immersion all the time. But even with the degree of input possible to you or me, if it is truly massive it is surprising how quickly words start reinforcing.
Japanese Immersion: The “feel” of the language
Japanese, in both grammar and vocabulary, is a surprisingly “modular” language. As you get used to it you start to realize how beautifully it all fits together.
If you are reading (text or subtitles) more and more you encounter words that you don’t need to look up. You know what the individual kanji mean, and, with the context, it is clear what the two (or three) of them in combination must mean. Japanese has a lot of words, but the good news is that a lot of them come from understandable-in-context combinations of other word-elements one already knows.
One also gets the feel for Japanese sound-symbolism. This is a very unquantifiable subject, so I won’t say much about it. But I do find myself saying “Ah I can tell what that word means by the sound of it”. In some cases I may be subconsciously remembering a word I learned before. In other cases it may just be similar to a word I learned before because similar meanings often have similar sounds. It may also be based on lots of tiny frequently-occurring cues, such as the fact that sharp “s” sounds can tend to imply “doing” while gentle “r” sounds can tend to imply “being”.
I probably won’t ever write anything more detailed on this because there are no exact “rules” and countless exceptions. This isn’t a “method” one can “use” in a conscious way, but as you get used to Japanese you will find it working for you more and more.
Relatedly, as you read more and read faster, especially in books, you will find yourself anticipating. You notice that you read three words at the end of a page and while you are turning the page over you already know what the next one or two words will be. Just as in English, when you read “He had shifty” you know the next word will be “eyes” or “she combed her” will be followed by “hair”. If we know that she is attending to her own appearance (or just that she is alone) we only need “she combed” to know that “her hair” will probably follow.
Anticipation is a huge part of understanding. So is the recognition of words. Many people, reading in their native language, will pronounce a word wrongly when they have never seen it before (or only seen it occasionally) even when the spelling is not ambiguous. Why? Because we have long ago stopped spelling out words we read in our minds. We recognize general shapes and anticipate words. We don’t expect to really have to read an individual word. At most if it is a little unusual we might check if the middle letter is an e or an i. Actually reading a word – looking at each letter – and constructing the sound from that, the way a small child or a foreign learner does, has become an atrophied skill.
That is a good thing. It means that we can concentrate on the meaning of the text as a whole rather than expending mental energy on fully reading words we already know.
Japanese immersion through massive input helps us to develop toward the same level in Japanese. We start to realize that we are anticipating things and sometimes taking a word or phrase super-fast because we only need to glance over it to confirm that it is what we thought it would be.
This isn’t only a reading skill. As we learn what words tend to go together it becomes easier to hear bunches of words in speech.
Returning to the “Anki question” I reiterate that I am not really talking about replacing Anki. I don’t think that is a question one needs to worry about. What is important is to become aware of the importance of truly massive input and its function in organic learning. Considering that one only has so much time, this may impact the balance between Anki and actual input. But it is a delicate and shifting balance and one that each of us can work out for herself over time.
Fortunately Anki is not the all-devouring monster it can occasionally appear to be. Feed it less and it will diminish fairly quickly. My daily Sentences Anki is currently noticeably smaller. I may have occasion to step it up again later and I am still adding to it but not nearly as much as I was.
After an experimental month of much more massive input, my personal finding is that it works if anything better than I expected. I will be continuing with it and I am somewhat shifting the balance from Anki to Japanese immersion through massive input. It is a matter of degree. I always did a lot of input anyway, and I never regarded Anki as my primary learning tool (that was and is native Japanese material).
So really I am only moving a degree or two further in the direction I was always going. One can sometimes, I think, use Anki as a bit of a security blanket. We think it will stop us forgetting words (as you know from some of your old words that pop up looking like strangers, it won’t always do that). We distrust input experience as being too random.
I am beginning to feel that Japanese immersion input lets words and grammar drop only a little more than Anki does, provided it is sufficiently massive. And it keeps them in our mind in a live, organic way, rather than an abstract one, which makes them a lot more useful to us.
NOTE: Naturally this article is relevant primarily to intermediate learners who are advanced enough to be able to step up their rate of input.
Bonus Japanese Immersion tip: SMILE!
One final tip, which you may write off as a bit of doll-craziness. I don’t mind if you do. My royalties on it are very low anyway. In fact, come to think of it, I don’t even get any royalties.
When, in the course of your massive input you “ping” (as I call it) a word or phrase you recently learned, or one you are happy to remember, smile. Smiling makes you feel happy (try it). Or make a little “ding” sound in your mind. Or jump up and down and ワイワイ all over the room. Probably not the latter as you are trying to read quickly.
