I Built My N5 Foundation with a Nepali Teacher — Here's Why That Helped

Written by Rahul Kumar Singh · Published 28 June 2026

There's a belief among language learners that "serious" study means full immersion from day one — Japanese explained only in Japanese, no native language allowed. I did the opposite: I built my entire N5 foundation with a Nepali teacher, in Nepali. And I think it's one of the better decisions I stumbled into.

Why Learning Through Nepali Helped

At the absolute beginner stage, your biggest enemy isn't vocabulary — it's concepts. What is a particle? Why does the verb go last? What's the difference between polite and plain form? These are ideas about the language, and trying to absorb ideas about Japanese, in Japanese, when you know fifty words, is like reading the instruction manual for a lock that the manual is inside of.

A teacher who shares your first language can shortcut all of it:

• Grammar concepts land in minutes instead of weeks. When my teacher explained that Japanese particles work like Nepali's ले, लाई and मा — small words after the noun that mark its job — the entire particle system stopped being scary. English speakers get no such bridge; Nepali speakers do.
• Word order needs no explanation at all. Japanese puts the verb last. So does Nepali. My classmates and I never went through the "the sentence feels backwards" phase that English-speaking learners describe — because for us it isn't backwards.
• Questions get real answers. As a beginner you can't yet ask "sensei, why is it に and not で here?" in Japanese. In your own language, you can — and the answer actually sticks.

(I've written more about these parallels in 5 ways Nepali speakers have a head start in Japanese.)

What Still Had to Happen in Japanese

Learning through Nepali doesn't mean avoiding Japanese. Some things never worked translated, and my teacher was clear about them:

• Sounds, from day one. Kana and pronunciation have to be learned as themselves. Writing Japanese words in Devanagari as a crutch feels helpful for a week and then quietly sabotages your reading. Learn hiragana properly first — it pays for itself within days.
• Set phrases as wholes. Greetings, classroom expressions, すみません and お願いします — memorised as sounds with situations, not translated word by word.
• Listening volume. No amount of explanation in any language substitutes for hours of hearing real Japanese. That habit has to start early, even when you understand almost nothing.

The Switch: When Japanese Teachers Take Over

After my N5 foundation was set, my classes moved to native Japanese teachers — my school has many of them — and the timing mattered. By then I had enough grammar and vocabulary that a Japanese-led classroom was challenging rather than impossible. The first weeks were still humbling: real speed, natural pronunciation, no safety net. But because the conceptual foundation was already there in my head (in Nepali!), I could spend my attention on listening and speaking instead of decoding what a particle is.

If You're Choosing How to Start

• If you can find a teacher or class that explains beginner Japanese in Nepali (or your first language), take it without guilt. It's a head start, not a shortcut.
• Insist on kana from the first week regardless. Any course that keeps you in romaji or Devanagari transliteration for months is wasting your time.
• Plan the switch in advance. First-language teaching is scaffolding — brilliant at the start, limiting if you never take it down. Around the end of N5 material is a natural handover point.
• Self-studying without any teacher? The same logic applies to resources: concept explanations in a language you fully understand, plus daily contact with real Japanese through vocabulary, structured notes and listening.

The goal was never to learn Japanese in Nepali. The goal was to use Nepali to reach the place where Japanese can teach itself.

Rahul Kumar Singh

I build and write NihongoDoya. I'm a Japanese learner from Nepal — currently preparing for the JLPT N4 at a language school with native Japanese teachers — and I publish the study system I use myself, free for everyone. More about me · Say hello