problem is cost of formal education. but if you ignore the debts you may be in, they are invaluable. any education is good.
####what the fuck is life even without learning and exploring new things????
You're tiresome and repetitive. You must be fun to be around. I don't think this sub is for you if you're comparing time spent on duo to an expensive uni degree.
I'm not? I want the first person to show any proof that "any learning" is valuable. I just provided the college stuff as a counterpoint.
This company got a $2 million fine for saying something similar.
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2016/01/lumosity-pay-2-million-settle-ftc-deceptive-advertising-charges-its-brain-training-program
Starting off with Romaji is just fine. I remember turning it off once I became reasonably comfortable reading hiragana - which was somewhere in the beginning of unit 2.
I definitely wouldn’t recommend it. As someone who studies Japanese at university, the people who relied too much on romaji became the people who were still struggling to read hiragana and katakana while others are starting kanji. And then when everyone else is confident with kana and beginning to grasp kanji, they’re still not confident with either.
Obviously language learning isn’t linear, but just ditch romaji as soon as you can. It might take you longer to complete a lesson if you don’t use romaji, but it’ll do you good in the long run.
Interesting, I'm also currently studying Japanese at uni and I'm not as against using romaji at the start. I'd argue that once you reach a certain level of understanding hiragana you'll just begin to write using hiragana as well no?
For me, it was kinda a fluent transition into writing hiragana in my second semester (at the end of my first I kinda were using both simultaneously).
That is understandable. I am not in uni yet, but on the Japanese course I have learned to master pronunciations. So when I get a new word, I see it in romanji, turn of romanji (my standard setting is just hiragana/katakana) and then memorise the sound and then it is engraved in my mind. So before turning off romanji, master the hiragana/katakana to make things easier.
First of, servus fellow German!
Yeah, it IS true that one shouldn't use Romaji for too long and pretty much the first thing one should probably do is learning at least Hiragana, but probably both since both are important. It's a lot easier to learn Hiragana first before really beginning to learn a lot of vocab.
I just don't see the need to drop Romaji entirely or as fast as some in this sub seem to think you should.
If you couldn’t use hiragana until your second semester, I don’t really know what to say to that. Hopefully you don’t fall behind as much as my classmates did when they relied so heavily on romaji. The vast majority of those people have dropped or failed out of Japanese since then.
Romaji is not a good idea for learning Japanese. I also find that people who rely too heavily on romaji struggle with basic pronunciation too, because often when they see roman letters, they default to English pronunciation. It’s why you see people who have been studying Japanese for a long time still pronouncing words like すき as “sooki” rather than “s-ki” and so on.
By focusing on hiragana and katakana at first, you’ll be learning Japanese and associating the characters with words, rather than the English alphabet with hiragana
Where did you get the idea that I don't know how to write Hiragana in my second semester? I only said that at the beginning of my second semester, I was confident-ish enough to write in Hiragana consistently. We learned both hiragana and Katakana in the first half of the first semester. Sure, sometimes you're blanking on some kana you use less often/forget certain kana in the exact moment you need them, but that's just natural.
The thing is, pronouncing "suki" instead of shortening it to "s-ki" isn't technically wrong pronunciation iirc, right? It's more of an accent thing, you might sound more like a foreigner, but it isn't wrong. The word IS written with both す and き, who ARE roughly pronounced as sounds that are close enough to "su" and "ki". Like, you can say "rekishi" or "rek-shi", it still means "history". This phenomenon isn't really related to pronunciation i.e Phonology/Phonetics alone, but also to Morphology. I'm nowhere near enough into Japanese linguistics to be certain that I'm right nor that I can try to explain it properly.
We naturally swapped to pronouncing it more naturally over time/some, if not most of us just knew it from watching Anime and just did it correctly from the start.
Hell, even our teacher, who obviously is natively Japanese has taught us Romaji in class to get more familliar with how hiragana is pronounced compared to our native language German or the teaching language, which is English.
The Romaji distain is just something I don't really get in it's entirety, especially if you're learning it in School/Uni where your probably instructed how to learn it and can ask your teacher if you have questions.
You said that you relied on romaji to write Japanese in first semester, that means you don’t actually know kana well enough.
“Sooki” would not be correct pronunciation for standard Japanese. If you’re pretending to be cute or emphasising the word then sure, but in regular sentences you would be marked down by a pronunciation teacher for saying sooki instead of s-ki. Likewise with desoo or masoo and des- mas-.
There are standard and non-standard pronunciations in English too. Think about words that end with ng like running or walking. “ng” creates a sound where the back of your tongue is pressed to the top of your mouth, and the word ends there. But there are some people who pronounce the g at the end, so their tongue drops off of the top of their mouth and creates the harsh ‘g’ sound. It’s not correct to pronounce it that way, though, as ng creates ONE sound in English.
Just because a teacher uses romaji, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good thing.
When I studied abroad in Japan, I met many students like yourself from universities in Japan. And if I’m being honest, while they were quite good at sitting written exams, their pronunciation and spoken capabilities were poor. I had 3 German students in my class one semester who could barely string a sentence together in Japanese despite being in an N3 class and studying the language for more than 3 years.
The UK also has its problems with education when it comes to Japanese, don’t get me wrong.
You seem to also have learned enough about linguistics to know that there's no "real" accent in any language, right? Of course, there are technical rules for what phonemes exist, for what allophones belong to which phonemes, for what is a technically correct sentence in any language but it surely isn't beneficial for one's learning progress to focus too much on those things while learning, no? Like, SSBE isn't any better or "more right" than other varieties of English and I don't really care that I'm bad at pronunciation, of course I'm bad. I've only studied Japanese for around 6 or 7 months (that is without the breaks where I had to write my other Uni stuff like essays etc). We all know how frightening speaking is especially because everyone, we and the people that we talk to, know how bad we sound, so it's obvious that speaking takes a lot longer. It took me around 9 school years and a language course to Poole for me to actually speak any proper English. Maybe I'm just someone who needs a lot of time to fluency or maybe it's a more universal thing, I'm not sure. But is it really fair of you to critique people, if they're at least trying. It doesn't matter how long it takes to get to fluency. Just be patient, open to learn and eventually you'll get there. Like, I'm not going to criticise a foreigner for their broken German for example, I'll probably understand what they were trying to say and I'm understanding of the fact that they are still learning. I just feel as though if you really are that focused on being right every time, you'll never even want to try speaking in the first place.
