A lesson for beginners -- Days of the week in Japanese. I have fond memories of when I first started learning Japanese. For me, the Japanese language seemed so cultured and  mysterious. I found it very attracting and desperately wanted to learn. Yet, learning the basics wasn’t easy. Just trying to learn the days of the week seemed like a challenge. Eventually, I discovered that the more I studied the easier it became for me to retain words and progress. But those early days were hard. Getting my head around the backwards grammar, polite Keigo language and those long greetings took quite a lot of study and effort.

I think the hardest aspect to learning the Japanese language is breaking through what I call the “basics threshold”. Most people stop learning a language because they feel that they are not progressing. The basics overwhelm them and they give up. So if you are struggling with the basics of Japanese DON’T GIVE UP. Persist and study everyday for a few more months and you’ll be surprised by how much your understanding of the language will improve. You must allow for some time for the old grey matter to adjust to learning a different language. Study for short periods everyday and do lots of revision to retain what you learn.

Enjoy the lesson -- Days of the week in Japanese.

If you want learn how to read Japanese check out -- http://readjapanesefast.com

If you are looking for something a bit more challenging check out our intermediate course -- http://speakjapanesefluently.com

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjqFn44Qi8M

When I first started studying Japanese, learning and reading Kanji seemed like an unobtainable goal. I struggled with Hiragana and Katakana, and the complexity of Japanese grammar almost had me give up learning the language altogether on numerous occasions. I started studying Japanese well before we had the Internet and spent most of my study time learning from text books. This was a very slow and ineffective way to study.

For me to learn how to read Kanji was indeed a challenge. I had to use a big fat kanji dictionary to find out the readings and  meanings of kanji. It would take me up to 5 minutes to look up and work out the readings and  meanings of one  individual Kanji character. First, I would have to work out the radical of the kanji, correctly determine the stroke number and the go hunting in the dictionary. Eventually, I purchase an electronic Kanji Tank dictionary, but this didn’t make learning Kanji any easier.

An Effective Way To Reading Kanji

In the end, the only way I could effectively learn kanji was have a Japanese native read with me. I would have someone read a very basic article to me, teaching the kanji readings along the way. Then, I would try to read the article back. Every now and then I would get caught with a Kanji, but I would be correctly immediately and I could continue reading. This method turn the standard learning process on its head. Instead of learning kanji in order to read Japanese, I was reading Japanese in order to learn Kanji.

This method was so effective for me that years later I decided to create a product that would teach students how to read Kanji in context using what I call a kanji coaching method. The product is Read Japanese Fast.  I created this product with the help of my wife. Check out the video below.

Want more lessons? Visit http://readjapanesefast.com/

Are you thinking about investing in taking lessons at a Japanese language school? Well, before you fork out several hundred or thousand dollars it would be wise to do plenty of research on where you intend to study.

I studied at language schools in both my home country of Australia and in Japan.  I did a few certificate courses in Australia before moving to Japan. In Japan I studied at a private language school in Tokyo.

I always recommend friends and students interested in learning Japanese to take some free lessons or a short course before investing in a fulltime education at a private Japanese language school.
If you are a beginner level student then finding a short course should be no problem.  If you are currently living in Japan then your local ward office can provide you with information on where you can take lessons for free. If you are living outside of Japan, then try your local community center. Chances are there will be someone conducting a short course on Japanese in your local city.

 Should You Study at a Japanese Language School

Taking a few lessons will give you a good idea of the time committment involved in learning Japanese. Once you are sure you want to learn Japanese    at a Japanese langauge shcool you need to be clear on what you want to learn. Thinking about and setting goals is always a good idea. Here are some questions I recommend you contemplate and answer

• Why do you want to learn Japanese?
• How much time will you have for study?
• Do you want to focus on spoken Japanese or written Japanese?
• Do you want to learn about Japanese culture in the classroom or only language?
• Do you intend to take the JLPT sometime in the future?
• Is it important that you have a native Japanese teacher?

When I lived in Tokyo I found it quite hard to find a language school that could cater to my level which was intermediate at the time. There were plenty of beginner courses that taught all the basics like hiragana, katakana and daily conversation, but I couldn't really find a language school to meet my needs. I ended up joining a school that provided advanced courses for the JLPT.

Taking the JLPT was one of my goals at the time, but the classes were far too advanced for me . I struggled through the lessons and found it very frustrating. I was paying a lot of money for a course that didn't really help me improve as a speaker. Unfortunately, I was far to trusting of the school and believed what they promised. I was unable to change classes and told to hang in there "gambatte" .

I recommend you do plenty of research online and try to find out as much as you can about a Japanese language school before paying any fees. When possible hunt students down prospective language schools and see if they are satisfied with their lessons and teachers. It is not only important that you get your moneys worth, but also that you are inspired to learn at the school you end up attending.

