First of all - this forum is incredible! ive been lurking around for the last week and a half, but finally I decided it was time to post, and I apologize for making my first post a plea for help, but I really do need it. I also apologize if this post is a repost, I did look around but I didn't find much that was exactly the same as my post will be.

So basically - I moved to Tokyo on Monday of this week, and I start work this upcoming Monday. I was hired by a trading company here in Tokyo to be sort of their guy who would handle and interact with english speaking clients because I speak native english (from america) but also could move into domestic Japanese business - I told them I was willing to study diligently in my free time (when not working basicall) in order to bring my Japanese up to par.

Now the question - what is the best way to study Japanese, but taking my location and situation into account?

My current Japanese knowledge is as follows - I can read/write Hiragana, recognize and read about 50% of katakana, and know the grammar from most of the first Genki book. I have also done about the first 70% of the genki book in conversational settings with a partner, so I think if I review it over a day or two anything I have forgotten would come back to me. I can construct simple sentences using subject+"wa" or "ni" and a verb, or maybe a bit longer. I know maybe 15 kanji, aaand have a random limited vocabulary from listening to japanese music/anime/the usual.

I also have researched the various methods but its somewhat overwhelming. I bought remembering the kanji one, and as I said earlier have the first genki book. I also looked into tae kims grammar guide.

I also am quite interested in the AJATT method, because it makes sense to me from what I have read on the blog - however, it seems to favor someone who isnt actually in Japan....which obviously isnt me.

My current plan from my own research is to speak only Japanese in the office, and to struggle throught it as best I can. Meaning that if I can't finish a sentence because I don't know the word, I'll try and struggle and remember it and if I can't, i'll use kotoba and look it up and then complete the sentence. I told my co workers to speak to me only in Japanese, and only to use English if absolutely necessary. I plan to listen only to Japanese music (not that hard) and watch only japanese language television, without subtitles. After work, I'll try and spend two hours going over kanji - (speaking of that, I kind of understand the whole anki thing but not really. do i write it by hand when the flash card comes up? or just think about it in my head? sorry if thats a dumb question....) and plan to do that until I finish the first RTK book, at which point ill go over the tae kim grammar guide, and then try to start reading simple things.

is this a good plan? i just dont know if this plan is going to get me actually speaking soon enough, I understand in the long term its a good plan - I just don't know if its well suited to my current needs - I need something that is doable by myself (I looked into language schools here in Tokyo, but they are quite expensive and evening programs seemed way too slow) but will produce results in the speaking dept within a month or two, which I dont know if AJATT does.

Sorry for all the rambling, and if you reply with advice I really do appreciate it.

For now, I would suggest the following:

-Finish learning the katakana.

-Finish RTK and aim to have it done within 3 months. I would also suggest deviating slightly from vanilla heisig method and learn one on'yomi reading with each kanji as you go. The on'yomi reading is the one written in Katakana or uppercase letters in kanji dictionaries. Basically create a unique sound mnemonic (This could be an English word that sounds similar to it) each time you encounter a new reading and add these to your stories for each kanji. When I drilled my kanji, I wrote them out if I had paper and a pen handy otherwise i wrote them in the air with my finger. Also test yourself on the on'yomi as you do this.

-Create an anki vocab deck. Add vocabulary to it at a rate that you can keep up with reviews. Test Japanese to english. The aim is to grow your vocabulary rapidly to start turning Japanese into comprehensible input. Download the anki sentence plug-in, which displays Japanese sentences using the vocab on the answer side of the card. This way you can practice reading sentences while reviewing vocab if you feel it necessary. But generally speaking as your ability improves you should be reading more real Japanese material outside of the srs.
* I never did this, but i think it would work well: Try adding all the vocabulary from heisig 2 to learn the kun'yomi readings and reinforce the on'yomi readings learned from the above method.

-Go through a good grammar reference or textbook and absorb what you can but don't get let yourself get bogged down. Keep forward momentum.

-Instead of music, I'd suggest listening to audiobooks. If you feel like this is too above your level, perhaps try pimsleur.

-Attempt to read every sign you see around you. Start trying to read books/manga/newspapers/magazines. You'll have to strike a balance between content that's easy and content that's interesting.

Firstly, finish the katakana (that's nearly unforgivable not to already have).

Secondly: actually the AJATT method is in your favor since you're in Japan, for you have Japanese tv, radio, magazines, music, dvds, and 127 M Japanese people to talk to...

If I were you, I would do some Assimil (about a month and a half if you do two lessons a day (99 lessons)), because you need communicative abilities right away, then you'll be wanting to digest more serious grammar, like Minna no Nihongo, or a Dictionary of basic Japanese grammar. By then you might do RTK lite (1000 most frequent RTK kanji) to read the grammar books, but as the people say below, it's less urgent.

Don't forget to go out at a night, and try practicing Japanese with natives. Read Japanese book, listen to Japanese music, news, talkshows... (well, you know the AJATT drill).

Good luck!