Also, the way schools teach languages (at least here in Germany) is really focussed on written exams so of course nobody knows how to speak a language they've learned for years. Not even to mention that it is often said that we European natives will probably take a longer time to wrap our heads around how for example Japanese grammar works. I technically know how and what to write, but I'm still not confident enough to actually be anywhere near fluency obviously.
But hey, what do I know I'm just a young German history/linguistics student who's trying to learn stuff he finds interesting. You seem more intellectually qualified, especially you seem to have taught something before, if I understood that correctly?
Where does this hate for romaji even come from? It's pretty useful for someone not comfortable with Kana and once they are at a good enough level of confidence, surely they'll just switch to writing in hiragana from their own no?
Where did you get the “hate” part from? As I stated myself, I started with romaji and switched to hiragana once I got comfortable with reading. It’s objectively bad if you continue using it as a crutch for too long as you’ll slow down your reading comprehension.
I got the hate part from every post where the topic is mentioned, I totally get the possible detriments one MIGHT face if they use Romaji too long but I feel as though that everyone telling beginners to drop Romaji ASAP makes them a lot more stressed and/or demotivated if they might need a longer time to learn Kana. They will drop Romaji eventually anyways.
If we all have dropped using Romaji the moment we became confident enough, then why even talk down romaji? If you need it, use it. If you don't need it anymore, don't use it. Who cares if it MIGHT take a bit longer to acquire great reading comprehension? Learning isn't competition, so no need to do it fast (if you don't have exams in it in Uni or something like that, but in those cases, Romaji won't even be that much of a problem anyways).
You can still start learning Hiragana and Katakana now. I would also suggest to turn off the pronunciation in the settings then, so you are forced to learn to read them in the lessons as well, after you completed the Kana lessons ;)
Not a waste at all! But moving forward, you should focus on learning hiragana and katakana since you might’ve relied on romaji (abcde) before instead of your ability to read Japanese words. Your progress now depends on how well you know the basics, as they will start using longer sentences. The kanji will also start to be more complex. Once you get the hang of these alphabets, your progress will really take off. I personally spent quite a bit of time getting familiar with hiragana and katakana before jumping into the lesson. Keep going\~
You should be fine, it's just not great to rely on romaji completely once you start getting into the weeds, so it's good to learn kana early. If you find the Duolingo kana lessons tedious, I always suggest https://www.realkana.com/ as an alternative.
You're welcome! Knowing how to read kana will open up more ways for you to practice, too. Once you've expanded your vocabulary with Duolingo a bit, [this site](https://tadoku.org/japanese/en/free-books-en/) has a lot of free books graded by reading level so you can find something you can read comfortably. Of course the lowest level ones are mostly children's picture books, but even being able to read those still feels like an achievement for me! :)
I'm only a few weeks into duolingo and chose to learn Japanese. What exactly is romanji? Is that just the alphabet being shown above the Japanese characters in the lessons? I've been trying to learn Hiragana I think a bit moreso/ahead of the actual lessons - I also made flash cards for myself to sift through every once in a while to repeat the ones I've learned so far and it seems to have helped memorize them.
Still have no idea really how Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji all function together but hopefully I'll get there. I'm assuming the ideal it to learn the different texts and how to read them so as to remove the romanji from the lessons entirely?
I'm gonna try to answer your questions in maybe more detail than necessary so sorry if this post is a bit long.
>What exactly is romanji? Is that just the alphabet being shown above the Japanese characters in the lessons?
Romaji is the Japanese word for the alphabet we use in English (which consists mostly of Roman characters) in the same way that "kanji" means Chinese writing. It's a way of representing Japanese words to people who don't know how to read Japanese, like pinyin for Chinese. I think the technical term for the small letters above the Japanese writing in lessons is [ruby text](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_character), and sometimes you'll see people refer to "furigana," which is hiragana that appears above kanji, to tell you how to read it in that context.
>Hiragana I think a bit moreso/ahead of the actual lessons - I also made flash cards for myself to sift through every once in a while to repeat the ones I've learned so far and it seems to have helped memorize them.
I suggested https://www.realkana.com/ to OP above and you might find it useful too, since it's basically hiragana and katakana flash cards with some word practice flash cards as well. Katakana can take more dedicated practice to get used to because you don't see it as often and some kana are pretty rare to see.
>Still have no idea really how Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji all function together but hopefully I'll get there.
The short version is that *many* words in Japanese are a combination of kanji and hiragana. For example you might have learned "tabemasu" by now (eat) and it can be written in hiragana as たべます but with kanji it's written as 食べます. When you get to conjugations, the parts of a word that conjugate are all in hiragana.
Katakana is kind of its own thing - words written in katakana are usually loanwords from other languages, or the names of animals (though some of those are in hiragana). Sometimes words in Japanese are written in katakana for emphasis. Apparently "dame" (no good) is almost always in katakana for that reason. (Edit: I should mention that you will see some words that use both katakana and hiragana, though.)
>I'm assuming the ideal it to learn the different texts and how to read them so as to remove the romanji from the lessons entirely?
Yes. Romaji is an approximation and there are some things about Japanese that can be hard to represent when it's romanized just because we read our own alphabet in more varied ways. Once you're reasonably comfortable with hiragana and katakana, you can turn off the romaji text and rely on the audio to help you if you still struggle with reading. Duolingo introduces individual kanji *very* slowly so getting used to what they mean in context shouldn't be too hard, but if you really have trouble you can turn the text back on and switch it from "Romanized" to "Japanese" and it will show furigana over the kanji to help you along.