How fluent is your Japanese? Moving from being a basic level Japanese student to a fluent speaker of the language is very difficult. Most students of Japanese fail to attain a high level of fluency. Learning basic greattings a few hundred words is quite easy in any language. But to develop the deep understanding required where you can speak the language in just about every situation is a challenge that can take several years of full-time study .

In the case of Japanese, you’ll find most. The way you understand, study and speak Japanese is about to change. We have the web’s only Intermediate level online Japanese course that will have you speaking like a native in just a few months.

What is Speak Japanese Fluently?

Speak Japanese fluently is an Intermediate Online Japanese language program. It was created for students who can already speak basic Japanese. The program is was built on the premise that for a learning program to be an effective teaching tool it must be based on real life experience from the perspective of a foreigner living in Japan. My personal experience of learning Japanese taught me many things, the most important being understanding the cultural aspects of the Japanese language.

“You’ll never be able to speak Japanese fluently without some understanding of Japan’s – the culture of the language and of the people. You cannot learn these aspects in a text book or at a language school. You either need to live in Japan for several years, or you need someone who has lived in Japan to explain them to you in the context of how they relate to language and communication.”

Out of my own frustration of learning Japanese I decided to develop an Intermediate level online Japanese course that would let you learn the Japanese language as if you were living in Japan. I know that you don’t want to waste time learning grammar rules from text books just to grasp the basics of the language. I know you want to learn real Japanese that will help you communicate at a fluent level. By developing a online Japanese language course based on my real-life experience in Japan, I have helped hundreds of people to achieve their goal of being able to speak fluent Japanese.

Speak Japanese Fluently – An Intermediate Online Japanese Langugae Course

Speak Japanese Fluently Results – Does the Program Really Work?

Take a look at these reviews

“ I’ve determined that Speak Japanese Fluently has an approx. refund rate of 3.89%*, which is exceedingly low and tells us that nearly all buyers were pleased about the product.” - Andy Bland,  .r.ecommended.com 

To learn how to speak Japanese check out my Speak Japanese Fluently Course

We are going to continue our study on Japanese grammar in this post with our third lesson on particles. We are going to take a look at the particle も.

The particle も can be used to indicate similarity as in the words ‘too’ or ‘also’. This particle replaces が or は, when used:

A: 私がえいがすきです。
B: 私もえいががすきです。
A: I like movies
B: I also like movies

This is a reasonably simple use of も, which can also be used in a double patternsuch as in the following sentence:

A: えいががすきですか、おんがくがすきですか。
B: えいがもおんがくもすきです。
A: Do [you] like movies, or do [you] like music?
B: [I] like both movies and music.

Remember that because も marks a similarity to something previously mentioned, you cannot use も out of the blue. It requires a prompt either by someone else, or by something you yourself just said.

A second use of も is after the て form of verbs and verbal adjectives. In this use, も acts as an emphatic contrasting particle, meaning something like the English “even [by/if] …”. The phrase below

“Even [by] leaving now, [you] probably won’t make it.” translates to いま　いっても　まにあわない　でしょう。

There are two special things that concern this particle. One, a special case of this use of も is in combination with the copula です, which becomes でも. We will look at this in a later post.

The second is this particle can be used with question pronouns. Have a look at the examples below:

なに　means “what”, なにも means “anything” when followed by positive verb or “nothing”, when followed by a negative verb.

どこ means “where”, どこも means “anywhere” when followed by a postive verb or “nowhere”, when followed by a negative verb.

だれ　means “who”, だれも means “anyone” when followed by a postive verb or “no one”, when followed by a negative verb.

This rule continues for words like どんな (what kind of?), どっち (which way?), いつ (when?), どうして (why?) and so forth and so forth.

As you can see the simple use of particles can greatly change the context and meaning of the Japanese language. If you have ever taken the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) before you will know one whole section of the grammar test is devoted to particles. Particles are important. So we will continue our study of them. Look forward to the next post on the particle の.

Did you know that you can learn Japanese free online with our videos at Youtube? We have posted 75 videos for learning Japanese. You can learn how to read hiragana and katakana. We have video lessons to teach you Japanese words and phrases. We have samples our our products as well.

In this video lesson you will learn about “housework”. Don’t forget to write a comment.

家事　－　かじ

Key phrases:

せんたくを　しました              -　I did the washing.

そうじきを　かけました       – I vacuumed the floors

せんたくものを　ほしました   – I hung out the washing

トイレを　そうじしました          – I cleaned the toilet

Learning Japanese online is cheapest and most effective way to learn Japanese. I think it is even better than taking private Japanese lessons. There is lots of free quality content, including Japanese podcast lessons, video lessons and lots of blogs and sites teaching Hiragana and Katakana. Start learning Japanese today.

