Learn Japanese with Nihongo Master

Nihongo Master is a fantastic Japanese language learning website to help you learn Japanese.

The biggest challenge for me in learning Japanese was trying to stay motivated with my studies. One of the best ways I found to stay motivated is to learn while having fun. You are more likely to learn something and retain it after all if you are enjoying it and having fun. I also found that having a competitive nature behind my studies whether that be an upcoming Japanese test that I wanted to pass, or simply beating my friends in Japanese also helped me stay more motivated.

The Nihongo Master website is all about fun and provides fun interesting lessons and tools that are adaptive and change according to the needs of the learner. The learning system is not dull and boring like a lot of Japanese textbooks can be, but engaging and fun. The easy to follow lessons teach you how to read, write, and speak Japanese with ease.

The site is set up like a competition with rewards and points for the user. This makes it challenging as well as highly motivating. You can test your Japanese skills by completing drills and exercises with your progress recorded by the site and posted on leader-boards. You can celebrate milestones as well as trying to match or beat the progress of your friends or other community users.

The website also has a great community behind it, which means you have other Japanese learners there who are always willing to help. This is great for exchanging ideas or simply asking questions.

If you are looking to learn Japanese, improve your Japanese level or just needs some extra incentive and motivation to get back into the language, definitely give Nihongo Master a try.

Shin Nihongo no Kiso

The Shin Nihongo no Kiso series of Japanese textbooks was very important in helping me successfully learn Japanese. The first book Shin Nihongo no Kiso I enables the beginner or new learner to master the basics and make simple sentences and conversation. The second book Shin Nihongo no Kiso II is for the more advanced with more advanced conversations based on real life daily situations.

Here is a breakdown of the two books

Shin Nihongo no Kiso I
100 hours study time, 25 lessons, 800 vocab items, and 75 sentence patterns

Shin Nihongo no Kiso II
100 hours study time, 25 lessons, 680 vocab items, and 64 sentence patterns

The series starts with the Shin Nihongo no Kiso Main Textbook with seperate English Translation and Grammatical notes available. The main textbook is all in Japanese, which is a great way to immerse yourself in the language, but I highly recommend getting English Translation and Grammatical notes as they really helped me. The English Translation lists the vocabulary for each chapter in romaji, kana and English as well as an English translation of the sentence patterns and example sentences from each chapter. The Grammatical Notes in English explain in detail the grammatical points and structures for each chapter with lots of examples to help you with correct usage.

I have found that my grammar, vocabulary, sentence structure and reading and writing improved dramatically using this book. It was also a great aid in studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.

Read more about How to Learn Japanese

The Secrets Of Speaking Japanese Fluently

How to Learn Japanese

Japanese is not too difficult to learn but It does take a lot of motivation and practice to successfully learn the language. The best way to learn Japanese is by taking a class, enrolling in a course or investing in a good textbook. If you can't take classes then the self-study method with the correct resources is a good way.

The best way to learn Japanese is through a variety of methods. You need to work on your grammar, listening, speaking, reading and writing. Its best to think of these as separate categories and focus on each specific category as these require different methods and techniques.

Start by learning the basics through grammar. These books really helped me:

• Shin Nihongo no Kiso I & II

• An Introduction to Modern Japanese by Osamu Mizutani & Nobuko Mizutani

• Japanese Demystified by Eriko Sato a self-teaching guide

These books cover both polite Japanese, which is extremely important to learn in order to speak Japanese effectively and causal Japanese, which is great for everyday conversations.

I also recommend trying to learn a certain amount of vocab or kanji each day as this helps you build up your vocab and kanji ability. I tried to learn 5 kanji per day or about 20 a week and did the same with vocab. 

Watching Japanese anime or any Japanese TV program is a good idea for improving your listening skills and also your vocabulary. Keep a notebook and jot down any new words you hear. Then look them up and find out the meaning.

The Secrets Of Speaking Japanese Fluently

How to Speak Japanese Fluently