Way back in 2013, Rohan wrote on Perapera about why he loved using his Kindle for learning Japanese, but at that time I don’t think you could register a foreign Kindle to Amazon Japan. Well now you can! This article is to explain how to buy Japanese Kindle books on Amazon Japan and why that’s such a huge deal.

Why the Kindle is AMAZING for Learning Japanese

Thousands and thousands of Japanese books

If you already own a kindle, you probably know one of the best reasons to have one:

I used to backpack around a lot in Southeast Asia, and when I got my first kindle (2nd generation — like the one in the photo below), it was a game changer.

Pre-Kindle, I would carry one or two Lonely Planet guidebooks, one non fiction book, and a novel (I need to read fiction to go to sleep). Post-Kindle, I could carry all these and more in the kindle’s digital storage.

But the biggest thing for Japanese learners is that you can connect your kindle to the Japanese Amazon store and have access to tons and tons of books in Japanese.

Up until a few months ago, I was using my Kindle with the Canadian Amazon store, and I was searching for Japanese titles in romaji.  In my experience, less than 1 in 10 Japanese books I searched were available in the Canada store, and selection was often limited to self-published authors.

After doing a little research, I found out I could change my kindle to the Japanese Amazon store. Now I have access to hundreds of thousands of Japanese kindle books! (If this isn’t exciting to you, maybe you’re learning the wrong language…)

So instead of reading the Harry Potter books again in Japanese (which is fine if that’s all you’ve got access to), I can actually choose books on a topic that I’m genuinely interested in.

Think of all the time you’ve spent boring yourself to sleep reading articles in a Japanese textbook — not super fun right? But now imagine that instead you get to read about things that you’re actually interested in. It makes learning that much more engaging and keeps you reading longer.

Here’s what Tim Ferriss has to say about reading within your interests in another language.

For example, I’m interested in someday opening up a cafe, so I recently read a book called Shoboi Kissaten*

The built in Japanese-English dictionary makes learning new words super fast and efficient

Let’s say you come across a word, and you’re pretty sure you know the reading.

From the kanji you also have a rough idea of the meaning.

If this were a paper book, you might skip looking it up and just go with your gut. But with the Kindle, looking up a word means you just need to touch it with your finger. It takes only a second to see the reading and meaning, compared to what could take much longer looking it up on your phone.

And because you actually look up the word, you realize the reading you thought was close, but wrong. And the meaning is completely different! Enough to change the meaning of the whole sentence.

This actually happens more than I expected: I thought the reading was ABC, but actually it was ABD. If I keep reading without looking it up, I’m essentially reinforcing that incorrect ABC pathway in my brain. Or memorizing a word with an incorrect reading or meaning.

Not only that, but using the kindle saves a ton of time and distractions. I can look up 10 words in the space of time it takes me to look up 1 on my phone (especially if it’s a kanji I don’t know). And when you switch from a book to your phone dictionary, it’s not uncommon to be distracted by notifications, messages or email.  (This study shows that interruptions negatively affect cognitive tasks)

So if you’re keeping score, using the kindle to read Japanese:

Not a bad start!

How To Register Your Kindle on Amazon Japan & Buy Japanese Kindle Books

I should note here: if, for whatever reason, you’re not keen on registering your Kindle with Amazon.co.jp, there are other options. You can find some decent Japanese books on your local Amazon store by browsing kindle books by department and navigating to “Japanese Books”. Here’s the shortcut link that will take you there.  (Affiliate link)

Some important notes before you get started

You can only register your kindle to one localized Amazon store. If you register your Kindle with Amazon.co.jp, you won’t be able to access the content you’ve bought from your local Amazon store. However, if you later re-register your kindle with your local Amazon, you can get your purchased content content back.

I was able to register my Kindle to Amazon.co.jp, but not on the first try — it took a little trial and error. Below are the steps that led me to be able to use my kindle on Amazon.co.jp:

Step 1: Register a new account on Amazon.co.jp

To avoid duplicate account issues, I suggest signing up using a different email address than on your local Amazon. (Trust me: this will make it easier to register your kindle on Amazon Japan)

Step 2: Add your payment info and address

After you’ve successfully created your account and confirmed your email address, log in and go to Account Settings.  (You can change the interface language to English first if you need to)

You’ll need to add a Japanese address to your account. If you’re not currently living in Japan, well…   I’m not advocating you do this, but in theory, you could add a past address that you’ve lived in Japan. (Or search for an address on Google Maps to use for your account.)

