If I can smegging do it, anyone can! Learn Japanese by yourself with my tips and guidance! I am 90% self-taught in Japanese. How come 90%? After three years, I finally saved up enough money to enroll in a three-month, twice weekly grammar course! Hooray!

I studied alone in my bedroom for ten days before I moved to Japan, so I wasn’t exactly the Japanese equivalent of Shakespeare when I arrived. In fact, until I started this course, I had only ever self-studied Japanese in my free time. The problem was, I didn’t even have much free time. As soon as I came to Japan, I had to get three jobs to survive because I had no money.

So how did I do it? What did I use?

• the internet

Basically, I found a Spanish guy on YouTube who was fluent in and taught Japanese. He was a far better Japanese teacher than any English-speaking teacher I had stumbled upon thus far. So, I kept my Spanish skills up at the same time by learning Japanese in Spanish. I would watch one or two of his lessons every morning and repeat them every day for the whole week until I felt that the points had stuck. His name is Kira Sensei for any Spanish speakers that would like to learn with him. He is absolutely hilarious, so I highly recommend his lessons. Find him here.

For all you lovelies that are not Spanish speakers, I highly recommend the website japanesepod101.com. I used this website to learn the hiragana alphabet and basic phrases before going to Japan. “Hello, nice to meet you” and “this is a pen” were some of my first words. Very useful phrases that cannot be missed! You can sign up for a free account with them, but it only lasts a limited amount of time. However, they offer a 60-day free premium account trial, which I got addicted to. After going back to only being able to access the free sections, I eventually paid for the subscription because my learning rate was twice as fast. I found that it really is worth the money, so trust me on this one, smeglets, you can learn Japanese by yourself with this!

• Textbooks

I was given a book by one of my housemates called Minna no Nihongo (which best translates as Japanese for Everyone). I tried to read it in my lunch break at work, but it was written 100% in Japanese… As you can imagine, I lacked the knowledge, motivation and brain power to figure it out. However, I later discovered a version of the book with English translations, which you can find here. However, I think overall I prefer the Genki I and Genki II textbooks. Find them here and here.

• Apps

When I eventually got a phone after six months, I downloaded an app called JA Sensei (which I just found out is only available on Androids. However, iPhone users can instead access its website, japan-activator.com). This was an absolute goldmine for me. I cannot recommend this app/site more!

My final tip is to use a flashcards app called AnkiDroid. It’s free for androids and online, but possible to purchase on iPhones too. Every time I learnt new words, I would pop them into this app and revise them every day. The app works using an algorithm that shows you the words or phrases you input just as you’re about to forget them, so they slowly slither into your long-term memory. My commute to and from work every day totalled about two hours. Thus, I used this time to my advantage to go through my ever-accumulating flashcards. I have mainly AnkiDroid to thank for the level of fluency I reached, so seriously give this one a go, guys!

• Live The Language

Last but not least, I got a Japanese boyfriend who spoke to me in English, but messaged (and argued with) me in Japanese. So, I would copy and paste any words (or often the entire message) into Google translate, or the dictionaries takoboto (for Androids) or imiwa? (for iPhones) to understand what in the name of smeg he was saying to me. I also forced myself to reply in Japanese, however painstakingly long it took. On top of that, I had Japanese coworkers who helped me out when I asked them how to say certain phrases in Japanese. Then, once I had gotten a bit more fluent, I took the plunge! I switched completely to speaking Japanese with my following Japanese boyfriends and acquaintances.

• Wish You Were Actually Japanese

So that was basically it for me! Believe it or not, you can learn Japanese by yourself. For me, it involved lots of tears, struggling and communication breakdowns, mostly! I remember being so proud of having learnt the phrase 「おトイレはどこですか」- “Where is the toilet?” and I used it as often as I could in restaurants etc. But, I soon realised that I couldn’t understand a word the staff said back to me. I hadn’t yet learnt any directional words or phrases up to that point, so I quickly stopped asking.

I don’t only speak Japanese, I also speak Spanish and Italian too. This language-learning background definitely helped me pick up Japanese, even though they are completely different languages. You can read more on why I speak four languages here. And don’t forget to check out my top language learning tips too!

Good luck with your own Japanese study if you decide to or have already embarked on that joyful adventure! I support you all the way!

Jade xxx