The point is to tell the pleasure centers in your brain that this is a Good Thing. Even a little fleeting smile will do that. Don’t try to re-memorize it (unless you have a special reason to). Let your Japanese immersion input work on that. Just very quickly “flag” it for your mind.
If it disrupts your reading you don’t have to do it. Just a little trick you may like to try occasionally.
Which sounds kind of lazy, but if you know anything about the system, you know that watching anime in Japanese with Japanese subtitles is pretty intense, especially at first when you don’t know much.
The idea isn’t that it is easier than other methods (there is no such thing as a “get fluent quick” technique”). It is that you are learning Japanese “in the wild” from early on. Anime becomes your university, exposing you to real Japanese, building a core vocabulary organically and making the language a part of your life. And learning the written and spoken language in tandem.
The strategy of the anime method is to build your capacity for input. At first it takes you hours to get through a 20-minute episode. You have to look up half the words, investigate grammar etc. As you build vocabulary, learn how the language works and generally get used to Japanese, you become faster and faster.
You are approaching the point where true Japanese immersion through massive input becomes possible.
Now from the beginning we have recommended Anki as the means of learning vocabulary and at least some grammar. Anki essentially makes the old method of flash cards efficient and scientific, exposing you to each card at exactly the rate you need to learn it.
In a sense one could say that this is not true Japanese immersion. Some people, notably Tae Kim, whose excellent grammar site we strongly recommend, believe that massive input is the way to learn vocabulary and that Anki is too artificial. So in one sense one can say that massive input and Anki are opposed — in that one could conceivably (at least in some people’s view) replace the other.
Or rather massive input could replace Anki. If you can learn all the vocabulary and grammar you need through massive input then you clearly don’t need Anki. If you can learn them all with Anki you still need massive input, or all you end up with is a massive word list and a lot of abstract grammar.
So theoretically massive input can replace Anki and give a truer Japanese immersion environment. And practically too. One of my most respected (and advanced) senpai has never touched Anki or other artificial learning tools.
I have also made it very clear (well maybe not to everyone as I mostly wrote about it in Japanese) that I do not intend to use Anki forever. In my approach to Japanese immersion, I regard Japanese as my language. In my heart Japanese is much more my mother tongue than English, even though I currently don’t know it nearly so well. One does not use artificial learning tools for one’s own language. Like learning abstract grammar, it is a little cheat: a trick to get you over the (very tough) initial hurdles.
Japanese Immersion: replace Anki with Massive Input?
So, do we need Anki? Can we replace it with massive input? My answer to this breaks into two parts:
1. Yes, we can and should, eventually. Anki is like water wings. Unless we want to regard Japanese as a “foreign language” for our whole lives (and some people, of course, do) we do not want to be using artificial tools forever.
2. It is possible to learn without Anki (or anything similar) from the start. Some people do. But this raises certain questions:
Firstly, how do you learn? Some people can just hear a word and recognize it again, at least after a couple of times. I tend to need in many cases a mnemonic to tie the sound to the meaning. Otherwise it doesn’t stick. Mnemonics are temporary, but they are like the rough stitching that holds the fabric in place while it is being properly sewn. Some people don’t need them. I do, (though increasingly I make my mnemonics in Japanese) and I find Anki the perfect place to use them.
Secondly, and rather more importantly, how do you deal with kanji?
This is not a rhetorical question. There are several ways of dealing with kanji. A lot of people (and probably the majority of Japanese Immersion methods recommend this) begin by working through Heisig-sensei’s Remembering the Kanji which involves learning all the kanji in the abstract without knowing the pronunciations or any words associated with them. At a later stage many people learn abstract lists of the kanji’s various pronunciations.
Other people learn by the traditional method of writing each kanji out hundreds of times.
We don’t recommend either of these methods. They aren’t wrong. They do work for some people. It just isn’t how we do things. We believe in learning kanji along with everything else, organically. Our motto is “learn words, not kanji”.
The problem here is that kanji learning, unlike language acquisition, is not inherently “organic”. Children do not “just pick them up” the way they do vocabulary, grammar, speech and listening comprehension, through natural Japanese immersion
They learn them in class. And it takes them years.
But, they do not learn kanji in the abstract. From their first class they already know the words in which the kanji are used, and how they are pronounced. They never learn lists of on and kun readings or abstract Heisig-style “keywords”. They never (except possibly with some rare ones in high school) learn a kanji of which they don’t already know many real-word uses and (therefore) the main pronunciations.
