Learning guide · Chapter 10
Bad ideas for learning Japanese (and what to do instead)
The popular shortcuts that cost you months: romaji, Duolingo, machine translation, fill-in-the-blank exercises, English-first flashcards, studying song lyrics, children's books, waiting until you're ready, and the fixed study partner. Plus the things people worry about that are actually fine.
Why a list of bad ideas
Most ways of learning Japanese work, eventually, if you keep doing them. But some cost you months for very little, and they're popular exactly because they feel productive. This chapter is a tour of the classics, based on morg's List of Bad Ideas for Japanese Study (opens in a new tab), which is gloriously opinionated and worth reading in the original.
As morg says up front: you may disagree, and that's normal. If something on this list is the only thing keeping you motivated, keep doing it, and add real Japanese alongside. The goal is to choose knowingly, not to feel guilty.
Shortcuts that aren't
Studying with romaji instead of kana
- Why it's tempting:
- Kana look intimidating, and you can already read the Latin alphabet.
- Why it backfires:
- You have to learn kana eventually, so you're only postponing it. Romaji also drags your English pronunciation along (ra, re, ro), and resources built on romaji tend to be sloppy.
- Instead:
- Learn kana in a week with mnemonics and the kana quiz. It's really not that bad.
Learning to speak without learning to read
- Why it's tempting:
- You only care about conversation, and kanji are the scariest part of Japanese.
- Why it backfires:
- Listening-only courses are few and mostly weak, and reading is one of the best ways to build vocabulary. Unless you have a live-in tutor, skipping reading makes the whole thing slower, not faster.
- Instead:
- Read anyway, with a pop-up dictionary doing the kanji work. Your speaking will thank you. See the kanji chapter.
Memorising every reading of every kanji
- Why it's tempting:
- Kanji look like an alphabet, so surely you learn each one's sounds first.
- Why it backfires:
- Readings depend on the word. 生 has around a dozen, and the most common words are often the most irregular, because everyday speech wears words down over centuries.
- Instead:
- Learn words, and the readings come with them. More in the kanji chapter.
Duolingo as your main course
- Why it's tempting:
- It's free, it's a game, and the owl is very persuasive.
- Why it backfires:
- morg's examples are specific: it has taught お腹 as おはら (it's おなか), its synthetic voices get pitch and intonation wrong, and many of its sentences are awkward or unnatural. morg's verdict, in capitals, is to stay away.
- Instead:
- If the streak is what gets you to open something Japanese every day, fine, but treat it as a warm-up. Real learning is Anki plus real content; start with the vocabulary chapter.
Checking everything with a machine translator
- Why it's tempting:
- Not understanding feels bad, and a translation feels like certainty.
- Why it backfires:
- Machine translation invents what Japanese leaves out (who, how many, which gender), assumes your input is correct even when it's garbage, and silently drops parts it can't translate. You get confidence, not understanding.
- Instead:
- A dictionary, a search, a question on a learner forum, or letting it go. It's fine in a real emergency (stuck in a lift, a form you must fill in), and Google Lens is handy for identifying a kanji you can't type.
Exercises that waste your time
Fill-in-the-particle textbook exercises
- Why it's tempting:
- They look like studying. They produce a score. Your textbook has hundreds of them.
- Why it backfires:
- Assembling sentences like Lego before you have a feel for the language is slow, frustrating and does little for your actual Japanese. Confusingly worded exercises are worse when there's no teacher to ask.
- Instead:
- Keep the textbook explanations if you like them, and skip the exercises without guilt. Spend the time reading or watching.
Correct-the-mistakes exercises
- Why it's tempting:
- Spotting errors sounds like a clever test of understanding.
- Why it backfires:
- You can't fix a language you don't have a feel for yet, and staring at broken Japanese risks your brain quietly absorbing it. morg's words: absolutely evil. (They're not a fan.)
- Instead:
- Fill your head with correct Japanese: lots of it, from native sources.
Translating sentences to and from English
- Why it's tempting:
- It feels like proof you understand.
- Why it backfires:
- Translation is a separate, harder skill than understanding, and doing it all the time keeps your brain in English mode. You're practising being a (bad) translator, not a Japanese speaker.
- Instead:
- Understand Japanese as Japanese. If you want to be a translator one day, learn the language properly first.
Flashcards with English on the front
- Why it's tempting:
- You want to be able to produce words, so surely you should practise producing them.
- Why it backfires:
- English and Japanese words don't map one to one (is 'understand' 分かる or 知る?), so the cards reward wrong associations and pile on frustrating reviews.
- Instead:
- Japanese on the front, always. The one exception: practising writing kanji from a keyword, if you learned them that way.
The one drill this guide does recommend is conjugation (食べる → 食べなかった), because it's mechanical, the rules are regular, and you'll meet every one of those forms thousands of times. A few minutes with the conjugation drill until the common forms are automatic, then back to real Japanese.
Material traps
Studying song lyrics
- Why it's tempting:
- You love the song and want to know what it's about. Very relatable.
- Why it backfires:
- Lyrics are poetic, ambiguous on purpose and often odd even to natives, with unusual words and pronunciations you'll never hear in conversation.
- Instead:
- Listen to all the J-pop you want, and enjoy the lines you start to catch. Just don't make lyrics your textbook.
Toddlers' picture books and fairy tales
- Why it's tempting:
- Children learn from them, so they must be easy.
- Why it backfires:
- Picture books are packed with onomatopoeia, baby talk and wordplay for three-year-olds, fairy tales use old-fashioned narrative set phrases, and both are boring for an adult brain. Boredom kills more study plans than difficulty.
- Instead:
- Graded readers written for learners, or manga you actually like. The what to watch and read chapter ranks them by measured difficulty.
Waiting until you're ready
- Why it's tempting:
- Native content is intimidating, so you'll just do a bit more grammar first. And then a bit more.
- Why it backfires:
- You never feel ready. Plenty of people pass N1 without ever reading a manga and then can't read one; plenty of others read novels comfortably and couldn't pass N2. The difference is who started before they felt ready.
- Instead:
- Start now, with something easy, and let it be hard. When to start has more.
The study-buddy trap
Finding a study partner to keep you accountable
- Why it's tempting:
- Motivation is hard, and doing it together sounds like it would help.
- Why it backfires:
- Two learners never move at the same pace. Either you slow down and get frustrated, or they do and you feel behind. And two beginners can't correct each other's Japanese.
- Instead:
- Community without the lockstep: a learner Discord like EJLX for questions and company, and a tutor or native speakers for actual conversation.
That doesn't mean learning alone. Sharing what you're reading, swapping recommendations and complaining about keigo together are great. The trap is tying your progress to someone else's schedule.
Things that are actually fine
The flip side: things people feel guilty about that are completely okay.
- Rewatching things you've seen. Knowing the story frees your attention for the language. It's one of the best listening exercises there is.
- Reading “easy” things. Krashen's advice was to read things so easy you almost feel guilty. Easy reading is where speed and automatic recognition come from.
- Using furigana and a pop-up dictionary. It isn't cheating. Nobody gives out prizes for suffering.
- English subtitles for pure fun. Some things you just want to enjoy. Just don't count them as immersion hours.
- Taking the JLPT for motivation. A deadline can be exactly what you need, and morg counts personal satisfaction as a perfectly good reason. Only N2 and N1 tend to matter for jobs, scholarships and Japan's points-based visas.
- Having anime as your reason. It's the most common reason there is, and a great one: it's what keeps you going on the bad days.
- Taking a break. A week off costs you a little recall, not your Japanese. See staying consistent.
Count your hours
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