Here are some more blogposts on learning Japanese:

How to learn Japanese

An effective way to learn and remember Japanese vocabulary is to not only to try to memorize particular words, but also to learn how to define them. As students we often become too dictionary dependent and not actually take the time to learn the meanings of new vocabulary. Often we forget new words and as a result become frustrated and get into a negative state of thinking, believing we can’t easily remember new words.

However, we can communicate what we want to say often by defining the word we have forgotten. We do this quite often in our native language when we can’t remember elusive words or when we are just having a mental block. In the process oflearning  the definitons of new words we also improve our chances of remembering new words and reinforce words we already know.

Japanese Vocabulary

This method will work wonders for building your Japanese vocabulary, improving your overall fluency anddevelping  reading skills.

1. Try reading the definitions by yourself
2. Listen to the audio tracks and take mental notes of Kaoru Sensei’s readings
3. Try to read the definitions in the same manner as Kaoru Sensei
4. Find the English translation for each definition
5. Try to recall the definitions from memory
6. Repeat process until you can define each word from memory
7. Watch the Video

Japanese Vocabulary List with Definitions

English Trasnlation

Bully  Excursion  Face  Park  Noisy  Yawn Delicious  Listen  Police  Habit

Want more Japanese vocabulary lessons like these?

If you are not living in Japan or have no Japanese friends learning how to converse in Japanese is quite a challenge. It is quite easy to learn how to read and write kana and kanji, to study grammar and to learn lots of words by yourself. Conversation is different – you need a Japanese person to speak to. In this post we will do some Japanese conversation practice. Hopefully you will learn something new.

A Typical Japanese Conversation

Imagine you are at a train station wanting to go to Shibuya. You have forgotten your watch. You ask a stranger for the time and the time of the next train.

A: すみません。　いま　なんじですか。
B: じゅういちじはんです。
A: すぎのでんしゃ　なにじに　きますか
B: ごふんにきます
A: ありがとう　ございます
B: いいえ

In the above conversation すみません is said to get the strangers attention. Remember すみません can also mean “Thank you” or “I’m sorry” depending on context. In this case it means “Excuse me”.

To ask for the time in Japanese the set phrase なんじですか is used.

なん (what) 　じ (time)　ですか (question particle). いま　means “now”.

If you have studied Japanese numbers you will know that じゅういち is 11. So じゅういちじ　means 11 o’clock. はん means half past. So じゅういちじはんです means “It is 11:30”. です is just the sentence ending particle. Depending on context it can mean “It is”, “They are” and so on.

Let’s have a look at the next line, すぎのでんしゃ　なんじに　きますか. Again this is a time question

すぎ のでんしゃ – means next train. The のis just the possessive particle.

なんじに – What time…

きますか – Come? Here we have the ますform of the plain verb くる, which means “come”. By adding か the sentence becomes a question..

What time does the next train come? – すぎのでんしゃ　なにじに　きますか

Now, for the answer; ごふんにきます. As both the speaker and listener know the subject (the next train) it doesn’t need to be stated in the reply. This is very typical of Japanese. So the answer is something like this – (the train) comes in 5 minutes.

ごふん meaning 5 minutes and the verb きます meaning come.

ごふんにきます　- It comes in 5 minutes

ありがとう　ございます of course means “thank you” and いいえ means “Don’t mention it.”

Here is the conversation in English

A: すみません。　いま　なんじですか。
B: じゅういちじはんです。
A: すぎのでんしゃ　なにじに　きますか
B: ごふんにきます
A: ありがとう　ございます
B: いいえ

A: Excuse me. What time is it?
B: It is 11.30
A: What time does the next train come?
B: In 5 minutes
A: Thank you
B: You’re welcome

Getting Japanese Conversation Practice

If you are in the unfortunate situation where you can’t find a native Japanese speaker to help you with your studies there is one alternative – Japanese TV, particularly dramas. Watching Japanese television dramas is an excellent way to pick up words and learn Japanese conversation dynamics. Japanese converse very differently to westerners. If you watch dramas you can see how Japanese converse in fairly natural every speech. Movies are usually too difficult and the story lines unrealistic. So buy some drama sets on e-bay or get on to youtube and start watching dramas.

Japanese study can be fun and an effective if you use a variety of learning methods. Japanese isn’t easy, but it isn’t that difficult to learn if you use different study methods and approach study with a positive attitude. There many great ways to study Japanese and make the learning process fun and effective.

I recommend you study Japanese everyday with short focused studies sessions. When I say study I don’t mean spending an hour locked in your room learning from a text book. This is not an effective study method. Make your study fun and active. The more active you are with your studies the faster you will learn. Watch videos on you tube and repeat aloud when learning new words, write words you understand when you do listening practice, and speak the language as often as you can even if you are by yourself.

