I don’t know why I watched whole video even I am Japanese 😂 but Memorizing kanji is really stressful for even Japanese so don’t worry u guys got this 👍頑張って！
When he said immersion isn’t magic, he’s right. Although, it doesn’t mean it won’t work at all. When you immerse, you have to really pay attention. This is called active immersion. During this type of immersion, you would be paying attention to several things like pronunciation, meaning of a sentence, context, how words are used, sentence patterns, etc. Passive immersion is the opposite where you just have the language in the background not fully paying attention to every moving part and trying to understand each and every one of them. Passive immersion isn’t bad, but it will do very little compared to active immersion. Some immersion is still better than no immersion, so if you don’t always have time to actively immerse, passive immersion is still an option. But be careful though, despite the fact that it still is a helpful supplement, passive immersion will make you almost no real progress. You’re most likely going to need to set apart some time to get some active immersion in. I recommend everyone to get as much active immersion as you can in a day, but set a minimum amount of time you know you can achieve every day. Consistency is very motivating when it comes to learning languages. The more time you spend actively immersing, the faster you’ll understand. Everyone learns at their own pace, so there’s no rush to get active immersion in every moment of the day. Take your time learning the language, but most importantly, have fun.
I love how you clearly defined both active and passive immersion!! I 100% agree with you. Passive immersion will provide SOME benefit, but very little. Active immersion in coordination with meaningful studying will make your japanese ability explode if done consistently 📈📈📈 thanks for the well-explained and thoughtful comment! 🥳
I had no idea there was already a theory on “comprehensible input” and the sweet spot of knowing around ~80%. I’ve always been explaining this exact same concept in my own experience when telling people to listen to content at their level and know at least ~70-80% of it. Extremely cool that there’s published work on the exact same thing!! Thanks so much for sharing 😙 and congrats on achieving 80% understanding on easier content and studying for 3 years now, absolutely incredible work 🥳👏 keep it up!
I learned WAAAAY more Japanese AFTER passing N1 than all of the studying I did to get to N1. N1 is a good start so you can converse with native speakers and read content written for Japnaese people. After that if you continue to be contentious about thinking about the new expressions you encounter and committing them to memory, you can improve a lot. But in my experience, studying the meaning and writing of kanji at the very beginning -- to the point where I knew lots of kanji before really knowing the Japanese they can be used for -- ended up helping in the long run. Maybe not to go from beginner to intermediate, but to go from intermediate to getting an instinctive feel for new compounds. Like knowing the meaning of 糖尿病 when you've never seen the word before.
very interesting perspective! it’s really rare to be able to hear from someone who’s achieved such a high level of japanese. i also couldn’t agree more; i wouldn’t quite say i’ve learned MORE than before getting N1, but it’s incredible how much more you can learn even after attaining it. even to this day i still find my japanese far from mastery. but yes, putting in the ‘dirty work’ of grinding kanji, grammar, and vocab really set you up to better pick up new japanese naturally. thanks for taking the time to leave your input 🤧
@@TokuyuuTV N1 is not a high level at all. That correspond to the level of a 13 years old kid. Most of N1 can't write an essay for instance, write a business mail, or make the difference between Sonkeigo, Kenjougo, Keigo . For N1 you need to know 12 000 words and 1900 kanjis around when a High school students knows more 50 000 words and 2500 kanjis. With N1 you can't understand a novel properly without a dictionary. N1 is just the survival pack for study the real japanese.
@@xxXMoonbakaXxxit really is crazy that they stopped at n1. I guess we're really just that bad at learning Japanese huh. There really should be another level that tests true fluency. I know plenty of people that have the N1 and none of them have truly spectacular Japanese or would consider themselves fluent. Conversationally fluent? Sure. But they still gotta grab to dictionary to read books. N1 covers like half the vocab you really should know, and is missing about 800 kanji.
@@xxXMoonbakaXxx for access in university in Japan they ask for noken 2 in most of the cases, or noken 1. A 13 old boy have a kanji level between noken 4 and noken 3. Most of the noken 3 kanji are taught in middle school. When you finish middle school you should known over 1000 kanjis, its more or less the half of the kanjis you need for noken 1, what is over 3000 since its considered university level.
I just started to self study Japanese this year through Duolingo and it really helped me learn Katakana and Hiragana characters by guiding me how to write it. I also tried reviewing it by writing them all on paper. It really helped. Kanji is really intimidating me to continue studying, so unless I devote a consistent amount of time to learn each, I know I won't be able to learn it fully. Now its making me realize how hard is it for kids to study 2,000+ characters while we only need to know 28 alphabets for reading. 😆
Yeahhh i never knew how easy we had it only having to learn a handful of letters in school 😂😂 amazing to hear you making such great progress already!! Definitely don’t worry about tackling 2,000 of them at once - break it down into smaller goals. It’ll feel a lot more manageable, and you’ll already notice immense improvements in your reading after only learning your first 50!! Happy studying 🥳
Let me let y’all on a little tip that improved my Japanese reading, listening and compressions skills SO FREAKING MUCH: Watching American/English show with JAPANESE subs. Now, you may think that does nothing for you, but remember when you put on eng subs your eyes are automatically drawn to the subs even when you perfectly understand what was said just by listening. So when you do this with Japanese, it forces you to put two and two together in terms of what you’re hearing and what you’re reading. You’ll start understanding Japanese grammar a little better and how to form a simple sentence. You’ll start noticing the same character combinations popping up and they’ll start sticking with you, especially when you have the English audio to also remember the meanings. Kanjis will also become more and more familiar. It helped me a TON. I would also pause sometimes take my time to read a sentence and say oh! That’s how you say ‘’I don’t want to eat’’ in a more natural/casual way. For those who can already read Hiragana and Katakana, this will drastically change the game. Trust me, try it and let me know how it goes.
Thanks for sharing your tips, and im glad you found something that worked for you!! 🥳 my only hesitation is that sometimes the subtitles are interpretive rather than literal, so depending on the sentence it can be a bit misleading. But with simple sentences like “I don’t want to eat”, it’s usually pretty safe! Keep up the awesome work 😙
How do you find Japanese subtitles? I just see English subtitles, sometimes French or Spanish and German, occasionally Russian but never Japanese. Where do you get your movies?
Good video! As someone with 5 years of study I agree with these points. I could manage in broken Japanese for a long time, but It wasn't until I started reading and studying kanji daily did I see marked improvement and started to feel like I "knew" the language. That initial kanji hurdle is hard at first, but once you get there you can focus on mantaining, so just keep up that daily grind!
Thank you so much!! I’m glad someone with your experience agrees with my points 🤧 it’s definitely all about staying committed to the daily grind and being patient with the results. As you get more and more competent with kanji, reading higher level material makes it more and more rewarding too 😙 keep up the awesome work!!
I’ve done 2 years of classroom study and I put myself hovering somewhere around lower N4, but now with about 70 days of self study I feel like I’m pushing up towards upper N4. Just keeping on my grind to N1!
As much as so many people 'hack' learn japanese, there is usually a lot of work involved to master a language. If you know the specific context you're learning the language for, you can fasttrack learning to a certain degree. It is impressive to see an expat pass the N1 test or the N2 test, as there's a LOT of study to get there. I'm working on my HSK 4 chinese after studying japanese years ago, and boy it's a lot of reading, vocabulary practice and character recognition.
Very good point! If you’re learning japanese just for one specific reason, it is possible to fasttrack to some degree - but I feel like I would struggle without the context of the whole language. Really cool that you’re studying asian languages too!! Keep up the awesome work with Chinese 😙 and even tho I’ve passed N1, my japanese is far from perfect and im still learning every day 🥵
Of all the Japanese language tutorials I've watched over the last 18 months, you explained things better than anyone else. I couldn't even get to grips with hiragana yet you made learning kanji sound so easy. If only my memory wasn't so bad, I'd give it another go.
Thank you so much, Shaun, I'm happy to hear my explanation was easy to understand!! 😄 Learning kanji is definitely one big memory test 😪 Chris Broad said that his memory was a big problem too, so he read books on memory techniques to help him conquer Japanese. Could be something to look into if you ever feel to inclination to pick it up again! Thanks for watching my video 🥳
@@TokuyuuTV or they should try reading in the Japanese language. Nothing makes you learn new vocab and actually get it reinforced a.d remembered like reading. That's how we learned new vocab growing up too.
When I studied traditional Chinese characters ( rlly similar to Japanese kanji), our teacher asked us to write each character (paired with another character to make it a word) for about 6-12 times. I think this rlly help us to learn how to write the traditional Chinese character/Japanese kanji. Remembering them in a word form will help to memorize the meaning of each of them also.
I think that’s a really good way to study!! It gives you writing practice while also exposing you to useful vocab and other kanji. Thanks for sharing!! 😙
This is where I've started to see benefits in Japanese. Instead of writing "the character" (OK, typing - long story) I write it in a sentence. Just a silly one, like "The sky is blue" or "I eat sushi". My comprehension is picking up much faster as it puts the kanji into a context. I've done the same with hiragana/katakana. I gave up trying to learn a/i/u/e/o independently of the kanji. So when I write my "silly sentence", I also do the hiragana and katakana. It seems to be coming a lot faster and more naturally than drilling.
6:46 Even if Chinese people don't know the individual word in the picture, I also know that by ‘gloom’. Another extreme example is the word "Biang" in "Biang Biang 面(noodles)".The word "Biang" has only been seen in this noodle word. This noodle is delicious, but most Chinese people can't write it. They can only read it. I just want to express that there is no need to be too entangled in some difficult Kanji maybe.
When I was in college I took Chinese, the teacher had us write hanzi over and over again. I didn't remember that many characters and quickly forgot them. More recently I started studying Japanese, I just used a spaced repetition app to memorize the shape and the English meaning, was able to learn about 2000 in just two months, but still needed about 4 hours a day of minutes. After a few months though it was down to 20-30 minutes. It isn't necessary to learn how to write the kanji on paper since 99.9% of your writing will probably be on a computer anyway, otherwise you can just write it on your phone and copy the kanji by hand if you really, really need to write kanji on paper.
Gloom , 鬱, no matter is it in Japanese or in Traditional Chinese (Simplified Chinese have the same word in a total different character, 郁) It's still a hard word for both of the native language user, there's no easy way to only memorize it the hard way by copying it a hundreds or even a thousands times. That's why those who Simplify Traditional Chinese character in the 50s? simplify this word into a completely different / new character for those new born child who learn it/Chinese easier. To reduce the illiteracy rate in China.
Thank you so much for your tips. I started learning Japanese 6 months ago and I found this video 3 months ago. After applying your tips I avoided making so many mistakes. Today I watched this video again and realized that everything that you said was actually right. Thanks again for making this amazing video.
Wowwwww first of all, great job keeping up the learning for 6 months now!! 🥳 second, im really happy my tips were able to help you! I appreciate you coming back to this video and leaving such a wonderful comment 🤧 keep up the fantastic work!! 🎉👏
To us native Chinese speakers kanji is the easiest ever thing in Japanese 😂 Basically their pronunciation are very similar to Mandarin despite some being written slightly different in terms of strokes. Even if someone has no idea about Japanese they could guess about 80% of the meaning simply through kanjis (or hanzi, as we call them). That’s a huge burden off!!
Yeah I’m infinitely jealous that people who know Chinese have such a headstart 😭😭 but at least it means I’d have a headstart if i learned Chinese then 😝 actually insane that you can understand about 80% of written japanese!! I guess that just means you have no excuse to not become fluent then 😉
When I took my first Japanese classes here in Uni, I had Chinese students who were in beginner with me for speaking/grammar class. For writing/kanji they were in advanced! I was so jealous of them 😂
"First video"...wow, you did an amazing job! I am one of those you referenced about "living in Japan for 8(+) years and unable to read Japanese." My wife majored in English and has been my excuse for not learning Japanese. I am finished with making excuses...bring on the Kanji...LOL! Again, awesome job on your video! Hope you are enjoying mainland, but you need to come see the beautiful island of Okinawa when you get a chance!
Thanks so much for the positive feedback, Grant! Ahhh yeah it's hard to feel the need to study Japanese when your wife is already so skilled at English, I understand completely. I love that you've decided to tackle the task of conquering Japanese though, it'll definitely open a ton of doors for you and I think you'll be able to enjoy being in Japan even more! And I haven't had a chance to go to Okinawa yet but I'd love to!! My friend was just telling me the other day that it's a beautiful place and I should go. It's definitely on the list!!