So learning kanji organically “as you go along” is actually closer to the way they are really learned by Japanese children. Since we don’t have from-birth Japanese immersion we can’t replicate it exactly, but we feel our method comes closest to the real thing and to the way one can naturally learn them with a minimum of abstract study.
But kanji need to be drilled. Grammar and vocabulary may be “drilled” by pure Japanese immersion and massive input (and output), but kanji really do need to be drilled by some essentially artificial method or other. There is the endlessly-writing-them-out method, which I believe is overkill in a digital age. There is Anki (and similar systems). There may be other methods that work for you (do comment below). But one way or another, you are going to have to drill kanji.
For me, the simplest, most painless and most organic way of doing this is to use a simple vocabulary Anki deck with the kanji on the front, and the readings, definitions and any necessary mnemonics (for kanji structure and meaning and reading) on the back.
I won’t go into more detail here as this article isn’t about learning kanji, but by this method one is learning kanji and vocabulary at the same time and learning readings in the most natural way: one at a time, as one encounters them in real words.
But because learning kanji (like learning the alphabet, except that there are a lot more of them) is not natural like learning to speak, there does need to be a somewhat artificial way of drilling them. Pure Japanese immersion alone will not teach one the kanji, any more than it teaches Japanese children the kanji.
But, assuming one does use Anki for this, once one has built a solid organic core vocabulary and made friends with a large number of the more common kanji, is there a sliding scale between Anki and massive input?
Does pure Japanese immersion start to take over? At what point do the water-wings come off? Is it immediate or a gradual process?
As with most things, this will differ with different people, but I have been having some very interesting experiences with sharply increasing my Japanese immersion and massive input and its effects on my relationship to Anki. Read all about them in Japanese Immersion: Why massive input is necessary.
You can learn Japanese online in a fast, fun simple way.
You can create your own “immersion environment”, surrounding yourself with Japanese media. The internet makes this possible in a way it never has been before.
You can minimize book-learning and drills, and dive right into the wide world of actually using and enjoying Japanese.
Let’s be clear. We aren’t selling anything and we aren’t promoting some kind of “get-fluent-quick” scheme.
We are simply explaining the key immersion techniques we use to learn Japanese online naturally and organically. Plus the simple “secret” that ties everything together.
Our approach to learning Japanese is pragmatic. We recognize that people learn differently and that “one size fits all” approaches actually only fit some people.
Our approach is based on immersion. It centers around a core of anime. We recommend a number of other techniques that surround, support and branch out from this core.
This site has a lot of information. So on this page we are going to boil it down to the very basics. Not everyone will use every technique we recommend. Those who do will adapt some of them. That is fine. One size does not fit all.
But if you want to learn Japanese online the way we do, here are the coretechniques that work together.
There are four core techniques. And then there is the fifth core secret that makes them work exponentially more effectively.
This is just an overview. We also give links to more detailed explanations of exactly how to do each step.
Learn Japanese online: the Core Four +1
1. Grammar. If you don’t know basic Japanese grammar you need to acquire it. Just the basics to begin with. Here is how to go about it.
Some immersionists say you can pick up grammar from context the way a child does. You can, but we would say that doing so is neglecting the only real shortcut you have as an adult (or teen) learner and making life much more difficult for yourself.
Learning grammar is not learning Japanese. It is learning about Japanese. But acquiring the basics gives you an important head start when you start actually learning Japanese online. Learning the only way you can learn a language (as opposed to learning about it). By actually using it.
And you can give yourself an even bigger head-start by reading and applying the secrets in Unlocking Japanese, which tells you the things the textbooks don’t, and helps you to get a grasp of the really simple structure of Japanese. You can read this small book in an evening, but it will make Japanese easier for the rest of your life.
But don’t worry. You don’t have to (in fact you shouldn’t) try to “finish grammar” before you start really using Japanese. You are going to start using Japanese very soon. Much sooner than with any other approach. Because the second core technique is:
2. Watch anime!
All right, this isn’t as easy as it sounds. You are going to be watching anime in Japanese with subtitles. Japanese subtitles. It will be tough at first. You will be looking up nearly everything. But that stage passes fairly quickly if you ganbaru.
You aren’t taking lessons. You have set out to learn Japanese online. And anime is going to be your university. You are going to learn vocabulary, kanji and grammar and nearly everything else from anime and looking things up that you encounter. They are going to stick better and make sense quicker because you are encountering them live.