Here a my top seven methods for making fast progress with the Japanese language;

Japanese Dramas: Watch Japanese dramas. Generally, Japanese dramas are pretty boring. The story lines are are often bizarre and the acting somewhat amateur . However, with most Japanese dramas you can learn lots of conversational Japanese and also discover how much Japanese culture influences spoken language.

Japanese Radio: Listen to Japanese radio. There are now heaps of Japanese Internet radio programs you can listen to. Next time you are online do a search for a Japanese online radio station and hit the play button. Even if you don’t understand 99% of what is being said just listen. Eventually you will start to pick up words and phrases. As you listen write words and phrases you can understand or catch. This is a very effective study technique. It won’t be too long before you can understanding most of what is being said.

Learn Hiragana: If you want to make sure you are pronouncing words correctly you must learn the Hiragana syllabary. You can easily learn hiragana in less than a month with all the free stuff on the web. Hiragana is the first important stepping stone in learning how read Japanese.

Skip Romaji: Romaji is a big time waster and will slow your progress down. In fact, Romaji is not even Japanese. It was originally devised to help Japanese write the Japanese language in non-Japanese script for westerns. It was never intend as a means to help students learn Japanese. Romaji should never be taught to students at all save when the pronunciation for the kana is explained. Also keep in mind that Japanese written in romaji does not accurately reflect the way it is written in Japanese.

Learn Kanji: Once you have mastered hiragana you should start learning Kanji. Learning how to read and write Kanji is quite stimulating and enjoyable. It will help you to build vocabulary quickly and improve your understanding of Japanese grammar. Learn stroke order or how to read Kanji in context. Learning stroke order will help to read and understand new Kanji as you progress. Remember that reading Kanji in context should be your goal. Don’t waste hours and hours of study time memorizing all the readings of several hundred.

Make Japanese friends: If you want to learn real Japanese you have to hang out with Japanese people. There are hundreds of Japanese words and phrases that you can only learn from conversing with Japanese people. Go out and find some Japanese and become friends with learn. It is what I did when I first started learning Japanese. Only learn the common readings

Japanese Culture: Learn as much as you can about Japanese culture. This will help you with understanding the Japanese mindset and how Japanese communicate. This is an area so many students undervalue. The Japanese language is so unique due to Japanese culture.

Here are some more blogposts on how to study Japanese:

In order to speak Japanese you obviously need to learn a lot of Japanese words words. Naturally you begin with learning basic Japanese words and then get into words or phrases. Most Japanese greetings and set expressions are quite complex and not basic at all. This is often a problem for students as they feel so overwhelmed with only a few Japanese expressions that they develop a mindset that Japanese is extremely difficult. The problem is students don’t often learn words. I mean they don’t spend time to consider the deep meaning and cultural aspects of Japanese words. There a lot of ways to learn words such as using Japanese language software, books or audio programs. The best way to learn new words is to spend time speaking to Japanese.

Japanese Words Meanings

When living in Japan for a long time as I have there are moments when you discover the real meanings of certain words. They are usually moments of serendipity where you experience Japan - the culture of Japan and what you happen to be doing at that time seem to meet at the perfect moment and then you realize you have made a discovery. This when I feel I am really learning Japanese. One word that I had always found odd and confusing was “Okagesama-de”. You may know this word to mean “Thanks to you”.

It is one of the most common expressions in the vocabulary of the Japanese way, but it is almost always misunderstood by Japanese-speaking foreigners who hear and use it. Japanese routinely use the expression when someone asks them how they are, asks about the health and welfare of a family member; or ask how their business is going, and so on.. Not understanding the true meaning of Okagaesama-de, many foreigners take it personally, presuming that the Japanese, out of politeness and their automatic response to formailites, are actually thanking them. I once often thought this. In fact, I thought it was yet another stupid and meaningless Japanese expression from a socially challenged people.

As with many Japanese words, the misunderstanding arises in the translation of the word. Instead of meaning “thanks to you” in a personal sense, the expression actually means “as luck would have it” or “thank heavens” (in a Buddhist sort of a way). The word is a vestige of the Buddhist concept of fate in the lives of people. It is way of implying that the relationships and life have been properly nurtured and are thriving, and that all is right in the word.

You , as a student or Japanese-speaking foreigner can gain valuable points by using okagasama-de appropriately when to responding to Japanese friends and business contacts. Use this word correctly at the right and people will be impressed. It subtly notes that you are speaking on their cultural wavelength, and gives a warm, positive feeling to your response.

As Japanese don’t do small talk you can impress Japanese and start speaking Japanese with just a small number of Japanese words, phrases and set expressions under your belt. However, understanding the deeper meanings of certain Japanese words may take several months or even years. Culture plays a very important part in the Japanese language right down to simple phrases and words. Learning about Japanese culture is as important as builing your vocabulary or learning the stroke order of Kanji. The more Japanese culture you know the more important Japanese words you will discover.