I began learning Japanese on January 1, 2017. I took on a challenge to learn as much as I could in one year, ending December 31, 2017. In the end, I spent over 800 hours on Japanese and spent the full month of December taking my dream trip around Japan.
Along the way, I documented the entire process on RU-vid. I shared the tips, techniques, lessons learned, and my progress. Although the 2017 challenge is over, my own Japanese studies continue in 2018 and beyond. I'll continue to post here when I have progress to share or helpful information related to Japanese learning.
Thank you all for watching.
Japanesely yours,
- Shawn Crowder drummer, likes to learn fancy new stuff
Just leaving my mark here so I can return to this after 6 or 12 months. I begun studying Japanese exactly 4 days ago, I'm using renshuu to learn Hiragana and I am almost done with it. So I'll be moving onto Katakana within 3-4 days. Good luck future me. My current goal is getting to like A1 by the end of the year (so about 4-5 months, and A2 by the time I finish my master's next summer)
Can you please make jlpt n5 stories using only* jlpt n5 vocabulary (1000 words) and the n5 kanji just over 100. And sticking to the n5 grammar rules. And call the video jlpt n5 stories using only jlpt n5 vocabulary and kanji
Can you type your own n5 vocabulary and jlpt n5 kanji in stories like that website but jlpt n5 only is their some website where i can? Or youtube video where i can read and listen???
i know this video is old but thank you SO much for it! i have been getting so muddled with how any elements there are to japanese - trying to learn kanji, vocab, comprehension and production all separately felt so reductive but i didn’t know how to put the elements together. really keen to try this!
I know that Shawn does not really look at this channel anymore but I am so thankful to him for making this series, at the beginning of covid and following what he did i am now able to speak japanese and this past month went to japan and only used english. For anybody who stumbles on this video and chooses to follow along I am extremely excited for you
This is what i'm looking for. Lately i've been wondering, how sentence mining works and so what do you mine? This video also help my understanding to language learning and stuffs. Thanks sir
Thank you for this tutorial! I use language reactor to mine sentences from TV-shows I watch (currently learning Spanish), with your tutorial i was able to quickly turn them into my preferred card format.
I've just watched all you videos. Very inspiring. Can I ask how are things now, 4 years later? Have you maintained your Japanese? Have you retained your vocabulary and importantly your kanji?
I've been reading manga in Japanese for a while. At beginner level you have no chance to easily read most stuff. One punch man is shounen series with furigana and when starting definitely look for series with furigana. However, the shounen is for Japanese youngsters, who know the language, but aren't that proficient in reading kanji. It means as beginner you lack vocabulary and grammar. Vocabulary you will learn, but grammar is harder part for beginner, because manga does not spare you with using shortened forms, colloquial expressions, etc. 何見てんだよ - What are you looking at! アゴ（顎）- chin 割れた - split (past tense) ガキ - brat 見つけたら - if (he is) found - tara = if/when 八つ裂き (やつざき) - tear apart someone 寝てたから - because (he) was sleeping マジック - "Magic" 乳首 - nipple(s) 逃がした - run away 単独 - solo/single 正義活動 - acts of justice (i.e. heroic deeds in context of superheroes) Newspapers are even harder, because it isn't just mostly direct speech like manga. You want to start with nhk news easy.
this is great but i have been thinking... this was the 優しいニュース... definitely it was supposed to be easy right and if this took us all almost the same time as u took, then how would we fare in the difficult ones? thats what i wonder
The tip is , just skip everything and you are done with genki , this way you can just flip pages and skip everything , this way you can finish this book with in hours ☺️ Thank me later
I've taken half a dozen italki tutoring sessions. I keep forgetting to record them. I have wanted to do a freestyle session like this. But they have either been structured classes( the tutor's teaching style), or very early on it turned into a mini lesson, which were all good, but I almost wish they had let me struggle a bit more so I could focus on keeping up the conversation, rather learning specific lessons. I've started a couple sessions with the intention to build my speaking confidence spent half of the time practicing and then leaving with "homework " like counting various items, telling time using minutes or something else (important , yet not relevant at the moment).
I've been learning Japanese for a year, sadly the way I spent learning during that year was very poor, I studied only grammar and very small things that will help me in the future but were way too advanced to learn at that point. The amount of learns I knew what next to nothing since I haden't been retaining the words, rather I was just listening to them and repeating them, not making any sentences on my own. I started to watch a lot of dougen/matt vs japan and that has led me to where I am today. I've been studying the same way Japanese in A Year has for about 2 months and I'm able to almost fully understand what he's saying. It helps that I knew grammar, and tons of different small things before so I was able to go straight to advanced grammar/words. I have a study abroad to Japan in 4 months time so I'm hoping by then I'll be in a confeterable place. I'll be there for 6 months so I'm hoping to be fluent by the end of the trip!
Japanese Vocabulary for Readers and Speakers would be very useful for you, as it divides words by topic area then frequency within that area If you combine it with A Japanese Reader: Graded Lessons for Mastering the Written Language by Roy Andrew Miller, you will be able to handle most authrentic material of general interest. By the way, stroke order helps tremendously in looking up unknown characters. You would also do well to do a summer at Middlebury's summer immersion program, which will cut down that project 3 year span.
You would benefit immensely by Roy Andrew Miller's A Japanese Reader; Graded Lessons for Mastering the Written Language and again I would recommend Middlebury College's summer immersion program for you at this point.
The book entitled Japanese Vocabulary for Speakers and Readers, which is divided by frequency within various topics. It would help in your process tremendously.
Thanks for this help!im a beginner at around 700 words and wanted to learn grammar naturally through reading,but was afraid to finish the alphabet of kanji.Really motivating to hear that it’s worth it at the beginning stage.I’m going to give it a try thanks 😊
this guy now knows 35k words and is a famous japanese rapper, last time I saw him he was standing in shibuya reciting edo era phillosophy to a bunch of excited schoolgirls.
My first conversation I was so nervous and stuff that I got a stitch in my stomach just from sitting in my computer chair and forgot that I can make conversation by asking questions that I knew how to use.
So a year and 2 months ago, I was inspired greatly by this channel to learn Japanese. I went in with low expectations, but by using the resources and methods that this channel provided as well as lots of immersion with content in the language, I am much further along than I ever hoped to be. I remember days when i would watch these vlogs as inspiration to start out my studies and to keep going with them, thoroughly impressed by the accomplishments shown in this video. That respect hasn't gone away in the slightest, but maybe even grown as I find myself being able to understand this video fully without the subtitles and recognize where mistakes were made and corrected. I feel going through the process of learning myself really only showed me how hard Shawn really had to have worked to accomplish this level of fluency. A big thank you, Shawn, for showing us it's possible.
08.08.2021 I've been learning Japanese for 2 weeks now, just like you in the video. I know all the hiragana, 20 katakana characters, 17 kanjis, and a bit of vocabulary. Also, I can say a few simple phrases like: これは私の猫です。(This is my cat.) ブエナこえんはどこですか？ (Where is Buena park?) Wish me luck on my way forward. :)
