🌍My Language Learning Class: 👉 ruri-ohama-s-school.teachable.com 👈 Mochimochi Links: 🍫Download link for iOS: apps.apple.com/us/app/learn-kanji-with-mochimochi/id1463353686 🍬Download link for Android:play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mochimochi.android.an&hl=en&gl=US
Ok: Downloaded it, but it has pronouciation totally different from what is written. Written in hiragana as a-no-hi-to is spoken as a-los-to ? Hm, need to find some native speaker, or just go to Japan.
If you want learning more Italian i can help you if you like it 🇮🇹💙🇯🇵. Yes the hard part for japene Is know what words get 'L' pronunciation then 'R', or else 'V' instead 'B'
I bought the premium version, but it's a shame that a lot of the N3-N1 level doesn't have a pronunciation sound or a sentence sample, which is why I bought the app in the first place.
As a Japanese person, first of all, I’m so happy that there are people who want to learn Japanese. but one thing I’d like u to be careful with is that Japanese people rarely use phrases in anime or manga. so I recommend you listening to japanese REAL conversation if u truly want to become fluent in Japanese. I hope everyone watching this video will achieve the goals they set themselves! Thanks for reading 😊
I believe any serious learner can tell when アニメ drops 敬語 or uses slang. To me its like being ESL and listening to sitcoms and not realizing when something is far too over the top. In real life speech is not so static, but what do I know, I am only monolingual with a hobby in japanese study.
@@Peraliq Yeah ,after studying a few different ways it's natural to tell the difference between anime Japanese and real life Japanese. Especially if you have some Japanese friends, but anime/games/visual novels in Japanese have some pretty nice conversations sometimes. The thing about regular real life Japanese is that it gets boring when you're really advanced because it's the same routine always. I've been using Japanese for 20+ years, and sometimes I just get bored talking with native speakers. Finding a really good conversationalist among shy Japanese people is hard too. I've become more shy over the years adjusting to Japanese people which makes it a lot harder as well.
@@victoriap4291 Advice for all levels would be to continue having fun with how you study and it becomes as natural as brushing your teeth everyday. There’s a lot of walls people bump into at different levels and feel they aren’t improving, so sometimes it’s good to challenge yourself to studying a new way as well. Or maybe just diving into the deep end by immersing yourself in your hobbies in fully Japanese for a certain amount of time could feel very refreshing (overwhelming if you want to understand all the nuances but just try to understand the atmosphere and enjoy it). There’s a plethora of ways to study or play/have fun in Japanese so if you do what feels right to you at the time then there’s no wrong way to study. But having certain short term goals can propel you forward when you feel lost. Sometimes I would aim for 100 new words a week, or when I had too much energy when I was younger I would go for 100 a day when I had the time too lol Of course I couldn’t remember every word at once, but words are always recycled in languages (so maybe I was reviewing them often naturally) and with more exposure you can remember them. I read an article that it takes about 5 different encounters with the word in similar or different context over a period of time to understand them deeper. And some say it takes 10000 words for fluency so if you’re consistent with 10 words a day, that’s 3650 a year so in about 3 years it’s possible to be fluent if you know how to use the words in context. (Or can be fluent with less vocab if you know all the words in context) It’s okay to forget stuff a lot since passive understanding is more important at first too. Everything balances out with consistency,exposure, and time.
Although I grew up in Japan, I went to American schools. It was a few years after the war and the system didn't offer Japanese classes. In fact the Catholic school I went to discouraged the use of any language besides English to its multi-cultural students. Though I could speak Japanese, I couldn't read any of it. I started learning katakana and hiragana on my own and moved on to Kanji. Kanji books were so boring to me and forgetting most of what I learned was so demoralizing. So I turn to manga. I started with kid's manga that had kana written besides the Kanji then moved on to more adult material that didn't have the kana. I wasn't trying to learn kanji, I was just trying to follow the story. Eventually I began to recognize many of the Kanji characters. Just as in English, it's easier to read than it is to spell. With the advent of the computers typing Japanese has become so easy because Japanese doesn't have a complicated phonetic system. There are only 5 vowel sounds, similar to Spanish. This way of learning may not be for everyone, but if it works for you go for it. I would like to suggest that you pick mangas that are close to real life situations. Shima Kousaku was one of the ones I loved reading, about a man working in a big corporation who rose to the top of company. It was well researched and reflected ongoing business trends onto the stories. Sometimes the process of getting there can be as rewarding as reaching the goal.
I am Japanese. I am very happy that you are interested in Japan in this way. I am also studying English, but I would like to have friends like this who are interested in my native language.
I'm really considering start to learn Japanese, when I was a kid I was really into Japanese culture, I've watched many shows and animes from Japan when I was a child and believe or not I wanted to be a Japanese, but then I got older and didn't keep my interest in Japan, but now I'm considering it not only because of the challenge, but in the background it still being an interesting culture and language for me. I think I'm really thinking to much forward now haha I'm actually studying french, and my next language to learn will be polish, which is also not so easy and will take me some time to learn, but after these 2 languages I think it'll be the time to learn something completely different from the western/european world and trying out one of the most difficult languages in the world haha
First at all, thanks for this content I'm Spanish language natives and ive been learning english by myself so I appreciate you're very clear to me and I've started learning Japanese just for be able to play Japanese games and manga,
"there is no right or wrong in this world, there are just different values according to different cultures" i think this is the absolute hardest thing for many westerners to understand and/or accept, as we (often) live our lives thinking we're (obviously) the center of the world, and it's this inability to accept reality that prevents many (americans especially) from finding 'a place to belong' in japan to integrate into a country/culture you *must* assimilate and adapt to that country/culture. this is the reality of nearly every country in the world
I guess I’m a weirdo cause I find kanji very interesting 😂 it might help that I have a friend learning Chinese so we like to compare how the same characters sound different and can mean different things lol
A tip I'd give for more introverted people is for "practicing with natives" is that you don't have to use apps like italki to interact with natives. The majority of my interaction with natives is actually over Twitch, since it gives me time to understand what they said and reply in something remotely understandable. I'd especially recommend small streamers since they have the capacity to actually pay attention to your conversation. Just remember to be polite when talking to them. They may not be able to express it, but they're people all the same as you, so treat them like it.
I screenshotted your comment and I will put it in my database. Today is my first day self learning and I’m having a blast with Hiragana. I’m worried about speaking with Native speakers and you just gave me a golden idea whenever I’m ready months later. I will make sure I come back and thank you again for this awesome tip if its helpful! I hope I can keep up though!- first time learning a new language. (I’m Arabic)
I'm definitely seconding this. Streams are an excellent way of 'practicing with natives'. I usually watch people who play multiplayer games with their friends, so it's like listening to friends talking with each other kind of, more casual, more natural than watching anime or drama. And I would also add that playing online games on Japanese servers can also help with practice too, but only once you're at the level where you can understand the game and be able to communicate well enough to ask for help or start chatting with strangers in-game.
@真田 幸村 - Crimson demon of war It depends on what your preferences are. Watching content that is boring to you won't be interesting just because you watch it in Japanaese. I would go under all/tags/日本語 or alternatively all/tags/japanese to see streamers who stream with these tags. From there you can filter to activities, games or content that mostly drives your attention, and select a streamer that fits your needs.
I’m a Japanese. Even Japanese people forgets kanji, hiragana and katakana. Don’t worry if you can’t remember that humongous amount of kanji. Every Japanese people struggles remembering kanji and makes a mistake. So don’t be worried.
I actually have a question for you, something as a new Japanese speaker has been driving me crazy trying to figure out. How do you decide when using ぢ vs じ, and ず vs づ?
Kanji is so hard tbh. However, learning Kanji is so necessary. Full Hiragana paragraphs are even more difficult to read than those which include Kanji. I also use the Mochi mochi app and I'm learning the N4 vocabulary course. Love its pretty interface and sounds
Right? I'm only beginning on kanji and I can already recognise the weight they pull in the writing. Reading a full-kana sentence is weird by this point, it looks jumbled and messy.
Tips to learn Japanese more efficiently: - Do NOT attempt to learn more than one language at once. If in doubt, learn the one that you're most interested in. - Repeat every letter/word/sentence out loud to get a closer pronunciation (tip from Teuida). - Avoid trying to learn everything at one sitting to prevent yourself from forgetting words. - Try to memorize kana/kanji stroke order for more efficient writing. - If you feel unmotivated and/or tired, take a break and proceed your learning after a while and remember: you can do it! - Watch anime and practice singing in Japanese. They will help you to increase your vocabulary. - Try not to skip the difficult parts of learning. They may be essential. - Get yourself a partner conversation or use Teuida! - Use your Japanese knowledge in daily occasions (Example: whenever you're going upstairs, count every step in Japanese). - After finishing your studying session, write out everything you have learned so far, physically (pencil and paper) or virtually (note pad app on phone/computer) - Keep watching this video as many times as possible for days or weeks. It is not possible to learn everything in a few moments. Now, I wish you, the reader, a very happy learning, do not give up and give it your all! がんばってください! 💪✌️
Being a foreigner living in Japan, I would actually recommend against using romaji at all! If the person is really serious in studying the language, he/she should start with hiragana and katakana. After memorizing hiragana and katakana, they can use some beginner books (I used Minna no Nihongo) to learn grammar and some basic vocabularies. The book will also introduce easy kanjis. Also, starting with polite form (~masu) will be easier to transition to casual form in the long run. I also practiced my reading speed skills during karaoke (of course hiragana and katakana). If you're not in Japan, there are youtube karaoke videos you can use.