Quote:I was hired by a trading company here in Tokyo to be sort of their guy who would handle and interact with english speaking clients because I speak native english (from america) but also could move into domestic Japanese business

Congratulations on your new job!

Some advice will depend on the exact nature of your job. Is it one of the big 総合商社　（そうごうしょうしゃ）　or a smaller specialized one? If the former, will you be assigned to one business department or will you be available to assist any department? Are you being hired as a regular business employee, a business advisor (ie you have work experience or an MBA or something?) or as an English language advisor? How long do you plan to work there? You might find that your clients will be your fellow employees and that much of your work will involve written English rather than interaction with the company's customers or partners

It sounds like your immediate goal is to be able to function with spoken Japanese at the office as quickly as possible. So I would postpone learning kanji as well as expressions used only in writing. Written and spoken Japanese aren't identical and you won't be asked to read or write Japanese at work. Being able accomplish simple tasks at the office with appropriate language earlier will be more useful than being able to pronounce thousands of written kanji words.

When you return to study kanji later, it will be easier because you'll already have a grounding in the language, spoken vocabulary and some sight recognition of kanji words. In the meantime, focus on spoken expressions and vocabulary useful for interacting with your coworkers and then focus on business content.

But definitely finish katakana now (if only to order food :-)). You'll need hiragana to make use of some books on spoken and business Japanese.

I know several people who focused exclusively on spoken Japanese for 2-year postings in Tokyo and did exceptionally well. I know other permanent residents in Japan who use Japanese for professional and family life but never learned to read. I'm not recommending this, but hopefully it's somewhat inspiring. :-)

Quote:My current plan from my own research is to speak only Japanese in the office, and to struggle throught it as best I can. Meaning that if I can't finish a sentence because I don't know the word, I'll try and struggle and remember it and if I can't, i'll use kotoba and look it up and then complete the sentence. I told my co workers to speak to me only in Japanese, and only to use English if absolutely necessary.

I'm not sure this is a reasonable plan. Your language skills aren't yet high enough to be useful at the office and your Japanese coworkers weren't hired to teach you Japanese. What you describe would be time consuming and frustrating for them, I think. When your Japanese becomes better than a coworker's English, then I think it's fair to suggest that you carry on in Japanese. [But whatever's best for the company... it's different if you were hired for a particular knowledge/skill and the company wants you to learn Japanese.]

You might find that people expect you to speak in English. If you're meant to assist other with their English interactions with company customers and partners, telling everyone to use only Japanese with you at the start might come across as a bit selfish or demanding. If you're meant to give business advice, using Japanese won't be effective (and could make you appear incompetent). :-) If you are working on an independent int'l project, then it might be different.

It might be better to wait until you get a feel for the expectations, your abilities and which people don't mind helping with language questions. You can always hang out with people outside of work, have a few drinks and chat away!

Check out the threads on spoken Japanese - there were various textbooks and other resources recommendations. [I'll also try to add some business related ones when I have time later.] [edits]

Take classes ?

I had a similar experience to you. I moved to Japan last year to a new job; I wasn't (still not) very good at Japanese, but I did know probably little bit more than you did. Here are some things that I would have done differently.


Don't waste too much time on RTK. I mean, I'm done and it was a great accomplishment and I totally recommend you to do it. BUT if you are spending all your time on RTK like I was then you are missing lots and lots of times to study REAL Japanese. My suggestion is to either get it done in less than 3 months (so you would totally have to bust your ass) or just add 5 cards a day and go the opposite route and take all the time you need. It's a really useful book and I'm glad I did it (and I keep up my reivews too), but since you have all these people to talk to take advantage of your situation. The kanji will always be there.


Also, I know struggling through a conversation isn't easy but don't let your fear of looking stupid get in the way of asking a question or....looking stupid because you just want to talk to someone. Since you have the opportunity, just try to talk to people. At first this was really hard, but if you start your job and don't make an active attempt to be friendly to people you never will.

E.g., There are about 30 people at my work. I talked to about 15 people the first week I worked there. Those same 15 people are the only people that I talk to and that talk to me. Everyone else just assumes I don't speak Japanese or I'm not friendly (which both may be true). So get out there and make as many mistakes as you can! (just try to correct yourself when you can too!)

Thanks to everyone for their input!

I think first I should offer some clarification of how much Japanese would be conceivable to speak at the office. The company is small, they have offices in all the major cities in Japan but each office is only around 10 people or so. Therefore, everyone in the office will pretty much get to know me well whether they want to or not, since there aren't that many people. I'd say half the people in the office know decent english, and those that know english also studied outside Japan, mostly in the USA. That means that they understand how difficult it can be to start speaking a new language, because they experienced with English. One lady in the office already said she would speak to me only in Japanese starting monday, I think to some extent that was just her trying to be nice, but I do think that she means it to a fair extent. All the people in the office have expressed how urgent it is that I study, so I do think that they will be understanding and appreciate of my attempts to speak it - that being said, I am also realistic, if I just completely don't know the Japanese I would say the sentence in English, and then ask for the Japanese equivalent for my notes (ill bring a notebook to work for that expressed purpose)

Second - I am going to focus on Katakana and try to have it fully memorized by early next week, everyone seems to agree that that is a priority, and I agree. There is so much katakana usage, I really need to have it down.

