I’ve been studying Japanese by myself for over two years now. (I can’t remember exactly when I started, whoops, but I have the vague notion that it came about as a “well, I have nothing better to do during the pandemic” idea.) I have taken no formal courses and still haven’t been able to take the JLPT test due to covid. (It’s a test where they can concretely give you a level for your language ability, because of course Japanese has an actual level system.)
I did buy a hiragana (and maybe katakana?) workbook at the beginning of my studying, though I didn’t get very far in it. And I did ask for the Genki Textbook for a gift, but didn’t receive it, so I haven’t used anything except apps for my language learning adventure.
But you know what? They worked pretty well overall.
I’m a big fan of Duolingo (I’ll probably do a language learning app post later, because I have a lot of thoughts on what works and doesn’t work across apps) and move along at a clip in its lessons. It only recently added hiragana- and katakana-specific lessons, though, which included writing practice, but you only practiced writing each character once.
Explanation time: hiragana and katakana are the basic Japanese alphabets (yes, they have more than one), and it matters how you write each character. As in, stroke order. Kanji, the thousands-of-characters-large alphabet that mostly trips up and confuses foreigners, also has vital stroke order importance, though Duolingo doesn’t do anything with writing kanji at this time.
Long story short: I can’t actually write Japanese. Like, at all. From memory, I could probably write out most hiragana and katakana, but they would undoubtedly be written incorrectly, and I don’t want to practice that on my own, because I’d learn it the wrong way. If one thing learning French nouns with their articles constantly attached taught me, it’s that you have to learn the basics right and solidly. One single mistake will be with you forever.
But, you know, that was also a calculated thing for me. Modern day, most things are typed or texted, and don’t pretend they’re not. I know how to type on a Japanese keyboard (my phone has Japanese and French dictionaries and keyboards installed, because I’m extra like that). I specifically chose not to learn kanji stroke order so I could concentrate on faster vocab and kanji retention. I’m good at memorizing!
So my Japanese self-guided education has been haphazard at best. I have no one to practice speaking it with. I can’t write anything—though I really should at least learn how to write hiragana and katakana, maybe this post will shame me into it. But at least I know how to read it, mostly how to listen to it (I do know how everything is pronounced, at least), and I can type it.
I’m confident I could pass a N5 (the lowest) JLPT test. By the end of the year, if I shifted gears to specifically cover my weaknesses, I could probably tackle the N4 test, if only because I have a wealth of kanji knowledge and the grammar basics down. But this is also because I know me and my learning style. I’m capitalizing hard at my talent for memorization.
This is one of the great freedoms of self-study—but also one of its greatest traps, I think. I get to decide everything. I get to pour my attention into kanji and slide by on grammar and ignore writing entirely. (Though I maintain that in this modern age, that is a less-utilized skill! That’s my defense and I’m sticking to it.)
I would like to take a formal course or two eventually, to see where exactly my blind spots and weaknesses are, and maybe get a better idea of what my education could look like going forward. But for the time being, I’m chugging ahead, and no knowledge is wasted.