Hii ,i suppose u understand Japanese well ,i ve this back paper in Japanese language subject.,if u could plz help me with it,as it is only mcq's I dnt think It ll be hard to solve ,it ll be just great if u could help 🙏🙏🙏🙏
I think one of the most common mistakes people do is to pronounce “tsuki” like “suki”. Mostly people who’s main language is English pronounce “ts” like “s”
La verdad el japonés no tienen una pronunciación difícil, el "Tsu" lo he escuchado que a veces ni pronuncian el "su", solo hacen el sonido de la T exagerado
As a Turkish, I support you 100% on giving us content about Japan/Japanese. The reason I'm following you is your Japanese side. Don't mind people telling you otherwise, do what makes you feel good and bring viewers. Love your content and waiting for more!
@@ruriohama You're welcome! People always ask for content in Turkish or content about Turkey, but we already have enough of these. You're unique with what you're doing. Also, being a global channel and attracting people from everywhere is very important.
I was obsessed with Japanese folklore and horror stories as a child and I've always wanted to learn the language to understand the stories and the culture better - this year I'm finally deciding to take the steps to learn Japanese and this was just the push I needed, thank you for this video ^^
Same for me! I really love the way Japanese horror stories are written compared to how it's done over here in the west - I like the focus on more psychological elements rather than just gore and jumpscares (though if you like that, all the power to you). I'm taking a Japanese class in my high school, and I'm around 2 and a half months into learning, and I'm having a lot of fun with it!
The culture one is the one most people miss even when "advanced". People who aren't bilingual tend to think of language as a "barrier" that can be overcome without it affecting how they think. This is why so many supposedly N1 or "advanced" people still don't speak natural Japanese. They're essentially expressing the same ideas they would in their mother tongue using Japanese grammar - which sounds even more unnatural than "grammatically wrong but culturally sound" Japanese. I think it's also the major reason why the myth of "no matter how good you are at Japanese, Japanese people won't accept you" is so widespread. Even when among themselves "fitting in" is an important aspect of Japanese culture, and if you can't shift your mentality in line with Japanese mentality, you won't fit in - language alone isn't even close to being enough.
i do not learn japanese because of anime in fact i learn it cuz i love how kanji looks ! seems interesting to see how much your kanji learning can grow with time
@@KaniForLife i would say alien language to korean alphabet more i learned their alphabet just out of curiosity cuz they seemed like a building blocks to me and i was right not like i will use it or anything but i was curious one day so i gave it a try BUT for kanji i think they look more aesthetic specially for decorations and writing news
I am in my first week of learning Japanese and I'm very motivated and having fun so far! I have a goal of understanding and casually speaking Japanese with others so I want to really understand the language and culture (as you mentioned). Right now, I am learning Hiragana and have it mostly nailed down, but as you mentioned there are no shortcuts and it takes lots of practice. I'm really looking forward to (hopefully) learning the language enough to converse with people. This is really great advice! ありがとうございます！
Today is my first attempt of learning Japanese! I'm printing the hiragana and katana chart to memorize the words then proceed with basic grammar and sentence. I'll be back to read what you say at the end! I'll update you soon if I understood in on my own! :))
@@joshualot2305 That's awesome to hear! Beginner-to-beginner tip: stroke order is really important and makes it a lot easier to distinguish similar looking characters like shi (シ) and tsu (ツ) or n (ン) and so (ソ). 頑張って (ばんばって)！ :)
I've been learning japanese with duolingo for about a year now, and I actually love learning new kanji, because it tells you a lot about the culture and history of the people who speak the language. Like for example, I find it cool how the Kanji for Sun 日 and Moon 月 also mean Day and Month. Because that is kinda how these are measured. Or the Kanji for University are 大学校, which mean "Great/big School". I mean, yeah, that's what it is! Or, I once read that the Kanji gor Spring, 春 can mean "Three 三 People 人 enjoying the sun 日" and you can see how all these other Kanji are part of the word "Spring". Kanji are also cool for for learning and recognizing Katakana. I had a lot of trouble remembering Katakana, since a lot of them look similar (shi and tsu are still my nemesis >_
You completely got the essense of Chinese characters' fun and origin as well as their way of thinking. I believe you can master Chinese in 6 months. Chinese grammar is way easier than Japanese, and words are more easily constructed. E.g., 直升飞机: helicopter, literally is Vertically Elevated Flying Machine... where 飞 means fly and isn't it like a bird waving wings? 电影: Movie, which is Electrical Shade . 第一: First, which is Di One.
I just started using that app a couple of weeks ago. I’m already up to unit 4. I made a mistake trying to learn romaji so I should have an easier time studying using just hiragana/Katakana
The "dots" on so (ソ) and tsu (ツ) point more downward than 45 degrees, and the dots on n (ン) and shi (シ) point more to the right. So just look at the dots and decide if they are angled at steeper than 45 degrees (ソ and ツ) or less steep than 45 degrees (ン and シ). By the way, Kanye's video makers have trouble with this, too; it says ガソバレ in his video for Stronger.
Meamwhile I tried that to learn hiragana while in my Japanese class. My pronunciation is good but my expectations for how fast we would have to learn to read hiragana were way too slow and that's on the class and me. Never informed me not to rely on romaji as we would move away from it entirely and now that we are I'm left behind and will struggle to do group work/ workbook and now I can't withdraw to another language class
"Nobody likes Kanji." My sole reason for learning Japanese is Kanji. I literally just wanted to learn to new language, and picked japanese because of Kanji. I love it so much. 日本語の勉強が本当に大好き。漢字が本当に大好き。
Imagine writing Japanese only in Hiragana or Katakana. That will be a nightmare for us because there are many words that have the same sound. It's been a long time but following is what I remember from my Kokugo (国語) classes in junior high. The same root word in Yamato Japanese was written differently to express different meaning. For instance, 橋・箸・端, all read HASHI (はし), and it originally meant "boundaries of two worlds" in old Japanese. So bridge, chopsticks, or corner/side...are written in different Kanji but the root meaning and word is the same. The verb "HASAMU" (挟む, meaning to place in between or sandwich something) also stems from the same root word. (And "HASAMI" 鋏, often written in Katakana, meaning scissors, is a derivative of the word "HASAMU.") Another famous example that most Japanese speakers will know is "Matsurigoto." In ancient times, religious and political authorities were one of the same. But as separation of power started to take place around 6-7th century AD, religious matters were written as 祭事, whereas political matters were written as 政治. In modern Japanese, "matsurigoto" (usually read as "seiji") refers to politics and political issues only. But we all know that "omatsuri" means festivals/parities, often having origins in local shrines and temples. If you really get into Japanese cultural history, you'll notice the word "KAMI" is written as 神、上、守、頭 depending on the meaning. For instance, the chief administrator of each district was titled 守, as in 信濃守 (Shinano-no-kami) or 伊豆守 (Izuno-no-kami), in the past. The many Shinto Gods/Dieties were written as 神. The common way to refer to the Shogunate or Lord (and the administration) was 御上 (O-kami). Honorary Imperial Court Titles, dating back to the Heian Period, were called 雅楽頭 (Uta-no-kami) or 掃部頭 (Kamon-no-kami). The original word "KAMI" had connotations such as supreme, superior, or godly. Kanji tests ask mean questions even for native speakers. (We can read but cannot always write them, especially cuz nowadays we type.) Since Japanese was a spoken language thousands of years before the introduction of Kanji, around 1,500 years ago, you will find it quite interesting to see how/why different Kanji was selected to describe different meaning. And no, most natives speakers have no idea about any of this, even the educated ones. Only those with Japanese literature and linguistic training can identify the origin words. (It's a bit like people who can explain which part of English words originate from Latin, Greek, Germanic, etc.)
Wow this is actually so helpful. I’m currently challenging myself to learn Japanese in one year but it’s been hard trying to find a goo curriculum to adhere to. I’m not going to lie I tried to avoid kanji because it’s so hard but I’ll definitely stop now 😅
iam nearly fluent in japanese, but its really interesting to watch this video from the beginning of learning the language. i can say this is 100% true. i did it exactly the same way but i was warned about everything before, so i learned kana at the very beginning and added kanji after half a year. but honestly, i have a big advantage, not everyone has, because my wife is japanese, so i can practice every day with talking and so on. good video =)
Honestly, for people who just want listen to/understand anime? Learning how to read will STILL speed up the process, because you're taking in information differently when learning how to read. So, any mental learning blocks you may have by only doing auditory learning? Chances are you'll overcome them learning how to read simultaneously. Of course, it's not NECESSARY for that particular goal, but still SUPER helpful.
