30 Days of Japanese
Thirty days from no Japanese at all to reading a short paragraph unaided, about half an hour a day.
By day 30 you can read a paragraph
Japanese is written with two sets of 46 characters, each one standing for a syllable, plus a third set borrowed from Chinese, where one character stands for a meaning rather than a sound. The course teaches all of the first two and 42 of the third.
You also meet 57 grammar points, the patterns that hold the words together: saying what something is, asking about it, saying no, talking about yesterday, describing something, inviting someone. You can introduce yourself, thank someone, and ask them to say it again more slowly.
That is enough to read a paragraph and follow it without rebuilding it in English first.
Four weeks, thirty days
One day opens per day. You cannot race ahead, because the gap between sessions is when the words settle.
Week 1 — first sentences and the first kana
Days 1 to 3 have no new characters. You read a real sentence on day 1, with its sounds printed in English letters above it. Hiragana, the first set of 46 characters, starts on day 4.
- Day 1Your first sentence
- Day 2Asking a question, and saying whose it is
- Day 3This, that, and what is it
- Day 4The first five shapes
- Day 5か to こ, and describing things
- Day 6さ to そ, and the other kind of describing word
- Day 7た to と, and your first verbs
Week 2 — the rest of hiragana, and katakana
Hiragana is finished on day 11, a day of reading with no new grammar. Katakana, the second set of 46, starts on day 12. The week also covers saying you do not do something, talking about yesterday, and going places.
- Day 8な to の, and saying you do not
- Day 9は to ほ, and yesterday
- Day 10ま to も, や to よ, and going places
- Day 11The last eight, and a look back
- Day 12The second set begins
- Day 13カ to コ, and words you already know
- Day 14サ to ソ, and things you like
Week 3 — reading unaided, and the first kanji
Katakana is finished on day 18. On day 19 the printed sounds come off for good. Day 21 starts kanji, the third set, borrowed from Chinese, where one character stands for a meaning rather than a sound.
- Day 15タ to ト, and from here to there
- Day 16ナ to ノ, ハ to ホ, and asking someone along
- Day 17マ to モ, ヤ to ヨ, and talking to someone
- Day 18The last eight, and words you have never seen
- Day 19Reading without the printed sounds
- Day 20Joining two actions together
- Day 21The third set, and counting things
Week 4 — kanji, longer texts, and the finish
About five kanji a day until day 28, each inside a word you can use. Day 29 has the longest passage so far. Day 30 has no new characters or patterns and ends on a passage twice as long as day 1’s, in all three sets.
- Day 22Up to a thousand, and counting words
- Day 23Sun, moon, fire, water, tree
- Day 24The days of the week
- Day 25People, and the words you started with
- Day 26Big, small, and where it sits
- Day 27Books, countries, and the word for Japanese
- Day 28The verbs you already use, in characters
- Day 29Reading something longer
- Day 30Thirty days on
What half an hour looks like
A short explanation, then practice, always in the same order.
It also teaches you how to study
What flashcards are for, why the gaps between reviews matter, and how to read something you only half understand.
None of that is obvious the first time you learn a language, and the course is written for someone doing it for the first time.
Written for people starting from nothing
- You have never studied Japanese.
- You can give it half an hour a day for a month.
You already read hiragana and katakana. Most of the first three weeks would be review. The placement test checks which words you already know, and Lingaku starts from there.
What comes next
Keep a daily session, even a ten-minute one: clear the flashcards that are due and read one short thing. Read a lot, and read easy. Lingaku shows how much of each text you already know, so the easy ones are easy to find.
The Lingaku course picks up where this one stops: the same grammar points and words, more of both, and reading that gets longer as you go.
Start day 1 today
Day 1 has no new characters. It starts with how a Japanese sentence is put together.
Lingaku