I'm currently a high school exchange student in Japan. I'll be here for a year, and it's already been 5 months, thing is with Japanese immersion definitely helps. However, you do need to dedicate a lot of studying while being here just so you can get by. You get surprised with how much Kanji you really need to know. It's easy to practice speaking and grammar just because of the people around you. Even then, you still need to heavily study kanji and the pronunciations of it to pick them up in conversation. I think you explained all of this very well and I wish I had come across your channel sooner. For anyone learning Japanese I wish you luck. It's a hard but fun process. Kanji may seem scary at first but it's very fun once you get the hang of it! Japanese is a very diverse language with Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji but it's so worth it especially if you want to visit Japan someday. Don't get too discouraged with all the kanji! Even native Japanese people struggle with it! Stay determined and have fun! がんばれ！
wowww such a great opportunity to be able to go on exchange for one year to japan!! im really glad you’re enjoying it. And sounds like you’re doing a fantastic job of being studious in studying the language and slowly picking it up 🤧✨ i love your message for everyone and i totally agree - learning japanese can be a long and tough road but it’s worth it, you just gotta keep going 😙🎉 enjoy the rest of your exchange!!
thanks so much for the comment Izik! That sounds like a really exciting future ahead of you, good luck with your language learning journey!! I'll try to upload more vids asap to help you out 😝
WaniKani has been a game changer for me. I've studying Japanese for two years and never really saw great progress. I've doing WaniKani each days for the past 2 months and I can easily understand basic sentences. Also, talk to native speakers helps a lot. Your learning routine seems pretty cool too, I guess it's also cool to add a bit of grammar into that mix to make it perfect.
I’m glad to hear you found so much success with wanikani! And what’s more incredible is that you’ve kept up studying everyday for the past two months, incredible consistency 🤧👏 i also studied grammar as well! I cover that in my other videos 😙
Wow, this video is so well rounded with the advices it gives. It basically talks about all the things I've been learning since I began studying Japanese, like about making stories for the kanji, practicing some kanji writing at least in the beginning, reading to improve reading comprehension even if you know many kanjis and vocabulary, reviewing, and how just immersion is not enough. Nice!
super nice to hear you’re going through the exact same experiences i was going through!! makes learning japanese feel less isolated 🤧 wishing you all the best on your language journey!! 🥳
Wowww 5 languages, that’s incredible!! And super exciting you want to make Japanese your 6th 🤧 you’ll definitely have an advantage having so much experience with languages! If you haven’t learned an asian language before, just keep in mind that they’re quite different from European languages so it’s important to be patient with the results. But because of that it’s even more fun and rewarding to learn 😙 good luck on yet another language journey!! 🥳
Gotta be honest, I am already pretty advanced in the language (not fluent yet), but if this was your first video I can see you getting to be a big RUclipsr. Even though all the information for me was way too basic I just had to stay til the end simply because of the videography and just your charisma. You’re really entertaining and fun to watch, keep at it :)
Wowwwwww thank you so SO much for the absolutely lovely comment, Jose!! I honestly don’t think this video deserves so much praise - i look back on it looking at all the things I could’ve done better 😩 but i truly appreciate you taking the time to watch it AND leave such a heart-warming comment. Also amazing that you’ve made such progress in Japanese already, keep up the awesome work! 🥳🎉
1:45 Japanese sentences actually use 5 writing systems: Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana, Romaji, and Arabiasūji. Although Romaji is often thought of as a way for people from outside Japan to write Japanese words (e.g. ohayou, onegaishimasu, arigatou), it's actually used by Japanese people to include Latin letters and sometimes whole words in Japanese (I know T-shirt uses T, but I forgot what "shirt" in Japanese is 😅). Arabiasūji is responsible for the usage of Arab numbers in Japanese. Obvious examples are the months, days, time, etc. In "5月", the "5" is written using Arabiasūji and "月" is a Kanji.
Oooo very interesting point! I hadn’t even realized that roman letters have worked their way into regular Japanese - the Tシャツ example made a lot of sense!! I also never considered the Arab numbers as an alphabet, but I suppose it is a set of symbols as well 😮 luckily both Roman letters and Arab numbers are quite universal so they don’t add too much to the task of learning Japanese 😝
@@MrBeiragua it's a script for mathematics , Hindu\indian version, western vs eastern Arabic numerals are diff, coupled that with Edit sino Xenic numerals then you're good to go.
Most abjad letter also contains initialism\mnemonics, like 'ayn is eye, while Greek version of letter contains numbers just like the abjad Greek got it from ultimately from Phoenician.
Great video. I've been studying properly for 3 years and taking online classes for 2 of those (speaking and listening to others). And it's so hard. I don't have any confidence in myself but you've given me another boost of motivation I needed. Thank you :)
Good for you for keeping up the studying for 3 years, that’s amazing!! I know japanese can feel frustratingly difficult at times, especially when you’ve already put in so much time into it 😩 but i guarantee you if you just stay consistent with the studying you will slowly see the gains. Keep up the awesome work 🥳
8 days in and hiragana is almost in my head. reading them is ok but slow with 4 or 5 exceptions for what I dont have a proper metaphor yet. And the crucial thing thats slowing me down here is that there seem to be no realy good tools for german native speakers to learn this^^ thank god im good enough with english at least.
woooo 8 days and already getting use to hiragana is amazing!! and yeah for sure, i imagine a lot of the resources are in english, but awesome that you’re already multilingual 😝
the exact same thing happened to me when i applied for the N3 test. I didnt know about the time limit at all and even if i could read everything, i was too slow, and failed the test because of 10 unanswered questions. I retook it the next year and finally succeeded, now im on the road for the N2 test. Your studying method is similar to mine, i write the meaning the strokes and the hiragana for every new kanji i learn and in another sheet, i draw it over and over and over again. Then i go to my textbooks and if i see the kanji (or the hiragana) again and cant write it/know what it means, i go back and repeat the whole process. The tip of writing the components of each kanji is a good idea and im gonna try it soon. I admit ive been a little bit lazy with my japanese studies these past few months, due to my new work schedule, but i'll get there!
congrats on passing N3, that’s huge!!! and im glad you can relate to my experience, i have no idea why I didn’t think to make sure i could read fast enough 😭💀 yeahhhh a full work schedule can make studying really tough, just gotta do your best to fit even just a little bit in every day! wishing you the best in your N2 journey 🤧
Hi! I can't believe this is your first video! It's really helpful as it's really just talking about the hardest part aka 'kanji', the way you delivered the content is soothing and clear, and the way you've learned japanese is actually simple, watching this makes me believe in myself more that i can become fluent in japanese! Right now i'm aiming to get an n5 first! Good luck for your future videos! ありがとう！
Been doing rtk for a few weeks now and it really is crazy to see how many Kanji I recognize in writing with only the 450 or so I have memorized now. Those statistics for newspapers comprehension make me feel a lot better about the road ahead. I agree with your point on immersing after you have the basics. By gaining a recognition of most Kanji it will be much easier to pick it up when you see it in natural context (manga, novels, signs etc)
Wowww seems like you’re making really good pace on learning those kanji 😮❗️ and yeah it’s crazy how many kanji you’ll recognize with just knowing 450, it feels super rewarding seeing the studying pay off right away. A lot of people think immersion is magic but it aint 😪 but once you put in the time to build the foundation it’s really good for review. Keep up the awesome work!! 🥳👏👏
I've found that since 99% of my interactions with Japanese these days are over the internet or through the media. This means that the only time I was ever hand writing anything was in my own study. Maybe it's dumb, but I usually just focus most of my efforts being able to type the language more than writing by hand as it's what I do most of the time anyway.
I agree 100%! A lot of Japanese people I meet also say they can’t write as well anymore cause they just type anyways 😝 but i did find that writing out the characters helped me remember them!
Thank you so much! I’m Thai and I’m trying to study both English and Japanese right now. Aside from your fluency in Japanese, I find you’re also a professional of making the video. Moreover, I don’t know why, but your English accent sounds rather understandable to me. So, No reason not to follow this amazing Japanese study guide channel! ♥️♥️
Thank you so much for watching my video, and taking the time to leave such a nice comment!! 🤧🥺 I’m really glad you find my English easy to understand! It already seems like your English is really good, so you’re doing a fantastic job at learning languages!! 🥳 good luck on both you Japanese and English learning journeys!! 😙
Hi! I just started learning Japanese a month ago and it's been really challenging so far, I'm still struggling with my hiragana and katakana. Consistency is key for sure, so I'll come back whenever I don't feel like studying anymore. Thanks for the video and I hope you release new content soon!
Japanese is really hard at first - don’t be too hard on yourself! There’s so much to get use to. But you once you do it for a while and get into a rhythm of studying, the path will begin to look clearer 😙 stay patient and consistent, you got this!! 🥳 ill be cooking up a new video in the near future 🧑🍳
Extremely Useful. My parents (both Japanese natives) wanted me to study kanji because I want to go to university in Japan one day. I know how to write the kanji but in the end, I can't read it so practicing with hiragana first is going to be extremely helpful
It’s awesome that you can write the kanji, and I love that you have a goal of going to a Japanese university - that’s a great goal to have!! 🥳 definitely start with getting comfortable reading hiragana and katakana, and then slowly integrate more and more kanji, starting with the most common ones! Ultimately you just gotta give yourself as much exposure as possible 😙 im glad you found my video helpful! 🤧
the way Japanese looked on the kindle is reason enough to learn the language... so beautiful. Just started learning through Pimsleur and watching anime. Your video helped me to realize that I should invest in a good textbook, thank you!
A bit random, but for anyone who needs to get faster at reading, i really recommend to do karaoke. Just search up the jp title of the song alongside ニコカラ or カラオケ. I found this really helped me because it forces you to read quicker to keep up with the song, and if you sort of butcher it it’s easy to go back and retry. I can tell the improvement it gave me from going back to the first song I did, where i remember having to slow it down because i couldn’t read fast enough. Now it’s a breeze. And also, if you have the vocal on, it could help you with shadowing.
I love the idea!! Definitely a great idea to make reading practice fun if you love singing. Just gotta be aware that once you’ve memorized a song, you gotta force yourself to actually read the lyrics and not just say it from memory 😝
Awesome video, very helpful content for such a new channel and nicely put together. I’ve been studying Japanese off and on for nine years and the off periods haven’t helped much. Working my way through Remembering The Kanji for the first time this year and on track to reach 2200 by the end of the year. Feels like it has helped my progress so much compared to all of the previous years. Hopefully I’ll join you in the N1 ranks someday!
Ahhhhh for sure, when there are off periods it feels like you gotta play catch-up just to get back where you left off 😪 Amazing job with working through RTK so consitently!! Consistency is definitely key and it sounds like you're killing it! Keep up the awesome work and I'm confident you'll join the N1 club 🥳👏👏
Wow, your first video??? Super helpful! I just started learning Japanese - day 34 baby! I use Duolingo and the Genki books. And yesterday I can officially say I know all the basic hiragana and katakana!! I write hiragana and katakana every day, and when I learn a new word in duolingo I write it on an index card and turn it into a flashcard! I wanna get a little bit more familiar with combo letters before starting Kanji but this was a huge help for when I do decide to take on Kanji!
ahhh really glad you found my video helpful!! 🤧 and congrats on learning hiragana and katakana, that’s a huge hurdle that a lot of people don’t clear! 🥳🎉 love that you’re making flashcards, definitely a great way to review what you’ve learned. Keep up the awesome work!!
I have practiced writing kanji and recognizing kanji meaning by using Anki. I have done all Jōyō kanji). During this time I also learn words and sentences from JLPT tango deck and Living language. They give me listening practice (also very important). And now I have begun to practice Japanese words using kanji (WaniKani anki deck).
Wowww sounds like you have a really fantastic study routine set up!! And huge congratulations to finishing all the Joyo kanji, that’s amazing! 🥳🎉 keep up the awesome work 😙
All I can say is thanks for the effort, thanks for the video bro. I have many times found myself being demotivated after thinking how hard it is to learn Japanese but I never felt like giving up. I’m thrilled for the task and down to learn it no matter what. I’m glad I am already following most of the stuff you taught in this video. All you need is patience and practice 🎉 gg. W.
i love your mentality. I too often felt demotivated when i felt like my japanese wasn’t good enough, but never once genuinely considered giving up. You’re 100% right that practice and patience is the ultimate key. No matter how big the task it, as long as you’re consistent, you’ll get there 🙏 keep up the awesome work!! 🥳
Thank you so much for the kind words!! 🤧 I think i could have presented a lot better in this video, but im glad you still enjoyed it 😝 ill definitely be keeping up videos so stay tuned!!
