How to Start Learning Japanese: 3-Month Plan for Beginners

congratulations if you're here you're probably starting out with learning Japanese it is one of the best decisions you can make for your life your life will change once you learn Japanese it opens so many doors and you're going to be glad that you started today let's get straight into a guide that can help you learn Japanese from scratch everything you need to know to get started disclaimer everyone has a different approach to learning languages if you watch a bunch of other videos on YouTube about how to learn Japanese everyone will say something different try it

out and see what works for you this is what works for me and this is what I would recommend to you to try I'm going to recommend what you should do in your first month second month and third month of just starting out with Japanese this should set you on a good path to go forward with adjusting the method to what works for you what do you do right at the beginning your plan for the first month is to focus Fus on learning hakana and Katakana these are the two basic alphabets of course there is

still kanji which are Chinese characters used in Japanese don't worry about that for now my recommendation is to start with learning how to read and write all hiragana and Katakana characters this is because this is because if you rely on DOI which is the Latin transliteration of Japanese sounds you may learn a bit of an inaccurate pronunciation focus on hearing the the natural native Japanese sound of every character you'll start with Etc it's very simple it can take you a few days um it can take you like a few hours to learn it but you'll

need repetition and practice what I found really works for me with learning kagana and Katakana is to practice writing them out you make a nice connection with your hand your brain the paper and the character if you write it out there are so many resources on how to learn hiana and Katakana you can also look at some resources on my website Lindy bu.com japanese-market thingss how to say Hello thank you what's your name where you from my name is this take however long you need a week or two to really solidify learning the alphabet and

then the most important thing that you want to start doing is use the h kak characters to write basic words for example if you've learned a o you can write the word AI which means blue or a which means to meet it's a little hack you're doing twoin one you're solidifying how to read and write this character and you're learning a vocabulary word and boosting your vocabulary Knowledge from your first second third week of learning Japanese then you want to spend the next half of your first month to focus on the the basic greetings and

to start writing very basic sentences this is what's really going to set you apart for most Japanese Learners who are slowly following a textbook or a class and stretching out this beginner part I want to encourage you and challenge you that there is so much that you can do within a month to start even making basic sentences what you want to do is take two or three of the most basic verbs so let's take for example T which is to eat very basic look up some charts or use a book where it'll show you how

to do the basic conjugation ofas I eat you eat he eats whatever if you want to go to past tense then you want to learn pronoun don't worry about too many pronouns now there are a lot in Japanese just DOI for now which is I and then learn the basic particles and then help yourself with learning some relevant basic nouns you can even ask chat GPT to create a list for for you hey give me 10 really easy beginner nouns in Japanese and give me example sentences of how to use these nouns with the verb

to eat at this point after you've learned how to read and write you can start making sentences like I am eating food eating you could make a sentence like if you've learned the negative form to eat to not eat I do not eat sushi see you've already learned something and if you can write that in Katakana I'm sorry and if you can write that in hiragana Fantastic look at you you're writing you're making a sentence you've learned a noun a verb a sentence structure and a particle now month number two this is where you want

to really increase the amount of verbs that you're learning the amount of nouns the top 10 most common verbs top 100 most common nouns basic adjectives and you want to continue this activity of creating sentences and even at this point I would recommend getting a lot of input you want to be hearing Japanese every day you want to be watching it listening to it engaging with it seeing it yes you are not fluent yet it will be difficult but you want to train your ear to hear as much Japanese as possible because this is going

to help you pronounce it better and sound more natural over time so how can you start watching content if you don't really speak Japanese yet well there's a really awesome app that I've been using for years and I would highly recommend it to you it's called lingo Pai lingopie is basically like the Netflix for language learning you can select Japanese on there but there's also a ton of other languages that you can try on lingopie there are dual language subtitles so you can watch something in Japanese and get the Japanese transcription plus the English translation

if there's a word you don't know you simply hover over it it'll tell you the meaning and you can save it to your collection lingo Pai will build flashcards for you to test you after you've watched an episode or a movie or whatever and there are amazing tools that have been built in for your review you can browse music TV catalog you can add things to your library it's super customizable lingo is an awesome place to start engaging with Japanese content plus having the added benefit of it being able to save words for you give

