ra7v-self-learning-nihongo

[ra7v-self-learning-nihongo]

日本語: Why did I quit and why am I restarting?

At the age of 13, inspired by the great work of Akira Toriyama of Dragon Ball, I became obsessed with everything Japanese, the language, the culture, the anime, the arts, the music, the dramas, the movies, the country, the people......

I taught myself to read and write Hiragana & Katakana back in high school.

I always dreamed of wanting to learn the language properly, in a class room environment, with a proper teacher.

In 2015, at age 32, I happily started Japanese Language night classes, being able to afford it after 10 years of holding a stable job.

2 years later, right before the 6th level exam, I quit.

The official reason: lack of time to study, busy work schedule, business travels.

The actual reason: I didn’t want to fail in the exam.

I aced every level’s exam, even did JLPT N5 (the easiest one) and passed it with flying colours.

But the 6th level lessons were suddenly super-hard, way too many vocabulary to memorize, and the grammar rules were brutal.

So I quit the class, fearing failure.

Unfortunately, I stopped learning Japanese too.

Recently, I was listening to my favourite podcast (Abroad in Japan), Chris and Pete were discussing on how to learn the Japanese language and memorise Kanji.

So I started thinking, why did I quit learning Japanese when I was so passionate about it before?

I had so much fun at the beginning. Where did it all go wrong?

I believe that the problem was not because of my inability to learn, but more due to the way I was learning the language.

The study material (which were mostly from Minna no Nihongo textbooks) was bogging me down with endless details and grammar rules.

I was literally getting turned off by the clinical sterility of the lessons.

It was boring as hell.

We were taught what the rules are, but never the why behind the rules.

The kind teachers in my school, who were all native Japanese speakers, had difficulty explaining concepts in English.

So when the grammar lessons got a bit more complicated, I was learning them for the sake of only passing the exams, instead of understanding and appreciating them.

Exams are the worst, though sometimes necessary, they almost always spoil the joy of learning.

Also, it was becoming a tedious routine, week after week, attend classes, do homework, memorize vocabulary and sentences.

I started learning the language NOT to earn a certificate, but to understand the language, to be able to carry a conversation in the language, and to watch J-dorama/anime without the subtitles.

It was supposed to be a casual & fun thing, instead it became serious & boring chore.

So me quitting the Japanese classes was the right thing to do, but me quitting learning Japanese entirely was not right at all.

Now, 2 years later, I am restarting this journey, this time back to the self-learning method.

Thanks to Chris’s suggestion on his podcast, I will start learning the Kanji using the Heisig method (more explained below), and use the “Human Japanese” apps.

I will set some time every day to self-learn, and also set some loose goals to keep me motivated.

Hopefully, I will be able to maintain this enthusiasm and successfully restart my Japanese language self-learning journey.

I will document some of my learning experiences here, more for record than for sharing.

However, I would appreciate any help, feedback, suggestions, to help me learn Japanese.

On the Heisig method:

I always knew that my Chinese classmates had an advantage over me in learning Kanji

They already knew how to write the Kanji and what the meaning, they just had to learn the Japanese pronunciation.

The Heisig method emulates this, except instead of Mandarin I will learn the Kanji in English.