How to Learn Japanese
How should I learn Japanese characters (kanji) and the language more generally?
Obviously we think Skritter is an excellent way to learn kanji as it provides stroke-by-stroke feedback and corrections, definition practice, reading practice, automatic scheduling of reviews, and lists from many popular textbooks. At the same time, Skritter is best used along with other resources to learn the language.
Reading
Skritter gives you the meaning of kanji, but when you are learning kanji, it is helpful to see them used in practice. Daily reading, even if it is only for a few minutes can give you familiarly with how the words you learn are actually used. Textbooks, children's books, and easy readers aimed at foreigners in Japanese all provide good practice. Reading kanji in context will make it easier to recall meaning in Skritter and practicing kanji in Skritter will make reading easier.
Since it is easy to mispronounce when reading, it is a good idea to periodically ask a teacher or native speaking friend to listen to you and help you with pronunciation. Even if you get tones right when you are studying in Skritter you can still make mistakes when reading aloud and it's best to catch those mistakes to avoid ingraining bad habits.
Speaking and Writing
To err is to learn. When you speak or write you will certainly make mistakes but only by making mistakes can you identify and learn from them (with help of course). Writing a diary, a short passage regularly, alternating between handwriting and by hand gets you used to recalling the correct character to express yourself in Japanese and writing has the benefit that you can do it at a slower pace. Speaking, deliberately making sure that pronunciation and tones are correct – even if it is only reading aloud to yourself – will get you used to making the correct sounds and forming sentences quickly to express ideas.
With practice, expressing yourself in will become easier. The most effective practice, of course, is directed practice where you focus on working on specific topics that you want to learn. For example, where you pick a particular Japanese character or phrase (for example) and try to use it correctly several times.
Listening
Practicing listening to a TV show or reading a book in Japanese will just be frustrating for a beginner. Instead, find easy materials (e.g. recordings of textbooks) and try to write out the characters for what was said. Practice with a language partner, listening to him or her speak slowly or find some introductory listening comprehension books. Listening can be frustrating at first if it's a bit above your level, but your comprehension will still improve.
When you get to a point where you have a fair amount vocabulary watching TV with subtitles on can be quite helpful in learning both characters and listening comprehension by using them to fill in the blanks mutually. Watching multiple times and rewinding a lot can help with comprehension (though not always enjoyment). Children's shows can be useful as they typically have simple vocabulary and a fair bit of repetition (though, again, not always the greatest enjoyment values).
Grammar
There are two main approaches to grammar; the first is to ignore it (directly at least) focusing on applying language to situations and providing feedback on language usage when necessary. The second way is the more traditional way of introducing grammar points in a class or tutorial session from a textbook, doing grammar exercises, and having grammar tests. The ultimate aim in learning Japanese isn't to understand grammar but to be able to communicate clearly – either method requires that you be able to apply the rules of grammar so you aren't misunderstood (or misunderstand others). Some people will find explicit rules easier to understand and use while others will find rule after rule confusing and discouraging, preferring instead to practice and learn them on a more subconscious, automatic level.
Learning kanji
Japanese has two phonetic scripts, hiragana and katakana, plus thousands of kanji, which are the hard part. Skritter is designed to help you learn these kanji as efficiently as possible, as Japanese literacy won't come without them. Most kanji are also hanzi, but with Japanese pronunciations, sometimes different meanings, and often slight visual differences. Modern kanji are somewhere between simplified and traditional Chinese, with some matching traditional Chinese, some being simplified as in Chinese, and others being simplified in a different, Japanese way.
Tutors, Classes, and Other Resources
To learn a language, you need to put in a lot of effort at memorization, a lot of effort to practice using the language, and feedback. It is fun to learn new words but once you learn the same 'new words' for the third or forth time it becomes a lot less fun. Whether you learn from immersion and only a pocket dictionary, podcasts, a tutor, or a traditional class, you need to review what you learn regularly. Skritter can help you with vocabulary review but you also need to practice using language, reading, writing, speaking and listening regularly to reinforce what you have learned and get comfortable using new vocabulary and language patterns. The structure of a traditional class can often help me to focus your study energies but some find traditional classes focus too much on grammar rules and prefer more immersive type learning. Skritter is compatible with both methods as either way you need to learn characters and memorize vocabulary, tasks which we built Skritter especially for.
Some of our favourite resources for helping you study Japanese are on our learning resources page.
Feel free to leave your thoughts on studying Japanese on our forum. We plan on updating and expanding this guide based on the excellent feedback from you, our users.