I want to learn Japanese simply because I'm bored is that dumb? I also want to watch animes and understand what the characters are saying, so how should I learn. I also cannot talk to people online/In person because I have extremely strict parents Should I just stop trying to learn Japanese stick to reading subtitles? 😭
@@Fif5t0014 In a simpler sense you need to learn the input part of the language then by watching japanese media your brain will start absorb things like a sponge
How can you NOT like Kanji?! :) It's a very beautiful and interesting thing with long and rich historical and cultural background. Without it, Japanese, as well as Chinese, would lose a lot of their charm. By the way, imo, it's a pity that Vietnamese and Korean rejected their hieroglyphics in the past century. Yeah, of course, Kanji can present notable difficulty for beginners - but it's that kind of challenge that is really interesting to overcome! 漢字を嫌っちゃだめだよ！
I agree. I love learning the Kanji, it adds a lot of beauty to the writing, but I find it actually makes the language a lot easier, because sometimes it's harder to recognize words in Hiragana, but immediately when I see the Kanji for it, my brain knows what's going on.
@@carolinemasson7172 Exactly. I agree. It's the beauty of it. Many teachers don't make it fun for the learners, so yeah I get why many are afraid of Kanji or they hate it, but there's a lot of fun to it
I really like it too! I’m definitely far far away from being fluent in Japanese. I can only say a couple of things. Though kanji is really fun to learn!
I'm building my muscle memory by writing Hiragana over and over again and I think it's cool how I get quicker with each line and my handwriting gets cleaner. I think it's also good to make and keep notes to remind yourself how far you've come since the beginning when you look back on those notes.
Nice! On the other hand I haven't been able to achieve than with roman alphabet having used it for nearly 30 years now, so I don't have that expectation of my Japanese characters either... :P
I did a whole repetition practice out of hiragana (an entire notebook line of repetitions for each and every kana) with romaji for subtitles. Then when I practiced katakana, I did the same thing, only with hiragana subtitles instead of romaji for the regular ones (for the unusual ones like "hu", "vu", "yi" and such I had to use romaji). It worked _wonders_ for both my memorisation and my handwriting. Nowadays whenever I see a word I want to transcribe, I don't use romaji at all.
Summary of Common Mistakes When Learning Japanese! 🎌😄 1. Romaji Overload! 🚫💥 Avoid relying solely on romaji when learning Japanese. Remember, hiragana and katakana have different pronunciations! Don't get trapped in romaji, folks! 2. Kanji FOMO! 😱🔤 Don't underestimate the importance of learning Kanji. It's essential for daily life, especially at work. Embrace the challenge and find a fun way to conquer those Kanji characters! 3. Goal Confusion! 🎯✨ Setting clear goals is crucial. For anime enthusiasts, focus more on conversations and take a break from Kanji. But for work or school purposes, prioritize grammar and daily conversation. Stay on track! 4. Native Speaker Practice! 👥💬 Don't miss out on practicing with native speakers! Japanese speakers can easily tell if you've learned primarily from anime. Connect with natives to improve your skills and communicate authentically. (I recommend using Teuida) 5. Beyond Textbooks! 📚🌟 Textbooks alone won't cut it. Some can be outdated and make you sound unnatural. Explore language-learning apps, have conversations with natives, and immerse yourself in Japanese media for a well-rounded learning experience. 6. Embrace the Culture! 🎎🌸 Language and culture go hand in hand. Dive into Japanese culture to gain a deeper understanding of the language. Learn about customs, traditions, and what makes Japan unique. It'll enhance your journey! 7. Enjoy the Adventure! 🚀😄 Remember, there's no one perfect method for learning Japanese. Embrace the journey, experiment with different approaches, and most importantly, have fun along the way! Let's master Japanese together! 💪🇯🇵
I've been studying Japanese for 2.5 years now. I've pretty much achieved my main goal which was to be able to enjoy written Japanese in video games, manga, (light) novels and whatever text I come across on the internet. I still have lot to learn but I'm really proud of the progress I've made. I have couple of tips to give: 1. While you should absolutely have a specific goal to aim for from the start, don't forget to set smaller goals to make the journey easier. The main goal will take a lot of time to achieve and there'll be times you feel like you're not making any progress but if you set smaller goals, you will reach them and you can look back on them. You can spend more time on looking at how far you've come rather than how long you have still to go. 2. Don't stop. This is especially true for flashcards and such. The longer the break, the harder it is to come back. I said I've studied Japanese for 2,5 years and I mean it. I've been actively studying every day. You don't need to go that far. You can take it more casually. Study once a week if you think that's enough for you. Just keep it consistent. That way you'll keep on learning and you don't have time to forget the things you've already learned. Of course, if you notice that you don't actually enjoy learning the language, feel free to drop it. No reason to continue doing something you don't like, unless you feel like the end result will be worth it. 3. This is not necessarily a tip from me but rather a revised version of the tip given in the video. Don't try learning Japanese by sticking with romaji. I disagree with the reasoning that it'll make your pronunciation bad. Plenty of languages use the same alphabet, yet not all letters and words are pronounced the same. The same combination of letters can be a valid word in multiple languages, yet they're pronounced differently. For example, religion is religion in both English and German but they sound nothing alike and a Finnish 'R' is very different from English 'R'. So by that logic, it shouldn't be any different when it comes to Japanese, other than people not being able to agree on one way to write romaji, there seem to be multiple variations which makes it confusing and already a good enough reason to not rely on them. My reasoning for avoiding romaji is that is limits you in the amount of resources you can use for learning Japanese. You'll miss out on much better resources that were written for people who actually want to learn Japanese and not just daydream about it. If you don't want to spend couple of days to couple of weeks learning hiragana and katakana, then I doubt you want to spend the time learning Japanese in the first place.
Mochi Mochi is a good and cute app tbh🤗 . It took me only two weeks to memorize all N5 minna no nihongo vocabulary in the app that I didn't believe I couldn't do before. I knew the app from my classmate and now from you. Thank you for explaining the app, now I truly understand how it works. 👍👍
I'm a new Japanese teacher ( still a beginner tho) and I agree with this video 100%!! I've met so many learners who talk like anime characters and they sound too dramatic or poetic for me😭😂 I'm glad there're so many new learners, but please be careful how important to listen to/actually use REAL Japanese, not anime Japanese😂 Anyway thanks for making this video!❣️
As someone who speaks daily Japanese, I must say that your feedback is pretty good. Like for any language, people must learn and practice all aspects of the language. It is especially true for Japanese where the culture is especially important, for instance, we need to understand more than just the sentence or the kanji, we kind of need to also understand the point of view of the Japanese people in order to understand them properly and ensure that our message is correctly understood. That is not an easy task but it's totally rewarding so good luck to all learners here and yes, having a specific goal and a good motivation is key to improve.
Great video! From my experience, not enough people learn pitch accent and it improves your Japanese so much. It’s like not learning stress in English, even though there are only a few words where stress makes a difference it still sounds super weird if your stress in wrong, same for Japanese. And in the case of Japanese, there are more words eg あめ vs アメ, 橋 vs 箸 vs 端, 神 vs 髪/紙, 今 vs 居間 etc. The argument is usually that different reactions have different pitch accent but it’s the same with English stress systems, they differ, that’s language lol. But learning the basic pitch patterns really improves your fluency and sounding good and pleasant to listen to in a very short amount of time too
I started learning Japanese mostly to be able to understand my favorite songs. Using them to learn Japanese was kind of a blessing and curse at the same time; I could reinforce vocabulary easily with tons of repetitions but my vocabulary is slightly skewed towards uncommon or rare words that are unusable in daily conversations. I learned 闘気、かぎ爪 or even weirder words like 鴨る and 濫觴 before learning simple words like 枕. Fortunately, I don't use just songs but also anime/drama and other sources as learning material and I quite happy with the progress I am making. Just something to keep in mind while learning a language.
10:14 "there is no right or wrong in this world, there are just different of values according to different cultures and different ways of understanding." good one.
When it comes to learning kanji, I do it through learning lyrics to songs I like in japanese. The lyrics almost always have kanji and alot of videos have the english subtitles as well. With music words are over enunciated and slower than casual talk. it's a fun way of learning, and I think it really does help
Haha I’m Japanese and I hate kanji- I’ve hated kanji since I was a kid- I never did my kanji homework and I kind of regret that but now I’m doing all the homework again. Japanese is my first language but I’m more fluent with English because I go to an international school. I’m not sure but I feel like Japanese is easy to learn- I’m fully Japanese and Idk why but my face turned more like a American person some how it’s weird. I love your video! It’s a good advice!
Honestly practicing with native speaker is the easiest way to learn Japanese . But it is hard to speak with native japanese speakers cause they arent that much friendly and they dont show interest in talking with u...so ultimately the only way i find ifficient is watching anime and lipsinging it with the character 👍
Well you can find some videos of daily routine if your target is listening and speak, it's a good tip because there are ppl talking normally daily conversation
You are absolutely correct on interacting with native speakers. That is how I learned Finnish, Swedish, and English. Japanese came later and by now it is reduced to : "僕は少し日本語を話しました" or some such. Surprisingly Finnish grammar and pronunciation are not unlike Japanese.
Wonderful and inspiring video. I love your point about the importance of considering the culture when learning another language. That does seem to be too often overlooked. The language learning process can be made much more meaningful and effective when we take our time and delve into the culture, history and literature of the language we are studying.