How does this fit in with the fact that you are (at the beginning) still learning basic grammar? Much the same way as if you have a game with a thick manual.
You can plow through the whole manual before you touch the controller. For most people it is more effective to read enough to get started and then start the game, while continuing to read the manual. The complicated parts of the manual make a lot more sense when you are actually experiencing the game.
3. Use Anki for vocabulary. Don’t use vocabulary lists, (beyond the very basic first few hundred words) but enter new words as you encounter them in your anime etc. Some immersionists say you should only enter sentences into Anki, not words. This is a valid technique. But it is based on the premise that you have learned kanji via the RTK method. We won’t go into that here, but it involves months of learning all the kanji without learning a single word or a single pronunciation. Just kanji. This does work (for some people), but it isn’t how we go about things. We say, learn words, not kanji.
This means you learn the kanji along with the words, and Anki is a really wonderful tool for doing this. If you don’t want to use Anki, you will need another strategy for memorizing vocabulary and kanji. That’s fine. Mixing methods is not a bad thing. But remember that you can’t just leave this core technique out. If you are going to drop it, you will need another strategy for memorizing vocabulary and its associated kanji.
4. Fill your ears and your life with Japanese. Put the soundtracks of the anime you have watched on your mp3 player. Keep it playing any time there isn’t a huge reason not to (turn it down, not off). Or have Japanese television in the background. Switch your computer’s OS to Japanese as soon as you can just barely handle it.
People differ. Not everyone will want to go as far as we do. I make Japanese my default language. I do my best to keep my inner monologue in Japanese. I only use English when there is a very good reason to do so (like writing this article). If I can’t watch something in Japanese I can’t watch it. If I can’t play a game in Japanese, I can’t play it. It’s as simple as that.
These four are important interlocking techniques. But there is a vital fifth element that holds them all together and makes them work exponentially more effectively:
+1. Make Japanese your language at least in certain areas of your life. This is the One Ring that binds them all. Japanese should not be a “foreign language” to you. It should be your language. You should not be “practising Japanese”, you should be using Japanese.
You already started this with anime. You aren’t playing with textbooks for foreigners (we do recommend learning basic grammar, but only as a quick and dirty shortcut to truly using Japanese). You are watching anime by native Japanese people for native Japanese. It is a struggle at first, but you are doing it. When you use your computer, tablet or smartphone, you are looking at Japanese menus. Japanese isn’t some exotic “other” language. It is part of your life.
So far so good. But there are two halves to language. Input and output. Language is a means of communication. If you want your mind to take Japanese seriously as real language (rather than a limited-area “game-language”, like algebra) you must be using it to communicate inward and outward.
The outward part is admittedly more difficult to arrange. This is partly why it is often ignored.
It is also ignored for exactly the same reason that it is so important. The mind of an English speaker regards English as Language, and Japanese as “a language”. For that reason just about every forum about Japanese learning is in English.
The minute you put down your textbook or manga and want to discuss it, what do you do?
Naturally・・・
You discuss it in Language. Real Language. Not a “foreign language” like Japanese.
And that is the final secret. The One Ring that binds them all. Japanese has to become Real Language. To me Japanese is Language per se, the language I use except when I absolutely have to use another language. You may not want to go that far, but you do need to have “zones” of your life in which Japanese is Real Language.
But… is this the right way for you to learn Japanese online?
We said from the start that one size does not fit all. What we have written above is a bare-bones guide for our system to learn Japanese online. There is lots more on this site to fill in the gaps, and we are adding to it all the time.
But is this the right way for you to learn Japanese online?
Here are a few questions to ask yourself:
Do you love Japanese? This is an immersion method. It involves (surprise!) immersing yourself in Japanese and giving Japanese a part of your heart. Maybe a big part (that is up to you). If you don’t love Japanese this isn’t the approach for you. If you don’t that’s fine too. I learned some French but I didn’t love it enough for immersion.
Do you want to pass exams? This isn’t an academic approach. You will be learning Japanese “from within”. If you want to learn Japanese online in order to pass exams, some of our techniques may still be useful but you will probably also need a more “by the book” approach.
Are you kawaii? Silly-sounding question, but there is a reason for it. We didn’t think we had built our techniques around kawaisa, but in one respect maybe we did. Especially in the early stages you need to use material (anime etc) aimed at children. And the whole point of this technique is that you are doing what you enjoy.
