One Year of (Sort of) Learning French

Like many people in the UK, I studied French in school. I liked French. I thought it was really fun to speak another language, to talk with people, and to try and listen to what was going on in a new country. (Still do!)

When I was 14 we went on a school exchange to the city of Reims, in northeastern France. I was paired with a boy, which I’m sure some 14-year-olds would find very exciting but which I found unbearably awkward. He was very sweet and we completely ignored each other.

I also realised immediately that I didn’t need to speak any French with him, because he spoke fluent English, having lived in the UK until the age of 8. I did, however, get to speak some French with his mum.

Here are some examples of my French ability at the age of 14, to give you an idea.

We visited Riems cathedral and, in the car on the way home, I said “ç'était grand et belle” (it was big and beautiful). My exchange partner’s mum heard and understood me, which was very exciting.

I also remember that her other son called the house, and I asked “Pierre téléphone souvent?” (“does Pierre phone you often?”) and the mum laughed and said no, not really.

So, I guess we could say that my French was basic but enthusiastic. Probably, “Pierre téléphone souvent?” is not a grammatically correct sentence, but I didn’t care then and I don’t care now. She understood me! She laughed!

That was nearly 20 years ago, and I didn’t learn any more French until, at some point in lockdown, I decided on a whim to take some one-to-one lessons with online teachers. Here are some things I learned about French, about language learning, and about myself.

Holy merde, some textbooks are boring

I bought some French textbooks, but I didn’t use them very much because I found them really deathly boring. I also found that French grammar didn’t stick in my head from trying to do textbook exercises. So, I mostly ignored them and just tried to read other things in French. This was surprising to me, because as a student I quite like Japanese textbooks.

…but other books are fun!

There are lots of easy short stories out there:

• Short Stories in French for Beginners (Olly Richards & Richard Simcott)*

• 101 Conversations in Simple French (Olly Richards)*

• French Short Stories for Beginners (Lingo Mastery)*

• Merde, It’s Not Easy to Learn French (France Dubin)*

*Links with an asterisk are affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission when you click through and buy the book. Thanks for your support!

If you’re interested in Japanese short stories, there are lots of similar books of short stories available. Or you could read Tadoku books!

Routine is my friend (it might be yours too?)

During various national lockdowns, I had a regular Sunday morning zoom call with my brother where we’d sit and “do productive things” together. I used this time to read French books and watch French TV. It was a standing weekly appointment, so I didn’t have to plan it in. It was just what I did on Sunday mornings.

Making regular time to practise is one of the best things you can do to learn a language.

TV, TV, TV

I watched loads of French TV last year. If you have a basic knowledge of a language, you can probably watch TV in your target language, with the subtitles in that target language too. Netflix is great for this, because there are so many languages available! I watched all of Call My Agent (Dix pour cent) and Lupin in French, with French subtitles. I didn’t understand everything, but I got the gist of what was going on.

I know what you might be thinking. “But reading French is easier than reading Japanese!” You’re not wrong. If watching Japanese TV with Japanese subtitles is too hard at the moment, you could watch with subtitles in your native language.

I also watched a lot of Spiral (Engrenages), although that’s on BBC so it’s hard-subbed (i.e. you can’t turn the subtitles off, or change the language) with English subtitles. Spiral is a police and legal procedural, so I think it would be too hard for me to watch with French subtitles anyway.

Importantly, these are all TV shows I would happily watch, even if I wasn’t trying to get listening practice. Find something you enjoy, and keep at it.

The power of input

What do reading French books and watching French TV have in common? They’re input activities.

Listening and reading are input activities - you take in the language and (hopefully) learn some of it.

Speaking and writing, on the other hand, are output activities - you produce (i.e. use) the language you have.

Although it’s important to practise speaking, without large amounts of input, you can’t produce good-quality output.

Try different types of lessons and teachers

I had lessons on italki with various different teachers. Most were very good. Some weren’t such a good fit.

I’m a language teacher, and I have quite specific expectations from teachers I work with. I don’t like it when they’re late, or don’t come at all with no explanation. I don’t like it when they set me homework and then don’t check it. Maybe you wouldn’t mind that, but I found this annoying and unprofessional, and didn’t book with those teachers again.

The most successful lessons were the ones where I felt relaxed. Sometimes we’d chat for 25 minutes, then do a bit of hasty grammar for 5 minutes. I’m on board with that.

Progress will happen, but it takes time

At first, I couldn’t use any past tenses in French at all. I didn’t really care, but my teachers seemed to.