Then add your personal credit card details so you can subscribe to Kindle Unlimited or buy Kindle books. In my experience, foreign credit cards are accepted (I used my Canadian Visa and it works fine).

Step 3:  Wait 20 minutes

After I made my new Amazon Japan account, I tried registering my Kindle a few times right away, but it didn’t work.

Then I waited maybe 20 minutes and tried again. It worked!  So I recommend waiting for Amazon’s servers to catch up behind the scenes before registering your device. If you get rejected here, wait a little longer and try again!

Step 4: Reset your Kindle and register it with your new Amazon account

In your Kindle Device Options, choose “Reset” to reset your Kindle to the factory settings.

After some time reformatting, your Kindle will restart and ask you your language, and for your Amazon account credentials.

When it asks for your Amazon account, use your Amazon.co.jp credentials, and it should work.

Now you’re ready to go to the Amazon store and start getting Japanese books!

Using Kindle Unlimited on Amazon.co.jp

If you register your kindle to the Japanese Amazon, you can sign up for Kindle Unlimited in the Japanese store!

What does this mean? It means you have all-you-can-read access to thousands of Japanese books for only 980 yen per month. Which, if you read more than 2 books per month, is a pretty good deal.

Reading Manga using the Kindle App

If you’re into reading manga, I highly recommend downloading the Kindle app on your phone or tablet and using your Japanese amazon account to sign in. Reading manga on your phone is generally a better experience than trying to read manga on a regular kindle. In my opinion, the regular Kindle is just a little too slow to respond and zoom in to be good for manga.

Side note: I wasn’t really into manga until recently, when I found a few non-fiction ones recently that are really good! I’ve added them to the recommended Japanese Kindle books section below.

Bonus Pro-Tip: How to Send Websites and Articles to your Kindle to Read Later

Ok, here’s another tip that’s been pretty awesome:

Reading long articles on your PC  or phone in a web browser isn’t really a great user experience. Wouldn’t it be better if you could read them on your kindle, all nicely formatted and ad-free?

Luckily for you, Amazon has enabled a way to send digital content (including websites) to your kindle.

Here’s how:

1. First, download the Push to Kindle extension and install it in your google chrome browser.

2. Log into your Amazon Japan account and go to the Manage Devices page. Then find your kindle email address. Copy this to your clipboard or notepad for now.

3. Find a web article you want to read on Kindle. In the Chrome toolbar, click the ‘Push to Kindle’ Icon.

4. Add your Kindle email address to the Chrome extension here:

5. Before you hit send, you need to copy the kindle (at) fivefilters.org email address and add it to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List.

Manage Your Content and Devices > Preferences > Personal Document Settings

6. Hit Send!  Then you just need to connect your Kindle to your wifi network and wait a little bit. The document will download automatically.

My Favorite Japanese Books on Kindle (so far)

Ok, I have to preface this section to say that — embarrassingly — my blog about learning foreign languages doesn’t support showing Japanese characters at the moment (something about UTF-8 encoding?). If anyone can help me fix this please contact me! 

So unfortunately all the book titles below will be in romaji…  : /

Favorite Kindle Unlimited Books

Yume wo kanaeru zou

A fun story about a guy learning how to chase his dreams from an animated Elephant statue.

Kintore ga saikyou no solution

Weight training advice, backed up by science, in an entertaining writing style.

10 kiro yasete eikyuu keep suru diet

An entertaining take on ‘diets’ and why they usually fail. I need to lose about 5 kg, so I hope this works!

Girls Nomad Life

A compilation of interviews with female remote workers. Great info and inspiration for aspiring ‘digital nomads.’  (Ok, my girlfriend wrote this one so I’m a little biased!)

Best Paid Kindle Books

Shoboi Kissaten

I really enjoyed this one. Pretty cool story about a guy almost giving up on life, and then opening up a ‘dull’ cafe in Tokyo.

Shoboi Kigyou

Found this one after reading Shoboi Kissaten. This one is more about the philosophy behind the “Shoboi Kigyou” movement.

Favorite Manga on Kindle

As I mentioned above, for Manga I really recommend using the Kindle app on your phone or tablet. It’s just much easier to read.