I love studying kanji. It's like a puzzle. Each day you a add a piece to your puzzle. While I dare to say that 5 Kanji/day is too much to endure if you begin at zero. The review cards (I use KKLC and the KKLC Anki deck) pile up pretty quickly. I would say 3/day is more realistic. Makes 2 years for all Kanji. My personal goals is something between 2-3 years for all 2300 Kanji of the KKLC. Patience is important. Unrealistic goals will result in burn out and quitting. I went to Japan in spring 2023 and I was at Kanji 600 in the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course at that time. I could already recognize and read so many Kanjis. Menu on the plane and restaurants, museums, konbini etc. I studied 全 and 新 long ago but studied 完 recently. No I know why @8:42 the Shinkanzen series is called 新完全 series. Damn :D Or I went to 21th century museum in Kanazawa to see Alex Da Corte's "Fresh Hell" exhibition. Bought a shirt at the museum shop. On the back it said. 新鮮な地獄. The only Kanji I didn't know at this point was 獄. Now I know what it means. That's what I mean when I said Kanji is like a puzzle. It challenging but fun to put the puzzle together.
I love your attitude. I can’t agree more that learning kanji is all about patients, and i think 2-3 kanji is perfect if you start at zero. And i love how you see the kanji you don’t know as a missing piece of the puzzle that’s fun to figure out, rather then ANOTHER kanji you don’t know, which is how i felt sometimes 😝 Keep up the amazing work!!! 🥳
I'm a senior in college and I just started taking Japanese courses this semester since I finally had room in my schedule to do it. I self studied a little before, but being a student, everything got in the way. I hope that once I've graduated I'll be able to focus more on learning since hopefully I'll have a job where my work stays at work, unlike having homework and studying while in school. The main reasons for wanting to learn Japanese is to be able to communicate in online Japanese communities and to eventually be able to read untranslated novels. Seriously, having to wait YEARS for official translations of things is so annoying. Sometimes fan translations are ok, though. My Japanese class really hasn't begun kanji yet. I believe we will after the midterm, though. We've learned a couple already, but we've been encouraged just to focus on the hiragana spellings of them, and in some cases we were prohibited from writing the kanji even if we knew it. My biggest concern though is that I'll be able to recognize kanji when I see it, but never quite remember how to write it. And stroke order too, I'm not sure how important it *really* is, but even with hiragana and katakana, for some I don't use the correct order, but rather what feels more natural to me. My handwriting isn't sloppy, so it still comes out looking the same. Would Japanese people be able to tell? Maybe. Do I care? Nope. If they can read it is all that matters to me.
dangggg I didn’t know some translations literally take years to come out 😭😭 awesome to hear you were finally able to fit japanese into your schedule and start your journey!! and I wouldn’t worry about being able to write kanji, since typing is used 98% of the time reading is much more important! wishing you all the best on your journey 🥳
日本語の文字を奇麗に書きたいなら書き順はとても大事だと思います。 しかしそうでないなら正しくない書き順でもいいと思います。 ちなみに日本人は文字の書き順をとても重要視してます。 間違った書き順はすぐにわかります。 If you want to write Japanese characters neatly, the stroke order is very important. However, if you don't, I think it is okay to write in an incorrect stroke order. By the way, Japanese people consider stroke order very important. Incorrect stroke order is easily recognized.(DeepL)
I was hesitant at first because I thought this was another video with a super click-baity title. BUT, this was actually an outstanding video. I'm currently learning Japanese at University, and the advice you give in this video is very good! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 Great video, aaaaaand even more impressive it's your first RUclips video!
I started studying Japanese N5 in year 8 and I’m taking it for GCSE, it’s so easy, the past papers are contain most of the kanji for JLPT N5 and the basics from JLPT N4
That’s amazing that you find it so easy!! 🥳 I hope you continue your Japanese learning journey beyond the GCSE too; there’s so much more to learn and it only feels more and more rewarding!
One thing that might have been missed or maybe wasn't a thing when the video was made is that the keyboards, at least for android, now let you draw out Japanese characters and they are actually pretty accurate. So if you have a decent understanding of stroke order and how to draw radicals, you can just use your android phone to draw the kanji on the Japanese keyboard and look it up that way. It makes looking up kanji SO MUCH faster. There are so many tools out there these days to make learning kanji far more manageable than there were even just a few years ago.
yes, definitely being able to draw the kanji makes looking it up a lot faster! i still find this is a bit tedious to do with every kanji, which is why i really like the tap-to-reveal function on kindle or other apps 🤧
I passed my N3 in 2015. After that, I felt like I hit a huge plateau in my learning of Japanese and it's been really hard to make any progress ever since. I'm trying to push through and not get discouraged, but it's easier said than done TT_TT
First of all, huge congrats to passing the N3, that’s an amazing accomplishment!! 🥳 i SUPER get the intermediate plateau, it feels like no progress is being made (although that’s far from the truth!). I’ll actually be making a video on this in the near future, so stay tuned 😉
Sometimes hitting a goal or passing a milestone can actually slow your progress down, a lot of times when I'm writing code once I get the intended functionality to usable state I often abandon fleshing the intended features out or patching bugs/logical errors simply because I can work around them. It's kinda the same with bodybuilding, you hit a personal best every third or fourth gym session and wind up celebrating with cheat meals or snacks basically walking back any intended weight loss(still building muscle but also adding unwanted fat back)
I wanted to learn a really hard language to consume the lots of time I have on my hands but I wasn’t really looking forward to kanji… thanks to you kanji doesn’t seem like an impossible and unachievable task anymore !!
im really happy to hear my video helped break kanji down for you 🤧🥺 they’re definitely intimidating at first, but once you get started, you begin to see the patterns 😙
This guy inspires me to continue self teaching myself Japanese. Been going at it for two years now. Coincidentally, my grandparents came over earlier today and I’m half Japanese (dad’s side), so I spoke Japanese with my grandma for a bit and it was awesome. Really just motivates me to continue learning.
Wowwww amazing that you’ve been keeping it up for 2 years now!! Your grandparents must be so happy to be able to speak some japanese with you 😙 being able to speak with them more fluently is an amazing goal to have as well! 🤧 and im beyond humbled to be able to inspire you, but it sounds like you’re already putting it most of the effort already without my help!! Keep up the awesome work 🥳👏
hey your first vid rocks so professional, well edited and presented. most first vid I saw from other japanese learning channel were made from scrap haha while this one feels like you already have 100k subs
I'm glad you found the video professional!! I studied a lot of channels that i liked and tried to make my first video as good as possible 🥵 thank you so much for the positivity!! 😄
I chose Japanese as my foreign language for my freshman year. I was able to gather a lot of the basics, however, the class was an online one where interaction was difficult. I’m hoping to be able to continue my studies on my own (and without the pressure of grades). Thanks
Awwww that’s amazing you chose Japanese!! Yeahhh online interaction can be difficult 😪 it’s definitely possible to learn on your own! You just gotta make sure you set up a schedule for yourself so you stay consistent 😌 good luck on your journey!! 🥳
writing every kanji down multiple times sounds daunting and one of the reasons I quit my first time trying to learn. Learning Kanji through learning vocabulary hits two birds with one stone and, for me, seems to be the faster route to understanding more of what you read. Of course, you won't have a deeper understanding of each kanji but it's good if you simply want to communicate with natives or watch japanese TV faster
yes, i agree learning kanji with vocab is a great way to learn cause you learn two things at once! The only drawback is that you’ll end up sometimes learning more difficult and rare kanji before easier ones since you’re learning in order of vocab rather than kanji. But as long as that doesn’t bother you then i think it’s a fine way to study 🥳
Waiters in Japanese restaurants where I‘m at are Vietnamese and don‘t speak a word Japanese. Welp, learned 2000 Kanji for nothing then. Sucks to be me.
Most sushi restaurants around the world (especially in western countries) are not even owned by Japanese people so chances are they wouldn't understand a single word
Being a Taiwanese is such an advantage for me. I can understand all the kanjis and also a lot of words in japanese are pronounced or similar to the way we pronounce them in Taiwanese (dialect). It's because the dialect we speak is an acient Chinese dialect and Japan took a lot of words over. When I was in Japanese class, it reminded me a lot of my childhood since only my grandparents spoke dialect to me. 😄 Also Taiwan was colonized by Japan for 50 years so my grandmother spoke fluent Japanese as well.
oh woww i had no idea kanji readings in taiwanese dialect were that similar to japanese!! that’s definitely a nice advantage. and im glad it’s a nostalgic feeling as well 😂
Same goes to Cantonese, quite a lot of kanji words sounds like it (also a dialect in southern China, like Taiwanese , which the language originally form the area right across the sea between China and Taiwan)
As someone who's stuck in that weird N4-N3 plateau (finished Genki II and did a little bit after that) would love a video on going from beginner to intermediate and textbook/resource recommendations for self-study 🙏
congrats on finishing genki 2 (and beyond), that’s amazing!! my most recent video is actually specifically about the language plateau, so be sure to check it out 😙
TIP: Everyone learns differently, and the way I learned Hiragana, katakana, and kanji was by writing the same symbol a lot of times. Sometimes I mix it up with other symbols so I could see how my brain remembers them. I suggest writing them in a notebook or paper, not digitally ( Although it is helpful learning it that way too ). I hope this helps people who are learning Japanese as it helped me a lot while learning mine.
As a native Chinese speaking guy with a pass in basic level (N4) Japanese, I have lost the momentum to go any further (but still I keep watching Japanese anime daily). It's incredible how you keep learning and got N1 pass finally, especially for people who have never learned kanji/chinese before.
thank you so much!!! and congrats on getting n4, that’s a real solid foundation!! 🥳🙌 im sure you’re picking up some new words here and there through anime 😉
New subscriber for sure, can't wait for the rest of the series. I've seen so many Japanese-tubers, but it's always good to have other perspectives - language learning is such a personal experience! よろしくお願いします！ (Edit - Have been studying Japanese pretty hardcore for the last two years or so, and generally studying for a lot longer. Would consider myself barely conversational, definitely not fluent.)
Hey Derek, thanks so much for the support! I'm working on the next video as we speak 🥳 Glad that my video was able to bring some new perspective, I totally agree that everyone has their own way of tackling language learning! Studying hardcore for 2 years is impressive dedication 👏 the fully conversational/fluent part of Japanese can take a while to come, but you've definitely achieved the hardest part already. Keep up the great work and conversing will slowly feel easier and easier.
This is the first video that has explained the whole process without making it seem like a too daunting task... I have only recently started learning Kanji through Wanikani - the mnemorics and ready-made pacing are really helping me personally. I only started learning because I want to be able to read some of the book series I love without having to wait for translations at every point... Hopefully that will continue motivating me since I have been moaning over this for years now without trying to do anything about it. How did you manage to stay motivated through all of your learning?
im glad you found my video so helpful, and congrats on finally starting the big task of mastering kanji!! 🥳 it’s def good to keep in mind an end goal, like reading raw material without waiting for translation. On top of that, i found that breaking my kanji goals down into smaller chunks (per JLPT level, or breaking down big levels into even smaller chunks) helped make the daily work feel like it was actually progressing me. wishing you all the best on your journey, you got this!! 🥳✊
I just came across this video today! It’s really impressive what you’ve managed to accomplish and 7 years is a long time to dedicate to something so I’m sure you were/are very passionate about it! What were you reasons for wanting to learn Japanese if I might ask? I’m personally a viet/American so English wasn’t my technical first language but being raised in the U.S. has made it my predominant. I speak enough Viet to get by, and by immersing myself in a cultural exchange once I understand basic Spanish. I just started my journey in Japanese because of how much anime I’ve been watching and I’d love to visit Japan one day and not feel completely lost :) thanks for the video!
wowwww i can tell how passionate for languages you are!! would definitely be incredible if you spoke english, viet, spanish, and japanese!! 😭 i actually made a separate video on my reasons for learning japanese😌 thank you for your lovely comment, and good luck on your japanese language journey! 🥳
I'm not studying Japanese but I feel like I can relate to the struggle of learning kanji. I'm currently studying Mandarin and hanzi is quite a challenge. But it's actually fun :) I love writing characters so much.