My main goal with japanese is reading about matters, that are difficult to find in non japanese formats, especially mythology. Sure there are some books here and there, but these have been translated and translated multiple times and lost some of their meaning. Next to that country and language are extremely attractive/interesting. I wouldn't go learning Japanese by anime, that feels like a weeb thing to do. Just imagining someone walks up to me and screams "DaTtEbAyO" or any other anime line makes me cringe. The romanji aspect is new to me, I thought it was clear to use a language, learn how its written, structured, spoken, lived. It does explain why sooo many people scream "Sasoooke" or "Narooto".
I decided to study japanese again pretty recently. I was in the middle of a Japanese Lesson when this video popped up on my recommendations. What a timing. :3
For me, japanese is incredibly hard to learn its quite discouraging. I've learned hiragana and katakana. I have spaced repetition my kanji for about maybe 130 words (not a lot), but I cant retain them all lol probably like 40 I can recall from my head. Studied particles and other simple grammar notions that do with stucture, and I tried immersing a lot. But my retaining skills are horrid, it really sucks I'm a 4.0 student but I guess I never learned how to study outside of academia lol. Have a friend who started last year and he can consume media properly. Good luck to anyone who finds their best way to study. I havent found it yet
How long have you been learning? Don't beat yourself up, should take a few years to get more comfortable with it if you're just starting out (within your first year) I felt comfortable after about 3 years, and after 10 years I can never forget how to read common kanji (like 99%) , it's just writing that's easy to forget if you don't do it, native speakers also suck at writing and forget their own language too so it's a pretty hard language for written at least. 10,000 hours of listening will get you close to fluent for comprehending almost anything. Immersing a lot isn't a lot until it's years of immersion. It's common to remember bits and pieces and forget others if you just immerse when your vocab knowledge is low too. It's better to know a few thousand words first before immersing in it. Or while you immerse work on building up those words. You mentioned 130 words, but you need 10,000 if you wanna feel like you got the language completely down xD
@@phen-themoogle7651 I have been learning for 2 years now seriously. I've mentioned 130 really because I feel like thats a range I can say if I saw it in the wild I would be able to recognize and read it. I've done anki decks that go up to like 500 and something words and finished them, and also half of RTK so at least kanji looks normal to me because I know the radicals. I don't have much hrs of listening seriously for sure lol. Maybe like 15 hrs max of serious study with listening. Its so hard for me to not burn out while doing it but im trying to get a routine going. Especially because I want to be able to read over writing and speaking (Dont think ill be going to japan any time soon, there is not many japanese people were I live, probably less than 5%.) Do you have any tips for listening and getting those hours up? Thanks for the reply and feedback ありがとうございました。
@@Peraliq Gotcha. Similar to this proverb:「好きこそものの上手なれ」”what you like doing is what you’re gonna be/get skilled at”, if you’re having fun you’re less likely to burn out. For sure it’s hard to remember stuff in a language if you’re just treating it like a foreign language. You gotta mix your hobbies with it to naturally expose yourself and enjoy it more. Like what do you normally do for fun in English? You watch RUclips videos about Japanese related things? Maybe subscribe to some Japanese only RUclips channels that seem interesting. Even if you don’t understand everything at least it’s based around your hobbies or normal lifestyle. For me I’m a gamer, so I watched 実況プレイ動画 where gamers play through games on RUclips. I like rpgs so I watched Japanese people play them and read off the lines. Although before I did this I tried playing the games myself in Japanese since this was like 20 years ago and there weren’t many cool gaming channels in Japanese, I don’t even remember RUclips being a thing or popular when I started out lol 😂 a lot of kanji in ff6 or old rpg games were super blurry too. Was so hard looking stuff up back then. But I played the games in English first so I had an idea for what was going on. Bilingual activities help bridge gaps sometimes. Although eventually it’s better to process only in Japanese when you get more advanced since you don’t want to rely on English always. Are you an introvert or extrovert? Extroverts seem able to learn from talking with people a lot, I’m more of an introvert so I did more reading and gaming than anything else. Also I grew up with anime and would buy vhs or dvds back in the day and turn off English subs. One of the first activities I did to get used to the language was try to hear what they were saying and write it out in hiragana. Just attempting to shadow with spoken Japanese or dictate stuff helps a lot too. Nowadays it’s easier to check your work because of sites like animelon where they have Japanese subs or Netflix etc Also rewatching series you like many times helps you remember the vocab, I love certain classic anime from the 90s so I’ll rewatch stuff like once every year or something. I’ve made notebooks with lines from them too. Of course I also studied Japanese with textbooks or native speakers, used to live with some before too. Occasionally would throw myself into situations where I’m at someone’s house and their family or people only knew Japanese too. But for me many rpg games and novel games like fully voiced games really helped a lot. There’s hundreds of hours alone I’ve spent on 1 Japanese rpg game even... And when I burn out I just focus on gameplay and doing random stuff that doesn’t involve convos too much. Or retalk to npcs cuz they repeat the same lines often too. There’s a new game on ps4 Thirteen sentinels which seems very easy to study from , at least for me. From just one rpg game I’ve filled up a whole notebook before, about 1000 words. And I write the words in context. Occasionally I remember them better than words I study outside of games just cuz they go with the story too.
@@phen-themoogle7651 Thank you for the deep given reply, these tips really would help me from not burning out. I will try to bridge my hobbies more. I actually am a big fan of Manga and visual novels, I always wanted to be able to read something that wasn't translated, I actually did it for the final panel of the berserk manga before it was translated. I was able to use enough of some simple knowledge to get the general idea of what the text was conveying, you just reminded me how much fun I had doing that. I also do play a lot of games and I really like jrpgs too, I always thought they look too hard to just dive in but with the resources you had in the past lol sounds like its not as bad anymore. I love horror games to I tend to type in 怖いゲーム often on youtube lol but I did end up getting bored. I should just keep switching like I do in English. I really appreciate the advice from your experiences, thanks again! I'm also not introverted but I do get tired of extroverted activities quickly lol.
I have no real interest in anime or manga, I want to be able to just speak conversational Japanese so I can talk to people... it would be nice if I ever go to Japan, or even if I'm in a Japanese restaurant & someone has limited English, if I know some Japanese, it might make communication easier...& It might be fun to be able to speak another language... I'll probably never be extremely fluent, but if I can speak enough to just get my point across would be nice...Lol! I do want to learn about Japanese culture... I'm pretty fascinated by it... I especially love Japanese artwork too... I'm just very interested in the Japanese in general... just like their culture & would love to go there someday...
Why I'm learning japanese, I wonder…well, there's no any special reason, just I'm really interested in the language. By the way as a student too of calligraphy (書道）I love kanji!!💓気をつけてくださいね🙇🏻♂️
The way I learn more kanji is by reading texts. It seems difficult at first but, the more I read the more I got familiar with kanji in which it enriches my vocabulary knowledge by reading diverse topics. Also these days, technology makes everything easier with vast array of online dictionary and apps.
I was a little skeptical at the beginning - but this is a very valid and good video. A lot of really good points raised and I love the educational perspective.
I started learning a few months ago but had to stop progress for some time due to many things going on at once - managed to keep up what I've learned so far (Kana, some numbers, the の and は particle) and now I've set my goal to visit Japan for some weeks in maybe 2-3 years with the goal to just get through with using Japanese. Having that clear goal motivates much more and things like "yo, I could theoretically order sth in the restaurant" feel like huge milestones early on :D
One of the main reasons I want to learn Japanese is because of kanji, they're really interesting and fun, and I feel like the way that a lot of kanji is structured (which specific radicals) really reflect Japanese mentality and culture. It's actually really easy for me to memorize kanji because I have a good memory, but the only thing that offers hindrance to my progress in Japanese, is that most learning material available on the Internet is in English. I already speak two other languages fluently and I feel like my native language is comparably more similar to Japanese than English. So i would prefer if i could get some material in my own language. But I'm not gonna give up on learning Japanese.
Thank you for making this video! I noticed that I have made almost all of these mistakes. I stopped learning Japanese over 6 months ago but I'm planning to re-learn it this upcoming summer so thank you for making this video! It helps a lot and I'm so excited to start re-learning the language!
JapanesePod101 have a great way of teaching the signs, but I don't know about the Kanji. I never got that far. A lot of systems teach: "This is how they look, this is how they sound, deal with it!" Pod101 use the logic way to remember: あ looks like an apple (and they show and tell) ア looks like an axe (when we learn Katakana) MochiMochi sounds like a great tool. Thank you!!!
For me the pronounciation is easy because I am hungarian and we have 14 vowels in our alphabet (like u, ú, ü, ű, ó, á, é,). I started right away with hiragana and katakana, and found that english apps are having trouble describing how to pronounce japanese letters, and sometimes they just can't. In hungarian I can directly describe the sounds of the japanese alphabet, for example the く can not be described in english with letters, but in hungarian it would be "kü". English people literally have to learn how to make new sounds, which must suck. Hungarian also has the almost the exact same word order in sentences as japanese, and very similar intonation, so it's a huge advantage. I have to get a hungarian japanese language book because I just can't bear the english descriptions. Looking forward to learning japanese.