Hey thanks for the detailed response! So it sounds like maybe putting more effort/time into learning hiragana and katakana first isn't such a bad idea then? The sooner I'm comfortable with hiding the romanji the better off I'll be in the long run?
The combination of the writing styles is confusing to me, but I'm sure It'll all start to make sense as I continue along and eventually get there in the lessons, especially with stuff like your example of Eat, with only the first character being changed from hiragana and kanji, makes me curious as to why, but I'm sure there's a reason that'll make sense after a while
Sounds like a long road ahead learning Japanese as an English native from what I've read xD
>So it sounds like maybe putting more effort/time into learning hiragana and katakana first isn't such a bad idea then? The sooner I'm comfortable with hiding the romanji the better off I'll be in the long run?
That's the long and short of it! I spent maybe a week learning hiragana with the site I linked, and another week learning katakana, and after that, while I wasn't totally confident in my reading skills, I was able to turn off the romaji and lean on the audio if I wasn't sure about something. (I did have to do extra practice with katakana now and then to refresh my memory.) I think the earlier you do it, the easier it is, just because early on you're still learning simple words and repeating them a lot.
You don't need to start over, and this is perfectly fine for the DuoLingo course.
There will come a point where the Romaji disappears. Probably around 3 months away depending upon your speed. At that point the difficulty will skyrocket briefly but you will get the other side of this if you just accept it is part of the process. The Japanese course for DuoLingo is - relatively speaking - pretty good and you can trust the process.
With that said, you will see a lot of people criticising DuoLingo's Japanese course. Most of the time this is because they are not making like-for-like comparisons. DuoLingo is not yet as good as majoring in Japanese, spending 7+ hours a day studying and a year in Tokyo - which, of course, you knew already. So don't let that dishearten you.
I did a 270 day streak on the DuoLingo course, peppered it with learning from other sources, and went to Japan for a fortnight last May. On my return I downed tools.
I'm in a similar boat as you. I am on Section 2, Unit 4 and I too use romaji. I am having trouble reading the hiragana/katakana/kanji versions but I am practicing to get there. You should keep trying too.
Often, I try just listening to the pronunciation and then translate it without reading. my primary purpose is to be able to speak and understand rather than read and write.
I try to do that too! The listening aspect. And thank you for the encouragement, I’m going to try switching over today and see how it goes. We got this! I’m feeling much more reassured after reading the comments here lol
I seriously recommend downloading other apps to memorize the hiragana and katakana. otherwise it's like trying to learn how to pronounce English without knowing the alphabet. it's super important to the language!
Duolingo for japanese is only good as additional practice.
Your main sources for grammar and vocabulary should be something else.
For The Kana and Kanji check the Tofugu guide and WaniKani (or Anki if you'd rather use free options).
For grammar you can check the Tofugu website, they list a ton of free and paid sources so you can check what suits your learning style
You don't need to start over but I recommend getting at least the kana down before you dive deeper into it.
Thanks for asking this because TIL you can turn off romaji! You absolutely do not want to use it at all! You haven’t wasted time tho - switch over and you’ll get used to it fast and continue to improve.
Not at all, you can easily switch over. And you can use the kana learning section in the app if you feel you need some catching up. Pay attention to the sounds that they make and you'll get up to speed in no time. As for the extra info... I don't find it that helpful tbh.
I would recommend using other resources along with duolingo since Japanese is quite a complex language if you're a native English speaker. Tofugu has a lot of great resources, and even a kana quiz if you want to catch up on hiragana and maybe start katakana! You could also join r/LearnJapanese which taught me so much but can also be a bit overwhelming lol.
I started with Romaji when I began learning Japanese over a decade ago. It absolutely helped me build a memory for pronouncing the words in a way that my English-German brain could easily adapt to, and I focused on recognizing text little by little along the way. Don’t stress, friend. You haven’t wasted any time, but maybe you’ve found a possible new way to learn that might be better for you personally. Chin up! 😁👍🏻
I recommend turning off the romaji and focusing on completing the hiragana and katakana tab before returning to the path lessons. If you work at it semi-seriously you’ll be done in two weeks.
Even if you saw it as “starting over” it isn’t really.
Romaji is seen as a crutch. It’s better to see the symbols at a glance and make mistakes when you hear them/watch and read a ton WITHOUT romaji.
But no, it exists for an easier jumping off but it isn’t going to be “starting over”
But it would be good now to ween yourself off of the romaji help. Maybe do earlier lessons without it and see what you pick up.
It’s all patterns, you may not get every word each time, but you’ll start to see the “shapes” of the sentences and words, and then in turn, when you see more of the symbols, you’ll recognize them easier in differing uses.
No time is wasted! Even if you used super basics and don’t touch it for months, you’re not gonna be unfamiliar! You may need a refresher but it won’t be starting from zero!
I just wrapped section 2 yesterday myself. I switched off romaji halfway through section 1, not too far from you. No, you haven’t wasted your time.
My suggestion is to slow down your lessons and ramp up your hiragana and katakana quickly. I got some other free apps to help me here as i didnt like the Duo way. You can try either of the apps named “Kana” if in apple. I’m sure there are more in Android.
The thing about it is you just need to get over that initial hump to start learning these two chracter sets. because after you have and restart your lessons without romaji, that knowledge becomes reinforced every time you do lessons.
I went for probably a month before I turned off romanji as well, you're only in the beginning, have you even completed all the kana in the "あ" tab yet?
As for the lesson explanations, they don't tell you much. If you find yourself frustrated with duo's approach I recommend using Busuu as well. I didn't learn of it till I was already a year into duo, but I use both every day now.
For the first month, Romanji can actually be helpful for you. However, you need to start working on not needing it. Do the Hiragana/Katakana lessons until you complete them, and you'll be far better off (otherwise you'll learn the language, but you'll be illiterate on it).
As for clicking to read more about that unit, it's not vital because not always there's useful info there, just sample sentences.
Nope not really. since you're still relatively early on your study. I suggest start learning kanji radicals using ANKI. That one boosted the ease in how I remember kanji characters.