Im glad you can still relate to my video!! And that’s awesome that you find writing the characters fun 🤧 ultimately that will help keep you going the most!! Also, Chinese has more consistent character readings than Japanese so you can enjoy that benefit 😝
Crazy that this popped up. I started learning the radicals for fun and then realised they make very good hints for mnemonics just like you mentioned. Glad to know other people have found the same thing to be true. Also find it extremely relatable when there is seemingly no radical that fits part of a kanji 🤣
In as few words as possible: It is not the Kanji (75% of standard Kanji are composed of only 51 symbols. That is ONE LESS than English, which has 52 characters, large and small), it is the VOCABULARY. Even if you memorize all the standard Kanji, you still need to learn the many combinations in which they find themselves. Doing that is the biggest job of all.
Interesting stat about kanji! But I don’t think it’s fair to compare it to English, since the different combinations of those japanese radicals create totally different readings. I do agree that learning vocab is tougher tho, it feels more endless 😩
@@TokuyuuTV Re: "I don’t think it’s fair to compare" - a different combo of roman letters creates a different reading too, so the point John made seems pretty fair. Anyway, interesting conversation.
I do only five new words or kanji in anki a day. Some people think that's dreadfully slow and ramping it up to 30+ a day, but more quantity will only hurt your studying unless you have amazing memory or don't mind studying for multiple hours a day. The most important thing is consistency. You've got to study every day. Even if all you do that day is a five minute refresher to keep things fresh in your mind. Committing thousands of moon hieroglyphs to long term memory is the hardest part, that's why consistent studying is so important.
I 100% agree and love your mentality!! I definitely prefer someone doing 5 vocab/kanji quality studying over 30+ quickly studying. With the amount of content it takes to learn japanese, consistency is absolutely irreplaceable. You just can’t sprint through it. Keep up the amazing work!! 🥳
i initially started studying japanese in 2020 using only duolingo. didnt have any big plans, just decided i wanna at least give it a shot. dropped it again months later, life hasnt been treating me well and i had neither time nor energy (nor any motivation) to improve anymore - in any field of life. this year everything has been improving for me so far and i knew i was eventually gonna give JP another shot - this video will be my main motivation to do so. i'll save it in my notes to rewatch it another time. thank you for the information you shared with us, knowing the exact numbers of JLPT kanji and finding out what furigana is made the journey seem a lot less intimidating. thank you for motivating me to do one of the things i've been wanting to do for over a decade now!
Thank you for taking the time to write this absolutely wonderful comment!! 🤧 im sorry to hear that life was hard for you back then, but im beyond happy that things are turning around! 😙 im also glad my video was able to clear some things up for you - it’s definitely a lot better when you know exactly what you need to tackle! Wishing you all the best on your journey, good luck!!! 🥳🎉
Hey Tokuyuu, I would also like to start memorizing Kanji, and want to use your way of learning using writing. How do you keep track of the kanji you learned from the past 3 days?
glad to hear you want to try it out! i recorded all the kanji i learned with all their readings on sheets of paper, and just looked at the latest 3 days worth that i added 😌
6:45 That Kanji(Chinese character) is radical for "鬯‘’ It's a container for taking liquor in ancient China. Tell the truth as a Chinese, I don't know ”鬯“ this character until I read a novel of a writer from Hong Kong called Liu yichang (劉以鬯 Lau YeeCheung in Cantonese）。By the way, I needn't spend too much time in learning Kanji because I had learn Chinese character when I was a child. You can learn Chinese from Japanese , too
Wowww i had no idea that character actually existed as a stand-alone!! Container ✍️ for ✍️ liquor ✍️ ahhhh it’s really nice to have a background in kanji before studying my japanese!! Maybe if i learn Chinese one day i can benefit as well 😝
@@TokuyuuTV This is “鬯” specific explanation of this character: ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%AC%AF%E9%83%A8 You can see "鬯“ this character just like a container for taking liquor oracle Chinese characters. Haha, Chinese character isn't difficult, it just like still life sketching, it's a kind of Kanji （character） called“象形字” （hieroglyph） By the way, you're learning Chinese when you learning Japanese Kanji, BECAUSE MOST OF CHINESE CHARACTERS ARE THE SAME AS JAPANESE KANJI
Thank you for this!!! I've been struggling to learn from studying on my own and I've been feeling down about my progress. Subscribed forsure! Thank you once again!!!
You don’t have to, but I still think you may as well learn it because i do find it helps me understand the characters more and it gets predictable over time.
Great video. I learned most of my Japanese from my fluent girlfriend. Have you ever dated a Japanese girlfriend? (Or boyfriend - no assumptions of course)
I have dated a Japanese girl before, which definitely helped with practicing. I think it's really sweet that you are learning Japanese from your girlfriend; I'm sure she appreciates you taking an interest in it!
Thanks you so much!!! This video is exactly what I needed, this helps me so much with understanding how to structure my learning experience so that I don't lose focus and get stuck somewhere! I really wanted to learn Japanese but it looked daunting because of the many kanji & (in my opinion) hard pronunciations! So I was hesitant but after seeing this video I now feel like I have the tools to start studying the language with a chance of success! You my friend have earned my subscription!
absolutely thrilled to hear my video was able to help you out so much! 🤧 it definitely feels overwhelming in the beginning, esp when you don’t have any guidance on which direction to go or how to go about it. the direction is never going to be 100% clear, but you just gotta keep putting in the work and it’ll get clearer and clearer! 🥳
Your video popped up on my recommended and while watching i could not tell this was your first video, your energy was great! It was as if you've been doing this for a while! Keep up the great work brother, studying my japanese now!
ahhhhhhh that’s sooo nice to hear you say, thank you so much 😭😭😭✨ doing my best to make the videos better and better! good luck on your studies, you got this!! 😤💪‼️
Thanks for the tips. I'm also a beginner in Japanese. And my biggest struggle is remembering the Kanji characters , so I'm writing everything in stroke order plus it's meaning and sample sentences. I've been focus doing this method for almost 3months and it's working for me. Maybe after a year, I can read, write and speak Nihongo and can be N4 level after months or a year.
that’s awesome you’ve been sticking to it for 3 months already now!! 🥳👏 sample sentence definitely help give the characters a lot of context. Keep up the awesome work and you’ll make amazing gains for sure 💪
Good video!! I am following a similar path to what you described. One thing I'd add though that has helped me, is to learn Kanji in groups, there are a lot of Kanji that are similar to each other and only have 1 different Radical, a lot of them also have the same sounds and are used in similar themes of words. Rather than memorize ~10 completely different Kanji and stressing over each, you can easily triple that amount. I found it much more effective as long as you keep the same repetition like what this video mentions because it can be easy to confuse symbols when they all look similar so you have to be careful.
Im glad you found a system that works for you so well!! From what I remember, RTK uses a similar system where it groups kanji by similar radicals. I’ve always been a little hesitant to recommend this, since i know if it were me I’d definitely mix them up 😂 but i can see how if you can keep them separate it’s a lot more efficient
I don’t know why I watched whole video even I am Japanese 😂 but Memorizing kanji is really stressful for even Japanese so don’t worry u guys got this 👍頑張って！
Ahahahahahah im flattered you were still interested enough to watch it!! 😝 thanks for the emotional support 🥺 頑張ります❗️😤
Gambate, gambarimasu
Jaja...you made me laugh,!
What does ベンジャミン in englisch mean?
@@bxnjie benjamin?? Its like israel name 🌚i hate
Are we Japanese good at kanji? : *HELL NO*
Do we remember stroke order? : *HELL NO*
Do we BURADDO PITTO? : *HELL YEAH*
LMAOOOO i love this comment 😂😂😂 thank you for making my day.
What’s that mean?
I can only read kanji when they're in words haha
@@captainbluemccoy223 Brad Pitt😅
@@user-.20266 u mean furigana?
It's actually crazy that your first video has this much quality. Thumbs up!
Thank you so much!! Means a lot coming from a successful clipper 🥺🤧 would love to get just as good at editing videos one day 🥲
Wow, Osekkai's seal of quality! Must watch then.
heh Osekkai belok
I couldn't agree more
if he didn't say anything i would've had no idea
✔brief but informative
✔mic doesn't sound like a 20$ ebay
✔comes off as confident yet not overbearing
When he said immersion isn’t magic, he’s right. Although, it doesn’t mean it won’t work at all. When you immerse, you have to really pay attention. This is called active immersion. During this type of immersion, you would be paying attention to several things like pronunciation, meaning of a sentence, context, how words are used, sentence patterns, etc. Passive immersion is the opposite where you just have the language in the background not fully paying attention to every moving part and trying to understand each and every one of them. Passive immersion isn’t bad, but it will do very little compared to active immersion. Some immersion is still better than no immersion, so if you don’t always have time to actively immerse, passive immersion is still an option. But be careful though, despite the fact that it still is a helpful supplement, passive immersion will make you almost no real progress. You’re most likely going to need to set apart some time to get some active immersion in. I recommend everyone to get as much active immersion as you can in a day, but set a minimum amount of time you know you can achieve every day. Consistency is very motivating when it comes to learning languages. The more time you spend actively immersing, the faster you’ll understand. Everyone learns at their own pace, so there’s no rush to get active immersion in every moment of the day. Take your time learning the language, but most importantly, have fun.
I love how you clearly defined both active and passive immersion!! I 100% agree with you. Passive immersion will provide SOME benefit, but very little. Active immersion in coordination with meaningful studying will make your japanese ability explode if done consistently 📈📈📈 thanks for the well-explained and thoughtful comment! 🥳
wtf bro you're doing the refold meme.
I had no idea there was already a theory on “comprehensible input” and the sweet spot of knowing around ~80%. I’ve always been explaining this exact same concept in my own experience when telling people to listen to content at their level and know at least ~70-80% of it. Extremely cool that there’s published work on the exact same thing!! Thanks so much for sharing 😙 and congrats on achieving 80% understanding on easier content and studying for 3 years now, absolutely incredible work 🥳👏 keep it up!
i love this comment!
Past passive immersion can always be used a little, for familiarity’s sake and the like
I learned WAAAAY more Japanese AFTER passing N1 than all of the studying I did to get to N1. N1 is a good start so you can converse with native speakers and read content written for Japnaese people. After that if you continue to be contentious about thinking about the new expressions you encounter and committing them to memory, you can improve a lot. But in my experience, studying the meaning and writing of kanji at the very beginning -- to the point where I knew lots of kanji before really knowing the Japanese they can be used for -- ended up helping in the long run. Maybe not to go from beginner to intermediate, but to go from intermediate to getting an instinctive feel for new compounds. Like knowing the meaning of 糖尿病 when you've never seen the word before.
very interesting perspective! it’s really rare to be able to hear from someone who’s achieved such a high level of japanese. i also couldn’t agree more; i wouldn’t quite say i’ve learned MORE than before getting N1, but it’s incredible how much more you can learn even after attaining it. even to this day i still find my japanese far from mastery. but yes, putting in the ‘dirty work’ of grinding kanji, grammar, and vocab really set you up to better pick up new japanese naturally. thanks for taking the time to leave your input 🤧
@@TokuyuuTV N1 is not a high level at all. That correspond to the level of a 13 years old kid. Most of N1 can't write an essay for instance, write a business mail, or make the difference between Sonkeigo, Kenjougo, Keigo . For N1 you need to know 12 000 words and 1900 kanjis around when a High school students knows more 50 000 words and 2500 kanjis. With N1 you can't understand a novel properly without a dictionary. N1 is just the survival pack for study the real japanese.
@@xxXMoonbakaXxxit really is crazy that they stopped at n1. I guess we're really just that bad at learning Japanese huh. There really should be another level that tests true fluency. I know plenty of people that have the N1 and none of them have truly spectacular Japanese or would consider themselves fluent. Conversationally fluent? Sure. But they still gotta grab to dictionary to read books.
N1 covers like half the vocab you really should know, and is missing about 800 kanji.
@@xxXMoonbakaXxx for access in university in Japan they ask for noken 2 in most of the cases, or noken 1. A 13 old boy have a kanji level between noken 4 and noken 3. Most of the noken 3 kanji are taught in middle school. When you finish middle school you should known over 1000 kanjis, its more or less the half of the kanjis you need for noken 1, what is over 3000 since its considered university level.