I'm polish and I have no problems with the pronunciation too! Polish also has many more "sounds" which are hard to describe in English. For example, "tsu" in Japanese sounds exactly the same as "cu" in Polish. Sometimes it's funny to me how english natives try to pronunciate words from other languages, as they simply lack of a few sounds in their own alphabet! And it's fascinating, how it would not be a problem for them if only they were taught a different language as a child.
Ruri your videos makes me so so so happy and I really really enjoyed watching your videos so so much you inspired me so so much and I wish you reach 500K Subscribers very very soon!♥️😊🥺
"10:13 there is no right or wrong in this world 10:16 they're just different values according 10:18 to different cultures and different ways 10:20 of understanding" With those wisdom words you will help to better this world! You Rocks!
At university I study Chinese and Japanese, and in fact I have seen many of my fellow Japanese who are terrified of kanji. Actually in my Chinese course the study of characters (hanzi) is considered as a natural step to get to read Chinese, while in my Japanese course most of the students are immediately in crisis. In my opinion kanji are the least of the problems for a Japanese student. First they come (in random order): 1) The SOV sistem (subj. obj. verb.). 2) Double system of verbal and adjectival conjugation (you must know the class to which each new verb or adjective belongs) 3) The particle system (personally not my problem but it is a topic that sometimes creates doubts) 3) The negative form of an expression does not always mean its opposite... (I know it sounds mysterious) 4) Not being able to speak directly of a feeling, desire, thought of another person, we must use a periphrastic form*, like: Verb / い adj + と 思 う Noun / な adj + だ と 思 う *ok seems like a small thing, but English is a very straightforward language and remembering to use this form is not easy at first finally to return to the kanji: To pass the HSK 6 (Chinese C2) about 2,500 characters To pass JLPT N1 (Japanese C2) about 2,000 kanji So, why for students of Japanese kanji are so scary?
Because western students don't need to memorize much so their memory muscles are weak. Western schooling places too much emphasis on understanding. To be successful at kanji you actually need to memorize and many of us aren't great at that
I've done some of these mistakes already 🤣 I think for me(and the rest of the Spanish speaking world) is easy to learn the pronunciation. For you A I U E O is for us A E I O U. Same sound, different order. Check this out, I learned all Kana characters in one night cause I wanted to read manga(I was reading Nanatsu No Taisai at the time🤘😆) and not wait for the translators anymore. Necessity made me learn, I put myself on the spot... and it was fun. Today, I understand enough japanese that I can play a movie or anime when I'm cooking and not read the subs. Now Hermosa Ruri, a preposition: I trade you Spanish conversation for your Japanese conversation skills. I guarantee that when you're done learning my Spanish(which is Puerto Rican) you're gonna sound for the Spaniards like Spanish version of a JoJo charcater 🤣 Thank you for this video 💜 Love, hugs and kisses 😘
I thought for a long time about which language I wanted to learn: Korean, Japanese or Chinese. After this video, I felt motivated to learn Japanese. Although this language is more difficult than Korean, and all the information I need to learn scares me. But I really like Japan, its culture and anime. This language sounds so beautiful to me. So I want to start learning Japanese to be able to speak and understand native speakers. thanks for this useful video❤️ But, by the way, is it true that if you know, for example, Japanese, learning other similar languages (Korean, Chinese) will be easier and faster? 🤔
Japanese On Yomi 音読み is a derogative of chinese, meaning kanjis that have readings from chinese orgin. So if you learn Kanji and the On Yomi and Kun Yomi meanings, it should be easier to learning Chinese readings. But I've heard chinese is a tonal language and that is why it so difficult to learn regardless.
That's definitely true ! I started learning Korean a few years after I started Japanese (my level was N3 at the time) and it really helped me ! Korean and Japanese are similar (or very close) in many ways, the sentence structure is the same, both languages have particles, counter words, and some vocab sounds pretty much the same - Like としょかん/도서관 toshokan/toseogwan, しゃしん/사진, きおん/기온 kion/gion
I feel exactly like you! At first I wanted to learn Korean but I soon gave up. Then I decided to learn Japanese! I love Japan so much! It’s a very beautiful country with a beautiful language and I like the culture!
I m a native Spanish speaker and I think the sounds in japonese are very similar to spanish sounds. I think that helps me learn japonese a little faster . kanjis was a little bit hard to understand but I think I get it
I recommend not using romaji at all, I think it's better for you to memorize hiragana and katakana and them switch to using furigana for helping with your kanjis till you learn them
Appreciate your energy and positive energy. Thank you MochiMochi. 😉 Having a strong reason for learning will be so vital to even have the passion to keep going.
One of my biggest dreams is to go, maybe to live in Japan. It could be a certain cliché or something, but all started with my passion of animes, like Naruto, HxH, MHA,.. The backgrounds, the language, the culture ! Everything in Japan fascinates me, so even if it took me 4 years to learn Japanese, at least I could use those 4 years practicing to experience something really great in my life with Japan. I’m Beatboxer, and in Japan, Beatbox is something known, not like here in Belgium where half of the time people look at me weirdly only because I’m a beatboxer hahaha. But yeah, I have a friend, FootboxG, who won recently a Beatbox Battle in Japan (BeatXFes 2023) and as he said, it’s his best life experience. I can’t wait to have a stable situation and to take my first flight to Japan. I really can’t wait. Thanks for this video, that helped me a lot and now I know from where I have to start. Arigato !!
MochiKanji is 1000x better than Duolingo at least in my experience. Duolingo is just so boring and maybe thats because ive used it my whole life for school spanish and stuff but in my opinion, the topics are boring, you don’t efficiently learn vocabulary (and even when you do it’s in very specific context) and the vibe of mochiKanji is so much more relaxed.
Thank you so much, Ruri! This video was so helpful. In most Japanese books like Genki, they explain pronunciations of Katakana and Hiragana with "Romaji". I wonder if it's ok....
I just got started, and although I am no where near ready to talk to a native speaker, I'm very happy to know I did start the right way. I practice via apps like Duolingo (and the one you recommend, from now on lol), I have a dictionary at home and on my phone, I practice writing Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana, and listen to RUclips videos where people speak Japanese (althoug I don't understand a lot because it's so fast, I can pick out several characters already and name them). Thanks for this insight, it really made my whole day :3
Alternative advice - from someone very bad at Japanese. Background: I used to be a classics scholar, became interested in linguistics, choose to study Japanese to learn a CV structured language, outside of Indo-European, with tones, that loved verb conjugation. Advice - 1. I want to first address 'don't use romaji.' This is not bad advice, but it doesn't actually go far enough. Japanese doesn't use syllables in the way English does. The base unit is the mora. The kana are built from this (language exists in the mouth and ear). The reason reading kana helps is because of mora. Introduce this early. 2. Don't neglect particles. Language is held together by the small word ('is' 'to' 'not' 'by). You probably get 'ha' and 'ga' and 'ni' early, but, hearing particles is important. Even if you don't know what they do, at least be aware of what the common ones are to start hearing them 'attach' to words. 3. Don't neglect verbs. I came to Japanese because I love conjugation. Japanese loves conjugation. Do look ahead. Don't worrry about the weird conjugation endings you don't know how to use yet, but look at them. I would rather know 'taberareru' is going to work as a verb than hear 'tabe' and wonder where the wordd ended. 4. Listen actively. 5. Don't forget, Japanese is tonal. This gets me in some hot water, as some people want to argue the point. But, pitch/tone are an important factor in hearing and understanding the language. Japanese has a lot of homophones, this will help sort...some.. of them. Also, particles usually attach before pitch is determines (from what i gather, bad at Japanese). This is just cool. 6. Learn the radicals before/as you're learning kanji. You can cram the kanji. But, even you memorize the newspaper kanji, you get to japan, find a new word, go to the dictionary... Knowing the building blocks will let you take apart the whole. It's like 250 vs thousands. 7. Don't get distracted by the minutia. This is my bane. I spend three months trying to memorize the rules of rendaku instead of just trying to speak, making mistakes, and getting a natural feel for it. Rules are rules. Languages do kind of sort of a little follow some rules sometimes. But they are things that flow naturally out of the mouth too. The only way to pass the hurdle of actively thinking about it all the time, and just doing it, it by doing it, a lot. 8. Aizuchi. This is a bit like 'listen actively.' but in listen actively, i mean, listen for verb conjugations and sentence structure. Here, 'listen actively.' Aizuchi. - Japanese works with a lot 'unstated' and so there is an art to signaling polite listening. If you can sound fluent in this way, people will feel more comfortable and natural talking to you. 9. Grammar is God. I could have put a bunch under this, like conjugation, particles, etc. I originally was going to talk about how funky japanese adjectives are, and how few of them really seem to be true adjectives, but I thought about more verb things. I know people know this, but the grammar is matters. Vocab matters too, Japanese especially doesn't' really have a lot of cognates in the core of the language, so a lot of core concepts are built in very different ways than in English, but some of that also gets swept up in grammar and syntax. 10. Talk to Japanese people. Really, it is a remarkably welcoming language culture as a whole (sure there is a bit of 'talking monkey' or whatever, but there is more genuine excitement that foreigners want to learn the language. Embrace that, it's a rare treasure.) I come from a study of dead languages. You have no idea how cool it is to be able to have native speakers. It's not some dead language or some conlang where there is endless debate over this or that, it's a living language. No one cares to debate because they have lives to live that require use of the language. Talk to Japanese people. Several would like to talk to you. Some want to speak your language, some are happy to let you practice theirs.