You don’t have to be a full-fledged member of the “kawaii crowd” to use these methods. There is a lot of children’s material that is regarded as classic and loved by even “sensible” adults, but if you really can’t enjoy substantial amounts of material accessible to children (and some people can’t), then the methods as they stand may present a problem to you. You could ganbaru ahead and do it in a spirit of study. But we don’t recommend that. The whole point of this approach is that you are using, not practicing Japanese. Doing in Japanese things that you might be doing in English – even if slowly and haltingly at first.
All right. Assuming that none of these things presents a problem to you: is this the way you want to go? Immersing yourself in Japanese, making it your Language at least for part of your life?
If it is, welcome to the site, and welcome to the select family of second-mothertongue Japanese learners. Even if you only know a few words right now, if you have set your foot on the Way in earnest, you are one of us.
On the other hand, if you want to cherry-pick and just take a few techniques that interest you, be our guest. If even one page helps you a little on your journey to learn Japanese online, we are happy.
What do you mean, goofing off? I’m building my core Japanese vocabulary — organically!
Building a core Japanese vocabulary, and then building out from it, is the biggest single task in learning Japanese. Bigger than kanji.
It’s the same in any language. The vocabulary of a language is vast. And if you go about learning it in the wrong way the results can be devastatingly disappointing.
What are the wrong ways to build a core Japanese vocabulary? More importantly, what is the right way?
The wrong way in my view is to use a vocabulary list. Any vocabulary list. And this includes things like the Anki Core 2000, core 6000 and core 10,000 decks. In the very beginning you might find a very basic word-list useful. But lists of any size are a mistake.
Let me explain why by example.
See a more up-to-date version of this article in this video:
I have seen people on Forums ask questions like “How many words do I need to know before I can read simple manga?” These people diligently work through Core Japanese Vocabulary Anki decks, often building up to the “magic” 10,000 words over many months.
And then what happens? They pick up a manga or a light novel. And they have to look up every other word. It isn’t a lot better than before they did the “core Japanese Vocabulary” deck. At this stage (and I have seen this happen pretty often) they become seriously disillusioned and wonder if they haven’t wasted their time. And who can blame them?
What went wrong? Why didn’t it work? What should they have done?
The Myth of “Learning Japanese”
The big problem here is part of a bigger problem. The myth of “learning Japanese”. The idea that you prepare and prepare by “study” and then one day you know enough to actually use Japanese and do something fun.
The trouble is, that day keeps receding into an ever more distant future.
Let’s get back to vocabulary and see how it works:
“Maybe if I’d done 15,000 Core Japanese Vocabulary words instead of 10,000 I would be able to read that book”.
I hate to be the party pooper here, but no, you wouldn’t.
Why not?
Because everything you encounter in Japanese has a different vocabulary. The core Japanese vocabulary decks are actually crafted around newspaper frequency. They may help you if you want to read newspapers. I don’t know. I don’t read newspapers in English. I personally think that trying to read newspapers while you are still trying to acquire a core Japanese vocabulary is trying to run before you can walk.
You are much better with a reasonably simple manga, a children’s book or anime with Japanese subtitles. At the very early stages maybe a first-grade reader. I started with Tonari no Totoro in Japanese with Japanese subtitles before I was six months into Japanese. It took ages but was wonderful and taught me a huge amount.
So let’s take a book as an example. A simple novel series (something at a level you can reasonably hope to tackle). You look at it. You are appalled (if you have been slogging at some core Japanese vocabulary list). You need to look up every other word.
Don’t be appalled (especially if you came here first and haven’t poured months into core Japanese vocab lists!) because:
This is your “core list”.
Don’t worry about abstract core Japanese vocabulary lists. Start right where you mean to go. Pick a book appropriate to your level and start reading it. It works with Japanese subtitled anime too. That is where I got most of my vocabulary.
“But I need to look up every other word.”
Yep. And so you would (to your horror) if you’d done a huge “core Japanese vocabulary list”.
Start reading. Look up all the words you need. Enter them into your Anki.
“Isn’t that a major pain?”
Not more than slogging through an abstract “core Japanese vocabulary list”. Well, a little more because you have to make your own deck. Fortunately for you (unlike we ol’ timers who went before you) the process is now completely automated. Rikaisama will allow you to add words to Anki with a single keypress. (Update: Rikaisama is no longer available but you can use Yomichan), Don’t neglect this wonderful gift.
Now you can save yourself the trouble of setting up your Anki with Rikai and making all those single keypresses when you look up a word
You can use a pre-made core Japanese vocabulary deck. But when you’ve worked through that, however many months it takes, as soon as you start on a book, you’ll still have to look up a large number of the words anyway. Lazy people take the most trouble!
