How to Speak Japanese, Train Your Listening and Beat Kanji

Speaking, listening and kanji: these are the three things that scare beginners most. In this post I'll take that fear away with the exact methods I used myself.

Speaking: start from day one 🗣️

I've said this from the beginning: speak Japanese from day one. Don't wait until you reach N4 or N3.

My best tip may surprise you: close the books for a while. Watch Japanese dramas, movies, news channels, even the weather forecast. You won't understand everything, and that's fine, because you're going to shadow it.

What is shadowing?

Someone says a line of Japanese dialogue, and you repeat it right after them, copying the sound and rhythm. Do it again and again. Your confidence grows, and slowly your brain starts to analyse what's being said and to produce it on its own.

When I was improving my conversation, I did this a lot with the drama Alice in Borderland. There were lines I really wanted to be able to say, so I'd pause, go back, and repeat them. Yes, it's a bit irritating. But at the end of the day, you learn.

The anime Slam Dunk is old, but its Japanese is quite basic, and the story is fun. Watch it and repeat the dialogue. I even memorised its whole opening song!

Memorise anime openings and Japanese songs 🎵

This is a really underrated method. Anime openings and Japanese songs use real Japanese, often with N5 and N4 kanji. Take one song, understand its meaning, and learn it by heart. The melody helps you remember the words and what they mean.

So for speaking:

1. Shadow dramas, movies and news.
2. Memorise anime openings.
3. Learn Japanese songs and understand their lyrics.

Listening: train your brain on real Japanese 👂

Listening works much like speaking.

Remove the English subtitles. Take a five-minute scene and watch it in pure Japanese. Concentrate, and frame in your mind what was said. Then watch it again with subtitles and see what you missed. That's how you train yourself to catch fluent conversation between two people.

More ways to get input:

• Some learners play online games and make Japanese friends there. Talking with them builds listening fast.
• If you plan to go to Japan in one or two years, listen to one Japanese song every day from now on. You'll get used to the words and the way people speak.
• The bookish way: replay the listening sections of your textbook again and again. It works, but it can get boring, so mix it with the real-life methods above.

Kanji: learn the radicals 漢

People will give you ten methods for kanji: write it many times, use mnemonics, use pictures. The single most effective thing for me was learning radicals.

Radicals are the parts that join together to make a kanji. For example, 日 (sun, nichi) and 月 (moon, tsuki) together make 明 (bright). There are a limited number of radicals. Once you know them, every new kanji is just a combination of parts you've seen before. Even in the worst case, the radicals hint at what the kanji means. Kanji stops looking scary.

Learn readings through words, not lists

Instead of memorising on'yomi and kun'yomi as separate lists, learn each reading through a word or sentence you actually remember.

Take 中. It can be read naka and chū:

• かばんの中 (kaban no naka): inside the bag. That's where naka lives.
• 夢中 (muchū): completely absorbed in something. That's chū. There's even a line in the Slam Dunk opening with 夢中, which is how it stuck for me.

You may still mix up which reading to use when, but you'll remember both, through real examples instead of rote learning.

A dictionary app helps here. On iPhone, try Shirabe Jisho. On Android, try Takoboto. Open any kanji and you'll see words and example sentences. Pick the one you understand, and that's your hook for that reading.

My whiteboard routine

1. Buy a whiteboard and a marker. Really.
2. Set a target, for example five new kanji today.
3. For each kanji, write its stroke order at least ten times on the board.
4. Write down its radicals.
5. Write a word that uses it, and a sentence that shows its reading.
6. In a grid notebook, write each reading five times, then the sentences.
7. Put a reminder in your to-do list for five days later to look at that page again.

Learn it, use it in real examples, revise it, and learn it again. That's the whole cycle.

Don't make Japanese complicated

Japanese is supposed to be fun. People get obsessed with theory: "Why is it like this? If it's like that, why is it like that?" Don't overthink it. It's a language. Feel it, understand it, use it.

And remember, as an Indian you have an advantage: Hindi sentence order is very close to Japanese. Both put the verb at the end. English speakers have to rewire their sentences, and you mostly don't.

Start today. Our hiragana chart and free video course are the first step.