Hi! I'm Alivia and today I want to talk about why you might not want to start your Japanese
learning journey by learning grammar out of a textbook. And before we even get started
I want to preface this by saying there's absolutely nothing wrong with starting
with a textbook. I started using Genki my very first week. So if you're loving your
textbook if you're loving grammar study keep doing that. The most important thing
is that you're enjoying your studies so if that's you keep doing what you're doing.
But I think a good chunk of beginners start setting up a textbook not because
they particularly want to, not because they like grammar study, but because they think
that's their only choice and that's where they have to start and that is not the case. In fact,
if you don't like textbooks you don't ever have to touch one if you don't want to. It is
completely doable to learn a language without using textbooks. But textbooks can be nice if
you want some more structure in your studying and they can give you a little head start on
understanding how sentences are constructed by teaching you those grammar points. So that's why
I decided to use a textbook. However, if you're someone who isn't exactly excited by the idea of
using a textbook, who feels overwhelmed by all the content that they throw at you all at once,
who doesn't have hours and hours of time to study every day, then I would recommend not
starting your studies off by using a textbook and either delay when you first start using
one or to not use one at all. The reason I say this is because a lot of textbooks are designed
to be used in a classroom setting and they are structured to teach you a lot of different things
simultaneously. So they're going to be covering hiragana, katakana, kanji, vocabulary, grammar,
listening comprehension, reading comprehension, writing. So all these things are really important
to learn but you don't have to overwhelm yourself and try to learn them all at the same time if you
don't want to. Now I personally enjoyed doing it all at once but a big part of that was because I
had so much time on my hands. If you've watched this video then you'll know that I was studying
for over four hours a day when I first got started so having a lot of different topics to cover
kept my studies really interesting day-to-day. I think I would have gotten really bored if I was
only studying one thing for four hours straight, so I liked having that variety in my routine. But
if you have less time to work with, I think it's a really good idea to focus in on just
a few topics at a time so that you're not spread so thin out. Your progress will be a lot slower
if you're trying to juggle all these different topics right out the gate. And on top of all that,
if you're someone who just doesn't like textbook studying and you're just trying to power through
it on sheer willpower, you're that much more likely to feel demotivated, to feel frustrated,
to get overwhelmed when you don't see the progress that you're expecting. You do not
want to start your language learning journey by using a resource that you don't like, that dumps
a ton of information on you all at once, and that may leave you burnt out before you even
got started. Instead, you want to start learning Japanese gradually in a more sustainable way.
Now, this is a pretty common concept for all types of learning,
like, if you're trying to learn how to do algebra, it's going to be a lot easier if
you already know how to do addition. When you already know the basics of a concept,
you can piece them all together to understand something that's more complex. Now for language
learning, you've probably already heard of this concept and it's usually called
“i + 1” learning. So it's a very similar concept. When you're learning something new,
you already want to know the majority of it. You want to set yourself up so that you're only
really learning one new thing and everything else that surrounds it is something that you
already know. Now the issue with learning grammar out of a textbook when you're first starting out
is that it's all new information. You have no base knowledge and it can be really overwhelming.
For example in the Genki textbook, the very first example sentence it gives you
is “it's half past 12” and it is a sentence that's meant to teach you
what the verb “desu” means. But in this super short sentence, there's a ton of things that
are going on that you probably don't know yet. You don't know about Japanese numbers,
you don't know how to put those numbers together when you're talking about time, you don't know
about the fact how most Japanese sentences are pretty much flipped from what we say in English.
Later down on that same page it introduces the “wa” particle and completely skims over the fact
that it is now pronounced “wa” instead of what I would have thought it was which is “ha” because
that's what it says in my hiragana chart. So it's just a lot to process right from the beginning.
That is why my recommendation when you're first getting started with learning Japanese,
after you've learned hiragana in katakana, is to focus on three things so that you can build that
base knowledge so that if you decide to learn out of a textbook, you're more likely to come
across that “i + 1” learning and will be less overwhelming. These three things are kanji,
vocabulary, and exposing yourself to the language in any capacity. Kanji is first on my list because
they are so important to learn and if you're new to learning Japanese you probably don't
know what they are. So when you see them they look really intimidating and you probably either think,
“oh I'll just learn that later I don't really want to do that right now,” or you'll think that
“hey I don't think I need to learn this ever. I'm just not going to do it.” but you definitely do
need to learn kanji at some point and I really recommend that you do it from the beginning.
So if that's you, I really recommend that you check out this video where I talk about hiragana,
katakana, and kanji and why they all exist in the Japanese language and why kanji are so important.
I do mispronounce kanji every single time that I say it in that video so, sorry.
But once you know why kanji is used, you'll understand that not knowing kanji will really
hold you back and will make all other aspects of Japanese a lot harder than it needs to be.
But if you do know kanji it's gonna make learning vocabulary way easier so I definitely recommend
learning kanji as soon as you can because it is a long process, there's a lot of different
methods to learning it. I personally really like using WaniKani and you can hear more about why
I really like it in this video, but there's so many methods so find what works for you.
Okay, so kanji is important, it makes vocabulary easier to learn, but why do
I need to learn vocabulary before going into my textbook instead of doing it at the same time?
Now you can definitely do it at the same time and that is what I did, but I think if you have less
time to work with, it is a lot more beneficial to just focus on the vocabulary for a while,
in preparation for diving into your textbook. Just because vocabulary is something that you need to
work on every day. So if you have a really small amount of time, that's already going to eat up a
significant chunk of it. So it's better just to not overwhelm yourself too much and just
build a nice vocabulary base, so that when you jump into your textbook it's a lot easier. A
lot of textbooks have vocabulary lists for each chapter so that's a really good place
to start. Just figure out how many words that you want to learn each day and try to build in
a nice routine. Knowing more words will make your textbook study go a lot easier so I'd say try to
get at least a few chapters ahead before diving into your textbook, but I know learning just
vocabulary and kanji isn't the most exciting thing so you can definitely jump in sooner if you want.
Now on that topic, the last thing that I recommend that you do is try to immerse yourself in the
language in whatever way that you find fun, because just doing flashcards, just doing kanji
is not super exciting. So try and find something that is just fun! At this level you probably can't
read yet, so you're going to want to focus on things that you're either watching or listening
to. Now at this stage, you're probably not going to understand anything and that is totally okay.
This is just to get your brain used to hearing how the language sounds so that later on,
when you do know more words, when you do know some grammar, then you can try and actually understand
what they're saying. But right now you're just starting out and when you're listening it probably
just sounds like a blur and you probably can't even tell when specific words are being said. So
just focus on that to get started. See if you can pick out a word here or there but overall
it's just for fun. It's just to get yourself used to listening to the language. For your brain to
start recognizing the patterns. So just find something that you like and have fun with it.
Focusing on these three things when you're first starting out will hopefully make you
feel a bit less overwhelmed when you're first trying to figure out how to self study Japanese
and will give you a really great foundation if you do decide to
use a textbook later on or if you just dive straight into immersion.
I'd like to thank this lovely commenter whose question inspired today's video and if you have
any questions, comments, concerns of your own please let me know down in the comments. Thank
you all for watching, subscribing, and giving this video a thumbs up and I will see you again soon!