It can be tempting to think that if you go away and practise something, you’ll have mastered it by the next lesson, but ideas take time to “bed in”.

Overall, I felt fairly relaxed about the whole thing. If I keep plugging away at French, and practising, I’ll get better. If I only practise a bit, then progress will be slow. That’s ok too.

Speak and be heard

As a teacher, I’m so pleased when my students want to share their lives with me: to tell me about their day, their dreams, their fears, how their cat always eats the butter off their breakfast in the morning.

I really enjoyed re-learning some French, and it made me think about my teaching a lot - how it feels to be corrected; to not understand an explanation; to falteringly, finally, speak and be heard.

Isn’t that what we all want - to be heard and understood?

More Ways of Counting in Japanese with "Ippon Demo Ninjin"

My student shared the funny song "Ippon Demo Ninjin" with us recently.

It's pretty pun-tastic, and very catchy.

It's also a good way to learn and practice some more counters (little words we put on the end of numbers in Japanese, depending on what's being counted).

(Part 1)

１！　いっぽん  でも  にんじん     Ichi! Ippon demo ninjin

２！　にそく  でも  サンダル     Ni! Nisoku demo sandaru

３！　さんそう  でも  ヨット     San! Sansou demo yotto

４！ 　よつぶ  でも  ごましお     Yon! Yotsubu demo gomashio

５！　ごだい  でも  ロケット    Go! Godai demo roketto

６！　ろくわ  でも  しちめんちょう    Roku! Rokuwa demo shichimencho

７！　しちひき  でも  はち     Shichi! Shichihiki demo hachi

８！　はっとう  でも  くじら     Hachi! Hattou demo kujira

９！　きゅうはい  でも  ジュース     Kyuu! Kyuuhai demo juusu

１０！　じゅっこ  でも  いちご     Juu! Jukko demo ichigo

いちご、 にんじん、 サンダル、 ヨット、 ごましお、 ロケット、しちめんちょう 、はち、くじら、ジュース

Ichigo, ninjin, sandaru, yotto, gomashio, roketto, shichimencho, hachi, kujira, juusu

Strawberry, carrot, sandal, yacht, sesame and salt, rocket, turkey, bee, whale, juice

(Dance break)

(Repeat Part 1)

いっぽん、 にそく、 さんそう、 よつぶ、 ごだい、ろくわ、しちひき、はっとう、きゅうはい、 じゅっこ！

Ippon, nisoku, sansou, yotsubu, godai, rokuwa, shikihiki, hattou, kyuuhai, jukko!

One long thin thing, two shoes, three boats, four small round things, five vehicles, six birds, seven small animals, eight large animals, nine cups, ten small things!

The beginning of ninjin (carrot) sounds like "ni" (two) but there's only one carrot.

And the beginning of sandaru (sandles) sounds like "san" (three) but...there are only two sandals!

We could translate いっぽん  でも  にんじん  Ippon demo ninjin, therefore, as:

"It's only one, but it's a carrot."

or

"Even if there's only one, a carrot is ninjin."

(Trust me, it sounds better in Japanese.)

Anyway, listen again and try and sing along.

I haven't translated the whole thing for you, just bits. See if you can work the rest of it out!

First published Nov 2017. Updated August 2021.

The One Million Meanings of Yoroshiku

So, you’ve learned different ways to say "Nice to meet you!" in Japanese. One way to say “nice to meet you” is “yoroshiku onegai shimasu”.

But yoroshiku onegai shimasu isn't just for the first time you meet someone. It has a whole host of different uses.

Let's look at the main different meanings of this magical, multipurpose Japanese word.

1. Yoroshiku means "Please!"

Yoroshiku, as we learned before, can be used when meeting new people, and means "please be kind to me", or "please look favourably upon me":

初めまして。フランです。よろしくお願いします。

"Hajimemashite. Furan desu. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu."

Nice to meet you. I'm Fran. Please look favourably upon me!

2. Yoroshiku means "Thank you!"

As well as please, yoroshiku can mean thank you. Specifically, it can often mean “thank you in advance”. Said when giving someone work to do:

とじまり、よろしくね。

Tojimari, yoroshiku ne.

"I'll leave you to lock up. Thanks."

娘をよろしくお願いします。

Musume o yoroshiku onegaishimasu.

"Thanks in advance for taking care of my daughter."