0en de akiya wo moratte, Tokyo e dasshutsu

I’m interested in the ‘akiya’ (empty house) phenomenon in Japan, so it was eye-opening to see what living in one would look like.

Bocchi Mura

Another book about what it’s like to live in the Japanese ‘inaka’. Combines photos with manga essays.

Thai de ukkya ukkya nikki

The funny (and true) adventures of a Japanese guy who moves to Thailand and finds love.

Are you using Amazon Japan with your Kindle? If you have some good book recommendations or learning tips, let us know in the comments!

Michael

Michael has lived in Japan on and off for almost 10 years. He loves studying Japanese, and is currently working on going from N2 to N1 on the JLPT.

In this series, I’m going to share how you can better use your commute time for learning a foreign language. In today’s post, I will talk about the benefits of studying on your way to work or school.

The benefits of studying a language during your commute

Regularity

Your commute is a regular time slot that repeats every day. Over time, small increments of time add up to big returns. Let’s do a quick calculation of what this means. A 30 minute commute by train is 60 minutes per day. Assuming you studied Chinese every day during this time (instead of texting your friends or mindlessly browsing Facebook! not that I would ever do that ) and did the same amount study during the weekends, this amounts to 21,900 minutes a year. Not bad going! In reality, it is much easier to stick to studying during a regular commute than is putting aside time for studying.

Stress relief

I can honestly say that I now look forward to studying Japanese during my commute. When I have a bit more time, I even take the slower train to fit in a bit more learning (I know I am a bit weird for this). I’ll cover the specifics of how I study in another post, but I usually add new material in the mornings and focus on reviewing in the evening. I have found that doing something useful before I even get to work helps relieve some of the stress that comes with working in the hectic concrete jungle that is Tokyo. I feel less rushed and more at ease.

Rewiring the brain

Practically all of the apps you use on your mobile phone, especially social media and games, target the dopamine reward systems in your brain. Each new update, prize, or notification is linked to dopamine release (I once interviewed a gaming company in Singapore who openly told me they base their gaming experience on addicting their users). This might not be so bad in the scheme of things; I’d rather be addicted to Angry Birds than tobacco. But replacing these time killers with something useful (you do want to learn a language, right?) literally rewires your brain. Three months into my new schedule, I am now far more addicted to adding and mastering new words than social media. Rewiring the brain is something that interests me. The internet is such a great tool, but I feel that many of us have been led astray into wasting time and money on it instead of using its full potential for our own long-term benefit and well-being. I recommend reading a book called The Shallows, which is a fascinating (and foreboding) take on the internet’s role in neuroplasticity.

Fun

Following a regular study habit during my commute time has made my enjoy life more. I no longer view my train to work as an annoyance. It’s a marvelous part of the day where I discover new and interesting things about the Japanese language. There is also a sense of achievement as the unknown transforms into the familiar before eventually becoming an old friend.

These are just a few of the advantages of studying your target language every day during your commute. Whether you take public transport or drive, it’s safe to say that you can fit some learning time into your routine. Do you currently study during your commute? Feel free to share your experiences in the comments below.

In the next post, I will share the method I am employing to boost my Japanese knowledge during my commute to work. Until then!

Rohan

Rohan has spent years studying Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and currently lives in Japan. He created the perapera pop-up dictionary plugins to help other learners of Chinese and Japanese.

Tracking back a little, if you read this website, then you will be aware that here are certain timeless principles to follow when it comes to learning a foreign language. Namely:

Learn new vocabulary.
Listen a lot.
Read a lot.
Find interesting content that will motivate you to stay immersed in the language.

And so on. These principles are fundamental and unchanging. And you know what? Maybe in years gone by, they may have been enough. But things have changed.

So what has changed exactly? OK I’m sorry to disappoint, but I’m not about to unveil a secret new method of learning that beats all the others. That would be dishonest. The basics are still the same.

No, what I’m referring to is the massive brain damage that is going on these days. OK not literally, but I’d estimate that 90% of us are total scatterbrains trying to achieve too much all at once. We are constantly distracted by our phones, internet sites and a hundred other things. The challenge is clear. We need to reclaim our brains in order to push ahead with mastering another language.

1. Turn off your smartphone

Listen, I understand how much you love your iPhone, Android or whatever zany phone model you are a fan of. Admittedly, I spend way too much time on my iPhone. But when it comes to concentrated study, smartphones are a killer. Turn it off. It will only serve to constantly interrupt your study sessions with phone calls, texts and other random updates. Who is in charge here? You or your phone? Now and then, you have to show your smartphone who is boss.

