Have Fun While Learning Japanese

There are many reasons why you would want to learn a foreign language.

• You probably want to interact with a client who speaks that language.
• You could be living in a country that speaks that language.
• You wish to improve your job prospects by adding a foreign language to your resume.
• Your spouse could be a native speaker of that language.

All the above are serious reasons. However, increasingly now, I find that there are many who wish to learn a language "just for fun." This holds true especially for the Japanese language, as Japanese anime and manga enjoy fandom all over the world. At some point, these anime and manga fans wish to learn a bit of Japanese to be able to enjoy their favorite movies and books in the language in which they were originally written..

Here are six fun ways to learn the Japanese language!

6 Fun Ways to Learn Japanese

1. Use Music to Learn
2. Play "Shiritori"
3. Use Subtitles
4. Children's Folktales
5. Palindromes and Tongue Twisters
6. Free e-Books and Videos

1. Use Music to Learn

Anyone learning Japanese and trying to appear for the Japanese proficiency test would know how tricky the audio section can be.

The site Lingoclip will work well for you if you enjoy music. You can register for free, or you could just postpone the hassle and start playing the "lyrics game" right away. A song will play with the lyrics shown at the bottom of the screen. You need to fill in the blank spaces in the lyrics as you hear a song.

There are three levels, and you can start with the "beginner level." If you do not get a word, then you could listen to that portion again by pressing the back arrow. If you cannot decipher the word even after listening to it a few times, then you could press the forward button to find out what the word is.

There are a good number of Japanese songs in their library. You might want to play the same song till you get all the words right.

Another method is to search for "world hits," such as "Let it Go" in Japanese. Songs such as this are bound to be available on the net with lyrics.

There is also a song from the popular movie Tangled, which has the "te forms" of many verbs which beginners struggle with.

2. Play "Shiritori"

You could also try playing the word game "Shiritori." The word "Shiritori" means "take the rear." This works like the "word-building" game in English. The site prompts you with a word, and you simply have to type a new word beginning with the last alphabet of that word. There are just two rules:

1. Only nouns are allowed.
2. Words ending with the letter "ん" are not allowed.

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There are three levels here too, and I strongly recommend the "beginner" level. Katakana words are allowed, but you have to type the word within 30 seconds for beginner level. You need Japanese font for this site. So, get that ready before the timer starts ticking!

3. Use Subtitles

There are quite a few Japanese dramas available for viewing on streaming platforms. You could watch them a few times without subtitles and then a few times with subtitles.

You could watch English movies too with the audio track in Japanese. If it's a movie you are already familiar with, then it's easy to make out the meaning of the dialogues. By the second or third time, you are sure to know a few dialogues by heart.

4. Children's Folktales

There are several interesting Japanese folktales, such as "Momotarou" and "Issunboshi." This YouTube channel has a lot of children's tales with subtitles in both Japanese and English, which I found very useful.

There is another site, too, which has audio tracks of folk tales. This site, however, is fully in Japanese and is probably more suitable for students at the intermediate and advanced levels. To start, you simply need to click on the story. If you wish to read the story while listening to what is being said, then click on the tab that says "お話を表示" on the right side bottom.

5. Palindromes and Tongue Twisters

Watching morning television in Japan can be fun as it is full of programs aimed at preschoolers. Here are some catchy palindrome songs:

• Kotatsu Tako Part 1
  
• Kotatsu Tako Part 2

This is part of the morning program. The word "palindrome" is "kaibun" in Japanese. The palindromes in these songs are interesting, with funny ones like "えいのいえ" ("ei no ie")," which means "an eel's house."

Learning palindromes is one way to memorize vocabulary. You could try making your own palindrome too. In Japanese, it's not that hard since you can use particles like "ga" and "no" and connect two short words. For example, "きたのたき" ("kita no taki") simply means "waterfalls of the north."

Tongue twisters are another fun way to break the monotony of textbook studies. Tongue twisters are called "Hayakuchi Kotoba" in Japanese. There is one that every elementary textbook has that always cracks up my students: the conjugation forms for the word "atatakai." The whole class will be in splits when they get to the past form of the word, which goes "atatakakatta."

This article covers 15 more interesting Japanese tongue twisters. My personal favorite is "Tonari no kyaku wa yoku kaki kuu kyaku da" ("the customer sitting next to me eats a lot of persimmons").

6. Free e-Books and Videos

This site has a whole library of free books for intermediate- to advanced-level students. However, it's easy to feel lost in the sea of books. I have never got around to finishing any book that I have downloaded from this site.

Some Japanese edition books are available for free on Kindle. This seems like an easier option if you enjoy reading.

Another option is using the NHK playlist available on YouTube. The skits are entertaining, and there are several informative videos about Japan. You could choose one according to your interest.

This Shimajiro YouTube channel is an option that's sure to crack you up. This channel is meant for preschoolers. There are no subtitles, but the Japanese is pretty basic and easy to understand. "Shimajiro" is a tiger cub and all the videos center around him. The videos will have messages for preschoolers about "sharing," "good eating habits," "good toilet habits," and the like. These videos not only help to learn Japanese but also help to understand Japanese values and culture. They are fun and informative at the same time.

Final Words

There are many more fun ways to familiarize oneself with a language. For example, there are several YouTube channels run by Japanese natives with English as well as Japanese subtitles—Choki's Vlog, for instance, is pretty much a channel full of ASMR videos with slow Japanese subtitles. There are cooking, travelling, and calligraphy channels too. Choose one that suits your taste and keep at it for at least a few weeks. You will soon observe an improvement in your comprehension skills.

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.

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