What should I focus on?

[redxiiinanaki4215]

Hello,

I started to learn Japanese in Autumn 2013. Just because I wanted to understand anime and play games which will never be translated. for a while it was easy:
-I learned hiragana
-same with katakana
-and I was following Japanesepod lesson until ... Beginner season 1, because there were so many lessons that I got a bit overwhelmed, I could not get through all of it

But now I started to learn kanji through flashcards, it's going quite slowly, so I tried to look for some tips online, and someone said that focusing on kanji might be a bad idea. He claimed that learning how to speak Japanese will be much easier to do (especially in my case where I learn by myself, not attending class, nor committing that much time to it), plus learning kanji would really slow things down, when if I were to first master speech, then kanji would be easier to swallow.

I'm not sure what to take from that. Do I already possess some basic knowledge for kanji, or should I really focus on more audio lessons and get more of a grasp on how to talk Japanese?

[community.japanese]

redxiiinanaki4215 san,
konnichiwa.
I can understand your struggle.
However, four skills, listening, writing, speaking and reading are related each other.
If you know your learning type, it might be easier to memorize vocabularies and grammar.
Are you an audio learner or a visual learner or kinesthetic?
Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[redxiiinanaki4215]

Konnichiwa
I have trouble telling what I am

I've learned English and German as a child, because I was watching cartoons in those languages. The words used were not that complicated, and my head just managed to deduce what the words meant after dozens of re-runs.

Years later in university I decided to learn French as a foreign language in class and it ended tragically. I could not follow along and catch up.

It's also been deduced that I suffer from dysgraphia. While many people learn languages by understanding the logic of it and the rules, I don't and just accept "just cause", which to be fair, isn't that unusual for native speakers, however so far learning Japanese, the logical structure of it seems remarkably simple compare to other languages that I've encountered.

Because of how much easier German and English were to me, I figured I'd try learning it by watching anime, which.... did teach me a few words that were repeated, but I was still mostly reading English subtitles.

Some time ago I followed a different advise and watched anime with Japanese subtitles. I was watching Sailor Moon like this, a show that I love, but don't have everything memorized line-by-line. Seemed like the perfect fit, since I always know what's going on and have to deduce what the characters are exactly saying, but typically I zone out after sometime, because my brain gets too tired.

[community.japanese]

redxiiinanaki4215 san,
konnichiwa.
I think you should set your goal regarding learning Japanese.
What do you want to do in Japanese?
Do you completely want to understand Japanese anime in Japanese?
Do you want to communicate with Japanese people?
Do you want to understand Japanese academic articles for your research?
Because you mentioned you suffered from dysgraphia, I think you use audio materials for your learning…
Anyway I want you to enjoy learning Japanese.
Please let us know if you need help.
Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[redxiiinanaki4215]

konnichiwa Yuki-san
I wish to understand Japanese in anime and video games.
Communicating with Japanese people would not come in handy to me as much for now.
Anime would make understanding audio to be much more important, video games however have a lot of text... then again I suppose video games have a lower priority...

[community.japanese]

redxiiinanaki4215 san,
konnichiwa.
I see.
In your case you should focus on languages in anime and video games.
However, as you know you can’t improve your Japanese if you study it only one day or one week or one month.
It’s said in academic articles that if you have a review within 48 hours, your short time memory becomes long time memory.
In terms of kanji learning it takes at least 9 years to master around 3000 kanjis for native Japanese people.
How about make a vocabulary list and expression notes and review again and again.
If you want to have private online lessons, we can provide you so please let us know.
Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

[redxiiinanaki4215]

I do try to commit 10 minute each day to learning those flashcards, I maybe could squeeze the audio lessons somewhere in there too....

[community.japanese]

redxiiinanaki4215　さん、
konnichiwa.
I see.
How about testing yourself sometimes for example, once a week?
If you can’t answer your questions, you can concentrate on words you don’t memorize.
Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com