Study plans and JLPT
Practical guides on speaking, grammar, pronunciation, listening, and study planning, written for learners who want to use Japanese in real life.
Study plans and JLPT · Page 17
N1 Grammar Patterns and How They Differ
Almost every N1 pattern has a plainer N2 relative that means roughly the same thing. What the exam tests, and what real writing rewards, is the difference between them.
15 min readDa, Dearu, Desu, Masu: Choosing a Japanese Written Style
Every Japanese document commits to one sentence-ending style and keeps it to the last line. Choosing that style first, and never drifting out of it, is what makes writing look edited rather than improvised.
15 min readLearning Japanese After Fifty: What Changes and What Does Not
Starting Japanese in your fifties or later is a different project from starting at twenty, but it is not a lesser one. A few honest adjustments make the whole thing work.
14 min readLearning Japanese with Dyslexia: Routes That Work
Japanese is not one skill but several, and they can be learned in an order that suits you. If reading is the hard part, speaking does not have to wait behind it.
14 min readJapanese Sign Language and Learning Japanese as a Deaf Learner
Japanese Sign Language is a full language in its own right, and written Japanese is a separate skill from it. This guide separates the two clearly and gives a Deaf or hard-of-hearing learner a realistic route into reading and writing Japanese.
16 min readHeritage Japanese Speakers: Closing the Literacy Gap
If you grew up hearing Japanese at home, you already own the part most learners spend years chasing. What you are missing is kanji, register and range, and those three gaps have a much shorter route than a beginner course suggests.
17 min readJapanese Language Tests Beyond the JLPT
The JLPT is the best known Japanese exam, but it is not the only one, and for some goals it is not the right one. This guide maps the main alternatives and shows which reader each suits.
14 min readLearning Japanese as a Vietnamese Speaker: Advantages and Traps
If your first language is Vietnamese, you arrive at Japanese with thousands of familiar word roots and a handful of habits that pull in the wrong direction. This guide sorts one from the other.
17 min readLearning Japanese as a Chinese Speaker: Kanji Head Start
If Chinese is your first language, you can read a Japanese street before you can say a Japanese sentence. That gap between reading and speaking is the whole story of your first year, and this guide is about closing it.
18 min readLearning Japanese as a Korean Speaker: The Closest Neighbour
If Korean is your first language, Japanese grammar will feel like a familiar house with the furniture moved. The real work is in the sounds, the kanji, and the details of politeness that look the same but are not.
16 min readLearning Japanese as an Indonesian or Malay Speaker
If you grew up speaking Indonesian or Malay, Japanese sounds are mostly already in your mouth. The work is in the timing, the verb endings, and a writing system that will take longer than everything else combined.
15 min readLearning Japanese as a Thai Speaker: Sounds and Politeness
If your first language is Thai, you already choose your words by who is listening, and that instinct is the best thing you bring to Japanese. This guide shows where it helps, where Thai sounds pull you off course, and how to spend your first month speaking.
19 min readPractical guides
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