you a transcription and give you review activities and then of course producing the language as early as you can is so important so on lingo Pai there's a interactive feature called say it where you can practice your pronunciation and get feedback on it so check the link in the description for an exclusive discount code head to lingo Pai today and learn Japanese and then month three and this is going to be controversial start speaking start producing start writing I know I know there are two schools of thought on this it's particularly for Japanese online it's

very divided there are people who are like no no no no no you need like 10,000 hours of listening before you even say a word those people I've seen videos of them where they're like uh actually when I did want to try start speaking I had a hard time I could understand everything but I like like the words just didn't come out whereas there are other people like me who are of the me what's meing in English that's off for cons of the opinion that speak as soon as you can why because for me personally

the reason I learn any Lang which is to communicate and it doesn't matter if I'm sucking at communicating at least I'm trying and I'm going to improve and learn over time I would rather start speaking now and have someone correct me than wait until I'm perfect and then like not even have the exposure or the practice to being in a speaking situation you can find a tutor or language exchange partner and just say hey I'm super beginner but can I practice some sentences with you you may be asking should I get a tutor or not

I have quite a few videos on my channel talking about what are the benefits of a tutor should you get one when Etc so check those out but my recommendation is think about what is your learning style are you disciplined and motivated to be able to do it yourself do you have experience in teaching languages to yourself and do you have resources that can help you if not if you're feeling like oh this is a bit of a challenge or I really need somebody to be there and help me through it then you can get

a tutor personally I prefer having a tutor when I'm at a conversational stage whether it's beginner conversation or Advanced I find that I can teach myself using resources online apps Tech books Etc but I can't really have a conversation with myself you know I I I need that feedback and input so I pay for a tutor to talk to them or I find a language friend or a partner to talk to so how can I talk to someone about something I like okay I love books do I know how to say I like books in

that language let me say that to them and hear what they repeat there's all kinds of creative ways that you can start speaking with basic sentences that does not mean that month three is just speak speak speak produce produce produce it's just let's take the skills that we've learned from month one and month two of Reading Writing listening and put it into some form of output if you are not comfortable or ready to speak don't worry you're not doing anything wrong you're not behind schedule this is just a guideline and a recommendation if you want

to give yourself more time and be like you know what I don't actually want to talk to people I just want to like read books or watch anime whatever that's fine continue doing what with what you want month three is where you can start saying how do I where do I Envision this language learning Journey going don't feel like you have to know everything that you see or hear or read in month three it's so early in your journey what I want to encourage you is just have a taste of what it feels like to

produce the language in month three for you that could look like writing one sentence a day on a piece of paper or in a journal it could be just what you've learned that week it could be something so big B I'm watching TV you can write that down next day you do it a bit more uh longer or complicated I'm watching TV with my friend the next day let's think about past tense MIM I watched TV and you build this on the most important thing is that you're producing and using what you've been learning the

past two months my sentence examples there were so basic and yes that's something that you can produce by month three I strongly believe that this is possible but now you might be thinking is this really going to take you know 3 months for me to start producing super basic sentences yes and no there are people who can only dedicate one or two hours to learning Japanese a week that's okay accept it and say this is my busy lifestyle I'm okay with that let me take this plan that Lindy's made and split it out over six

months I'm going to give myself one month to learn how to read and write I'm going to give myself one month to learn all of the um nouns one month to learn the particles one month to learn conjugations and then two months to be producing practicing listening it's very adaptable this is not prescriptive everyone has different ways that um they like to do it but take this as a basic wireframe framework and see how can I adjust this to my lifestyle to the time I have to the resources I enjoy right don't do something that

you don't like make it fun for yourself I hope that's been helpful a little quick three-month plan thank you so much for watching and see you in the next video bye hey are you feeling overwhelmed by language learning do you feel like you just need a little bit of accountability I offer language learning coaching sessions you can book a call with me at Super peer. Lindy buis do a 15-minute call if you want to see if I'm the right coach for you or book a 30-minute call if you want to talk through something if you're

interested in working with me longterm I do offer discounts on packages of five calls or more if you need somebody to help you through this journey help you with resources scheduling accountability listen to your problems help you feel like are you on the right track or not I'm your girl check out my coaching at super.com lendy buddist