ATLJAPANESE

language learning community

By joining ATLJapanese, you will also be participating in a Discord-based language learning community, where you will gain access to resources such as bilingual manga and anime, graded immersion recommendations, textbooks, and customized flashcards. On our Discord, you can chat with other students in Japanese and English, join bookclubs, and receive guidance as you progress through each level of fluency.

My approach to kanji

Kanji is effectively the third writing system of Japanese, and it's required for anyone serious about reading native material. With PDXJapanese, students typically learn the 1,000 most common kanji in 6-8 months. That covers about 95% of what appears in Japanese media, and it usually takes college students four years to get there.

I don't teach kanji in the school order used by Japanese children and American college programs, which prioritizes frequency and usefulness. Inspired by the Kodansha and Heisig methods, I teach characters grouped by shared components. 一 (one) and 口 (mouth) come before 言 (say) and 兄 (brother), which both come before 説 (theory). We use those component parts, the radicals, to build mnemonic stories that make the meaning stick, and you learn a word alongside every character so your vocabulary grows at the same time. This makes similar-looking kanji, of which there are many, far less painful to keep straight.

If fluency is the goal, learning the 2,136 regular use kanji in the most efficient order available can save you years.

Immersion

Once you're comfortable with kanji and basic grammar, we shift toward vocabulary growth through immersion in native material. Outside lessons, you'll spend time with media you actually like, usually a manga, anime, or drama pitched just past your current comprehension. Most students are working with native-targeted material within 12-18 months. This follows Stephen Krashen's input hypothesis, which holds that language is acquired through large amounts of engagement with the language itself rather than learned in pieces. Fluency doesn't arrive once you've accumulated enough grammar and vocabulary. You gradually absorb the unspoken rules that native speakers know and textbooks rarely mention. In English, "don't you want to" comes out as "donchyawanna," which is nearly unrecognizable to a non-native speaker. "Big red dog" sounds right and "red big dog" doesn't. There are thousands of rules like this, and you have to hear and read them before native-level ability is possible.

MATERIALS

All learning materials are FREE: textbooks, custom flashcards, and native reading, listening, and viewing material.
Our core tools are Jiten, an integrated spaced repetition system, dictionary, and immersion corpus, plus the Genki and Quartet textbook series. Spaced repetition reschedules your flashcards based on how well you recall them, so review time goes where it's actually needed. Custom decks are provided for kanji, vocab, reading, and listening.
Genki I and II are the college standard and alternate between new grammar and vocab and reading and kanji practice. After Genki II, students move into Quartet, along with the Dictionary of Japanese Grammar as a reference.
I also work in Japanese culture where it fits: origami, calligraphy, anime, cooking. Nothing sustains motivation like actually liking the culture, so I build lessons around what you're interested in.

Your curriculum adapts to your level, goals, and schedule. We set the direction together in your first lesson.