Study Advice

Man, I imagine the transportation is so much better. I’m out in Saga prefecture and my local trains only come every 30 minutes to an hour :sob:

I was in Osaka a couple weeks ago, and was amazed the trains came every 5 minutes hahaha

I think for me I created habits for myself through the use of the Toggl app that lets me see how many hours I am actually putting into studying daily/weekly and basically competing with myself. I didn’t like Genki so personally I went to SKM N4 instead. I listened to Nihongo con Teppei for beginners which really helped my listening (I am also on JET and have gone from that to other podcasts). On my commute to and from work, I put my headphones in. When I am in between classes I do some vocabulary, wanikani or actually listen. If you power through it for a bit then maybe it becomes a habit. I recently started italki lessons (I am still shit at speaking but it has given me a bit of confidence to use my little knowledge with teachers more and more). Good luck.

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I was a rural JET as well and I deeply regret not taking as much advantage of the local resources as possible. However, there are some traps to be aware of.

Our city had an English-speaking circle which I thought would be helpful, but I think though they can be good for meeting Japanese-speaking natives in a more casual context, often they are as the name implies - more focused on English speaking. I would follow @mgrice’s advice and try and find clubs or social groups that either enforce a half-and-half approach or are almost completely Japanese-speaking (my friend swore by a taiko drumming group he joined as being one of the things that really supercharged his learning).

The other thing that might be possible is your local city hall may have Japanese tutoring groups for second-language learners/people who have moved locally and are having difficulties adapting in. Sometimes they teach more practical stuff like how to pay your bills at the post office or do banking or order food, etc. I think these are useful, but you’ll have to evaluate it yourself. They’re usually pretty cheap though.

The other thing if possible is to find a tutor. Tutors really sidestep the issue where you don’t want to take up people’s time speaking your own broken-ass Japanese (because you pay for the time, obviously). And the one-on-one aspect is extremely good. How you would go about this… is a bit of a difficulty. Italki is good for online stuff.

Good luck!

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I think you’re mixing it up with something else. There’s no sign up required at all.

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Yeah, I guess I must have used a different site or something then. I remember there being free books but if you wanted to use some of them then you had to sign up for their website.

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That sounds like satori reader. It does have a built in srs and every word and grammar is linked in their stories iirc

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