How can I learn Japanese easily without spending money?
I’ve been trying to learn for about 2 years now, but it hasn’t gone so well. Money is too tight in my family for me to buy anything, so I would like either a “penpal” or some websites with free lessons.
Well, I’ll probably earn a bit of money soon from babysitting once I get back to my house in 3 weeks, seeing as I’m in Arizona on vacation right now. Do books and CDs cost a lot of money? Is it really worth it?
http://www.kanji-a-day.com
That’s a good site for learning kanji for free.
You can also download a program called “Kanji Gold” for free.
If you go to the library, just study whatever they have.
Money in itself doesn’t necessarily help people learn Japanese. It may help them build up a collection of unread books though.
One problem in Japan is that many people want to learn English, so some go to eikaiwa (English conversation schools). They spend a fair amount of money, figuring the more they go, the better their English will become. That’s only true to some extent. A lot of these people don’t really improve because they don’t study enough on their own. It’s true that conversation is a great way to learn, but it doesn’t guarantee good skills. You really have to dedicate yourself to learning.
My advice would be to study whatever you can get ahold of, and as much as possible. Penpals and stuff like that will definitely help too. Also check out any Japanese videos on Youtube. There are tons. Even just listening, without understanding, is good to get used to how Japanese sounds. You might want to listen to some Japanese music. Whatever you can find in Japanese, take a look.
Ganbatte!