Let's learn how to read Japanese. I'm making this series as a prequel of sorts to my introduction to learning kanji. While hiragana is not required for that lesson, already having a good foundation in the sounds and phonetic letters that make up Japanese is the ideal way to get into Kanji. What's the secret … Continue reading Learn Hiragana For Beginners (Part 1)
I'm not a fan of articles where the answer to the lead-in question is carefully nested 3/4 of the way in, so please allow me to clear the air by saying that as adults it is chemically impossible for our brains to pick up new languages the way small children can acquire their first, and … Continue reading Should We Learn Languages Like Children?
Many students of Japanese balk at the idea of having to learn the 2,136 standarized Joyo Kanji commonly used in modern Japanese. And this isn't without good reason. Kanji are a unique feature of Japanese that, while obviously having their origin in Chinese, are a completely different beast with multiple readings and often times even … Continue reading Learn 2,000 Kanji in 2 Years? Reviewing WaniKani
Like many this past December I sat down for the N1 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. It was not my first time taking the N1- I’d failed it by a small margin the previous year (I bombed the vocabulary section yet inexplicably performed well everywhere else). With the bad memory of failing the test … Continue reading 5 Habits That Helped Me Learn Japanese (And Pass N1)