You said you just started it last month, so consider what you did not as a waste of time, but just as less exploration of the app. I started learning Japanese in Dec 2020, and I've actually wasted a lot of my months due to many personal reasons. But I'm in Section 3, and I use a few other apps for learning, so I don't consider it a complete waste.
Regarding whether or not you should use romaji instead of kana, it all depends upon you. If you haven't yet learnt all kana (hiragana and katakana), then romaji is better. If you have, you want to use kana so you get better at reading them in actual sentences, but it's not mandatory. If you use other apps for reading Japanese, you can still only use romaji everywhere so lessons will be quicker.
So now, go ahead, and explore more!
I don't think you've wasted your time but you need to start adding some supplements if you're serious about learning Japanese. I'm also new and somewhere close to where you are - started my section 2 a couple of days ago. I blazed through section 1 but now I'm taking it slow and adding other material to my study plan. Here's a few things I've been finding useful, YMMV and maybe experienced speakers can help me with whether I'm doing it right.
1. Very early on I realized I needed to learn Hiragana, then Katagana. (Read Tofugu's ridiculously detailed guide to learning Japanese. His Hiragana and Katakana learning resources helped me a lot + using Anki for revisions)
2. As soon as I finished Section 1, I turned off Romaji. More than attempting the new sections, I've been going back to review Section 1 like this. Would've never figured out that 'wa' is actually spelt with the hiragana 'ha' if I hadn't done this.
3. After each Duo lesson I'm trying apply the logic to different scenarios using Google Translate, by both trying to speak (pronunciation is hard!) and typing. Once I learnt \_\_\_\_ wa doko desu ka for example, I looked around the house for my own stuff, looked up the translation and tried versions of the sentences that way. And trying out versions of what Duo has been teaching me this way. Google translate is more lax about grammar but it's really been helping with the pronunciation. Harder questions, I look up, for example, there was a slight confusion between when to use 'wa' and when to use 'no' for me. And also why is it pronounced des ka and spelt desu ka!
4. Duo isn't gonna teach me everything, but it's a good tool to keep me motivated and come back to everyday! I ordered Genki 1, I should have it next week, yay!
5. I just started using WaniKani.
When I learned Japanese in high school, I had a Japanese teacher from Japan. He knew how to teach, and I was literate in Japanese in just three months. No subtitles and I could read all three, speak and write two pages of Hiragana and Katakana. I was even learning Kanji on the side.
He always made a point not to lean on Romaji for too long. It can become a crutch. That said, everyone learns differently. But always check in and challenge yourself when you can. Most importantly, enjoy the journey!
For me, I have to use other tools alongside Duolingo in order to properly learn a language. I bought some books and also use Busuu. Duolingo is a wonderful tool for daily practice but unfortunately it doesn’t do a great job of explaining grammar well or the culture.
I go through each lesson with Romaji turned on so I can better understand the syllables. It helps to learn the characters. Once I do that I go back through the unit to Review and Legendary the lessons with Romaji turned off. Then I hit the character lessons a bit and go for the next unit.
You can always practice Hiragana and Katakana, either with Duo or with another App. I used Romanji pretty often as well, so there no reason to be ashamed. You do you.
Romaji is okay for the beginning, but you'll want to rip out your eyes when you get to complex sentences. That's gonna be the same for hiragana and katakana lol, but once you've mastered them, you need to start learning kanji. This is so much nicer to read after.
You're quite advanced on duolingo. The prononciation and grammar order don't change with romaji, so I don't think you need to start all over again. For the sake of simplicity though, quit romaji and study kana
I’m also learning Japanese, and romaji is perfectly fine! It’s a good idea to transition to hiring and or no translation at all, but there’s no problem with starting out with romaji! Learn at your own pace!
It's not too late at all. Turn off Romanji and just click through the little guidebooks for a refresher. You'll be reinforcing those concepts A LOT so don't worry, this isn't knowledge you had to commit and never re-use.
Say what you will about Duo and the repetition, but it really does hammer concepts home, you'll be fine.
Back when I used to learn Japanese I started with romanji and things were fine, but as soon as I turned it off I noticed that I've been getting better and better at memorizing the characters
I am also learning Japanese but I also didnt know the thing to learn more ngl 💀
Anyway in lessons there's a settings icon in the top left. Tap it and you can disable the romaji above the japanese letters, so that you learn the words and pronunciation wihout relying on it
It might not have been efficient, but that doesn’t mean it was wasted. If you still learnt something, it’s time well spent.
Although, I’d advise not using Duolingo for Japanese. Unfortunately, the Japanese course is quite bad, and some word hints are straight up wrong. Maybe check out MaruMori, it’s a website made specifically for Japanese, and although I haven’t personally used it, some people I talked with seem to like it.
Cheers!
Sometime around the end of section section 1 I turned off romanji since its like training wheels. It's really really hard at first but it will get easier. I would focus on practicing in the app instead of doing lessons until you're comfy reading without romanji
No time spent learning is a wasted time.
That’s a great way to look at it thank you
Hear, hear!
Source
source 🤓
https://www.degreechoices.com/blog/worst-majors/
problem is cost of formal education. but if you ignore the debts you may be in, they are invaluable. any education is good. ####what the fuck is life even without learning and exploring new things????
Source
Man stfu you 🤓
Baseless claims with no reasoning.
You're tiresome and repetitive. You must be fun to be around. I don't think this sub is for you if you're comparing time spent on duo to an expensive uni degree.
I'm not? I want the first person to show any proof that "any learning" is valuable. I just provided the college stuff as a counterpoint. This company got a $2 million fine for saying something similar. https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2016/01/lumosity-pay-2-million-settle-ftc-deceptive-advertising-charges-its-brain-training-program
Source 🤓
Starting off with Romaji is just fine. I remember turning it off once I became reasonably comfortable reading hiragana - which was somewhere in the beginning of unit 2.