I just started to self study Japanese this year through Duolingo and it really helped me learn Katakana and Hiragana characters by guiding me how to write it. I also tried reviewing it by writing them all on paper. It really helped. Kanji is really intimidating me to continue studying, so unless I devote a consistent amount of time to learn each, I know I won't be able to learn it fully. Now its making me realize how hard is it for kids to study 2,000+ characters while we only need to know 28 alphabets for reading. 😆
Yeahhh i never knew how easy we had it only having to learn a handful of letters in school 😂😂 amazing to hear you making such great progress already!! Definitely don’t worry about tackling 2,000 of them at once - break it down into smaller goals. It’ll feel a lot more manageable, and you’ll already notice immense improvements in your reading after only learning your first 50!! Happy studying 🥳
isn't it 26
@@mael9661 in the Philippines we consider Ñ and NG as part of the alphabet, so that makes it 28.
you don't have to go for JLPT N1 anyway. N2 is enough
Lol same. Learning Japanese through a second language is even more an experience lmao.
I am at awe with your talent and the professionalism making this RUclips vid....a job well done.
His parents must be proud!
@@kaelanrorabeck7949 I guess we'll never know 😪
@@TokuyuuTV mysteriously depressing comment 😅
@@PattRedfern i didn't mean for it to come out that depressing LMAO 😝
Learning that one third of the language can be done in just 80 characters was so motivational thank you!
Im happy to hear that!! 😙 yes, the most basic characters are disproportionately used, so you’ll start to recognize them quite quickly!
This video single-handedly inspired me to start studying Japanese kanji again~ thank you so much!!
Let me let y’all on a little tip that improved my Japanese reading, listening and compressions skills SO FREAKING MUCH: Watching American/English show with JAPANESE subs. Now, you may think that does nothing for you, but remember when you put on eng subs your eyes are automatically drawn to the subs even when you perfectly understand what was said just by listening. So when you do this with Japanese, it forces you to put two and two together in terms of what you’re hearing and what you’re reading. You’ll start understanding Japanese grammar a little better and how to form a simple sentence. You’ll start noticing the same character combinations popping up and they’ll start sticking with you, especially when you have the English audio to also remember the meanings. Kanjis will also become more and more familiar. It helped me a TON. I would also pause sometimes take my time to read a sentence and say oh! That’s how you say ‘’I don’t want to eat’’ in a more natural/casual way. For those who can already read Hiragana and Katakana, this will drastically change the game. Trust me, try it and let me know how it goes.
Thanks for sharing your tips, and im glad you found something that worked for you!! 🥳 my only hesitation is that sometimes the subtitles are interpretive rather than literal, so depending on the sentence it can be a bit misleading. But with simple sentences like “I don’t want to eat”, it’s usually pretty safe! Keep up the awesome work 😙
How do you find Japanese subtitles? I just see English subtitles, sometimes French or Spanish and German, occasionally Russian but never Japanese. Where do you get your movies?
Thank you I will try it
Holy fuck this is a game changer, I was trying to play games I've already played but in Japanese, but this is even better
Good video! As someone with 5 years of study I agree with these points. I could manage in broken Japanese for a long time, but It wasn't until I started reading and studying kanji daily did I see marked improvement and started to feel like I "knew" the language. That initial kanji hurdle is hard at first, but once you get there you can focus on mantaining, so just keep up that daily grind!
Thank you so much!! I’m glad someone with your experience agrees with my points 🤧 it’s definitely all about staying committed to the daily grind and being patient with the results. As you get more and more competent with kanji, reading higher level material makes it more and more rewarding too 😙 keep up the awesome work!!
I’ve done 2 years of classroom study and I put myself hovering somewhere around lower N4, but now with about 70 days of self study I feel like I’m pushing up towards upper N4. Just keeping on my grind to N1!
As much as so many people 'hack' learn japanese, there is usually a lot of work involved to master a language. If you know the specific context you're learning the language for, you can fasttrack learning to a certain degree. It is impressive to see an expat pass the N1 test or the N2 test, as there's a LOT of study to get there. I'm working on my HSK 4 chinese after studying japanese years ago, and boy it's a lot of reading, vocabulary practice and character recognition.
Very good point! If you’re learning japanese just for one specific reason, it is possible to fasttrack to some degree - but I feel like I would struggle without the context of the whole language. Really cool that you’re studying asian languages too!! Keep up the awesome work with Chinese 😙 and even tho I’ve passed N1, my japanese is far from perfect and im still learning every day 🥵
Of all the Japanese language tutorials I've watched over the last 18 months, you explained things better than anyone else. I couldn't even get to grips with hiragana yet you made learning kanji sound so easy. If only my memory wasn't so bad, I'd give it another go.
Thank you so much, Shaun, I'm happy to hear my explanation was easy to understand!! 😄
Learning kanji is definitely one big memory test 😪 Chris Broad said that his memory was a big problem too, so he read books on memory techniques to help him conquer Japanese. Could be something to look into if you ever feel to inclination to pick it up again! Thanks for watching my video 🥳
@@TokuyuuTV I love Chris, he's hilarious 😂
I don't think your memory is "bad" maybe you're using the wrong method for you?
Hang in there! If you have the desire and a plan you can do it!
@@TokuyuuTV or they should try reading in the Japanese language. Nothing makes you learn new vocab and actually get it reinforced a.d remembered like reading. That's how we learned new vocab growing up too.
When I studied traditional Chinese characters ( rlly similar to Japanese kanji), our teacher asked us to write each character (paired with another character to make it a word) for about 6-12 times. I think this rlly help us to learn how to write the traditional Chinese character/Japanese kanji. Remembering them in a word form will help to memorize the meaning of each of them also.
I think that’s a really good way to study!! It gives you writing practice while also exposing you to useful vocab and other kanji. Thanks for sharing!! 😙
This is where I've started to see benefits in Japanese. Instead of writing "the character" (OK, typing - long story) I write it in a sentence. Just a silly one, like "The sky is blue" or "I eat sushi". My comprehension is picking up much faster as it puts the kanji into a context.
I've done the same with hiragana/katakana. I gave up trying to learn a/i/u/e/o independently of the kanji. So when I write my "silly sentence", I also do the hiragana and katakana. It seems to be coming a lot faster and more naturally than drilling.
6:46 Even if Chinese people don't know the individual word in the picture, I also know that by ‘gloom’. Another extreme example is the word "Biang" in "Biang Biang 面(noodles)".The word "Biang" has only been seen in this noodle word. This noodle is delicious, but most Chinese people can't write it. They can only read it. I just want to express that there is no need to be too entangled in some difficult Kanji maybe.
When I was in college I took Chinese, the teacher had us write hanzi over and over again. I didn't remember that many characters and quickly forgot them. More recently I started studying Japanese, I just used a spaced repetition app to memorize the shape and the English meaning, was able to learn about 2000 in just two months, but still needed about 4 hours a day of minutes. After a few months though it was down to 20-30 minutes. It isn't necessary to learn how to write the kanji on paper since 99.9% of your writing will probably be on a computer anyway, otherwise you can just write it on your phone and copy the kanji by hand if you really, really need to write kanji on paper.
Gloom , 鬱, no matter is it in Japanese or in Traditional Chinese (Simplified Chinese have the same word in a total different character, 郁)
It's still a hard word for both of the native language user, there's no easy way to only memorize it the hard way by copying it a hundreds or even a thousands times.
That's why those who Simplify Traditional Chinese character in the 50s? simplify this word into a completely different / new character for those new born child who learn it/Chinese easier. To reduce the illiteracy rate in China.
Thank you so much for your tips. I started learning Japanese 6 months ago and I found this video 3 months ago. After applying your tips I avoided making so many mistakes. Today I watched this video again and realized that everything that you said was actually right. Thanks again for making this amazing video.
Wowwwww first of all, great job keeping up the learning for 6 months now!! 🥳 second, im really happy my tips were able to help you! I appreciate you coming back to this video and leaving such a wonderful comment 🤧 keep up the fantastic work!! 🎉👏
To us native Chinese speakers kanji is the easiest ever thing in Japanese 😂 Basically their pronunciation are very similar to Mandarin despite some being written slightly different in terms of strokes. Even if someone has no idea about Japanese they could guess about 80% of the meaning simply through kanjis (or hanzi, as we call them). That’s a huge burden off!!
Yeah I’m infinitely jealous that people who know Chinese have such a headstart 😭😭 but at least it means I’d have a headstart if i learned Chinese then 😝 actually insane that you can understand about 80% of written japanese!! I guess that just means you have no excuse to not become fluent then 😉
When I took my first Japanese classes here in Uni, I had Chinese students who were in beginner with me for speaking/grammar class. For writing/kanji they were in advanced! I was so jealous of them 😂
For me I like the pronunciation of Chinese and the writing of Japanese better so I'm still in doubt about which one to start with.
@TokuyuuTV well I thought you were half Chinese. May I ask what mix you are?
Yes, us native Chinese have a huge head start,😁.现在最难的地方就是这么记得发音，在日语一个汉字是有很多很多的说法哦，我哪里能记得了那么多说法啊😭
"First video"...wow, you did an amazing job! I am one of those you referenced about "living in Japan for 8(+) years and unable to read Japanese." My wife majored in English and has been my excuse for not learning Japanese. I am finished with making excuses...bring on the Kanji...LOL! Again, awesome job on your video! Hope you are enjoying mainland, but you need to come see the beautiful island of Okinawa when you get a chance!
Thanks so much for the positive feedback, Grant! Ahhh yeah it's hard to feel the need to study Japanese when your wife is already so skilled at English, I understand completely. I love that you've decided to tackle the task of conquering Japanese though, it'll definitely open a ton of doors for you and I think you'll be able to enjoy being in Japan even more! And I haven't had a chance to go to Okinawa yet but I'd love to!! My friend was just telling me the other day that it's a beautiful place and I should go. It's definitely on the list!!
I'm currently a high school exchange student in Japan. I'll be here for a year, and it's already been 5 months, thing is with Japanese immersion definitely helps. However, you do need to dedicate a lot of studying while being here just so you can get by. You get surprised with how much Kanji you really need to know. It's easy to practice speaking and grammar just because of the people around you. Even then, you still need to heavily study kanji and the pronunciations of it to pick them up in conversation. I think you explained all of this very well and I wish I had come across your channel sooner.
For anyone learning Japanese I wish you luck. It's a hard but fun process. Kanji may seem scary at first but it's very fun once you get the hang of it!
Japanese is a very diverse language with Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji but it's so worth it especially if you want to visit Japan someday.
Don't get too discouraged with all the kanji! Even native Japanese people struggle with it! Stay determined and have fun!
がんばれ！
wowww such a great opportunity to be able to go on exchange for one year to japan!! im really glad you’re enjoying it. And sounds like you’re doing a fantastic job of being studious in studying the language and slowly picking it up 🤧✨ i love your message for everyone and i totally agree - learning japanese can be a long and tough road but it’s worth it, you just gotta keep going 😙🎉 enjoy the rest of your exchange!!
So well edited! Can’t wait to see more :) I’m going to start learning Japanese soon for career reasons and this was awesome advice!
thanks so much for the comment Izik! That sounds like a really exciting future ahead of you, good luck with your language learning journey!! I'll try to upload more vids asap to help you out 😝
WaniKani has been a game changer for me. I've studying Japanese for two years and never really saw great progress. I've doing WaniKani each days for the past 2 months and I can easily understand basic sentences.
Also, talk to native speakers helps a lot.
Your learning routine seems pretty cool too, I guess it's also cool to add a bit of grammar into that mix to make it perfect.
I’m glad to hear you found so much success with wanikani! And what’s more incredible is that you’ve kept up studying everyday for the past two months, incredible consistency 🤧👏 i also studied grammar as well! I cover that in my other videos 😙
@@TokuyuuTV I watched it afterwards, great work btw !
Thank you so much!! And thanks for watching my videos 🤧
Wanikani was a godsend for me, something about the routine of it made it really easy to drill consistently. Got to level 60 in 2021
Wow, this video is so well rounded with the advices it gives. It basically talks about all the things I've been learning since I began studying Japanese, like about making stories for the kanji, practicing some kanji writing at least in the beginning, reading to improve reading comprehension even if you know many kanjis and vocabulary, reviewing, and how just immersion is not enough. Nice!
super nice to hear you’re going through the exact same experiences i was going through!! makes learning japanese feel less isolated 🤧 wishing you all the best on your language journey!! 🥳
I already speak 5 languages but as an European I felt that it's not enough so here I am starting my Japanese journey. So exited!
