As we learned in the first volume of this article series, there is no single correct path toward Japanese fluency and literacy. With so many methods, tools, books, and courses dedicated to learning one of the world’s most popular languages, it was only natural that I once again reach out to my network for another volume of language learning stories….

If you’ve ever attempted to play your favorite video games in Japanese, you know how frustrating the experience can be. Massive 60-hour role-playing epics from the Final Fantasy series can obliterate your motivation once you realize just how long it would take to get through them in Japanese. Other games may be simpler, but they often lack features friendly to…

Literature, language, and history are intertwined. Studying one without exploring the others is like sailing without a rudder. The longer I live in Japan and study Japanese, the greater my curiosity about Japanese history and literature has grown. However, making the transition from textbook learning to native-level literature is intimidating. With greater access than ever before to historical novels and…

I vividly remember the moment when I learned the Japanese word for soft-boiled egg: hanjuku tamago. It wasn’t long after I had arrived in Japan in January 2009, with little more than a year of elementary Japanese floating around in my head. I was able to survive most day-to-day interactions in Japanese, but moving from textbook to reality was jarring,…

This article was produced in cooperation with Cardemy. I’ve studied Japanese on and off since I was in college, encountering several progress plateaus along the way. Whenever I managed to cross one of those plateaus, it was due to one of the following pillars of my language-learning journey. The first one was the accountability and coaching I received via formal…

Ever since I started studying Japanese over a decade ago, I often heard that playing video games in Japanese was an effective way to study the language. As appealing as that sounded, this advice rarely worked for me because: The language and narratives in the games I enjoyed were always too complicated for my Japanese level. Therefore, I gained neither…

When learning Japanese, motivation and excitement is highest when you’re a beginner. It’s easy to chart your progress, and your world noticeably expands with every word, grammar point, and kanji character learned. You beam with pride as you start traveling to Japan, using key phrases and sentence structures to order meals, greet the locals, and navigate your way across the…

Learning Japanese is equal parts experimentation, practice, and application. In previous articles, I’ve shared how my colleagues and I study the language. Ever curious, I wanted to expand the conversation and find out how members of my social and professional circles tackled Japanese. So, I ended up taking a Tribe of Mentors approach by interviewing Japanese learners, residing locally and…

On an unforgettable April day back in 2008, I found myself sitting across a desk from a travel agent in Nishi-Shinjuku, clutching a pair of freshly minted Narita Express train tickets in my hands. Awash with mixed feelings of accomplishment and disbelief, I had just managed to complete a relatively high-stakes transaction without using a word of English. At this…

What is the best way to learn Japanese? “Focus on what works best for you,” says Matt, creator of the Game Gengo YouTube channel. And when Matt says this, he means it. In the spring of 2020, armed with the fervent belief that language learning can and should be fun, Matt leveraged pandemic-induced downtime to launch his YouTube channel where…