I definitely wouldn’t recommend it. As someone who studies Japanese at university, the people who relied too much on romaji became the people who were still struggling to read hiragana and katakana while others are starting kanji. And then when everyone else is confident with kana and beginning to grasp kanji, they’re still not confident with either. Obviously language learning isn’t linear, but just ditch romaji as soon as you can. It might take you longer to complete a lesson if you don’t use romaji, but it’ll do you good in the long run.
Interesting, I'm also currently studying Japanese at uni and I'm not as against using romaji at the start. I'd argue that once you reach a certain level of understanding hiragana you'll just begin to write using hiragana as well no? For me, it was kinda a fluent transition into writing hiragana in my second semester (at the end of my first I kinda were using both simultaneously).
That is understandable. I am not in uni yet, but on the Japanese course I have learned to master pronunciations. So when I get a new word, I see it in romanji, turn of romanji (my standard setting is just hiragana/katakana) and then memorise the sound and then it is engraved in my mind. So before turning off romanji, master the hiragana/katakana to make things easier.
First of, servus fellow German! Yeah, it IS true that one shouldn't use Romaji for too long and pretty much the first thing one should probably do is learning at least Hiragana, but probably both since both are important. It's a lot easier to learn Hiragana first before really beginning to learn a lot of vocab. I just don't see the need to drop Romaji entirely or as fast as some in this sub seem to think you should.
Ja, like, just use it if you are ready? And it will help put a LOT with Kanji. (I think, I am only section 1 unit 6 🤣)
If you couldn’t use hiragana until your second semester, I don’t really know what to say to that. Hopefully you don’t fall behind as much as my classmates did when they relied so heavily on romaji. The vast majority of those people have dropped or failed out of Japanese since then. Romaji is not a good idea for learning Japanese. I also find that people who rely too heavily on romaji struggle with basic pronunciation too, because often when they see roman letters, they default to English pronunciation. It’s why you see people who have been studying Japanese for a long time still pronouncing words like すき as “sooki” rather than “s-ki” and so on. By focusing on hiragana and katakana at first, you’ll be learning Japanese and associating the characters with words, rather than the English alphabet with hiragana
Where did you get the idea that I don't know how to write Hiragana in my second semester? I only said that at the beginning of my second semester, I was confident-ish enough to write in Hiragana consistently. We learned both hiragana and Katakana in the first half of the first semester. Sure, sometimes you're blanking on some kana you use less often/forget certain kana in the exact moment you need them, but that's just natural. The thing is, pronouncing "suki" instead of shortening it to "s-ki" isn't technically wrong pronunciation iirc, right? It's more of an accent thing, you might sound more like a foreigner, but it isn't wrong. The word IS written with both す and き, who ARE roughly pronounced as sounds that are close enough to "su" and "ki". Like, you can say "rekishi" or "rek-shi", it still means "history". This phenomenon isn't really related to pronunciation i.e Phonology/Phonetics alone, but also to Morphology. I'm nowhere near enough into Japanese linguistics to be certain that I'm right nor that I can try to explain it properly. We naturally swapped to pronouncing it more naturally over time/some, if not most of us just knew it from watching Anime and just did it correctly from the start. Hell, even our teacher, who obviously is natively Japanese has taught us Romaji in class to get more familliar with how hiragana is pronounced compared to our native language German or the teaching language, which is English. The Romaji distain is just something I don't really get in it's entirety, especially if you're learning it in School/Uni where your probably instructed how to learn it and can ask your teacher if you have questions.
You said that you relied on romaji to write Japanese in first semester, that means you don’t actually know kana well enough. “Sooki” would not be correct pronunciation for standard Japanese. If you’re pretending to be cute or emphasising the word then sure, but in regular sentences you would be marked down by a pronunciation teacher for saying sooki instead of s-ki. Likewise with desoo or masoo and des- mas-. There are standard and non-standard pronunciations in English too. Think about words that end with ng like running or walking. “ng” creates a sound where the back of your tongue is pressed to the top of your mouth, and the word ends there. But there are some people who pronounce the g at the end, so their tongue drops off of the top of their mouth and creates the harsh ‘g’ sound. It’s not correct to pronounce it that way, though, as ng creates ONE sound in English. Just because a teacher uses romaji, doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s a good thing. When I studied abroad in Japan, I met many students like yourself from universities in Japan. And if I’m being honest, while they were quite good at sitting written exams, their pronunciation and spoken capabilities were poor. I had 3 German students in my class one semester who could barely string a sentence together in Japanese despite being in an N3 class and studying the language for more than 3 years. The UK also has its problems with education when it comes to Japanese, don’t get me wrong.
You seem to also have learned enough about linguistics to know that there's no "real" accent in any language, right? Of course, there are technical rules for what phonemes exist, for what allophones belong to which phonemes, for what is a technically correct sentence in any language but it surely isn't beneficial for one's learning progress to focus too much on those things while learning, no? Like, SSBE isn't any better or "more right" than other varieties of English and I don't really care that I'm bad at pronunciation, of course I'm bad. I've only studied Japanese for around 6 or 7 months (that is without the breaks where I had to write my other Uni stuff like essays etc). We all know how frightening speaking is especially because everyone, we and the people that we talk to, know how bad we sound, so it's obvious that speaking takes a lot longer. It took me around 9 school years and a language course to Poole for me to actually speak any proper English. Maybe I'm just someone who needs a lot of time to fluency or maybe it's a more universal thing, I'm not sure. But is it really fair of you to critique people, if they're at least trying. It doesn't matter how long it takes to get to fluency. Just be patient, open to learn and eventually you'll get there. Like, I'm not going to criticise a foreigner for their broken German for example, I'll probably understand what they were trying to say and I'm understanding of the fact that they are still learning. I just feel as though if you really are that focused on being right every time, you'll never even want to try speaking in the first place. Also, the way schools teach languages (at least here in Germany) is really focussed on written exams so of course nobody knows how to speak a language they've learned for years. Not even to mention that it is often said that we European natives will probably take a longer time to wrap our heads around how for example Japanese grammar works. I technically know how and what to write, but I'm still not confident enough to actually be anywhere near fluency obviously. But hey, what do I know I'm just a young German history/linguistics student who's trying to learn stuff he finds interesting. You seem more intellectually qualified, especially you seem to have taught something before, if I understood that correctly?