2. Massively cut down on social media

While many of you might manage to follow the first point and turn off your phone for an hour or two, things are about to get real now. I’m telling you to massively cut down on your  social media. Facebook and Twitter are perhaps the biggest existing distractions for the modern language learner. Any time spent on these mindless sites is time you could have spent learning Chinese, Swahili or whatever cute language you are currently dating.

And don’t give me that “I need to enjoy my life” line. Nobody really enjoys looking at Facebook. Surprisingly enough, language study is much more fun once you get a regular routine going.

3. Go old school

Next, you need to go old school, by which I mean that you should read physical books now and then. I’m a fan of digital books as much as anyone else (hell, I was reading interesting Japanese ebooks before my Japanese friends!), but going old school can help your brain to recover from all the electronic stimulation that is confusing it. Going old school will stop the rot that is turning your concentration levels into something more fitting to a goldfish than a human. Read good books in your target foreign language if you can. If you aren’t at that level yet, then some moderately challenging reading in your native language is just fine.

4. Meditate

Meditation has been shown to help improve concentration levels and memory retention, both skills that directly translate into more effective language acquisition. Even 5-10 minutes a day can make a noticeable difference, so give it a shot. If you are new to meditation, I strongly recommend Finding Peace in a Frantic World as a great introduction.

5. Show up

Honestly, I’d conservatively estimate that showing up is 80% of the language learning game. It’s probably much more than that, but 80% is a nice round number that everyone understands. Let’s say that 20% of your results come from the method you follow and the quality of materials you use (good job you have this blog to help you with those!).

Either way, what matters is putting in the study time, day after day, week after week. I don’t care how much talent for languages you believe yourself to be lacking. You will make progress. And, over time, your brain will change with regular practice. Months into a solid learning regime, you will begin to feel the difference in your thinking. You will hear the sounds of the language differently. You will start singing in the shower. It’s a beautiful thing to experience and it makes you feel more alive.

Fin

Hopefully, the above hints give you something to play with. Nobody is perfect. We all procrastinate and fritter away time. And that’s OK. But if you are regularly missing your language goals and getting frustrated, then reclaiming your brain is a solid first step on the road to fluency.

Rohan

Rohan has spent years studying Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and currently lives in Japan. He created the perapera pop-up dictionary plugins to help other learners of Chinese and Japanese.

All the words of every language – in one place

Forvo is a website founded with the aim to collect “All the words in the world. Pronounced”.

They are certainly closing in on their mission as far as the major languages go. At the time of writing, there more than 3,000,000 individual pronunciations for 325 languages. This number continues to grow daily, making Forvo an indispensable tool for aiding learners with foreign language intonation. A casual browse of the site for Japanese and Korean words surprised us, nearly every term we could think of had already been recorded. For Chinese there are even various regional dialects covered. Impressive!

It’s 100% free and there’s no catch

What’s more, the site is free! I honestly don’t know how they manage it, but I’m glad that this service exists. Forvo is immensely helpful for getting instant examples of correct pronunciation from native speakers. If only we had been able to use this site when we were starting out in Chinese and Japanese! It would have made some of those tricky words and character readings much easier. One thing to note is that, on Forbo, there are no definitions of words given so you will need to use a dictionary or one of our plugins.

Request new word samples on demand

The beauty of Forvo is the way it makes use of crowdsourcing to cover immense ground. If there is no relevant pronunciation for the word you are looking for, you can simply request a pronunciation to be made. The same goes for words that are badly pronounced or have poor sound quality. Just ask for another sample. In our experience, a new pronunciation is usually uploaded within 24 hours of the request. You will be informed of the new sound file via email.

Every language learner should be using Forvo

It’s such a great site that I’d go as far as saying that it should be used by EVERYONE who is learning a language. We are not affiliated with Forvo, but we are big fans. It deserves more love from learners.

How we use Forvo

There is no set way to make use of the pronunciations on Forvo. It’s best to experiment on your own and develop your preferred course of action. We will, however, suggest a couple of methods that have been helpful for us:

1. Try, listen and try again

This is the simplest method. When you have a word in mind, navigate to the correct entry on Forvo via the search function. Once you are there, try to pronounce the word as best you can. Always pronounce aloud in your clearest voice. Next, play the audio file and compare how it sounds compared to your attempt. Then try to say the word again. Better? Keep going until you are satisfied. Perfection isn’t the aim here by the way. Decide what is “good enough” for your purposes and stop there. This kind of deliberate practise will pay off over time.

