How I learned Japanese - with textbook recommendations!

So let's switch to English because it is
easier and for a wider audience

also its takes very long to subtitle.

Today I am going to talk about 5 ways
I learned Japanese.

A lot of people asked me,
"How do you learn Japanese?"

and it's not as simple as just saying

"Well I've studied for a few years
so that's why."

There are different ways
that you can study

and also ways that are more effective
than other ways.

Number one: before I started
I made sure to listen to the language

as much as possible.

This will make your ear used to
what the natural language sounds like,

helps you pronounce things easier,

and really improves your
listening comprehension.

Remember to do it actively though.

Don't just listen and
not take anything in.

Take notes: what kinds of words are you
hearing?

Listen to the inflection
and the tone of sentences

and actively try to copy
what you are hearing.

Now, obviously you can't do this if you
don't know how to speak the language,

but what I'm trying to get at is that
your ear has to get used to the language

before you dive in, and that you can do
through listening to Japanese music,

watching Japanese movies with English, or
whatever your native language is subtitles

listening to the Japanese radio.
All of this will just tune your ear

to the sound of the language.

Number two: invest in a good textbook.

There are so many Japanese textbooks
on the market that are great.

Personally, I used "Japanese for Busy
People" when I just started.

It's excellent for beginners.

And they have different levels as well,
and they introduce kanji at a very

natural pace. So, it can go up from
beginner to advanced.

I highly recommend
"Japanese for Busy People".

A lot of other people liked
"Minna No Nihongo".

My parents used "Minna No Nihongo"
when they studied in Japan.

Personally, I found it a bit boring and
archaic, but, not the language archaic,

but the layout of the textbook.

Even though it is possible to learn
Japanese without a textbook,

it's always good to have a book to follow.

It is possible to get PDFs online,
there's a bunch of different websites like

Maggie Sensei, or JGram, where you can
look up grammar and kanji, but a textbook,

personally I like to use physical books to
write in and copy the words and get my

hand used to writing kanji.

So, three special mentions that I haven't
talked about yet are these three books

which I really enjoy.

First one is [ ].
They have different levels.

These are [ ], it's like mini phrases
which really help you sound natural

in Japanese. A lot of textbooks will
not teach you these kinds of phrases.

It comes with a CD, so what I did when
I lived in South Africa and had a car,

I would listen to this on the way to work
everyday, and I cannot emphasize how much

it helped me to constantly hear these
phrases. So even now,

when I go through this book and read the
phrases that they're showing, I can hear

the voices of the people who recorded the
CD in my head because it's been so

ingrained in my memory. Sometimes I will
forget the meaning of one of these phrases

but I will know that I heard it before. So
I need to remember to keep on practicing

these phrases. It doesn't just help if I
read it and hear it, I need to use it

myself as well. The next special mention
is this series "Shin Nihongo."

I'll put the link in the description. They
make books for every level of the JLPT.

So currently, I am studying towards N2,
which I'd like to do next year.

I have spoken about this book in a lot of
my other Japanese videos, so I won't go

into that now, but please check out my
Japanese playlist.

But that's one that I really love, and
then of course, there's another prep book,

you can recognize them from the -
there's like a monkey, or an owl, or some

kind of animals on the book and they all
look the same.