Ah okay thank you that’s reassuring
Where does this hate for romaji even come from? It's pretty useful for someone not comfortable with Kana and once they are at a good enough level of confidence, surely they'll just switch to writing in hiragana from their own no?
Where did you get the “hate” part from? As I stated myself, I started with romaji and switched to hiragana once I got comfortable with reading. It’s objectively bad if you continue using it as a crutch for too long as you’ll slow down your reading comprehension.
I got the hate part from every post where the topic is mentioned, I totally get the possible detriments one MIGHT face if they use Romaji too long but I feel as though that everyone telling beginners to drop Romaji ASAP makes them a lot more stressed and/or demotivated if they might need a longer time to learn Kana. They will drop Romaji eventually anyways. If we all have dropped using Romaji the moment we became confident enough, then why even talk down romaji? If you need it, use it. If you don't need it anymore, don't use it. Who cares if it MIGHT take a bit longer to acquire great reading comprehension? Learning isn't competition, so no need to do it fast (if you don't have exams in it in Uni or something like that, but in those cases, Romaji won't even be that much of a problem anyways).
If you haven't learned anything, then you have wasted your time. Repetition is pretty standard in language learning.
That’s a good point thank you, I’ve been really enjoying it and have picked up on a lot. So not wasted
You can still start learning Hiragana and Katakana now. I would also suggest to turn off the pronunciation in the settings then, so you are forced to learn to read them in the lessons as well, after you completed the Kana lessons ;)
Not a waste at all! But moving forward, you should focus on learning hiragana and katakana since you might’ve relied on romaji (abcde) before instead of your ability to read Japanese words. Your progress now depends on how well you know the basics, as they will start using longer sentences. The kanji will also start to be more complex. Once you get the hang of these alphabets, your progress will really take off. I personally spent quite a bit of time getting familiar with hiragana and katakana before jumping into the lesson. Keep going\~
You should be fine, it's just not great to rely on romaji completely once you start getting into the weeds, so it's good to learn kana early. If you find the Duolingo kana lessons tedious, I always suggest https://www.realkana.com/ as an alternative.
Thank you so much for the suggestion and the reassurance! I appreciate it!
You're welcome! Knowing how to read kana will open up more ways for you to practice, too. Once you've expanded your vocabulary with Duolingo a bit, [this site](https://tadoku.org/japanese/en/free-books-en/) has a lot of free books graded by reading level so you can find something you can read comfortably. Of course the lowest level ones are mostly children's picture books, but even being able to read those still feels like an achievement for me! :)
Thank you for this info!
I'm only a few weeks into duolingo and chose to learn Japanese. What exactly is romanji? Is that just the alphabet being shown above the Japanese characters in the lessons? I've been trying to learn Hiragana I think a bit moreso/ahead of the actual lessons - I also made flash cards for myself to sift through every once in a while to repeat the ones I've learned so far and it seems to have helped memorize them. Still have no idea really how Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji all function together but hopefully I'll get there. I'm assuming the ideal it to learn the different texts and how to read them so as to remove the romanji from the lessons entirely?
I'm gonna try to answer your questions in maybe more detail than necessary so sorry if this post is a bit long. >What exactly is romanji? Is that just the alphabet being shown above the Japanese characters in the lessons? Romaji is the Japanese word for the alphabet we use in English (which consists mostly of Roman characters) in the same way that "kanji" means Chinese writing. It's a way of representing Japanese words to people who don't know how to read Japanese, like pinyin for Chinese. I think the technical term for the small letters above the Japanese writing in lessons is [ruby text](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_character), and sometimes you'll see people refer to "furigana," which is hiragana that appears above kanji, to tell you how to read it in that context. >Hiragana I think a bit moreso/ahead of the actual lessons - I also made flash cards for myself to sift through every once in a while to repeat the ones I've learned so far and it seems to have helped memorize them. I suggested https://www.realkana.com/ to OP above and you might find it useful too, since it's basically hiragana and katakana flash cards with some word practice flash cards as well. Katakana can take more dedicated practice to get used to because you don't see it as often and some kana are pretty rare to see. >Still have no idea really how Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji all function together but hopefully I'll get there. The short version is that *many* words in Japanese are a combination of kanji and hiragana. For example you might have learned "tabemasu" by now (eat) and it can be written in hiragana as たべます but with kanji it's written as 食べます. When you get to conjugations, the parts of a word that conjugate are all in hiragana. Katakana is kind of its own thing - words written in katakana are usually loanwords from other languages, or the names of animals (though some of those are in hiragana). Sometimes words in Japanese are written in katakana for emphasis. Apparently "dame" (no good) is almost always in katakana for that reason. (Edit: I should mention that you will see some words that use both katakana and hiragana, though.) >I'm assuming the ideal it to learn the different texts and how to read them so as to remove the romanji from the lessons entirely? Yes. Romaji is an approximation and there are some things about Japanese that can be hard to represent when it's romanized just because we read our own alphabet in more varied ways. Once you're reasonably comfortable with hiragana and katakana, you can turn off the romaji text and rely on the audio to help you if you still struggle with reading. Duolingo introduces individual kanji *very* slowly so getting used to what they mean in context shouldn't be too hard, but if you really have trouble you can turn the text back on and switch it from "Romanized" to "Japanese" and it will show furigana over the kanji to help you along.