2.  Make audio flashcards.

With the help of Anki (desktop version), you can make flashcards with the audio files attached. This is truly a language learner’s dream. Having the native pronunciation will not only improve your speaking accuracy, but will also help you to remember new words you encounter. For a more in-depth guide to making audio flashcards, check out Fluent Forever (reviewed here).

Resources

Forvo
Anki

Know any other useful websites or tools for improving pronunciation in another language? Tell us in the comments section below!

Rohan

Rohan has spent years studying Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and currently lives in Japan. He created the perapera pop-up dictionary plugins to help other learners of Chinese and Japanese.

Procrastination is a common problem. It affects us in many areas of life, including language learning.

I am going to break down the issue piece-by-piece and show you how to solve it. Fortunately, the cure is an easy one but it requires some self-reflection.

Bossing yourself around never works. It never did work and it never will.

“Damn. I haven’t done any Chinese study for days. I have to get back to it.”

Or maybe it’s:  “I need to learn more vocabulary for the HSK. The exam is a couple of months from now!”

Or:  “Yikes. I’ve missed doing my Anki for the last 3 days. I’ve got to catch up on it or it will be unbearable.”

Does any of the above sound familiar? Take a look at all those command words in there.

Got to! Have to! Must! Need to!

Is this what you are telling yourself? If so, you are most likely stuck in a “school mindset”. It is at the root of your procrastination problem.

Confused? I thought you might be. Make yourself a coffee because this will be a long and soul-searching post.

The school mindset

Think back to your school days. It could be any subject, any teacher. Were you ever asked what you wanted to study? Were you ever consulted about the quality of the lessons? Did you ever get to choose what homework to do?

Of course not. That’s because as a pupil at school you didn’t have the power to choose your curriculum. You didn’t have the right to an opinion about your own learning. You were there to obey the teacher and meet external expectations.

Now think back to your homework. That homework that you had zero input about. Did you love doing it? Of course not. Well mostly not anyway. So why did you do it? Because you had to! You were scared of getting into trouble. Hmm, sounds like a healthy paradigm for learning doesn’t it?

At school, you were coerced into doing what the teacher wanted. And then along came the endless tests and exams. More “musts” and “got to”s all the way up through into college and beyond.

Got to. Have to. Must. Should. Need to.

Let’s do away with this destructive language.

We can treat ourselves better than this.

The truth of the matter is that procrastination occurs for a reason. When you don’t want to do something, you procrastinate.

Conversely, the opposite is also true…

You can’t procrastinate over something you want to do.

Do you procrastinate over eating when you are hungry? No.

Do you procrastinate over sleeping when you are tired? No.

Do you procrastinate over socializing with your best friends? No.

Do you procrastinate over opening that bottle of champagne? No.

Do you procrastinate over having sex? I hope not!

You want to do these things so you do them! It’s as simple as that. Procrastination never even enters the picture. If anything, you have to exert some discipline not to do these things all the time. That’s how enjoyable they are as activities.

Why do we procrastinate with language learning?

Sadly most of us didn’t develop this natural form of decision-making towards language learning.

It’s an unfortunate truth that languages are disliked by generations of school kids, who later grow up into adults with an allergy to foreign languages. It’s quite tragic. What should be a fun activity has been hijacked and turned into something that people dread.

Bossing yourself is counterproductive because it stops natural intrigue and enjoyment from developing. It fuels the procrastination inside you.

You don’t have to study a language!

Wake up and open your eyes. You don’t have to do anything at all!

You don’t have to study Chinese. So you’ll fail your HSK exam. So what? There’s always next year.

You don’t have to study Japanese. What will the consequences be if you don’t? None whatsoever. All those kanji characters are pesky and irregular anyway.

You don’t have to learn Korean. What is going to happen to you if you stop? Well, nothing to be precise. Kim Jong Un won’t come for you in the middle of the night. Nothing will happen that you can’t deal with.

The key to breaking down procrastination is to ask yourself your own opinion

Stay with me on this. I’m not telling you to stop studying! Far from it.

