In October, I started taking a Japanese course. I contemplated joining a second-year group, but I realized that after all this time I still can't read anything in Japanese and I don't understand the spoken language either. I tried to take the JLPT N5 mock test and couldn't finish it. So I joined a beginner group. I decided that I'd rather be bored with basics for a while than try to catch up with people who had consistently been learning for a year. Also, I might actually lack even some basic knowledge, so it's better to be safe than sorry.
We have two 1.5 hour lessons per week. The first few lessons were boring, as expected. We covered the basics: hiragana, katakana, greetings, etc. I think that a lot of people don't do their homework, because after eight lessons, they still struggle with hiragana, even though they should've nailed it weeks ago. So it's annoying, as those people slow the group down.
We started using the textbook "Minna no Nihongo". In every chapter, there's a list of words you're supposed to memorize. I don't think we're supposed to memorize their kanji as well — in the book, a phonetic notation known as furigana is provided until the very last chapter. Still, I'm adding those words with kanji to my Anki deck. But I'm not sure that I'm not just making things harder for myself — how useful is it for me to memorize the kanji for vending machine (自動販売機)?
After several lessons, our teacher informed us that some of the lessons would be taught by a native speaker. The prospect of interacting with a native speaker is exciting, but I can't help but be skeptical about it (as I always am): is it even that useful for us at this stage, when some of the people can't even read? And while this teacher can speak some Russian, it's also not perfect, so we will struggle to communicate.
So far we've had nine lessons. And even though I haven't learned much of anything new yet, the course gives me structure, which I lack in self-study. Hopefully I'll achieve better results with it.
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Sorry, but I'm also unsure. Maybe @Aki_ san knows the answer.
I think you should've had the native Japanese teacher from the get-go. The main thing is that you enjoy the course and make progress, any progress. Some learn faster than others, but the only thing that matters is what sticks. And if you associate a Japanese linguistic concept with a Russian explanation, it actually teaches you to translate in your head, which isn't a good practice as it deters fluency. So make the most of your native Japanese teacher))
One of my conversation partners uses ChatGPT to create mnemonic stories for kanji, and he says that the stranger the stories, the easier they are to remember. I think you're amazing—it’s impressive that Japanese is your third language! I know how hard it is to learn a third language because I'm struggling with Italian myself. Good luck!
I'm a native Japanese speaker and give one-to-one Japanese lessons. Whether learning how to write ‘vending machine’ is useful or not, depends on what the learner wants to achieve. In my experience, many students aim to communicate with Japanese people in Japanese, so I don't particularly force them to learn kanji. Students who want to learn kanji make the effort themselves and enjoy the process. If you have doubts about learning kanji and don't enjoy it that much, then there is no need to force yourself to learn them :) Try not to aim for perfection. There is no right answer to how to learn. Anyway, please be clear about what you want to do and enjoy the learning process.
Also, you being a male, I find that — especially with Japanese — it's important to have a male teacher and/or to shadow males, so that you don't end up with an effeminate acquisition of the language. I know a guy who learned Japanese from youtube videos with young girls, and when he went to Japan, he went to a party and there was a puppy, and he said "It's so cute!" in a way that the people there thought he was being cute and imitating a teenage girl. They all burst out laughing and he almost died 😅