Learning Japanese Strategies

Just a quick update to an earlier post. A commenter posted some practical strategies he used to learn Japanese will living in Japan. Here's my expanded, paraphrased list (and you can see his comment here):

1) Study for the proficiency exams and aim to eventually pass Level 1. The JLPT range from Level 4 (beginning Japanese) to Level 1 (advanced).

2) Read middle-school textbooks. (I've heard this before, and social studies texts are paricularly recommended.)

3) Read. Manga like Aoki Yuji (Naniwa Kinyudo) and Kobayashi Yoshinori use good Japanese. (Reading Japanese generally seems to be one of the things that separates those who reach an advanced level from those who don't.)

4) Get a job that requires you to use Japanese. Many jobs will also require you to use a variety of formal/informal Japanese.

5) Read the local newspaper using a dictionary. (You can also buy a reader sold by Japan Times with short, sample newspaper articles already chosen for you. And newspapers for youth include furigana, so look for those when getting started.)

6) Video tape TV shows. The commenter suggests "Koko wa hen da yo, Nihonjin!" or "Miracle Type"). In Japan you can watch daily 15 minute mini-dramas that change all the time. If you tape them, you can watch and re-watch them later.

7) Buy books that Japanese use to improve their own writing. (This sounds very advanced to me...)

6) Have a language partner who you can speak to in Japanese -- ideally a native speaker. The commenter modelled conversations with his wife. He says, "I would role play with my wife and then phone whoever to explain the problem and request service."

7) Deal with problems yourself as much as possible, like paying rent, going to government offices, maintaining a car, paying taxes, paying the NHK collector (if you do that), etc.