I’m reminding you that you are free to do whatever you like. Most of us live our lives on auto-pilot forgetting that we control our each and every action.

Imagine you are back at your home. Those Chinese books on your desk make you feel guilty because you have been slacking off lately. Then comes the thought:

“All that money I spent on those books. I really have to do some Chinese again!”

Stop right there!  We are done with the school mentality. Instead of bossing yourself around, try asking yourself your own opinion:

“Do I want to study Chinese now?”

If the answer is yes, then pick up your books and get started.

If the answer is no then leave those books right where they are. You can ask yourself the same question another time.

With this new freedom mindset, there is no more “have to” or “got to”. There is only “I want to” or “I don’t want to”. So simple yet so liberating.

Take the pressure off yourself and watch your procrastination melt away

If you want to study, then study! If not, then ask yourself what you want to do. Maybe you want to laze around watching movies. No problem. Go and do whatever it is you want to. This is your life and nobody else’s.

It’s a funny old process. Once you remove all that pressure and self-bullying your procrastination will melt away. By only studying when you feel like it, you will actually begin to intrinsically enjoy the language more. This is a huge deal. Next time you see your Chinese books you will want to study even more. So you will. And then you will get better and enjoy it even more. It’s a virtuous circle of awesomeness.

This is part of why we study by ourselves. Self-study is not just about saving money or being more efficient. It’s actually more enjoyable than going to school and contributes to your personal growth. You call the shots now. It’s a nice feeling, isn’t it?

P.S. Few ideas are completely original. The mindset I have developed towards learning and work in general was greatly inspired by Stefan Molyneux. I love his ideas on personal freedom. If you are interested in hearing his views on the subject of procrastination that inspired me to write this article, check out his video here.

Rohan

Rohan has spent years studying Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and currently lives in Japan. He created the perapera pop-up dictionary plugins to help other learners of Chinese and Japanese.

What’s it about?

Foreign language audiobooks are great learning tools. Combined with a matching transcript they become incredible resources. Today I’m going to show you how to use audiobooks to hugely boost your language level.

Why Audiobooks are great for learning languages

– Gain exposure to authentic native material.
– Learn tons of new vocabulary.
– Develop a native-like sense of individual words and phrases from their proper context.
– Improve your listening skills.
– Enjoy foreign literature in the original.

Who is it for?

I highly recommend this method for upper-intermediate learners and above. You should see a noticeable improvement in your foreign language ability in a matter of weeks.

For those who are only just starting out, tackling a whole audiobook is too much for now. Indeed, your time will be better invested in developing your vocabulary base and understanding for the critical structures of the language. Come back to audiobooks once you are ready.

Yep. Sounds good. So what do I need to do?

My suggested procedure for the audiobook with transcript method is simple:

1. Find interesting material to listen to with a matching text (discussed later)
2. Listen to the first chapter. Just listen for now, without reading the text. Try to just get the gist of what is going on in the story and focus on what you can understand.
3. Next, listen and read at the same time. You are likely to understand a lot more  of the content during this second round. Take time to notice unknown words and make a mental note of them., perhaps guessing at what they might mean. There is no need to look them up with a dictionary at this stage.
4. Listen to the chapter one more time.

OK I did the first chapter. What next?

If you can roughly follow the plot and understand around 50% of the words, then move on to the next chapter and repeat the above process. The reason I recommend skipping the dictionary where possible is twofold:

1. New words will tend to make their meanings known to you if you give them enough time. The context of the story you are listening to will often give them away. Your brain is great at making  its theories all on its own. After all, that is how you learned your native language.

2. This language stuff is supposed to be fun. I want you to enjoy the content and let it flow. Over time, this will positively reinforce your learning and you will begin to look forward to it.

If it is proving difficult to follow the general story and your comprehension is below 50% then a different strategy is required. In this case, we will break our rule. Look up some of the unknown words with a dictionary. Don’t go too crazy though! Try to find out the meaning for the vocabulary items that seem to repeat themselves. These will usually be the most useful ones to know. You can write down the definitions or make flashcards for them in a program such as Anki. When you have looked up a decent number of words, try starting again through steps 2-4 of our procedure. Your comprehension should be much better this time. Now you can move onto the next chapter.

Which audiobooks do you recommend for language learning?

To study with optimal effectiveness, you should aim to find content that is both interesting and understandable.