Wowww 5 languages, that’s incredible!! And super exciting you want to make Japanese your 6th 🤧 you’ll definitely have an advantage having so much experience with languages! If you haven’t learned an asian language before, just keep in mind that they’re quite different from European languages so it’s important to be patient with the results. But because of that it’s even more fun and rewarding to learn 😙 good luck on yet another language journey!! 🥳
Good luck! I also know 5 and am studying Korean. It's not easy but it can be fun!
@@TokuyuuTV I'm at 9 language including Korean and Chinese and I'm an absolute beginner in those languages.
@Liana : polyglot hug! What are your languages?
@@ircensko7324 like your mother
Gotta be honest, I am already pretty advanced in the language (not fluent yet), but if this was your first video I can see you getting to be a big RUclipsr. Even though all the information for me was way too basic I just had to stay til the end simply because of the videography and just your charisma. You’re really entertaining and fun to watch, keep at it :)
Wowwwwww thank you so SO much for the absolutely lovely comment, Jose!! I honestly don’t think this video deserves so much praise - i look back on it looking at all the things I could’ve done better 😩 but i truly appreciate you taking the time to watch it AND leave such a heart-warming comment. Also amazing that you’ve made such progress in Japanese already, keep up the awesome work! 🥳🎉
Japanese pod 101 is where it's at man. The Hiragana video is so well constructed and applies many modern tactics for learning new material.
Japanesepod101 is such a good resource 😩👏 love them
1:45 Japanese sentences actually use 5 writing systems: Kanji, Hiragana, Katakana, Romaji, and Arabiasūji. Although Romaji is often thought of as a way for people from outside Japan to write Japanese words (e.g. ohayou, onegaishimasu, arigatou), it's actually used by Japanese people to include Latin letters and sometimes whole words in Japanese (I know T-shirt uses T, but I forgot what "shirt" in Japanese is 😅). Arabiasūji is responsible for the usage of Arab numbers in Japanese. Obvious examples are the months, days, time, etc. In "5月", the "5" is written using Arabiasūji and "月" is a Kanji.
Oooo very interesting point! I hadn’t even realized that roman letters have worked their way into regular Japanese - the Tシャツ example made a lot of sense!! I also never considered the Arab numbers as an alphabet, but I suppose it is a set of symbols as well 😮 luckily both Roman letters and Arab numbers are quite universal so they don’t add too much to the task of learning Japanese 😝
Arabian numbers can really be considered a "writing system"? It's just a number system.
@@MrBeiragua well atabiasuuji literally means arab numbers...
@@MrBeiragua it's a script for mathematics , Hindu\indian version, western vs eastern Arabic numerals are diff, coupled that with
Edit sino Xenic numerals then you're good to go.
Most abjad letter also contains initialism\mnemonics, like 'ayn is eye, while Greek version of letter contains numbers just like the abjad Greek got it from ultimately from Phoenician.
Great video. I've been studying properly for 3 years and taking online classes for 2 of those (speaking and listening to others). And it's so hard. I don't have any confidence in myself but you've given me another boost of motivation I needed. Thank you :)
Good for you for keeping up the studying for 3 years, that’s amazing!! I know japanese can feel frustratingly difficult at times, especially when you’ve already put in so much time into it 😩 but i guarantee you if you just stay consistent with the studying you will slowly see the gains. Keep up the awesome work 🥳
@@TokuyuuTV はい。ありがとうございます。私は日本語を聞くのと日本語を話すのが難しいだと思います。でも、頑張ります。
This was absolutely awesome! Just started my journey into the Japanese language last week. This video is one of the best I've seen. Thanks!
ahhhhh thank you so much for your kind words!! really glad you found it helpful🥺 good luck on your japanese learning journey!! 🥳✊
8 days in and hiragana is almost in my head. reading them is ok but slow with 4 or 5 exceptions for what I dont have a proper metaphor yet. And the crucial thing thats slowing me down here is that there seem to be no realy good tools for german native speakers to learn this^^ thank god im good enough with english at least.
woooo 8 days and already getting use to hiragana is amazing!! and yeah for sure, i imagine a lot of the resources are in english, but awesome that you’re already multilingual 😝
the exact same thing happened to me when i applied for the N3 test. I didnt know about the time limit at all and even if i could read everything, i was too slow, and failed the test because of 10 unanswered questions. I retook it the next year and finally succeeded, now im on the road for the N2 test. Your studying method is similar to mine, i write the meaning the strokes and the hiragana for every new kanji i learn and in another sheet, i draw it over and over and over again. Then i go to my textbooks and if i see the kanji (or the hiragana) again and cant write it/know what it means, i go back and repeat the whole process. The tip of writing the components of each kanji is a good idea and im gonna try it soon. I admit ive been a little bit lazy with my japanese studies these past few months, due to my new work schedule, but i'll get there!
congrats on passing N3, that’s huge!!! and im glad you can relate to my experience, i have no idea why I didn’t think to make sure i could read fast enough 😭💀 yeahhhh a full work schedule can make studying really tough, just gotta do your best to fit even just a little bit in every day! wishing you the best in your N2 journey 🤧
Hi! I can't believe this is your first video! It's really helpful as it's really just talking about the hardest part aka 'kanji', the way you delivered the content is soothing and clear, and the way you've learned japanese is actually simple, watching this makes me believe in myself more that i can become fluent in japanese! Right now i'm aiming to get an n5 first! Good luck for your future videos! ありがとう！
Been doing rtk for a few weeks now and it really is crazy to see how many Kanji I recognize in writing with only the 450 or so I have memorized now. Those statistics for newspapers comprehension make me feel a lot better about the road ahead. I agree with your point on immersing after you have the basics. By gaining a recognition of most Kanji it will be much easier to pick it up when you see it in natural context (manga, novels, signs etc)
Wowww seems like you’re making really good pace on learning those kanji 😮❗️ and yeah it’s crazy how many kanji you’ll recognize with just knowing 450, it feels super rewarding seeing the studying pay off right away. A lot of people think immersion is magic but it aint 😪 but once you put in the time to build the foundation it’s really good for review. Keep up the awesome work!! 🥳👏👏
I've found that since 99% of my interactions with Japanese these days are over the internet or through the media. This means that the only time I was ever hand writing anything was in my own study. Maybe it's dumb, but I usually just focus most of my efforts being able to type the language more than writing by hand as it's what I do most of the time anyway.
I agree 100%! A lot of Japanese people I meet also say they can’t write as well anymore cause they just type anyways 😝 but i did find that writing out the characters helped me remember them!
Why is your channel so underrated this channel is worth millions of followers
I think you must reach more people
Thank you so much! I’m Thai and I’m trying to study both English and Japanese right now. Aside from your fluency in Japanese, I find you’re also a professional of making the video. Moreover, I don’t know why, but your English accent sounds rather understandable to me. So, No reason not to follow this amazing Japanese study guide channel! ♥️♥️
Thank you so much for watching my video, and taking the time to leave such a nice comment!! 🤧🥺 I’m really glad you find my English easy to understand! It already seems like your English is really good, so you’re doing a fantastic job at learning languages!! 🥳 good luck on both you Japanese and English learning journeys!! 😙
สู้ๆครับ Fighto!
Hi! I just started learning Japanese a month ago and it's been really challenging so far, I'm still struggling with my hiragana and katakana. Consistency is key for sure, so I'll come back whenever I don't feel like studying anymore. Thanks for the video and I hope you release new content soon!
Japanese is really hard at first - don’t be too hard on yourself! There’s so much to get use to. But you once you do it for a while and get into a rhythm of studying, the path will begin to look clearer 😙 stay patient and consistent, you got this!! 🥳 ill be cooking up a new video in the near future 🧑🍳
You can do it ❤️
I'm halfway through the video and this is so so informative. going back!!!
Extremely Useful. My parents (both Japanese natives) wanted me to study kanji because I want to go to university in Japan one day. I know how to write the kanji but in the end, I can't read it so practicing with hiragana first is going to be extremely helpful
It’s awesome that you can write the kanji, and I love that you have a goal of going to a Japanese university - that’s a great goal to have!! 🥳 definitely start with getting comfortable reading hiragana and katakana, and then slowly integrate more and more kanji, starting with the most common ones! Ultimately you just gotta give yourself as much exposure as possible 😙 im glad you found my video helpful! 🤧
Oh interesting, for me it's the other way around. I can read Kanji but I don't know how to write it 😅
Reading is more important than writing nowadays with phones and computers, so if you can read kanji then you’re doing amazing!! 🥳
@@landhausidyll3185 That's totally me ^^'
@@TokuyuuTV I can but sometimes I struggle reading them when I actually understand them in a conversation x)
the editing of this vid was top notch :0 feeling inspired to go and conquer kanji now 🏃♀️❗️
N3 kanji don't stand a chance 🙅♂️💯
the way Japanese looked on the kindle is reason enough to learn the language... so beautiful. Just started learning through Pimsleur and watching anime. Your video helped me to realize that I should invest in a good textbook, thank you!
i know right?? the characters are so pretty, and the way they always line up perfectly 😭😩👌 glad my video was helpful!!
A bit random, but for anyone who needs to get faster at reading, i really recommend to do karaoke. Just search up the jp title of the song alongside ニコカラ or カラオケ. I found this really helped me because it forces you to read quicker to keep up with the song, and if you sort of butcher it it’s easy to go back and retry. I can tell the improvement it gave me from going back to the first song I did, where i remember having to slow it down because i couldn’t read fast enough. Now it’s a breeze. And also, if you have the vocal on, it could help you with shadowing.
nicokara really works for me
I love the idea!! Definitely a great idea to make reading practice fun if you love singing. Just gotta be aware that once you’ve memorized a song, you gotta force yourself to actually read the lyrics and not just say it from memory 😝
@@TokuyuuTVyeah thats true LOL, i find i usually only memorise a few lines though, so i haven’t really had that trouble yet!
This is how some Mongolian sumo rikishi credit learning Japanese faster.
Awesome video, very helpful content for such a new channel and nicely put together. I’ve been studying Japanese off and on for nine years and the off periods haven’t helped much. Working my way through Remembering The Kanji for the first time this year and on track to reach 2200 by the end of the year. Feels like it has helped my progress so much compared to all of the previous years. Hopefully I’ll join you in the N1 ranks someday!
Ahhhhh for sure, when there are off periods it feels like you gotta play catch-up just to get back where you left off 😪 Amazing job with working through RTK so consitently!! Consistency is definitely key and it sounds like you're killing it! Keep up the awesome work and I'm confident you'll join the N1 club 🥳👏👏
Wow, your first video??? Super helpful! I just started learning Japanese - day 34 baby! I use Duolingo and the Genki books. And yesterday I can officially say I know all the basic hiragana and katakana!! I write hiragana and katakana every day, and when I learn a new word in duolingo I write it on an index card and turn it into a flashcard! I wanna get a little bit more familiar with combo letters before starting Kanji but this was a huge help for when I do decide to take on Kanji!
ahhh really glad you found my video helpful!! 🤧
and congrats on learning hiragana and katakana, that’s a huge hurdle that a lot of people don’t clear! 🥳🎉 love that you’re making flashcards, definitely a great way to review what you’ve learned. Keep up the awesome work!!
Informative - so many resources available to help learn Japanese. Looking forward to sharing your journey to Japan through future videos 😎
I have practiced writing kanji and recognizing kanji meaning by using Anki. I have done all Jōyō kanji). During this time I also learn words and sentences from JLPT tango deck and Living language. They give me listening practice (also very important). And now I have begun to practice Japanese words using kanji (WaniKani anki deck).
Wowww sounds like you have a really fantastic study routine set up!! And huge congratulations to finishing all the Joyo kanji, that’s amazing! 🥳🎉 keep up the awesome work 😙
Your video seemed the most authentic japanese study tips! Thanks! I’m more motivated 😊
absolutely thrilled to hear that, thank you so much!! 🥺🤧 good luck on your language adventure!! 🥳✊
All I can say is thanks for the effort, thanks for the video bro. I have many times found myself being demotivated after thinking how hard it is to learn Japanese but I never felt like giving up. I’m thrilled for the task and down to learn it no matter what. I’m glad I am already following most of the stuff you taught in this video. All you need is patience and practice 🎉 gg. W.
i love your mentality. I too often felt demotivated when i felt like my japanese wasn’t good enough, but never once genuinely considered giving up. You’re 100% right that practice and patience is the ultimate key. No matter how big the task it, as long as you’re consistent, you’ll get there 🙏 keep up the awesome work!! 🥳
@@TokuyuuTV thank you for the heart and taking out time to reply me! Yes indeed!! :)
Absolutely love your energy! Makes me feel motivated just listening to you.