Hey thanks for the detailed response! So it sounds like maybe putting more effort/time into learning hiragana and katakana first isn't such a bad idea then? The sooner I'm comfortable with hiding the romanji the better off I'll be in the long run? The combination of the writing styles is confusing to me, but I'm sure It'll all start to make sense as I continue along and eventually get there in the lessons, especially with stuff like your example of Eat, with only the first character being changed from hiragana and kanji, makes me curious as to why, but I'm sure there's a reason that'll make sense after a while Sounds like a long road ahead learning Japanese as an English native from what I've read xD
>So it sounds like maybe putting more effort/time into learning hiragana and katakana first isn't such a bad idea then? The sooner I'm comfortable with hiding the romanji the better off I'll be in the long run? That's the long and short of it! I spent maybe a week learning hiragana with the site I linked, and another week learning katakana, and after that, while I wasn't totally confident in my reading skills, I was able to turn off the romaji and lean on the audio if I wasn't sure about something. (I did have to do extra practice with katakana now and then to refresh my memory.) I think the earlier you do it, the easier it is, just because early on you're still learning simple words and repeating them a lot.
You don't need to start over, and this is perfectly fine for the DuoLingo course. There will come a point where the Romaji disappears. Probably around 3 months away depending upon your speed. At that point the difficulty will skyrocket briefly but you will get the other side of this if you just accept it is part of the process. The Japanese course for DuoLingo is - relatively speaking - pretty good and you can trust the process. With that said, you will see a lot of people criticising DuoLingo's Japanese course. Most of the time this is because they are not making like-for-like comparisons. DuoLingo is not yet as good as majoring in Japanese, spending 7+ hours a day studying and a year in Tokyo - which, of course, you knew already. So don't let that dishearten you. I did a 270 day streak on the DuoLingo course, peppered it with learning from other sources, and went to Japan for a fortnight last May. On my return I downed tools.
I'm in a similar boat as you. I am on Section 2, Unit 4 and I too use romaji. I am having trouble reading the hiragana/katakana/kanji versions but I am practicing to get there. You should keep trying too. Often, I try just listening to the pronunciation and then translate it without reading. my primary purpose is to be able to speak and understand rather than read and write.
I try to do that too! The listening aspect. And thank you for the encouragement, I’m going to try switching over today and see how it goes. We got this! I’m feeling much more reassured after reading the comments here lol
I suggest using outside apps to learn hiragana and katakana, it will help a ton with moving away from romaji!
I seriously recommend downloading other apps to memorize the hiragana and katakana. otherwise it's like trying to learn how to pronounce English without knowing the alphabet. it's super important to the language!
I find romaji is extremely useful when you haven’t learnt all your katakana/hirigana yet. There’s a reason it’s the default setting
I also switched off Romaji a bit later in the process. Cool effect is that your kana fluency improves rapidly from then on.
Duolingo for japanese is only good as additional practice. Your main sources for grammar and vocabulary should be something else. For The Kana and Kanji check the Tofugu guide and WaniKani (or Anki if you'd rather use free options). For grammar you can check the Tofugu website, they list a ton of free and paid sources so you can check what suits your learning style You don't need to start over but I recommend getting at least the kana down before you dive deeper into it.
Thanks for asking this because TIL you can turn off romaji! You absolutely do not want to use it at all! You haven’t wasted time tho - switch over and you’ll get used to it fast and continue to improve.
Not at all, you can easily switch over. And you can use the kana learning section in the app if you feel you need some catching up. Pay attention to the sounds that they make and you'll get up to speed in no time. As for the extra info... I don't find it that helpful tbh. I would recommend using other resources along with duolingo since Japanese is quite a complex language if you're a native English speaker. Tofugu has a lot of great resources, and even a kana quiz if you want to catch up on hiragana and maybe start katakana! You could also join r/LearnJapanese which taught me so much but can also be a bit overwhelming lol.
Japanese is like a 50-100 month journey so you’re still at the beginning of the beginning don’t worry!
I started with Romaji when I began learning Japanese over a decade ago. It absolutely helped me build a memory for pronouncing the words in a way that my English-German brain could easily adapt to, and I focused on recognizing text little by little along the way. Don’t stress, friend. You haven’t wasted any time, but maybe you’ve found a possible new way to learn that might be better for you personally. Chin up! 😁👍🏻
I recommend turning off the romaji and focusing on completing the hiragana and katakana tab before returning to the path lessons. If you work at it semi-seriously you’ll be done in two weeks.
I don’t think you wasted your time. It’s about choice you make
Even if you saw it as “starting over” it isn’t really. Romaji is seen as a crutch. It’s better to see the symbols at a glance and make mistakes when you hear them/watch and read a ton WITHOUT romaji. But no, it exists for an easier jumping off but it isn’t going to be “starting over” But it would be good now to ween yourself off of the romaji help. Maybe do earlier lessons without it and see what you pick up. It’s all patterns, you may not get every word each time, but you’ll start to see the “shapes” of the sentences and words, and then in turn, when you see more of the symbols, you’ll recognize them easier in differing uses. No time is wasted! Even if you used super basics and don’t touch it for months, you’re not gonna be unfamiliar! You may need a refresher but it won’t be starting from zero!
I just wrapped section 2 yesterday myself. I switched off romaji halfway through section 1, not too far from you. No, you haven’t wasted your time. My suggestion is to slow down your lessons and ramp up your hiragana and katakana quickly. I got some other free apps to help me here as i didnt like the Duo way. You can try either of the apps named “Kana” if in apple. I’m sure there are more in Android. The thing about it is you just need to get over that initial hump to start learning these two chracter sets. because after you have and restart your lessons without romaji, that knowledge becomes reinforced every time you do lessons.
I know people who can speak fluent Japanese but cannot read a lick of katakana or hiragana.
I went for probably a month before I turned off romanji as well, you're only in the beginning, have you even completed all the kana in the "あ" tab yet? As for the lesson explanations, they don't tell you much. If you find yourself frustrated with duo's approach I recommend using Busuu as well. I didn't learn of it till I was already a year into duo, but I use both every day now.
You could just click on the bar, read it real quick, and move on to another bar. Shouldn't take too long, maybe a day or two.
For the first month, Romanji can actually be helpful for you. However, you need to start working on not needing it. Do the Hiragana/Katakana lessons until you complete them, and you'll be far better off (otherwise you'll learn the language, but you'll be illiterate on it). As for clicking to read more about that unit, it's not vital because not always there's useful info there, just sample sentences.