Many of you will find that a familiar story or topic will make for a better audiobook to start out with. This way, you will already know the context and be able to decipher the meaning of new words with greater ease. Of course this will depend on your level in the language. If you are comfortable with your listening skills, then by all means move onto completely new content.

I have listened to and read the Little Prince in several languages. It is just right for me – a short and enjoyable story with fairly straightforward vocabulary. Others prefer using religious texts such as the Bible. No subject matter or genre is objectively inferior to another. What matters is what is interesting to you.

We can make some generalizations though. Fiction light on dialogue and heavy on abstract descriptions (e.g. Kafka) will be much tougher than a trashy romance novel. It may be surprising to some that low brow content tends to make better language learning material, especially when you are starting out.

Resources

Audiobooks with transcripts are incredibly helpful, but the challenge up until now has been to find them. To help out, we have assembled lists of audiobooks for all the East Asian languages. We hope you find them useful. Enjoy!

Japanese audiobook list
Chinese audiobook list

We would love to hear your feedback on this method. Have you tried something similar in the past? Did it help you? Let us know in the comments section below!

Rohan

Rohan has spent years studying Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and currently lives in Japan. He created the perapera pop-up dictionary plugins to help other learners of Chinese and Japanese.

The secret lies in attacking the language from many different angles. This is not an original idea. In fact, I borrowed it from a personal hero of mine, Barry Farber. His method works!

Apply a multi-front attack to win the war

When Napoleon was busy conquering Europe, do you think he did it all with one army? Of course not. He deployed a multitude of armies and brigades with infantry, cavalry and artillery, not to mention skilled mercenaries hailing from close and afar. The enemy’s defenses were broken down by the sheer force and variety of Napoleon’s armies.

Studying a language isn’t all that different to warfare. Over time, you may grow to love your chosen language. It will become closer to you, like a friend or eventually even a lover. But do not be fooled! As a beginner, the language is your enemy. You must attack it on multiple fronts with a variety of armed units. You must show no mercy!

Infantry (books)

To build an army, you need to assemble some basic troops first. Your infantry, also known as books, will form the bulk of your armed forces. Get as many books as you want. I’m totally serious. As many as you want! Buy several different books and experiment with them to see which you like the most. It’s impossible to know which book is best for you just by looking at reviews on Amazon.

Before you cheapskate yourself out of your studies, think about this rationally for a moment. Even an investment of 15 or 20 books is peanuts compared to what you would shell out on going to language school. These books can be consulted whenever and wherever you need them. A good investment if I ever heard of one.

For the cost-conscious among you, buy your books used (veterans always come in handy!).  Either way, your books will be vital in the war against an enemy language. To save time, you might want to check out our book reviews:

Chinese books we liked
Japanese books we liked
Korean books we liked

Cavalry (audio courses)

In warfare, you need to move forward rapidly in your attacks and for this you need cavalry. You will want to buy a minimum of 2 audio courses for your target language. This is vital.

These courses will act as your teachers in the beginning stages. I’m a huge fan of the Michel Thomas series – We have used it for Chinese, French, German and Russian and can vouch for the quality of each course. In addition, I have heard good things about the Japanese course.

Pimsleur is another great choice if you can afford it. Assimil and Living Language are also excellent. I will cover these courses in more detail at a later date.

Artillery (vocabulary aids)

Vocabulary aids are the hard-hitting firepower that is your artillery. In the language wars, vocabulary trumps all, so you need to build up your vocab base as much as possible.

Books and audio courses will give you a start, but you should also seek out vocabulary yourselves. Use our free applications to discover new words online and save them to your preferred flashcard program. Vocabulary acquisition is truly the bread and butter, whether you are studying Chinese or Zulu. After all, at their core, languages are made from words.

If you prefer, you can also buy flashcards ready-made. This makes for easy revision so that you can learn any place, any time. You can find tons of sets for available for Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

Mercenaries (personal tutors)

As with any armed force, you need some skilled mercenaries in the mix.

After reaching a certain level of proficiency, having a native speaker available to correct your errors will be extremely valuable.

You can now find personal tutors on sites like LingQ. A tutor can correct your errors and give you some gentle pointers on how to express yourself. But remember that nobody ever fought a successful war with mercenaries alone! The important point here is to use tutors as an extra boost. They are NOT there to teach you the language. The learning part will be achieved by your hard work alone.

So now you know how to raise an army ready for linguistic war. The rest is up to you.