Because here’s the thing. Every new thing you encounter in Japanese has its own vocabulary. There is such a thing as “core Japanese vocabulary” of course. But it is big and a lot of it does vary with what area you are dealing with.
So if you start with something you actually want to do: an anime series, a children’s novel or manga (preferably part of a long series) you will start learning the vocabulary that belongs to that area. Of course, a lot of this will be “pure core Japanese vocabulary” and useful anywhere. But just learning “abstract core” doesn’t prepare you to read any particular thing. At the end of any abstract “core Japanese vocabulary list”, as soon as you try to take your knowledge into any real area, you are barely literate. And this is so disillusioning.
But learning organically you grow into what you are reading. As you read on, you find you are looking up less and less (in the first book or first dozen or so anime episodes). When you read more in the same series you find you are looking up still less. When you have finished the series, if you pick something close in genre and type you will still be on pretty firm ground. And all the time your Japanese vocabulary is growing.
And, with the possible exception of the very early “look up every other word” stage (but I enjoyed that, and you might too, especially if you aren’t already burnt out with “core Japanese vocabulary lists”). You are having fun. And you aren’t “studying Japanese” or “practising” Japanese. You are using Japanese, even if rather slowly at first.
And here’s the most important thing:
The fact that every area of Japanese, every genre, every writer even, has a particular vocabulary, that is so devastating to “core Japanese vocabulary deck” users who spent so long “preparing” to read Japanese…
That is your best friend.
Why? Because as you read your book, or watch your Japanese subtitled anime, and then the series, and then more of the genre, you keep encountering the same vocabulary. And that cements it far, far better than Anki alone or any abstract list.
I do still recommend Anki, but you will get through it much faster this way because the words will be cemented in by real regular use, not just artificial flash-cards. You will learn the “pure core” words because you encounter them anywhere.
But the truth I believe is that there is no such thing as a core 10,000. The language’s true core isn’t that big, but its peripheral-core or penumbra-core is much bigger, and is dependent on exactly what area you are in.
Is this worrying? Not really. You will pick up the true core. You will be able to handle most regular conversation (provided you work on output as well as input) and you will gradually grow your peripheral-core vocabulary by using Japanese and enjoying it.
Not by doing some artificial “preparation stage” and continually looking at your watch wondering “how much of this do I need before I can…”
Because the answer to that question tends to be very disappointing.
How to Build a Core Japanese Vocabulary: Ninja Tips
So let’s get down to practicalities.
What are the best practices for learning Japanese vocabulary organically?
1. Choose something at your level. It can be anime. The Dolly Anime Method is ideal for this. It can be manga or books. But don’t try to run (at least not too fast!) before you can walk. Choose something reasonably appropriate to your current Japanese “age”.
2. Preferably choose a long series. That way you can get used to its vocabulary and learn a lot of words by encountering them often. This supplements your Anki with valuable organic exposure. The old Heidi anime, for example, has around 50 episodes and subtitles with furigana. I wish I’d found it earlier!
3. Pop new words into Anki using the automated method built into Rikaisama. Some people manage without Anki by pure repeated exposure. It depends how your mind works, but I think Anki is good for most people. However, repeated exposure will make things go much smoother, quicker and deeper than “raw” Anki.
More up-to date information in this video:
4. Use mnemonics if you need them. More about this in the linked article. Don’t be afraid of mnemonics in learning vocabulary. They have a long history in classical Western scholarship. They “pin” words into place in your mind and fall away when you no longer need them. But they can really help with new words.
5. Learn Kanji with words. This is really an article in itself but I mention it here. Don’t try to “learn kanji” in the abstract, but do learn them along with the words you encounter. Break them down into their components and make little stories for them (unless you don’t need to. Some folks I know are visual-kanji wizards. Lucky them!) Either way, kanji are vital to Japanese vocabulary. They may look scary but they are really little darlings and will soon become your friends. Believe it or not, they make Japanese vocabulary much easier in the long run.
6. Don’t go overboard with Anki. You don’t need to enter every unknown word even though you will be entering a lot at first. But don’t choke yourself. Use judgment and avoid words that are not likely to recur much. Remember that Rikaisama also conveniently includes word frequency information (update: Yomichan‘s Innocent Corpus now does the same job). You shouldn’t get number-bound but it is a guideline to bear in mind (as is the likelihood of a word to reappear in the material you are reading). You will pick up some words without Anki.
