How to become fluent in Japanese, by writing one sentence in Japanese every day with a Japanese diary
Isn’t there a lot of people studying Japanese who are having trouble speaking Japanese?
Why can’t they speak? The answer is simple, it’s because they are learning several expressions that have nothing to do with them. The fastest way to be able to speak Japanese is to be able to say what you normally speak and think in Japanese.
Rather than memorizing the expressions in the vocabulary book, you will be able to speak Japanese by learning your own original “words that frequently appear in daily life”. Try to express in Japanese instantly what you talk or think about in your daily life. Many people will probably get stuck in the middle of writing a sentence.
Therefore, I recommend the Japanese diary.
Learn Japanese in the shortest route with a Japanese diary
Many people may think, “Learn conversation in a diary? Isn’t it better to take lessons at a Japanese language school?” However, if you use your Japanese diary well, you will be able to learn Japanese more efficiently than studying abroad or going to a Japanese language school.
This is because the Japanese diary will describe what you talk about and think about in your daily life, not like the difficult sentences that appear in textbooks and reference books.
You can learn Japanese at study abroad or at a Japanese language school. However, at study abroad and Japanese language schools, the instructor teaches you Japanese, so you may be taught expressions that you don’t normally use.
I had learned “Japanese to use when I lose my ticket” at a Japanese language school, but I have never lost my ticket overseas, and recently I rarely have the opportunity to buy a ticket.
If you choose a “free talk” course where you can talk freely without deciding on the topic at a Japanese language school, you can talk about what you like. However, it is a high hurdle for Japanese beginners to suddenly have free talks.
Rather, it may lead to a loss of confidence feeling “I can’t speak Japanese after all” and a decrease in motivation for learning Japanese. With a diary, it’s up to you to decide what to learn. You can learn Japanese optimized just for you.
However, writing a diary in Japanese is not an easy task. Some people may think, “I wouldn’t be going through all this trouble if I could instantly write a diary in Japanese.”
First, write a diary in your native language
To learn Japanese using the “Japanese Diary”, first write a diary in your native language. That is because if you suddenly write in Japanese, you can only write a diary within the range of your current Japanese ability.
Even if you wanted to write “I saw the movie 〇〇 today. The acting of the lead actor △△ was wonderful, and there was a shocking twist at the end.” But if you didn’t know how to write it in Japanese, and wrote instead “I watched a movie. It was fun.”, then your Japanese will never improve.
First, write a diary in your native language and then translate it into Japanese. By doing so, you can write in your diary what you really want to write.
Of course, when translating into Japanese, there is a task of “researching” expressions that you don’t know. By researching, you can efficiently input expressions that you often use. It’s 100 times more effective than continuing to input expressions that you don’t know whether you will even use.
One sentence diary is OK
A diary is something that describes the events and feelings of the day. However, in the case of a Japanese diary, one sentence a day is OK. You don’t have to write a diary for 1000 or 2000 characters.
This is because it takes a lot of time to translate a sentence written in English into Japanese without Japanese ability. If it takes up hours of your day to write your Japanese diary, you won’t be able to continue.
It takes a long time to learn Japanese. Rather than studying for 5 hours for one day, learning Japanese will be closer if you continue studying for 30 minutes every day.
On the other hand, if it is one sentence a day, even a beginner in Japanese should be able to finish it in about 10 to 15 minutes. Start with one sentence a day and gradually increase the amount you write as you get used to it. Even if you only have one sentence a day, if you learn one expression that you really use every day, your Japanese ability will change drastically if you continue even for half a year.
However, it is ideal to gradually increase the amount of writing eventually to about 300 characters.
Japanese diary is effective only as a set with correction
The most important thing in using a Japanese diary is to have someone who understands Japanese to correct the diary. If you neglect to make this correction, no matter how much you keep writing a diary every day in Japanese, your Japanese will not improve at all.
That is because the sentences you made may be wrong. There is nothing more wasteful than trying hard to remember the wrong sentence.
However, there are only a limited number of ways for native Japanese speakers and Japanese instructors to correct the Japanese diary, and many of it takes time and effort.
The first thing you can think of is finding a language exchange partner. There are many apps and websites where you can recruit language exchange partners. However, these apps and websites often function as a service for making foreign friends, rather than seriously looking for a language exchange partner.
Corrections are only volunteers. If it becomes, “I was able to have it corrected yesterday, but I couldn’t find anyone to correct it today,” then the rhythm of learning Japanese will be disturbed.
The next thing you can think of is a free talk on online conversation. Ask them to correct the Japanese diary using the lesson time (25 minutes is common, depending on the school).
At first glance, this looks like a good way to go. However, a monthly tuition fee of about 6,000 to 10,000 yen is required. It’s a little too expensive to pay about 70,000 to 120,000 yen a year to have your Japanese diary corrected.
There are also hurdles to booking lessons. The appeal of major online Japanese is that you can take lessons once a day at any time.
However, the lesson cannot be carried over to another day. There are many people who weren’t in the mood and didn’t take any lessons but still continued to pay the monthly tuition fee.
I have also used some online Japanese. The lesson itself is fun and informative. However, there are many things to do than expected, such as booking lessons and launching Skype.
And above all, I get fidgets 10 to 20 minutes before the lesson feeling, “Japanese will start in XX minutes” and get tired (I think this depends on the person).
Interchao will correct your Japanese diary every day
Securing correctors is a barrier to learning Japanese with a Japanese diary. Therefore, Interchao is recommended.
Interchao is a language exchange app through a diary. In principle, Japanese natives will correct the articles you wrote within 24 hours.
・ Write a diary in your native language
・ Translate the diary into Japanese
・ Have them corrected by Interchao
・ Read the corrected sentence aloud
With the above 4 steps, you can learn more and more Japanese phrases that you use every day.
Regarding pronunciation, you can correct it to some extent by doing “4. Reading Japanese after correction” to Siri and see if it can recognize it.
Interchao is free to use. To have your Japanese diary corrected, you will spend 10 points on the app. However, you can get 10 points by correcting the English language of the English learner. In other words, Interchao is a service that allows having your Japanese diary corrected
completely free of charge.
You may think that it’s troublesome to correct the English language of an English learner every day. However, English learners often post short sentences of 600 characters or less, and it usually takes less than 5 minutes to correct.
In addition, 100 points will be given when you register for an account, so you can receive corrections of your Japanese diary for 10 days without having to correct the English of the English learner.
There is no doubt that Interchao will be useful for learning Japanese using a Japanese diary. Experience the world of learning Japanese with a Japanese diary for 10 days from today.