Shop “Yoroshiku ne” T-shirts:

3. Yoroshiku means "Hi!"

This is one of my favourites. Yoroshiku can mean "regards", like "send my regards to so-and-so", or "say hi to so-and-so", or even "send my love to so-and-so":

お父さんによろしくお伝えください。

O-tou-san ni yoroshiku o tsutae kudasai.

Please send my best regards to your father.

お姉さんによろしくね。

O-nee-san ni yoroshiku ne.

Say hi to your sister for me.

What's your favourite use of yoroshiku? Did I miss any out? Let me know...yoroshiku ne!

Sakura - Beginner Japanese - Tuesdays at 12pm (UK time) | Online Group Course Starting 6th January 2026

Get my newsletter:

Updated 10th August 2021

Umbrellas Lost And Found - The Hundred Yen Shop

Did you know Japan has the most umbrellas per person, of any country in the world? For every person in Japan, there are 3.3 umbrellas.

At least three of them are mine, left outside shops and restaurants…

In 2011, I had just moved to Japan and I moved into my new flat on the outskirts of Nagoya city. At the weekends I'd head to Daiso, the 100-yen shop, to buy bits and pieces for my new flat.

One day, I left my umbrella in the stand outside the 100-yen shop. It was quite a nice umbrella - a neat little folding one, and it had been a present from my brother, so I went back to the shop the next day.

My little blue umbrella wasn't in the rack, so I asked at the till.

My Japanese was quite limited then, but I knew how to say 傘を忘れました (kasa o wasuremashita, "I left my umbrella").

The shop assistant looked a bit bemused, but wanted to help me, so she asked me what the umbrella looked like.

I told her the umbrella was 小さい (chiisai, “small”). I gestured to show it was very small.

She asked me:

ああ、折りたたみですか。
Aa, oritatami desu ka?
Oh, is it "oritatami"?

I didn't know what "oritatami" meant, and I didn't have a dictionary with me (it was 2011, and I didn’t own a smartphone), so I repeated that it was small.

The shop assistant bustled about, murmuring:

"Oritatami, oritatami, oritatami..."

She went off to look somewhere else, and then came back and apologised profusely. My umbrella was gone.

I walked home. It started to rain.

At home, I pulled out my romaji dictionary. And that was the day I learned that “oritatami” means "folding", as in, a folding umbrella.

! I'll never forget that word, I thought.

I lost my little umbrella, but I gained a new word in my vocabulary. You need a lot more than 3.3 words per person, after all!

Tadoku - Let's Read! Course Introduction Video (and transcript)

Tadoku (多読), also called Extensive Reading, is the practice of learning a foreign language by reading lots of easy books. It's a really fun way to explore the Japanese language, without feeling pressure to understand every word.

This footage is from the 2019 Tadoku Summer Course at Step Up Japanese in Brighton, UK. In summer 2020, we also held our first Online Tadoku course.

Thanks to Daniel Sheen for making this video!

Watch the video, or scroll down to read a transcript. Click "CC" to turn on the subtitles 👍

What is Tadoku?

David: Tadoku is the practice of reading lots and lots of books, with the focus being on skipping things you don’t understand.

Fran: I think that lack of pressure’s really important, isn’t it? Skipping things, and… it doesn’t matter if you don’t understand everything.

Let’s take a look inside a Tadoku class at Step Up Japanese (filmed in 2019):

Fran: What did you read today? How was it? What was your favourite part? What was your least favourite part?

Snippets from students’ conversations about books:

A: I work in a publishing company – we make books – and this is from my publishing company.

B: Oh really?

A: And that one, yeah.

C: She’s actually a ghost! Oh no! And he’s really scared.

What do you like about Tadoku?

Sara: It’s quite nice just to kind of come back from work and just sit and you’re getting your practice in but it doesn't feel quite so much like practice, because you are focusing on the story, and I quite like the whole rules of the whole thing, which is like, you know, don’t sit there looking words up, just try and work it out from the context of it all, but yeah, I do actually sit and enjoy little stories more, that way.

David: I enjoy Tadoku, as it gives me the opportunity to read Japanese, without the pressure of understanding every single word.

Fran: I really like that experience as well, like you’re reading a book and then like a couple pages on you’re like “Oh, that’s what that word means!” – you didn’t need to look it up.

Sara: It’s like a little gold star for yourself as well, like: “Oh, I did know that!”

Would you recommend Step Up Japanese?

David: I would recommend Step Up Japanese to friends and family, and have. I really enjoy classes, I really enjoy the teacher, I really enjoy all of the students as well, it’s just like a really friendly bunch, and I’d like for more people to be part of the Step Up Japanese family.