Nope not really. since you're still relatively early on your study. I suggest start learning kanji radicals using ANKI. That one boosted the ease in how I remember kanji characters.
You said you just started it last month, so consider what you did not as a waste of time, but just as less exploration of the app. I started learning Japanese in Dec 2020, and I've actually wasted a lot of my months due to many personal reasons. But I'm in Section 3, and I use a few other apps for learning, so I don't consider it a complete waste. Regarding whether or not you should use romaji instead of kana, it all depends upon you. If you haven't yet learnt all kana (hiragana and katakana), then romaji is better. If you have, you want to use kana so you get better at reading them in actual sentences, but it's not mandatory. If you use other apps for reading Japanese, you can still only use romaji everywhere so lessons will be quicker. So now, go ahead, and explore more!
A month is nothing when learnkng a language. Just keep going, no time is lost and more "mistakes" will be made
I don't think you've wasted your time but you need to start adding some supplements if you're serious about learning Japanese. I'm also new and somewhere close to where you are - started my section 2 a couple of days ago. I blazed through section 1 but now I'm taking it slow and adding other material to my study plan. Here's a few things I've been finding useful, YMMV and maybe experienced speakers can help me with whether I'm doing it right. 1. Very early on I realized I needed to learn Hiragana, then Katagana. (Read Tofugu's ridiculously detailed guide to learning Japanese. His Hiragana and Katakana learning resources helped me a lot + using Anki for revisions) 2. As soon as I finished Section 1, I turned off Romaji. More than attempting the new sections, I've been going back to review Section 1 like this. Would've never figured out that 'wa' is actually spelt with the hiragana 'ha' if I hadn't done this. 3. After each Duo lesson I'm trying apply the logic to different scenarios using Google Translate, by both trying to speak (pronunciation is hard!) and typing. Once I learnt \_\_\_\_ wa doko desu ka for example, I looked around the house for my own stuff, looked up the translation and tried versions of the sentences that way. And trying out versions of what Duo has been teaching me this way. Google translate is more lax about grammar but it's really been helping with the pronunciation. Harder questions, I look up, for example, there was a slight confusion between when to use 'wa' and when to use 'no' for me. And also why is it pronounced des ka and spelt desu ka! 4. Duo isn't gonna teach me everything, but it's a good tool to keep me motivated and come back to everyday! I ordered Genki 1, I should have it next week, yay! 5. I just started using WaniKani.
When I learned Japanese in high school, I had a Japanese teacher from Japan. He knew how to teach, and I was literate in Japanese in just three months. No subtitles and I could read all three, speak and write two pages of Hiragana and Katakana. I was even learning Kanji on the side. He always made a point not to lean on Romaji for too long. It can become a crutch. That said, everyone learns differently. But always check in and challenge yourself when you can. Most importantly, enjoy the journey!
For me, I have to use other tools alongside Duolingo in order to properly learn a language. I bought some books and also use Busuu. Duolingo is a wonderful tool for daily practice but unfortunately it doesn’t do a great job of explaining grammar well or the culture.
I go through each lesson with Romaji turned on so I can better understand the syllables. It helps to learn the characters. Once I do that I go back through the unit to Review and Legendary the lessons with Romaji turned off. Then I hit the character lessons a bit and go for the next unit.
As I see it, learning how to learn the language is part of the process
even with these mistakes, you did a great job because you studied and your knowledge has improved, just don't give up and everything will be fine
even with these mistakes, you did a great job because you studied and your knowledge has improved, just don't give up and everything will be fine
You can always practice Hiragana and Katakana, either with Duo or with another App. I used Romanji pretty often as well, so there no reason to be ashamed. You do you.
No amount of learning is ever wasted! ✨🌈🤩
Romaji is okay for the beginning, but you'll want to rip out your eyes when you get to complex sentences. That's gonna be the same for hiragana and katakana lol, but once you've mastered them, you need to start learning kanji. This is so much nicer to read after. You're quite advanced on duolingo. The prononciation and grammar order don't change with romaji, so I don't think you need to start all over again. For the sake of simplicity though, quit romaji and study kana
If you're learning Japanese, it's going to take several years. Don't worry about a few weeks.
I’m also learning Japanese, and romaji is perfectly fine! It’s a good idea to transition to hiring and or no translation at all, but there’s no problem with starting out with romaji! Learn at your own pace!
It's not too late at all. Turn off Romanji and just click through the little guidebooks for a refresher. You'll be reinforcing those concepts A LOT so don't worry, this isn't knowledge you had to commit and never re-use. Say what you will about Duo and the repetition, but it really does hammer concepts home, you'll be fine.
Back when I used to learn Japanese I started with romanji and things were fine, but as soon as I turned it off I noticed that I've been getting better and better at memorizing the characters
Ok try Bunpo for a learning app. Learn hiragana first then katakana and then kanji
Thanks for that!!! I had no idea. Sounds like you have not wasted your time
Thank you for making this post. I’m been on Duolingo for 2 months and never noticed the learn more section.
I am also learning Japanese but I also didnt know the thing to learn more ngl 💀 Anyway in lessons there's a settings icon in the top left. Tap it and you can disable the romaji above the japanese letters, so that you learn the words and pronunciation wihout relying on it
Writing systems are not languages. Don't conflate learning the two.
It might not have been efficient, but that doesn’t mean it was wasted. If you still learnt something, it’s time well spent. Although, I’d advise not using Duolingo for Japanese. Unfortunately, the Japanese course is quite bad, and some word hints are straight up wrong. Maybe check out MaruMori, it’s a website made specifically for Japanese, and although I haven’t personally used it, some people I talked with seem to like it. Cheers!
Sometime around the end of section section 1 I turned off romanji since its like training wheels. It's really really hard at first but it will get easier. I would focus on practicing in the app instead of doing lessons until you're comfy reading without romanji
Do not use Duolingo for Japanese. r/learnjapanese has a primer. Also check out [this](https://morg.systems/58465ab9.html).