I have another advice for the people who like play video games, put an rpg or visual novel you already done in your native language in Japanese, and try to follow the history, tutorials etc in Japanese, it will be more easier and fun. Do the same with another one you never done, after this, your level gonna step-up quickly.
Dear pridesfuneral I think it's too difficult. If you could learn through it. I can't help saying "You're a genius". Sincerely yours. I wanna send this song all over th world. ruclips.net/video/bGtHTz74nM8/видео.html
Dear pridesfuneral. I think I was wrong. I can't help saying "You must be a genius". You only wanna say Made in Japan is the best don't you ? Do as you like! Don't burn out! Great thanks to you. From a Japanese undertaker. Sincerely yours. I wanna send this song all over th world. ruclips.net/video/bGtHTz74nM8/видео.html
I remember when I first came to Japan and was talking to someone by the phone, he said "今これます？" I became silent for a few seconds, thinking what did he meaning. Luckily, soon I realized he meant "今来られます？". Of course, no textbooks (at least at that time) will teach you that you can say in that way, so I was really confused.
Started learning way back in 2011. Now in 2023 I use Japanese every day at my job and I've had a side gig translating technical documents since 2019. So while I think I have a long way to go, my Japanese is pretty good. I often find myself attracted to videos like this that give advice for beginners, because I have very strong opinions on the topic and want to see what people are saying. Often times I come away annoyed because the advice is not helpful and sometimes even harmful. But the advice in this video is 100% spot on. Please anyone watching this, take all of this advice to heart. You will thank yourself later on.
I am a begginer in learning japanese and I truly recommend, as Ruri says, to use different resources: videos, apps, books are fine, music. And also I think its important to write, to practice the writting of the Kanas and Kanjis is very useful to memorize them, and of course not only read, you have to listen real conversations or examples with native speakers. In the other hand, I am practicing reading stories for kids too, such as Issounboshi, only using Kana and I am trying to let the Romaji way little by little. At the moment I'm not into kanjis yet, but I will try, anyways as you start learning you could see some Kanjis on the way, and books use to have Kanjis with Furigana (Hiragana above the kanji to know how to read it).
Couple of things about practicing with native speakers: 1) In my experience, Japanese native speakers on the internet really don't want to teach Japanese to stumbling xenophilic foreigners all day. I've been kicked out of game lobbies, ghosted, switch-to-english because studying english is far more interesting to them, etc and foreigners are annoying unculture aho swine. 2) Even when you do go to Japan, and they are interested in talking to you at a language exchange or a pub or something, once you learn good enough Japanese to have conversations, you'll largely repeat the same 5 topics going down the same boring conversation trees, basically: ("What country", "How long Japan?", "When go back?", "Do you like Anime?", "Do you like Japanese girls?"). It will take serious work and disrupt the heiwa to try and go somewhere new in these conversations. Going off that beaten path will be awkward because you won't know the vocabulary which is why you even want to practice. If it's Tokyo, people are busy and don't usually want to drag around a long term foreigner friend. Work culture is exhausting so you'd better be willing to forego some post-work rest and recovery chill time if you're serious. And if you're not, why are you even here? So my advice: practice with books, articles, etc. Looking up kanji from radicles is an exhausting drag but it's helpful enough in the long run to have a physical document to mark up because computers are annoying distraction boxes. Unless you hire them, don't expect locals to really help facilitate your learning. People looking for a "language partner" often just want a pet foreign boyfriend/girlfriend. Studying Japanese is largely thankless work until you get to the fascinating individuals of Japanese history, science, art and philosophy who created unique events and stories. And I'm a long way off from there.
I feel all these points are valid... Especially the kanji one. You kinda caught me there. Im running from my responsibilities- Tho i dont really have native Japanese friends, only online. Never seen one irl, and so most of my Japanese is from textbooks- How do i relearn from my mistakes
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🌍My Language Learning Class: 👉 ruri-ohama-s-school.teachable.com 👈
Mochimochi Links:
🍫Download link for iOS: apps.apple.com/us/app/learn-kanji-with-mochimochi/id1463353686
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I downloaded it. Seems helpful.
Thanks
Ok: Downloaded it, but it has pronouciation totally different from what is written.
Written in hiragana as a-no-hi-to is spoken as a-los-to ? Hm, need to find some native speaker, or just go to Japan.
If you want learning more Italian i can help you if you like it 🇮🇹💙🇯🇵. Yes the hard part for japene Is know what words get 'L' pronunciation then 'R', or else 'V' instead 'B'
I bought the premium version, but it's a shame that a lot of the N3-N1 level doesn't have a pronunciation sound or a sentence sample, which is why I bought the app in the first place.
As a Japanese person, first of all, I’m so happy that there are people who want to learn Japanese. but one thing I’d like u to be careful with is that Japanese people rarely use phrases in anime or manga. so I recommend you listening to japanese REAL conversation if u truly want to become fluent in Japanese.
I hope everyone watching this video will achieve the goals they set themselves! Thanks for reading 😊
Thanks for your recommendation! Do you think is a good idea to learn from seiyuu interviews or radio programs?
I believe any serious learner can tell when アニメ drops 敬語 or uses slang. To me its like being ESL and listening to sitcoms and not realizing when something is far too over the top. In real life speech is not so static, but what do I know, I am only monolingual with a hobby in japanese study.
@@Peraliq Yeah ,after studying a few different ways it's natural to tell the difference between anime Japanese and real life Japanese. Especially if you have some Japanese friends, but anime/games/visual novels in Japanese have some pretty nice conversations sometimes. The thing about regular real life Japanese is that it gets boring when you're really advanced because it's the same routine always. I've been using Japanese for 20+ years, and sometimes I just get bored talking with native speakers. Finding a really good conversationalist among shy Japanese people is hard too. I've become more shy over the years adjusting to Japanese people which makes it a lot harder as well.
@@phen-themoogle7651 As someone experienced in Japanese, do you have any tips for beginners/intermediates?
@@victoriap4291 Advice for all levels would be to continue having fun with how you study and it becomes as natural as brushing your teeth everyday. There’s a lot of walls people bump into at different levels and feel they aren’t improving, so sometimes it’s good to challenge yourself to studying a new way as well. Or maybe just diving into the deep end by immersing yourself in your hobbies in fully Japanese for a certain amount of time could feel very refreshing (overwhelming if you want to understand all the nuances but just try to understand the atmosphere and enjoy it).
There’s a plethora of ways to study or play/have fun in Japanese so if you do what feels right to you at the time then there’s no wrong way to study. But having certain short term goals can propel you forward when you feel lost. Sometimes I would aim for 100 new words a week, or when I had too much energy when I was younger I would go for 100 a day when I had the time too lol
Of course I couldn’t remember every word at once, but words are always recycled in languages (so maybe I was reviewing them often naturally) and with more exposure you can remember them. I read an article that it takes about 5 different encounters with the word in similar or different context over a period of time to understand them deeper. And some say it takes 10000 words for fluency so if you’re consistent with 10 words a day, that’s 3650 a year so in about 3 years it’s possible to be fluent if you know how to use the words in context. (Or can be fluent with less vocab if you know all the words in context)
It’s okay to forget stuff a lot since passive understanding is more important at first too.
Everything balances out with consistency,exposure, and time.
YESS! I also agree that learning culture is one of the most fun parts of learning a language
初めまして
私は日本人ですが、英語が話せる様になりたくて、たまたまこの動画を再生しました。
日本人が日常で意識せず使っている日本語を、この動画のように、ここまで努力して習得されているのを目のあたりにして、本当に頭が下がります。😊
Although I grew up in Japan, I went to American schools. It was a few years after the war and the system didn't offer Japanese classes. In fact the Catholic school I went to discouraged the use of any language besides English to its multi-cultural students.
Though I could speak Japanese, I couldn't read any of it. I started learning katakana and hiragana on my own and moved on to Kanji. Kanji books were so boring to me and forgetting most of what I learned was so demoralizing. So I turn to manga. I started with kid's manga that had kana written besides the Kanji then moved on to more adult material that didn't have the kana. I wasn't trying to learn kanji, I was just trying to follow the story. Eventually I began to recognize many of the Kanji characters. Just as in English, it's easier to read than it is to spell. With the advent of the computers typing Japanese has become so easy because Japanese doesn't have a complicated phonetic system. There are only 5 vowel sounds, similar to Spanish.
This way of learning may not be for everyone, but if it works for you go for it. I would like to suggest that you pick mangas that are close to real life situations. Shima Kousaku was one of the ones I loved reading, about a man working in a big corporation who rose to the top of company. It was well researched and reflected ongoing business trends onto the stories. Sometimes the process of getting there can be as rewarding as reaching the goal.
I am Japanese. I am very happy that you are interested in Japan in this way. I am also studying English, but I would like to have friends like this who are interested in my native language.
