My Japanese language learning journey

Japanese 日本語
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Hello everyone :blush:

As I have been here for quite some time, I wanted to share a bit about my journey learning Japanese with LTL Language School. I started taking classes on the website alongside two friends of mine about a year and a half ago. We were doing a super intensive course in the beginning, taking two hours of classes 4-5 times a week and the improvements I felt were so rapid, which only made me want to try even harder to eventually become fluent in Japanese.

My friends both ended up stopping with the classes, but I was having so much fun learning the language that I just continued on my own. I even had a lesson from the floor of a hospital once, as I was having surgery that day but didn’t want to miss my class with my wonderful teacher. I have truly felt so much joy from taking these classes, and I have also really felt myself progress. Now, about 1.5 years later, I have applied and gotten accepted into a Japanese university and will be doing an exchange there this summer.

I went from only being able to construct basic sentences, to now having full conversations about a wide range of topics with my teacher fully in Japanese. I am by no means fluent just yet, and I still have some classes left to go, but my level has improved enough to use it as more than just a party trick.

I have been able to find Japanese friends online who I can connect with more and more as time goes on thanks to the deeper understanding, I am gaining of not just the language, but also the Japanese culture which is so deeply ingrained in how they speak as well. I have been given great advice by my teachers on how to self-study outside of classes as well, and thanks to their advice (and the Netflix TV show Love is Blind: Japan) I can speak much more naturally now as well.

I still have very far to go with my vocabulary, and having started university as well, I have had to cut down on the number of classes I take per week. That said, I still want to prioritise my language learning journey with LTL until I head to Japan and hopefully come back home a lot more fluent than when I went.

I am really grateful that my friends took my hand a year and a half ago and invited me to join them in their journey, even if they weren’t able to finish it.

If you read all the way, thank you! I hope you are able to achieve your language learning goals as well ^^

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This is such a nice read. I salute you for continuing when your friends stopped.

Doing things on our own is always harder than when others are there to encourage.

Japanese is probably my favourite language in the world to learn!

Keep it up and I’d love to hear how you are getting on in Japan 6 months down the line :slight_smile:

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Wow this was a great motivational read, thank you for sharing!

And the story of taking the class even at hospital was very sweet :face_holding_back_tears:

Can I ask how you managed to stay so committed to learning Japanese? I struggle to stick to languages I’m not using in my daily life so I’d love to know what worked for you!

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Definitely! And what you are saying is completely true for me as well, to be honest.
The simplest explanation for why/how I stay committed is that I really do love learning Japanese! It feels like a fun hobby that I get to do, which is definitely helpful.
There are some tips I would love to pass on though:

  1. I am listening to Japanese music, almost exclusively. Not for language learning purposes specifically, but the reason I started listening to them to begin with was that I wanted to see how many words I knew at the time vs when I first started learning! Being able to listen to my favourite songs and understand the deeper meaning behind them has honestly been a great motivation for me.

  2. I would definitely recommend incorporating the language into your daily life! I do this by watching dramas or TV shows from Japan with Japanese subtitles! It’s not only a great way to learn how to speak naturally, but it’s also super fun ^^

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When you listen to music, do you always search for the meaning of every single word in the lyrics to understand it first and then sing along later? Or do you just listen?

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Totally agree! Studying Japanese in a vacuum without using the language outside of class/textbooks really limits the progress you can make. Plus you don’t always get a feel for more ‘natural’ Japanese that’s used everyday.

Thanks for sharing and good luck with your studies!