Hope you keep up the great videos
Thank you so much for the kind words!! 🤧 I think i could have presented a lot better in this video, but im glad you still enjoyed it 😝 ill definitely be keeping up videos so stay tuned!!
okay thanks a lot TokuyuuTV, i just finished hiragana today and since am really good at memorizing things, katakana and kanji will be interesting
I love studying kanji. It's like a puzzle. Each day you a add a piece to your puzzle. While I dare to say that 5 Kanji/day is too much to endure if you begin at zero. The review cards (I use KKLC and the KKLC Anki deck) pile up pretty quickly. I would say 3/day is more realistic. Makes 2 years for all Kanji. My personal goals is something between 2-3 years for all 2300 Kanji of the KKLC. Patience is important. Unrealistic goals will result in burn out and quitting.
I went to Japan in spring 2023 and I was at Kanji 600 in the Kodansha Kanji Learner's Course at that time. I could already recognize and read so many Kanjis. Menu on the plane and restaurants, museums, konbini etc.
I studied 全 and 新 long ago but studied 完 recently. No I know why @8:42 the Shinkanzen series is called 新完全 series. Damn :D
Or I went to 21th century museum in Kanazawa to see Alex Da Corte's "Fresh Hell" exhibition. Bought a shirt at the museum shop. On the back it said. 新鮮な地獄. The only Kanji I didn't know at this point was 獄. Now I know what it means.
That's what I mean when I said Kanji is like a puzzle. It challenging but fun to put the puzzle together.
I love your attitude. I can’t agree more that learning kanji is all about patients, and i think 2-3 kanji is perfect if you start at zero. And i love how you see the kanji you don’t know as a missing piece of the puzzle that’s fun to figure out, rather then ANOTHER kanji you don’t know, which is how i felt sometimes 😝
Keep up the amazing work!!! 🥳
I'm a senior in college and I just started taking Japanese courses this semester since I finally had room in my schedule to do it. I self studied a little before, but being a student, everything got in the way. I hope that once I've graduated I'll be able to focus more on learning since hopefully I'll have a job where my work stays at work, unlike having homework and studying while in school. The main reasons for wanting to learn Japanese is to be able to communicate in online Japanese communities and to eventually be able to read untranslated novels. Seriously, having to wait YEARS for official translations of things is so annoying. Sometimes fan translations are ok, though.
My Japanese class really hasn't begun kanji yet. I believe we will after the midterm, though. We've learned a couple already, but we've been encouraged just to focus on the hiragana spellings of them, and in some cases we were prohibited from writing the kanji even if we knew it. My biggest concern though is that I'll be able to recognize kanji when I see it, but never quite remember how to write it. And stroke order too, I'm not sure how important it *really* is, but even with hiragana and katakana, for some I don't use the correct order, but rather what feels more natural to me. My handwriting isn't sloppy, so it still comes out looking the same. Would Japanese people be able to tell? Maybe. Do I care? Nope. If they can read it is all that matters to me.
dangggg I didn’t know some translations literally take years to come out 😭😭 awesome to hear you were finally able to fit japanese into your schedule and start your journey!! and I wouldn’t worry about being able to write kanji, since typing is used 98% of the time reading is much more important! wishing you all the best on your journey 🥳
日本語の文字を奇麗に書きたいなら書き順はとても大事だと思います。
しかしそうでないなら正しくない書き順でもいいと思います。
ちなみに日本人は文字の書き順をとても重要視してます。
間違った書き順はすぐにわかります。
If you want to write Japanese characters neatly, the stroke order is very important.
However, if you don't, I think it is okay to write in an incorrect stroke order.
By the way, Japanese people consider stroke order very important.
Incorrect stroke order is easily recognized.(DeepL)
Dude, awesome video! So well-researched, so learner-oriented. I really appreciate it!
really glad you enjoyed it!! been studying it for 9 years now, so just sharing my knowledge 😝
I was hesitant at first because I thought this was another video with a super click-baity title. BUT, this was actually an outstanding video. I'm currently learning Japanese at University, and the advice you give in this video is very good! 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 Great video, aaaaaand even more impressive it's your first RUclips video!
I started studying Japanese N5 in year 8 and I’m taking it for GCSE, it’s so easy, the past papers are contain most of the kanji for JLPT N5 and the basics from JLPT N4
That’s amazing that you find it so easy!! 🥳 I hope you continue your Japanese learning journey beyond the GCSE too; there’s so much more to learn and it only feels more and more rewarding!
I really enjoyed this video, and it’s even more impressive that it’s your first video!
im really glad you enjoyed my video 🤧 and thank you so much!! only more to learn from here about making videos 😙
One thing that might have been missed or maybe wasn't a thing when the video was made is that the keyboards, at least for android, now let you draw out Japanese characters and they are actually pretty accurate. So if you have a decent understanding of stroke order and how to draw radicals, you can just use your android phone to draw the kanji on the Japanese keyboard and look it up that way.
It makes looking up kanji SO MUCH faster. There are so many tools out there these days to make learning kanji far more manageable than there were even just a few years ago.
yes, definitely being able to draw the kanji makes looking it up a lot faster! i still find this is a bit tedious to do with every kanji, which is why i really like the tap-to-reveal function on kindle or other apps 🤧
I passed my N3 in 2015. After that, I felt like I hit a huge plateau in my learning of Japanese and it's been really hard to make any progress ever since. I'm trying to push through and not get discouraged, but it's easier said than done TT_TT
First of all, huge congrats to passing the N3, that’s an amazing accomplishment!! 🥳 i SUPER get the intermediate plateau, it feels like no progress is being made (although that’s far from the truth!). I’ll actually be making a video on this in the near future, so stay tuned 😉
N3? Why bother go further than that besides if you wish to work in japan? it should be enough to understand almost any japanese you'd hear
@@evryatis9231 it's just a personal goal and a way to motivate myself to continue learning Japanese
Sometimes hitting a goal or passing a milestone can actually slow your progress down, a lot of times when I'm writing code once I get the intended functionality to usable state I often abandon fleshing the intended features out or patching bugs/logical errors simply because I can work around them. It's kinda the same with bodybuilding, you hit a personal best every third or fourth gym session and wind up celebrating with cheat meals or snacks basically walking back any intended weight loss(still building muscle but also adding unwanted fat back)
@@evryatis9231 a lot of Japanese students dont want to work in Japan at all, xD.
I wanted to learn a really hard language to consume the lots of time I have on my hands but I wasn’t really looking forward to kanji… thanks to you kanji doesn’t seem like an impossible and unachievable task anymore !!
im really happy to hear my video helped break kanji down for you 🤧🥺 they’re definitely intimidating at first, but once you get started, you begin to see the patterns 😙
This guy inspires me to continue self teaching myself Japanese. Been going at it for two years now. Coincidentally, my grandparents came over earlier today and I’m half Japanese (dad’s side), so I spoke Japanese with my grandma for a bit and it was awesome. Really just motivates me to continue learning.
Wowwww amazing that you’ve been keeping it up for 2 years now!! Your grandparents must be so happy to be able to speak some japanese with you 😙 being able to speak with them more fluently is an amazing goal to have as well! 🤧 and im beyond humbled to be able to inspire you, but it sounds like you’re already putting it most of the effort already without my help!! Keep up the awesome work 🥳👏
I'm going to Japan soon to visit my moms side because I'm half too but I can't hold a conversation in Japanese 😔
hey your first vid rocks so professional, well edited and presented. most first vid I saw from other japanese learning channel were made from scrap haha while this one feels like you already have 100k subs
I'm glad you found the video professional!! I studied a lot of channels that i liked and tried to make my first video as good as possible 🥵 thank you so much for the positivity!! 😄
Wow now this has 1m views.
I really appreciate this video as someone trying to learn the language. Thank you, I’ll follow your tips for sure!
I’m glad my video could be helpful for you!! Thanks for watching 🤧
I chose Japanese as my foreign language for my freshman year. I was able to gather a lot of the basics, however, the class was an online one where interaction was difficult. I’m hoping to be able to continue my studies on my own (and without the pressure of grades). Thanks
Awwww that’s amazing you chose Japanese!! Yeahhh online interaction can be difficult 😪 it’s definitely possible to learn on your own! You just gotta make sure you set up a schedule for yourself so you stay consistent 😌 good luck on your journey!! 🥳
@@TokuyuuTVcan I get job in Japan if I live in Pakistan and if I am turning 49 year old??
JLPT N1はとんでもない難関のように思ってる人もいると思いますが、1000時間ほど勉強すれば合格します。
ここが非常に誤解されやすい部分なのですが、N3とN2とN1は難易度が違うだけでなく質が異なります。N3は日常的な会話や読み書きの基礎であり、N2はより幅広い状況の会話や読み書きの基礎であり、N1は専門的な会話や読み書きの基礎をなします。だから全く目的が異なるのです。
単にN1がN2より高度でN2がN3より高度という訳ではなく、N3しか取ってなくて漢字が数百個しか分からないような人でもその後日本語を使いまくることでペラペラになる人もいますよ。そんな人もいざ日本に住むとなるとやはり困ります。生活するにはN2相当の基礎は欲しいですね。一方、N1が本当に必要な人は専門的な職業に就く人などですね。例えば日本語で込み入った議論や交渉を丁寧に行うにはN1くらいは欲しい所です。N1の日本語なんて普段使わないものばかりだよと言って軽んじる人がいますが何を言ってるんだって感じですね。笑い。
大切なのは目的に応じた基礎を身につけることと、それで終わらせずに実際に日本語を使って練習を重ねて自在に使いこなせるようになることです。
writing every kanji down multiple times sounds daunting and one of the reasons I quit my first time trying to learn. Learning Kanji through learning vocabulary hits two birds with one stone and, for me, seems to be the faster route to understanding more of what you read. Of course, you won't have a deeper understanding of each kanji but it's good if you simply want to communicate with natives or watch japanese TV faster
yes, i agree learning kanji with vocab is a great way to learn cause you learn two things at once! The only drawback is that you’ll end up sometimes learning more difficult and rare kanji before easier ones since you’re learning in order of vocab rather than kanji. But as long as that doesn’t bother you then i think it’s a fine way to study 🥳
Great vid! I want to sound fancy when ordering sushi...
I'll be sure to upload the full series ASAP before you go to Japan 🥵
Waiters in Japanese restaurants where I‘m at are Vietnamese and don‘t speak a word Japanese. Welp, learned 2000 Kanji for nothing then. Sucks to be me.
Most sushi restaurants around the world (especially in western countries) are not even owned by Japanese people so chances are they wouldn't understand a single word
ちなみにタッチパネルで注文できます
Being a Taiwanese is such an advantage for me. I can understand all the kanjis and also a lot of words in japanese are pronounced or similar to the way we pronounce them in Taiwanese (dialect). It's because the dialect we speak is an acient Chinese dialect and Japan took a lot of words over.
When I was in Japanese class, it reminded me a lot of my childhood since only my grandparents spoke dialect to me. 😄
Also Taiwan was colonized by Japan for 50 years so my grandmother spoke fluent Japanese as well.
oh woww i had no idea kanji readings in taiwanese dialect were that similar to japanese!! that’s definitely a nice advantage. and im glad it’s a nostalgic feeling as well 😂
Same goes to Cantonese, quite a lot of kanji words sounds like it (also a dialect in southern China, like Taiwanese , which the language originally form the area right across the sea between China and Taiwan)
Dude this video is amazing. I've just beginning to study japanese and you've been so helpful.
Keep up the great work!
absolutely thrilled to hear my video has helped you!! keep up the awesome studying, im rooting for you 🥳👏‼️
As someone who's stuck in that weird N4-N3 plateau (finished Genki II and did a little bit after that) would love a video on going from beginner to intermediate and textbook/resource recommendations for self-study 🙏
congrats on finishing genki 2 (and beyond), that’s amazing!! my most recent video is actually specifically about the language plateau, so be sure to check it out 😙
TIP:
Everyone learns differently, and the way I learned Hiragana, katakana, and kanji was by writing the same symbol a lot of times. Sometimes I mix it up with other symbols so I could see how my brain remembers them. I suggest writing them in a notebook or paper, not digitally ( Although it is helpful learning it that way too ). I hope this helps people who are learning Japanese as it helped me a lot while learning mine.
