Study Guide

Information on how to use this site
and general tips for Japanese language study

Welcome!

Japanese-Lesson.com offers self-study courses and materials for learning the Japanese language.

Contents of this site are produced by a native Japanese language teacher who passed the Japanese Language Teaching Competency Test.

We do hope our site will be of some use for your study. Enjoy!!

 

How to Use This Site

This site consists of four sections - Courses, Characters, Vocabulary and Resources.

Course is the main section and other three sections provide supplementaly information and materials.

These suplementaly contents are introduced through the course. You basically do not have to study them separately.

Courses

Presently, the following courses are available.

We plan to produce more conversation courses which are suitable for the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) study. But It will take some time.

Character Courses Conversation Courses
Hiragana Course Basic Japanese Course
Katakana Course
Kanji Master Drill

Study Order

At the moment, our courses can cover elementaly level only.

We recommend to study in the following order;

Step 1 Hiragana Course
Step 2 Katakana Course
Step 3 Basic Japanese Course

It is best to learn Kanji step by step while taking Conversation Courses.

For this reason, production of Kanji course has been stopped. We plan to re-make it along with new Conversation Courses.

Basic Japanese Course is designed to learn commonly used basic phrases. It can be useful for traveling in Japan, but not sufficient for JLPT study.

 

Planning

Learning language is a big project. It is important to plan well to achieve the goal with minimum time and effort.

Time Required

Study Level General Required Time of Study
Elementary 300 hours
Intermediate 600 (+300) hours
Advanced 900 (+300) hours

Basic conversational skills can be gained quickly. But the writing system is complex.

Three types of character sets - Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji are used in a mixed way.

You need to know around 2,000 Kanji to read publications. It can take several years to learn them.

Time for Kanji study has to be included in each study level.

What to Study

Study Level Things to be Mastered
Elementary
(JLPT: N5 and N4)
  • Character: Hiragana, Katakana and 300 Kanji
  • Vocabulary: 1,500 words
  • Skill: everyday conversation, read and write simple sentences
Intermediate
(JLPT: N3 and N2)
  • Character: 1,000 (+700) Kanji
  • Vocabulary: 6,000 (+4,500) words
  • Skill: talk, read and write about general topics
Advanced
(JLPT: N1)
  • Character: 2,000 (+1,000) Kanji
  • Vocabulary: 10,000 (+4,000) words
  • Skill: sufficient for life in Japanese society

This chart was made to meet the particular levels of JLPT - from N5 (easy) to N1 (difficult).

It is recommended to follow such steps even if you don't plan to take JLPT. Most Japanese language schools have the similar curriculum.

 

How to Study

How to Schedule

Language study requires a lot of memorization. Frequent repetition is the key to retain and enforce your memory.

Better to study short everyday, rather than study long once a week.

Practice Makes Perfect

Learning language is like learning how to play sports. You need a lot of practice to make a great shot at will.

Spend minimum time for understanding the rules, and do practice (drill exercise) as much as possible.

Extra Activities

The following activities are recommended to accelerate your learning process.

Have a Japanese friend or a language-exchange partner (teaching each other).

Have a Japanese pen-pal or e-pal.

Listen to your favorite Japanese songs over and over till you memorize the lyrics. Singing these songs is also a good practice.

Watch your favorite Japanese anime or movie repeatedly with subtitles of your native language.

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