I'm really considering start to learn Japanese, when I was a kid I was really into Japanese culture, I've watched many shows and animes from Japan when I was a child and believe or not I wanted to be a Japanese, but then I got older and didn't keep my interest in Japan, but now I'm considering it not only because of the challenge, but in the background it still being an interesting culture and language for me. I think I'm really thinking to much forward now haha I'm actually studying french, and my next language to learn will be polish, which is also not so easy and will take me some time to learn, but after these 2 languages I think it'll be the time to learn something completely different from the western/european world and trying out one of the most difficult languages in the world haha
First at all, thanks for this content I'm Spanish language natives and ive been learning english by myself so I appreciate you're very clear to me and I've started learning Japanese just for be able to play Japanese games and manga,
I've mastered hiragana and katakana ,but now I'm trying to find out which is the next step I should take. ❤
Thank you for making this video. This is good advice.
"there is no right or wrong in this world, there are just different values according to different cultures"
i think this is the absolute hardest thing for many westerners to understand and/or accept, as we (often) live our lives thinking we're (obviously) the center of the world, and it's this inability to accept reality that prevents many (americans especially) from finding 'a place to belong' in japan
to integrate into a country/culture you *must* assimilate and adapt to that country/culture. this is the reality of nearly every country in the world
"Mochimochi" (making a note ).
I guess I’m a weirdo cause I find kanji very interesting 😂 it might help that I have a friend learning Chinese so we like to compare how the same characters sound different and can mean different things lol
I love some kanji, like 人
It can speed some things up, but random suoercomplicated ones I don't like
Do you recommend learning basic katakana and hiragana before going to study japanese in japan
A tip I'd give for more introverted people is for "practicing with natives" is that you don't have to use apps like italki to interact with natives. The majority of my interaction with natives is actually over Twitch, since it gives me time to understand what they said and reply in something remotely understandable. I'd especially recommend small streamers since they have the capacity to actually pay attention to your conversation.
Just remember to be polite when talking to them. They may not be able to express it, but they're people all the same as you, so treat them like it.
I screenshotted your comment and I will put it in my database. Today is my first day self learning and I’m having a blast with Hiragana. I’m worried about speaking with Native speakers and you just gave me a golden idea whenever I’m ready months later.
I will make sure I come back and thank you again for this awesome tip if its helpful!
I hope I can keep up though!- first time learning a new language. (I’m Arabic)
I'm definitely seconding this. Streams are an excellent way of 'practicing with natives'. I usually watch people who play multiplayer games with their friends, so it's like listening to friends talking with each other kind of, more casual, more natural than watching anime or drama.
And I would also add that playing online games on Japanese servers can also help with practice too, but only once you're at the level where you can understand the game and be able to communicate well enough to ask for help or start chatting with strangers in-game.
@真田 幸村 - Crimson demon of war It depends on what your preferences are. Watching content that is boring to you won't be interesting just because you watch it in Japanaese. I would go under all/tags/日本語 or alternatively all/tags/japanese to see streamers who stream with these tags. From there you can filter to activities, games or content that mostly drives your attention, and select a streamer that fits your needs.
This is a great idea
@@Kaiilaynhii random but hows your journey going? :D
I’m a Japanese. Even Japanese people forgets kanji, hiragana and katakana. Don’t worry if you can’t remember that humongous amount of kanji. Every Japanese people struggles remembering kanji and makes a mistake. So don’t be worried.
Thank you for your kind words.
That makes me feel better
Thanks that's make me relief 😂 im at the point that I'll pull my hair off bcs of trying to memorize kanji 😭
I actually have a question for you, something as a new Japanese speaker has been driving me crazy trying to figure out.
How do you decide when using ぢ vs じ, and ず vs づ?
That's good to hear.
Kanji is so hard tbh. However, learning Kanji is so necessary. Full Hiragana paragraphs are even more difficult to read than those which include Kanji. I also use the Mochi mochi app and I'm learning the N4 vocabulary course. Love its pretty interface and sounds
Right? I'm only beginning on kanji and I can already recognise the weight they pull in the writing. Reading a full-kana sentence is weird by this point, it looks jumbled and messy.
Kanji is beautiful
how to download it bro?
Tips to learn Japanese more efficiently:
- Do NOT attempt to learn more than one language at once. If in doubt, learn the one that you're most interested in.
- Repeat every letter/word/sentence out loud to get a closer pronunciation (tip from Teuida).
- Avoid trying to learn everything at one sitting to prevent yourself from forgetting words.
- Try to memorize kana/kanji stroke order for more efficient writing.
- If you feel unmotivated and/or tired, take a break and proceed your learning after a while and remember: you can do it!
- Watch anime and practice singing in Japanese. They will help you to increase your vocabulary.
- Try not to skip the difficult parts of learning. They may be essential.
- Get yourself a partner conversation or use Teuida!
- Use your Japanese knowledge in daily occasions (Example: whenever you're going upstairs, count every step in Japanese).
- After finishing your studying session, write out everything you have learned so far, physically (pencil and paper) or virtually (note pad app on phone/computer)
- Keep watching this video as many times as possible for days or weeks. It is not possible to learn everything in a few moments.
Now, I wish you, the reader, a very happy learning, do not give up and give it your all! がんばってください! 💪✌️
thank you very much for these tips..i just started learning hiragana
i saw u in another video's comment section
Bummer, I used to learn 4 foreign languages at the same time when I was a high school student (yes, European here). If I had known. 🙂
What's Teuida?
@@TheEstampeStill, if you want to speed up your learning process is better to just focus in just one.
Being a foreigner living in Japan, I would actually recommend against using romaji at all! If the person is really serious in studying the language, he/she should start with hiragana and katakana. After memorizing hiragana and katakana, they can use some beginner books (I used Minna no Nihongo) to learn grammar and some basic vocabularies. The book will also introduce easy kanjis. Also, starting with polite form (~masu) will be easier to transition to casual form in the long run. I also practiced my reading speed skills during karaoke (of course hiragana and katakana). If you're not in Japan, there are youtube karaoke videos you can use.
Hii ,i suppose u understand Japanese well ,i ve this back paper in Japanese language subject.,if u could plz help me with it,as it is only mcq's I dnt think It ll be hard to solve ,it ll be just great if u could help 🙏🙏🙏🙏
Are there baddies in Japan
@@grxyse7430 I want a japanese girl and if im fluent i know I can pull one
@@augustinajackson3774 Nah
So that means that if imma begginer i have to start with Hiragana and Katakana alphabets and daily conversation and after that the Kanjis?
I think one of the most common mistakes people do is to pronounce “tsuki” like “suki”. Mostly people who’s main language is English pronounce “ts” like “s”
I was able to notice the difference, and through my learning, I've made sure to know it well. Very subtle, but it's there.
Whose
Most
La verdad el japonés no tienen una pronunciación difícil, el "Tsu" lo he escuchado que a veces ni pronuncian el "su", solo hacen el sonido de la T exagerado
Ho ho ho
@@КитайскийТурок do you love god
As a Turkish, I support you 100% on giving us content about Japan/Japanese. The reason I'm following you is your Japanese side. Don't mind people telling you otherwise, do what makes you feel good and bring viewers.
Love your content and waiting for more!
Thank you so much🖤
@@ruriohama You're welcome! People always ask for content in Turkish or content about Turkey, but we already have enough of these. You're unique with what you're doing. Also, being a global channel and attracting people from everywhere is very important.
turkish people are one of the most racist peoples i have seen so far in my life.
hey I'm learning turkish rn .. Got any tips ?
@@neptune0909 Depends on what kind of tips you want my friend
I was obsessed with Japanese folklore and horror stories as a child and I've always wanted to learn the language to understand the stories and the culture better - this year I'm finally deciding to take the steps to learn Japanese and this was just the push I needed, thank you for this video ^^
Me too! Me and my friend are very interested in Japanese urban legends and stories, and I’m a beginner currently trying to learn Japanese 😄
Same here!!
Same here. Nearly 5 days in and I'm currently on the 'M' column. The mnemonic tactic works perfectly for hiragana so far.
Same for me! I really love the way Japanese horror stories are written compared to how it's done over here in the west - I like the focus on more psychological elements rather than just gore and jumpscares (though if you like that, all the power to you). I'm taking a Japanese class in my high school, and I'm around 2 and a half months into learning, and I'm having a lot of fun with it!
How’s your progress so far?
The culture one is the one most people miss even when "advanced". People who aren't bilingual tend to think of language as a "barrier" that can be overcome without it affecting how they think. This is why so many supposedly N1 or "advanced" people still don't speak natural Japanese. They're essentially expressing the same ideas they would in their mother tongue using Japanese grammar - which sounds even more unnatural than "grammatically wrong but culturally sound" Japanese.
I think it's also the major reason why the myth of "no matter how good you are at Japanese, Japanese people won't accept you" is so widespread. Even when among themselves "fitting in" is an important aspect of Japanese culture, and if you can't shift your mentality in line with Japanese mentality, you won't fit in - language alone isn't even close to being enough.
Fitting in is overrated. Trust me, thats a lesson learned by a lifetime of fitting in. Thank you, thats my TED talk.
@@shabadooshabadoo4918 Not it Japan it isn't.
