7 Fun Ways to Learn Japanese

We are all used to the boring ways on how to learn and study a language. From working through textbooks, doing endless pages in workbooks, embarrassing yourself in front of native speakers, or beating yourself over the head with grammar points.

All of those methods have their place and can work well depending on what kind of learner you are but they all can be incredibly dry and just no fun at all.

Learning a language should be fun, not loathsome.

7 Fun Ways to Learn Japanese (or any other language)

1. Personalize and Organize the Notebook You Write Your Japanese Grammar, Verbs, Vocabulary, or Any Japanese Language-Related Notes In

In most cases, if you’re studying Japanese you’re usually taking notes along the way. Maybe you’re jotting down common phrases that you find useful, perhaps you like to practice writing hiragana, katakana, or kanji, or maybe it’s your Japanese class notes. Either way, at some point your Japanese studies will involve note-taking. Why not dedicate one notebook to your Japanese notes and personalize it to your liking? Maybe add a bunch of fun stickers, draw little doodles in the margins, or use washi tape and mid-liners to separate information, and decorate your pages. Completely make it your own!

This will motivate you to study the contents of your notebook more. You’ll feel more inclined to add more notes to it because it just looks so cool. This is also extremely helpful if you are self-studying Japanese. Because self-study can often be disorganized, keeping a notebook dedicated to your studying will keep things in order.

2. Try Using a Japanese Weather App Instead of Your Normal Weather App

We tend to not think of the small things in our lives that we engage with every day as something that could help us with our language learning. But language is a part of our everyday lives so why not incorporate our target language into our daily life in any way we can?

Checking the weather is something we do every day without much thought. Changing the weather app we use into a Japanese weather app would force us to learn or review words like “sunny”, “cloudy”, “humid”, “storm”, and other related words. It’s also a great way to study or review the kanji of these words and become familiar with them. The aim is always for familiarity when it comes to learning a language. It’s best if the target language is natural to us and this is one of the ways that can contribute to its naturalness.

Another really cool thing about the “Oshare” app is that based on the weather, the app will recommend stylish outfits for you. For instance, if it's cold it'll recommend that you wear a coat. If it’ll be a thunderstorm in the afternoon, it will recommend that you wear rain boots. This app is very useful and trendy.

And to think... I would have never found it if I didn’t stop using my boring built-in weather app.

3. Watch Japanese Shows/Movies in Genres That You Would Normally Watch Anyway (Relax in Japanese)

After a fairly long and eventful day, I like to do something that I call “relaxing in Japanese”. This is when I find a show or movie with a plot that interests me and I watch it in plain Japanese with only Japanese subtitles.

I am a huge romance buff so I usually watch Japanese romance dramas and movies.

Watching a show or movie that you are interested in while being in a relaxed state allows for your brain to start making sense of what it’s seeing and hearing. You start to simply absorb intonation, common phrases, body language, idioms, and the language as a whole. You shouldn’t be worried if you don’t understand 100% of what is being said. After a while, things will start to click naturally.

It’s sort of like how a baby learns language. They simply observe and naturally absorb. Relaxing in Japanese allows you to do the same thing.

4. Play Japanese Video Games and Japanese Learning Games

Playing a Japanese video game such as Animal Crossing: New Horizons is an excellent way to study Japanese because you get the chance to read... a lot! In fact, it may be the best way for people who study on their own to read in Japanese while having fun at the same time.

Through the dialogue of this game and games of this nature, you get to practice your kana and kanji recognition, your reading comprehension, and you get to review your grammar all while playing a really fun game.

It’s extremely easy to end up spending hours on a video game. So why not spend those hours studying your target language as well?

Literally the best of both worlds.

Japanese learning apps are a bit different in that the purpose of these apps is for you to actively study and review Japanese. But these can be fun as well.

There are a plethora of vibrant, fun Japanese learning games in app stores to choose from. I personally really enjoy the “Infinite Japanese” app. It’s an app that focuses on common Japanese vocabulary like transportation, occupations, animals, etc. It’s perfect for reviewing/studying the words themselves or their respective kanji. It’s a fun and highly addictive app.

Spending just 10 minutes a day on an app like this daily will not only improve your vocabulary but will boost up your kanji recognition speed and recognition overall.

5. Join a Japanese Social Media-Like App Where You Can Interact with Native Speakers and Be Corrected

I’m pretty sure everyone is tired of hearing about the app "HelloTalk" when anyone speaks about learning a language but there’s a reason for it. And the reason is... it’s a darn good app. It can also be very beneficial to you if you allow it to be.

"HelloTalk" allows you to share posts (words, pictures, or audio) with people who are native speakers in your target language. You can share whatever you like. I use it as a personal blog to talk about interesting and touching things in my life.

The best part about the app though is that you’re able to be corrected by native speakers if you make any mistakes. This is perfect because if you’re struggling with particles, conjugation, or simply sounding natural, your mistakes can be corrected and you can study the correction.

This is a great way to learn because posting about things that you care about and having your mistakes corrected makes it easier for you to speak about that subject with more confidence the next time around.

6. Create a Japanese language Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, Tumblr, or Any Other Social Media Account

Creating a social media account that is dedicated to blogging about your adventures, expressing your thoughts, or simply documenting good experiences in Japanese is not only fun but is also useful.

It helps you express yourself in a more natural and fluid way. And gets you to study more if you can’t quite convey what you want to express yet.

And because it’s on a social media platform, it strangely motivates you to post more because everyone is posting all the time. So in a way, it feels natural as opposed to writing in your own private journal where it can be easy to lose motivation.

7. Incorporate Japanese Into Your Phone's Personalized Home Screen

I was so excited to join in on the “personalize your Home Screen” trend that was popular last year. And doing something as simple as changing most of my icon titles into Japanese words instead of English words helped me considerably.

Incorporating the Japanese language into something that you look at all day/ several times a day (ie: your phone’s home screen) helps it become a natural part of your day. It helps you read faster, recognize kana and kanji faster, internalize the meanings of the kanji, and helps you become more familiar with the language in general.

It’s a very simple tweak but it has big rewards.

Tada! That's my list of 7 fun ways to learn Japanese.

So whether you take Japanese classes at university or you study Japanese on your own with the help of online resources, I hope you enjoyed the article and are inspired to try one of these methods.

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Thank you for reading

Until next time,

Dream