掲示板 Forums - is 15 too early to start japanese?

ive currently started studying with genki, anki decks and well renshuu. i feel like ive barely improved at all and i can barely tell hiragana (it got a little better as i just started renshuu) but is it just an age problem? am i not old enough to comprehend material? or am i just dumb

No, it's not early, no you're not dumb.

Just keep going. It takes time.

Absolutely not! I’m also starting to learn Japanese at 15. You can start learning at any age and the younger you start learning the better. It’s normal to struggle, especially in the beginning. You’re definitely not dumb. Everybody has their own way to learn things. You’ll eventually find out what works best for you. Keep going and don’t give up!!

I found an article about this on the Internet (https://www.busuu.com/en/languages/best-age-learn#:~:text=People's%20ability%20to%20learn%20grammar,language%20learners%20than%20young%20children.), here are the "key takeaways" the article has:

"Anyone can learn a language at any age. What’s most important is creating a favorable environment.

More mature learners make quicker progress at the beginning, but their ceiling might be lower.

People’s ability to learn grammar and language structures is strongest until 17.4 years old.

Teenagers are more efficient language learners than young children."

@Gugut, congratulations for taking up the challenge of learning Japanese! I wish I could have started to study that early. Put in perspective, this is no easy task, you'd have to be superhuman to learn it all in a jiffy. Keep at it, remember to enjoy it, you can do it! It's not a race, it's a process. 頑張って !

no it's not, it's actually a really good age to learn! don't stress about it to much ^^

Again practice...Practice more and more till you fatigue yourself.

A week or so, I saw other people saying they learned hiragana in a week or even 2 days so I am really trying to figure out whrre im going wrong

Yeah don’t stress about it too much. It’s totally normal to feel like you can’t understand or remember everything right away, especially when you’ve just started learning the language. And please don’t compare your progress to anyone else’s, everyone learns at their own pace.

Maybe try making simple sentences with the new words you’ve learned? I do that, and it really helps me remember vocab and grammar better. Or you could try reading books to help you get more comfortable with kana. I recommend checking out tadoku.org. They have lots of books at different levels.

thank u (and all of the rest of the people on this thread) for the advice!! also, is it too personal to ask how you started out studying? i kind of need a schedule since idk what im doing (mostly just trying to absorb stuff thats in genki and the study schedules here)