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Rohan

Rohan has spent years studying Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and currently lives in Japan. He created the perapera pop-up dictionary plugins to help other learners of Chinese and Japanese.

What is intermediate fatigue? 

Intermediate fatigue is where you start to feel discouraged with your rate of progress in the language you are learning. You might even lose motivation too. I’ll lay out the possible symptoms before suggesting how to get through it.

1. You are at the stage where you no longer need textbooks.
2. You’re definitely not a beginner, but not yet advanced.
3. You study online with the help of some amazing language extensions (shameless plug :)), reading material intended for native speakers
4. You listen to podcasts in your target language but get frustrated you can’t fully follow what is going on.
5. You can slowly read books in the language but you struggle without a dictionary.
6. You are frustrated that you still fumble for words when speaking to native speakers.
7. You haven’t finished Heisig yet (that’s an in-joke for Japanese learners)
8. You are constantly berating yourself with variations of “I should be better by now!”
9. You have moved onto reading literature but still get stumped by questions from the restaurant waitress.
10. You have no problem talking to your native speaker friend but get lost in group situations when he brings his friends along.
11. You can follow the whole dialogue of comedy sketches but don’t get the punchline.
12. You receive constant praise for your linguistic ability, but the taxi drivers don’t understand you. And so on…

Once intermediate fatigue sets in, all the gains you make in the language feel much smaller than before. Sometimes they will even seem nonexistent. But the important thing to remember is that you are progressing. All the time you spend picking up vocabulary and exposing yourself to new content in the language builds up into something much greater. Even if you don’t feel that you are improving, you need to suspend disbelief. Just when the fatigue seems to be at its heaviest, you are about to step up to the next level.

It all adds up! 

Always remember the snowball effect. As the renowned polyglot Alexander Arguelles reminds us, 15 minutes of study every day adds up to over 90 hours in one year. 30 minutes a day is over 180 hours! These are amazing numbers. Just imagine what is possible with just 45 or 60 minutes per day. In fact, Arguelles used this fact to study multiple languages at the same time, dedicating hours per day to keep them up. You don’t need to become a language monk like Arguelles, but a steady time commitment each day will build into a sizable snowball over time. It all adds up!

When I can, I like to sit down with my books for extended periods, but it’s tough to find the time. Life gets in the way. Being a true Tokyoite, I can be on-the-go for several days at a time. This makes it challenging to keep up my study regime. Sometimes it even gets discouraging but but there is no need to despair! All the time you invest will pay off. Language is a marathon, not a sprint. You need to remind yourself that it all adds up.

The little moments

Barry Farber is a talk show legend with a knowledge of more than 25 languages. He brilliantly describes in his book How To Learn Any Language about making the little moments count. What do you usually do when you are on the train or waiting in line? These periods are fantastic opportunities for learning.

Micro-study

I would estimate that over 50% of my language knowledge comes from micro-study during those little moments. Minutes spent on the bus and waiting for traffic lights to change add up to hours over time. Use them! Not only does it all add up but it also makes those moments more pleasant. As well as learning a language, you are improving your daily quality of life! Not a bad deal if you ask me. And guess what? It all adds up.

Farber is old school. He prefers to use index cards for his mobile learning (iPhones didn’t exist when he was learning the ropes) but I think that he would approve of helpful flashcard apps like i-Sokki and Anki. In any event, it’s much better than wasting your commute tweeting and looking at wedding photos on Facebook!

One more tip.

Still not feeling it? If you are lacking motivation, one good tactic is to look at old emails or letters you have written in the foreign language. It’s like looking at homework you did when you were a kid. You will laugh at your mistakes and wonder how you used to write so badly.

Reading old examples of your writing is a great way to show yourself how much you have improved. It reminds you that all the time you put in was worth it and motivates you to battle on. One glance at my gmail account is undeniable proof of my progress in Japanese. Give it a try! And remember, it all adds up!

I hope this post was helpful. Do you have any other tactics for beating intermediate fatigue? Let us know in the comments below!

For those of you who are interested in a wider discussion of mastering a skill (such as learning languages), I recommend reading Robert Greene’s latest work on mastery. It’s a very enlightening read.

Rohan

Rohan has spent years studying Japanese, Chinese and Korean, and currently lives in Japan. He created the perapera pop-up dictionary plugins to help other learners of Chinese and Japanese.