The internet has made many things in our lives so much easier and learning languages is definitely one of those.

It doesn’t make the actual learning part easier, of course ^_^, but it does make the learning materials much simpler (and cheaper) to access and as such the excuses for not learning get harder to find.

Oddly enough, Twitter, the social behemoth, is one such learning resource.

The ubiquity of Twitter, via a strong mobile and desktop presence and a ton of third party apps, means you can connect to the Twitterverse in so many different ways.

I access Twitter via Tweetdeck and Tweetie on my iPhone and then through the browser and Tweetie’s desktop client when I’m back at home – simple and always convenient.

Having the ability to always connect to Twitter on the run means you essentially have a free Japanese resource available to you at any time and wherever you happen be.

If you are heading to work on the train or bus, sitting in a traffic jam, lying on the beach or just bumming around at home – if you’re connected, you can be learning.

So how do I actually learn Japanese from Twitter? Well, here’s a few ideas to get you started.

Follow Japanese Learning Tweeters

The first, and perhaps most obvious example, is simply to follow Japanese learning tweeters.

There’s a shedload of people providing great (and free) Japanese learning resources including everything from daily kanji updates to links back to blog articles at Japanese learning sites.

A few I’d suggest to start with are @learnkanji, @tofugu and @rainbowhill. To find more folks providing this type of service, try searching Twitter for keywords like “learn japanese”, “learn kanji” or just “hiragana”.

Follow Japanese/English Tweeters

There are also plenty of people on Twitter, who tweet both in Japanese and English.

A good starting point is to follow just a few tweeters at first and get used to reading and translating their posts in Japanese but also allowing your brain a rest in between with their English tweets. You don’t want to burn out by seeing a full page of kanji every time you open their page.

If English is not your native language, the same applies to finding a 50/50 tweeter in your language, who also tweets in Japanese. With millions of users across the world there will definitely be someone to fit your needs from Afrikaans to Yiddish. Although your mileage may vary finding a Yiddish-Japanese tweeter ^_^

If you’re only new to kanji make sure you keep a few tabs open in your browser and use Google Translate and/or an online Japanese-English dictionary like Tangorin to figure out what is being written. It’s as simple as cutting the Japanese text and pasting it into the translator of your choice.

Break the kanji down one by one, if necessary, and work your way through the tweet until you at least have a rough idea of what you are reading. If you only know two kanji out of 50 in the tweet and you learn two new ones then that is a great result – a 100% improvement!

Don’t think that you are somehow cheating looking up the kanji in a translator. You’ll learn much faster if you push yourself to read above your level but just make sure you are retaining at least some of the new information to use the next time you see the same kanji.

It is important to not fall in to the trap of using Google Translate as soon as you see any kanji. Make sure you first think about what you are reading and see if you can work it out – you may surprise yourself ^_^

Also be aware that the results from Google Translate are sometimes very rough so just use it as a way to get an idea of what’s being said but don’t try to translate a press release with it.

If you use something like Anki (and I highly recommend you do) I suggest making a new set of cards to note each new kanji you come across and that way you can keep testing and building on your knowledge.

Try starting your Japanese/English Twitter experience with @dannychoo or @ajatt as they, and some of their followers, post a lot in both Japanese and English.

If their tweets are not to your liking, try searching through people following them and you may find others who tweet in Japanese but have interests more to your taste. There’s something for everyone.

Follow Japanese Tweeters

Now we’re getting to the hard stuff – following Japanese only tweeters. There are thousands upon thousands of Japanese tweeters that never post in anything but Japanese.

These people are mostly Japanese writing in their native tongue but there are also many Japanese students, who post strictly in Japanese to maintain and improve their skills or simply because they enjoy using Japanese.

There’s a few things you can take away from following Japanese-only tweeters:

• You’ll learn a lot of new kanji, grammar and vocabulary if you use the steps I listed in the previous section above.
• You will quickly find out that real Japanese people talk/write quite differently from the crusty old textbooks you’ve been using.
• You’ll be exposed to a lot of the little idiosyncrasies of the language that come up in day to day native conversation, most of which you will never encounter in textbooks.

@mikamika59 is a great place to start as a Japanese-only tweeter. She occasionally writes in English but 99% of the time in Japanese and has over 6,000 tweets to get you started.

@gin_no_hera is an Englishman living in Japan who posts heaps in Japanese. These are just two different examples of many thousands available to you.

Try your hand at following these two tweeters and once you get confident, check out their followers for more Japanese-only tweeters and go from there – the choices are endless.

Share Your Knowledge

Amongst the Japanese-only tweeters you may also come across people who are currently learning English. You can bet they’re having just the same issues as you are with learning a new language and so hooking up with each other makes perfect sense.

The TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication) is more or less the Japanese equivalent of the JLPT and as such you’ll find the term mentioned on Twitter by those who are working their way towards passing the test.

Do a quick search on Twitter for the term “TOEIC” you’ll find a very long list of potential learning partners. Follow them and then send a DM (Direct Message) or tweet them publicly and you may just find someone who is willing to give a little bit of Japanese tuition in return for some help with their English.

Don’t think you have nothing to offer – at the very least you’re probably 10-15 years ahead of them with learning English and vice-versa. Bear in mind that not everyone wants to be your learning buddy, you may go through 5, 40 or even 100 people before you find someone – don’t get discouraged.

So there you have it – four ways to use Twitter to improve your Japanese language skills and perhaps even find a few new friends plus of course you can find me lurking around tweeting most days of the week.

I look forward to hearing how you go.

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