Starting Japanese From Scratch Log
Background: I’m not completely new to language learning. In the past I learned some Spanish to around an A2-ish level and got roughly ~500 hours of comprehensible input. I also probably spent way too much time learning how to learn languages instead of actually learning them, but oh well.
I recently started Japanese because I’ve wanted to learn it for years. I fell in love with Japanese architecture a long time ago, and I also watched a ton of anime growing up (probably 100+ series? no idea lol). I don’t know how much that exposure actually helps, but I like noting every bit of contact I’ve had with the language.
My personal opinion is that phonetics/pronunciation should be the first thing learned in any language, so before starting immersion I focused entirely on understanding the sound system and basic background info.
What I did
May 3:
Learned general background info about Japanese
Looked into recommended learning methods
Learned about the writing systems
Learned what pitch accent is and why people care about it
May 4:
~5 hours learning hiragana
4+ hours passive listening to hiragana pronunciation
~30 mins minimal pair pitch accent perception practice
May 5:
Basically repeated the same thing
May 6:
Started doing CI-only Japanese
From this point forward, my plan is:
CI only
Pitch accent perception training daily
No grammar study
No vocab decks/SRS
No textbooks
I stopped actively studying hiragana once I learned the sounds and understood which sounds differed from English. My current view is that understanding/hearing the language correctly matters more at the start than memorizing rules.
I’m posting this because I personally haven’t found many examples of someone trying to learn Japanese solely through CI from basically the beginning — especially someone without prior Japanese grammar study, classes, or traditional foundations first.
So I thought it might be interesting to document the process/results over time, whether it succeeds or completely crashes and burns.
Would be interested in hearing from anyone who’s tried something similar, especially with Japanese specifically.
I will make posts every 50 hours of CI not including passive listening daily, but I’ll try and give rough estimates on that