Third - There seems to be a range of opinions on Kanji, some saying just go through the first book but do it quickly and some saying focus on speaking. Personally, I understand all the viewpoints but for my own personal interest I hate not knowing and feeling clueless when I see kanji. Also, at restaurants so many things are written only in kanji or hiragana, especially at restaurants that focus on washoku. Beyond that, signs, papers, etc - kanji is a must, and I currently feel like cut off from that world completely due to lack of kanji.

So maybe the solution is to try and do 30-35 characters a night (not a herculean task, since I understand people sometimes go up to a 100) and finish it by late december/early january? or alternatively, do the RTKlite thing?

I think in addition to that I will review Genki and then try and do a little grammar each day, maybe the tae kim one.

I also think its valuable to do the anki 2000 vocab dek, where can I find that?

Also, if someone can clarify how you are suppposed to exactly use anki as a studying guide that would be much appreciated. do i write down the thing it asks on a piece of paper? something like that? sorry for the dumb question.

Last point - at work, I think I will have some down time each day at first because of the lack of japanese, there is only so much english work - in that time i can review japanese, so i think doing 30-35 kanji, some new words, and a little grammar review, isnt unfeasible. that seems like 3 hours of work, i can fit that in.

I will also try and do a complete immersion environment since people said as a virtue of being in japan, duh, you are in that environment.

im also trying to find conversational partners, etc to practice.

thanks once again!

On Kanji:
I've done RTK... however, I don't feel like it's optimal.
What I would do in retrospect is to flip through the book to identify the radicals, then be able to identify all the radicals and the stroke order in all the kanji. So, my ideal Anki card would just have the kanji, and I'd try to rewrite it on paper... if I get the stroke order wrong, I'd fail the card.

I feel like that's important so that you don't see kanji and think of it as completely random.

Once you can recognize and remember kanji, start pounding away at words/sentences using the kanji. The advantage of being in Japan is that you'll see signs everywhere so you'll be able to see how to use words and you'll get a better frequency than Anki alone, and with a lot of different contexts.

I can't comment on conversation because I'm absolutely horrible with it. But I'll tell you this, learning a word written + learning that word in conversation >>>> learning them separately. If you can learn a word, then use it somewhat often in conversation, you'll be better off then if you learn it solely through writing, then come back later and use it in conversation. I don't really know how it works, but it does. Heck, you might not even use that word in conversation...

AJATT is great, but it does take a while. RTK certainly can eat up a lot of time, so I'll second RTK Lite. It's more focused on the more common Kanji.

In your situation, you might want to try methods similar to what Benny the Irish Polyglot does. http://www.fluentin3months.com/ His methods are all about speaking the language right away. AJATT is kind of more wait and listen. Which of course you can also do.

Oh, as for learning Katakana and vocab, Give Hesig's Remember the Kana order a try. I didn't use it myself, but it's pretty good order, Nukemarine has a shared "Remembering the Kana" Anki deck which might do the trick. And his shared "Core 2K/6k" vocab decks I'm quite enjoying right now, as I like how they are setup.
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5110&page=1

Oh I wanna add, subtitles are great, Japanese subtitles that is. If you can watch something with Japanese subtitles do so.

Of course, eventually you will have to learn how to read, put the point was to be able to do core 2000 vocab deck, or study intermediate/advanced grammar books, you would have to know how to read kanji, and in order to do that, you would have to do RTK lite at least, and that implies two hours of studying and one hour of reviewing everyday for a full month. And that's without any other study (like Assimil, or taking notes on vocab in the wild, or going to classes, having a chat with a converstion partner...). So it's quite heavy, and it's time you won't be using for improving your speech.

On the other hand, a month for learning a 1000 kanji is small, and people around you will see the results immediately, so they might tolerate your slowly improving speaking skills if they see you're studying seriously (to anyone that doesn't know of Heisig, the kanji are like some insurmountable obstacle). Plus the benefit of reading books will really increase your skills longterm. And there is the less isolation stuff you mentionned too.

Here's info about RTK lite:
http://forum.koohii.com/search.php?search_id=184630923

Depends on your time frame really. If you plan to be there long term then you might as well start from the ground up with literacy (your speaking will develop naturally over time). If you can handle it I'd suggest hammering RTK1 in a month or so, then going on a serious vocab binge for the following couple of months. Going from zero to functional is never easy and will require a lot of effort, but going steady would just be frustrating imo.

For more info on Anki, search YouTube for "Anki" for a series of useful tutorial videos from the creator. Essentially you set up a question side (e.g. 猫) and an answer side (e.g. ねこ, cat), wait a few hours and then test yourself on how well you know the answer from the question. How well you know the answer (Fail, Hard, Good, Easy) determines how quickly you are shown the question again. If you keep answering the question correctly, the intervals become larger and larger. If you fail at any point, the algorithm is reset.