Games in Japanese - Course Introduction Video (and transcript)

On Games in Japanese (日本語でゲーム), we practise communicating in Japanese by playing games!

This footage is from the 2019 Games in Japanese Summer Course at Step Up Japanese in Brighton, UK. In summer 2020, we also held our first Online Games in Japanese course.

Thanks to Daniel Sheen for making this video!

Watch the video, or scroll down to read a transcript. Click "CC" to turn on the subtitles 👍

What is Games in Japanese?

David: In 日本語でゲーム (Games in Japanese), we play a variety of games, only ever using the Japanese language.

Showing students how to play:

Fran: どれですか。(Which one is it?)

Fran: そうですね。木が同じです。(That’s right! KI [tree] is the same)

Fran: ３，２，１、はい。(3, 2, 1, go!)

Fran: あ！あ！ハサミ！(Ah! “Scissors!”)

Fran: 私は取ります。(So, I take the card)

Sara: You’ve got all the numbers, the names out on the floor, and it’s the reading and trying to get to it before everyone else, which is quite funny.

N: クエスチョン、はてなマーク (“question mark”)

What do you like about “Games in Japanese”?

David: I find it difficult to play games in only Japanese, but I really relish the challenge to speak only Japanese. It really makes me have to think in a way that maybe I wouldn't have the opportunity to do if I wasn't taking the course.

David: サングラス　(“sunglasses”) (Laughter)

Sara: It’s very good vocab practice. I think it’s more, the games we have, it’s a lot more sort of random words so I feel like you’re a lot faster with it, so you tend to do a bit less thinking about the words that you want, you just kind of go like “that word, quick!”

Fran: はい　(OK, let’s go)

A:ピエロ (“clown”)

Sara: So you’re trying to beat everyone else to it, so it's a bit more, a bit more silly.

Fran: 音楽　(“music”)…音楽　(“music”) (Laughter)

A: クモ　(“spider”)

Sara: ドラゴン　(“dragon”)

B: 花　(“flower”)

Sara: I quite like that game, it was funny.

Would you recommend Step Up Japanese?

Sara: I think Step Up Japanese is really good way to go, it’s really good practice, it’s a really relaxed atmosphere, and Fran’s such a good teacher. I’ll go home and I’m like, right, “I’m gonna do this”, I feel motivated to keep going at the weekends.

How Do You Say "Nice to Meet You" in Japanese?

Hurray! You've met another Japanese-speaking person. Time to introduce yourself.

But how do you say "Pleased to meet you" in Japanese?

The first phrase you'll want is:

はじめまして。

Hajimemashite.

"Nice to meet you"

Hajimemashite  (almost literally) means "we are meeting for the first time". So you can only use it the first time you meet someone.

The other super-useful phrase is:

よろしくおねがいします。

Yoroshiku onegai shimasu.

"Please be kind to me."

Yoroshiku onegai shimasu is hard to translate, but means something like "please be kind to me".

It means that you are looking forward to having a good relationship with someone.

Shop “Nice To Meet You” Japanese necklaces (Step Up Japanese x designosaur):

Make it more polite

Add douzo to make your greeting more polite:

どうぞよろしくおねがいします。

Douzo yoroshiku onegai shimasu.

"Nice to meet you" (polite & a bit formal)

You could also say:

お会いできてうれしいです。

O-ai dekite ureshii desu.

"I'm happy to meet you." (more polite & formal)

or even:

お会いできて光栄です

O-ai dekite kouei desu.

"I'm honoured to meet you." (even more polite & formal)

Keep it casual

If you don't feel like being so polite, you could also say:

どうぞよろしく。

Douzo yoroshiku.

"Nice to meet you" (a bit more casual)

よろしくね。

Yoroshiku ne.

"Nice to meet you" (very casual)

It's good to be nice-mannered when you meet new people though, right?

"Nice to meet you too!"

Last but not least, when someone says yoroshiku onegaishimasu, you can add the feeling of "me too!" by replying with kochira koso  ("me too!"):

こちらこそ宜しくお願いします。

Kochira koso yoroshiku onegaishimasu.

"No, I'm pleased to meet you." / "The pleasure is mine."

Now, go and find someone new to speak to, and tell them how pleased you are to meet them.

Yoroshiku ne!

Shop “Nice To Meet You” Japanese necklaces (Step Up Japanese x designosaur):

Updated 26th Oct 2020