Learning Japanese

[Konekodemon]

Is there any way for me to learn the language? I am 34 years old and have learning disabilities. I also have trouble thinking straight and my memory is bad. Is there any type of software that would help a person like me learn Japanese? Or should I just pay a special tutor to teach me? Not that I can afford a tutor when I don't make very much money.

 

[Starlight]

duolingo has Japanese now, you could give that a try.

 

[pkmin3033]

I'd recommend an audio course - if you search on Amazon there are plenty of books with accompanying CDs on learning Japanese; it's much easier to learn by yourself if you have an audio cue as well as a visual reference in a book.

 

[Neil Peart]

As a native English speaker attempting to learn one of the hardest languages in the world (Finnish), I can't stress this enough: if it is at all possible, try to find some actual courses. Duolingo and mobile apps will teach you bits and pieces and they're nice starters to be sure, but you need proper teaching to fill in the gaps of grammar, syntax, inflection, etc. So if it is at all possible, look for courses at your local university, or even lessons from someone fluent. If that's absolutely not an option, ask around for the best books on learning the language and have a crack at it yourself. I'm amazed at how much more I know about Finnish just based on the books I've read.

 

[Cherrim]

I most highly recommend finding an actual class, if that's at all an option, because a dedicated teacher will help you stay on track, but it's very doable to learn it on your own. /r/learnjapanese has a lot of resources and is a pretty good place to start, especially if you're self-learning.

The Genki textbooks are a good start. Once you get through the first two, you'll have enough grammar to start reading real material, which I find is much more useful than reading textbooks forever.

Unfortunately, with Japanese, there simply is a lot of rote memorization. Once you get past the kana alphabets, you basically just have to start memorizing kanji and kanji readings which is probably the most time-consuming aspect of learning the language. :(