Thanks a lot! ♥️♥️♥️
These are valuable advices. 👍👍👍
Me too,writing alots of time repeatly 😂
日本語を勉強してくださってる方がこんなにもいらっしゃってとっても嬉しくなりました！私も英語の勉強頑張らなきゃなと思います。
結構いるよ！アニメやゲームのおかげで日本文化世界中人気だよ😝英語の勉強頑張って〜‼️
As a native Chinese speaking guy with a pass in basic level (N4) Japanese, I have lost the momentum to go any further (but still I keep watching Japanese anime daily). It's incredible how you keep learning and got N1 pass finally, especially for people who have never learned kanji/chinese before.
thank you so much!!! and congrats on getting n4, that’s a real solid foundation!! 🥳🙌 im sure you’re picking up some new words here and there through anime 😉
New subscriber for sure, can't wait for the rest of the series. I've seen so many Japanese-tubers, but it's always good to have other perspectives - language learning is such a personal experience! よろしくお願いします！
(Edit - Have been studying Japanese pretty hardcore for the last two years or so, and generally studying for a lot longer. Would consider myself barely conversational, definitely not fluent.)
Hey Derek, thanks so much for the support! I'm working on the next video as we speak 🥳 Glad that my video was able to bring some new perspective, I totally agree that everyone has their own way of tackling language learning!
Studying hardcore for 2 years is impressive dedication 👏 the fully conversational/fluent part of Japanese can take a while to come, but you've definitely achieved the hardest part already. Keep up the great work and conversing will slowly feel easier and easier.
I'm actually after writing N5 (I don't have results yet) and I think this video is pretty good and helpful. Thnak you :)
This is the first video that has explained the whole process without making it seem like a too daunting task... I have only recently started learning Kanji through Wanikani - the mnemorics and ready-made pacing are really helping me personally. I only started learning because I want to be able to read some of the book series I love without having to wait for translations at every point... Hopefully that will continue motivating me since I have been moaning over this for years now without trying to do anything about it. How did you manage to stay motivated through all of your learning?
im glad you found my video so helpful, and congrats on finally starting the big task of mastering kanji!! 🥳 it’s def good to keep in mind an end goal, like reading raw material without waiting for translation. On top of that, i found that breaking my kanji goals down into smaller chunks (per JLPT level, or breaking down big levels into even smaller chunks) helped make the daily work feel like it was actually progressing me.
wishing you all the best on your journey, you got this!! 🥳✊
Which app is best for learning kanji
The kanji app
I just came across this video today! It’s really impressive what you’ve managed to accomplish and 7 years is a long time to dedicate to something so I’m sure you were/are very passionate about it! What were you reasons for wanting to learn Japanese if I might ask? I’m personally a viet/American so English wasn’t my technical first language but being raised in the U.S. has made it my predominant. I speak enough Viet to get by, and by immersing myself in a cultural exchange once I understand basic Spanish. I just started my journey in Japanese because of how much anime I’ve been watching and I’d love to visit Japan one day and not feel completely lost :) thanks for the video!
wowwww i can tell how passionate for languages you are!! would definitely be incredible if you spoke english, viet, spanish, and japanese!! 😭 i actually made a separate video on my reasons for learning japanese😌 thank you for your lovely comment, and good luck on your japanese language journey! 🥳
I'm not studying Japanese but I feel like I can relate to the struggle of learning kanji. I'm currently studying Mandarin and hanzi is quite a challenge. But it's actually fun :) I love writing characters so much.
Im glad you can still relate to my video!! And that’s awesome that you find writing the characters fun 🤧 ultimately that will help keep you going the most!! Also, Chinese has more consistent character readings than Japanese so you can enjoy that benefit 😝
Crazy that this popped up. I started learning the radicals for fun and then realised they make very good hints for mnemonics just like you mentioned. Glad to know other people have found the same thing to be true. Also find it extremely relatable when there is seemingly no radical that fits part of a kanji 🤣
In as few words as possible: It is not the Kanji (75% of standard Kanji are composed of only 51 symbols. That is ONE LESS than English, which has 52 characters, large and small), it is the VOCABULARY. Even if you memorize all the standard Kanji, you still need to learn the many combinations in which they find themselves. Doing that is the biggest job of all.
Interesting stat about kanji! But I don’t think it’s fair to compare it to English, since the different combinations of those japanese radicals create totally different readings. I do agree that learning vocab is tougher tho, it feels more endless 😩
@@TokuyuuTV Re: "I don’t think it’s fair to compare" - a different combo of roman letters creates a different reading too, so the point John made seems pretty fair. Anyway, interesting conversation.
I do only five new words or kanji in anki a day. Some people think that's dreadfully slow and ramping it up to 30+ a day, but more quantity will only hurt your studying unless you have amazing memory or don't mind studying for multiple hours a day.
The most important thing is consistency. You've got to study every day. Even if all you do that day is a five minute refresher to keep things fresh in your mind.
Committing thousands of moon hieroglyphs to long term memory is the hardest part, that's why consistent studying is so important.
I 100% agree and love your mentality!! I definitely prefer someone doing 5 vocab/kanji quality studying over 30+ quickly studying. With the amount of content it takes to learn japanese, consistency is absolutely irreplaceable. You just can’t sprint through it. Keep up the amazing work!! 🥳
i initially started studying japanese in 2020 using only duolingo. didnt have any big plans, just decided i wanna at least give it a shot. dropped it again months later, life hasnt been treating me well and i had neither time nor energy (nor any motivation) to improve anymore - in any field of life. this year everything has been improving for me so far and i knew i was eventually gonna give JP another shot - this video will be my main motivation to do so. i'll save it in my notes to rewatch it another time. thank you for the information you shared with us, knowing the exact numbers of JLPT kanji and finding out what furigana is made the journey seem a lot less intimidating. thank you for motivating me to do one of the things i've been wanting to do for over a decade now!
Thank you for taking the time to write this absolutely wonderful comment!! 🤧 im sorry to hear that life was hard for you back then, but im beyond happy that things are turning around! 😙 im also glad my video was able to clear some things up for you - it’s definitely a lot better when you know exactly what you need to tackle! Wishing you all the best on your journey, good luck!!! 🥳🎉
Hey Tokuyuu, I would also like to start memorizing Kanji, and want to use your way of learning using writing. How do you keep track of the kanji you learned from the past 3 days?
glad to hear you want to try it out!
i recorded all the kanji i learned with all their readings on sheets of paper, and just looked at the latest 3 days worth that i added 😌
6:45 That Kanji(Chinese character) is radical for "鬯‘’ It's a container for taking liquor in ancient China. Tell the truth as a Chinese, I don't know ”鬯“ this character until I read a novel of a writer from Hong Kong called Liu yichang (劉以鬯 Lau YeeCheung in Cantonese）。By the way, I needn't spend too much time in learning Kanji because I had learn Chinese character when I was a child. You can learn Chinese from Japanese , too
Wowww i had no idea that character actually existed as a stand-alone!! Container ✍️ for ✍️ liquor ✍️ ahhhh it’s really nice to have a background in kanji before studying my japanese!! Maybe if i learn Chinese one day i can benefit as well 😝
@@TokuyuuTV This is “鬯” specific explanation of this character:
ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%AC%AF%E9%83%A8
You can see "鬯“ this character just like a container for taking liquor oracle Chinese characters. Haha, Chinese character isn't difficult, it just like still life sketching, it's a kind of Kanji （character） called“象形字” （hieroglyph）
By the way, you're learning Chinese when you learning Japanese Kanji, BECAUSE MOST OF CHINESE CHARACTERS ARE THE SAME AS JAPANESE KANJI
i remember when i learn about 100+ kanji from japanese AV, tbh i happy about that but it just... dumb idea...
how did you learn kanji from AV?? like the titles?? honestly just impressive 😂
i started learning Japanese ...Arigator
Thank you for this!!! I've been struggling to learn from studying on my own and I've been feeling down about my progress. Subscribed forsure! Thank you once again!!!
Awwww im glad it helped!! You definitely should feel proud of your progress, it just feels slow sometimes 😪 you got this ✊‼️
Uhm, so stroke orders matter?! rip me....Well I only write to study and learn faster so it doesnt matter that much..right?
You don’t have to, but I still think you may as well learn it because i do find it helps me understand the characters more and it gets predictable over time.
Great video. I learned most of my Japanese from my fluent girlfriend. Have you ever dated a Japanese girlfriend? (Or boyfriend - no assumptions of course)
I have dated a Japanese girl before, which definitely helped with practicing. I think it's really sweet that you are learning Japanese from your girlfriend; I'm sure she appreciates you taking an interest in it!
Thanks you so much!!! This video is exactly what I needed, this helps me so much with understanding how to structure my learning experience so that I don't lose focus and get stuck somewhere! I really wanted to learn Japanese but it looked daunting because of the many kanji & (in my opinion) hard pronunciations! So I was hesitant but after seeing this video I now feel like I have the tools to start studying the language with a chance of success!
You my friend have earned my subscription!
absolutely thrilled to hear my video was able to help you out so much! 🤧 it definitely feels overwhelming in the beginning, esp when you don’t have any guidance on which direction to go or how to go about it.
the direction is never going to be 100% clear, but you just gotta keep putting in the work and it’ll get clearer and clearer! 🥳
i just witnessed satan writings XD 3:17
literally how it feels like start learning kanji 😭😂
Who's learning Japanese for anime💀
Me 🙋♂️
@@TokuyuuTV I'm shocked u responded but great video as always
Anime and vocaloid. I've been a fan way too long to not know at least basic level.
fantastic video, really. all clear, well explained, easy to follow despite the heavy topic. well done! thanks a lor for sharing
you are so sweet, thank you so much!!❤️🩹💞💞
awwwww thank yOU so much 🤧🥺🫶
This is gonna be a big help for someone like me who just started learning kanji. I was fortunate enough to have watched this video.
Im beyond happy my video was able to help you!! 😙 wishing you all the best on your japanese language journey 🥳
Your video popped up on my recommended and while watching i could not tell this was your first video, your energy was great! It was as if you've been doing this for a while! Keep up the great work brother, studying my japanese now!
ahhhhhhh that’s sooo nice to hear you say, thank you so much 😭😭😭✨ doing my best to make the videos better and better! good luck on your studies, you got this!! 😤💪‼️
Thank you, for breaking this down in this perspective, this gives me hope
Im glad my video was able to help you!! 🥳
Thanks for the tips. I'm also a beginner in Japanese. And my biggest struggle is remembering the Kanji characters , so I'm writing everything in stroke order plus it's meaning and sample sentences. I've been focus doing this method for almost 3months and it's working for me. Maybe after a year, I can read, write and speak Nihongo and can be N4 level after months or a year.
that’s awesome you’ve been sticking to it for 3 months already now!! 🥳👏 sample sentence definitely help give the characters a lot of context. Keep up the awesome work and you’ll make amazing gains for sure 💪
Good video!! I am following a similar path to what you described. One thing I'd add though that has helped me, is to learn Kanji in groups, there are a lot of Kanji that are similar to each other and only have 1 different Radical, a lot of them also have the same sounds and are used in similar themes of words. Rather than memorize ~10 completely different Kanji and stressing over each, you can easily triple that amount. I found it much more effective as long as you keep the same repetition like what this video mentions because it can be easy to confuse symbols when they all look similar so you have to be careful.
Im glad you found a system that works for you so well!! From what I remember, RTK uses a similar system where it groups kanji by similar radicals. I’ve always been a little hesitant to recommend this, since i know if it were me I’d definitely mix them up 😂 but i can see how if you can keep them separate it’s a lot more efficient
it is absurd how good is the quality of this video, and is just his first one!
Ahhhhhh thank you so much!! Still a lot of things I could’ve done better but i put a lot of time into it at least 😝
Even for your 1st video you are a lot better speaker, the way you explained was well understanding, great video.
thank you so much!! im glad you found my speaking style easy to understand 😙
Really enjoyed watching this video. Very well explained by a handsome young guy... what's not to like! Subscribed!