@@ルイ-f4g Yeah, its much better to be forgettable 😂 Good advice
Yeah and for us americans standing out is a big hin for us. I can see how that can affect an american learning japanese
@@ルイ-f4g it is
i do not learn japanese because of anime in fact i learn it cuz i love how kanji looks ! seems interesting to see how much your kanji learning can grow with time
Yeah Idk why but it looks like an alien language... Maybe I'm watching too much "Predator" smh
@@KaniForLife i would say alien language to korean alphabet more i learned their alphabet just out of curiosity cuz they seemed like a building blocks to me and i was right not like i will use it or anything but i was curious one day so i gave it a try BUT for kanji i think they look more aesthetic specially for decorations and writing news
I think very much like you.
why is shikamaru learning japanese? haha joke
@@joshushushu hahaha deidara too
I am in my first week of learning Japanese and I'm very motivated and having fun so far! I have a goal of understanding and casually speaking Japanese with others so I want to really understand the language and culture (as you mentioned). Right now, I am learning Hiragana and have it mostly nailed down, but as you mentioned there are no shortcuts and it takes lots of practice. I'm really looking forward to (hopefully) learning the language enough to converse with people. This is really great advice! ありがとうございます！
Same!! And I understood what you said at the end🤭 I’m so proud of myself
Today is my first attempt of learning Japanese! I'm printing the hiragana and katana chart to memorize the words then proceed with basic grammar and sentence. I'll be back to read what you say at the end! I'll update you soon if I understood in on my own! :))
@@joshualot2305 That's awesome to hear! Beginner-to-beginner tip: stroke order is really important and makes it a lot easier to distinguish similar looking characters like shi (シ) and tsu (ツ) or n (ン) and so (ソ). 頑張って (ばんばって)！ :)
@@joshualot2305 hello how about now?
How is it going(any update)
I've been learning japanese with duolingo for about a year now, and I actually love learning new kanji, because it tells you a lot about the culture and history of the people who speak the language.
Like for example, I find it cool how the Kanji for Sun 日 and Moon 月 also mean Day and Month. Because that is kinda how these are measured.
Or the Kanji for University are 大学校, which mean "Great/big School". I mean, yeah, that's what it is!
Or, I once read that the Kanji gor Spring, 春 can mean "Three 三 People 人 enjoying the sun 日" and you can see how all these other Kanji are part of the word "Spring".
Kanji are also cool for for learning and recognizing Katakana. I had a lot of trouble remembering Katakana, since a lot of them look similar (shi and tsu are still my nemesis >_
You completely got the essense of Chinese characters' fun and origin as well as their way of thinking. I believe you can master Chinese in 6 months. Chinese grammar is way easier than Japanese, and words are more easily constructed. E.g., 直升飞机: helicopter, literally is Vertically Elevated Flying Machine... where 飞 means fly and isn't it like a bird waving wings? 电影: Movie, which is Electrical Shade . 第一: First, which is Di One.
I just started using that app a couple of weeks ago. I’m already up to unit 4. I made a mistake trying to learn romaji so I should have an easier time studying using just hiragana/Katakana
Chinese is my second language, so I can understand some kanji, but just can't pronounce it since the pronunciation is different
The "dots" on so (ソ) and tsu (ツ) point more downward than 45 degrees, and the dots on n (ン) and shi (シ) point more to the right. So just look at the dots and decide if they are angled at steeper than 45 degrees (ソ and ツ) or less steep than 45 degrees (ン and シ). By the way, Kanye's video makers have trouble with this, too; it says ガソバレ in his video for Stronger.
Meamwhile I tried that to learn hiragana while in my Japanese class. My pronunciation is good but my expectations for how fast we would have to learn to read hiragana were way too slow and that's on the class and me. Never informed me not to rely on romaji as we would move away from it entirely and now that we are I'm left behind and will struggle to do group work/ workbook and now I can't withdraw to another language class
"Nobody likes Kanji." My sole reason for learning Japanese is Kanji. I literally just wanted to learn to new language, and picked japanese because of Kanji. I love it so much. 日本語の勉強が本当に大好き。漢字が本当に大好き。
それは失礼🙇🏻♀️
Here's some kanji that you may enjoy or that might change your mind: 鬱、躊躇、駱駝、蛇蝎、樽、饂飩、麺、蝙蝠、:)
@@phen-themoogle7651 I'll look them up, 😊
Imagine writing Japanese only in Hiragana or Katakana. That will be a nightmare for us because there are many words that have the same sound. It's been a long time but following is what I remember from my Kokugo (国語) classes in junior high. The same root word in Yamato Japanese was written differently to express different meaning. For instance, 橋・箸・端, all read HASHI (はし), and it originally meant "boundaries of two worlds" in old Japanese. So bridge, chopsticks, or corner/side...are written in different Kanji but the root meaning and word is the same. The verb "HASAMU" (挟む, meaning to place in between or sandwich something) also stems from the same root word. (And "HASAMI" 鋏, often written in Katakana, meaning scissors, is a derivative of the word "HASAMU.")
Another famous example that most Japanese speakers will know is "Matsurigoto." In ancient times, religious and political authorities were one of the same. But as separation of power started to take place around 6-7th century AD, religious matters were written as 祭事, whereas political matters were written as 政治. In modern Japanese, "matsurigoto" (usually read as "seiji") refers to politics and political issues only. But we all know that "omatsuri" means festivals/parities, often having origins in local shrines and temples.
If you really get into Japanese cultural history, you'll notice the word "KAMI" is written as 神、上、守、頭 depending on the meaning. For instance, the chief administrator of each district was titled 守, as in 信濃守 (Shinano-no-kami) or 伊豆守 (Izuno-no-kami), in the past. The many Shinto Gods/Dieties were written as 神. The common way to refer to the Shogunate or Lord (and the administration) was 御上 (O-kami). Honorary Imperial Court Titles, dating back to the Heian Period, were called 雅楽頭 (Uta-no-kami) or 掃部頭 (Kamon-no-kami). The original word "KAMI" had connotations such as supreme, superior, or godly.
Kanji tests ask mean questions even for native speakers. (We can read but cannot always write them, especially cuz nowadays we type.) Since Japanese was a spoken language thousands of years before the introduction of Kanji, around 1,500 years ago, you will find it quite interesting to see how/why different Kanji was selected to describe different meaning. And no, most natives speakers have no idea about any of this, even the educated ones. Only those with Japanese literature and linguistic training can identify the origin words. (It's a bit like people who can explain which part of English words originate from Latin, Greek, Germanic, etc.)
@@yo2trader539 Very insightful and interesting, thank you. :)
Wow this is actually so helpful. I’m currently challenging myself to learn Japanese in one year but it’s been hard trying to find a goo curriculum to adhere to. I’m not going to lie I tried to avoid kanji because it’s so hard but I’ll definitely stop now 😅
Her: Mochi Mochi is free You: when you realize Mochi mochi isn't free after 3 lessons you have to pay for premium to unlock all lessons- 😤
Yeesss
iam nearly fluent in japanese, but its really interesting to watch this video from the beginning of learning the language. i can say this is 100% true. i did it exactly the same way but i was warned about everything before, so i learned kana at the very beginning and added kanji after half a year. but honestly, i have a big advantage, not everyone has, because my wife is japanese, so i can practice every day with talking and so on. good video =)
Honestly, for people who just want listen to/understand anime? Learning how to read will STILL speed up the process, because you're taking in information differently when learning how to read. So, any mental learning blocks you may have by only doing auditory learning? Chances are you'll overcome them learning how to read simultaneously. Of course, it's not NECESSARY for that particular goal, but still SUPER helpful.
I want to learn Japanese simply because I'm bored is that dumb?
I also want to watch animes and understand what the characters are saying, so how should I learn. I also cannot talk to people online/In person because I have extremely strict parents
Should I just stop trying to learn Japanese stick to reading subtitles? 😭
@@Bear_8m Learning something new is great way to cure boredom. Probably the best thing you can do when you're bored. Keep going!
Ganbatte!
@@Fif5t0014 thank you.
@@Fif5t0014 In a simpler sense you need to learn the input part of the language then by watching japanese media your brain will start absorb things like a sponge
How can you NOT like Kanji?! :) It's a very beautiful and interesting thing with long and rich historical and cultural background. Without it, Japanese, as well as Chinese, would lose a lot of their charm. By the way, imo, it's a pity that Vietnamese and Korean rejected their hieroglyphics in the past century. Yeah, of course, Kanji can present notable difficulty for beginners - but it's that kind of challenge that is really interesting to overcome! 漢字を嫌っちゃだめだよ！
@Hạo Nhiên Yeah, if at least the basics were to be taught, that would be great
No hate at all, but I can understand why Koreans rejected it after all they've been through
I agree. I love learning the Kanji, it adds a lot of beauty to the writing, but I find it actually makes the language a lot easier, because sometimes it's harder to recognize words in Hiragana, but immediately when I see the Kanji for it, my brain knows what's going on.
@@carolinemasson7172 Exactly. I agree. It's the beauty of it. Many teachers don't make it fun for the learners, so yeah I get why many are afraid of Kanji or they hate it, but there's a lot of fun to it
I really like it too! I’m definitely far far away from being fluent in Japanese. I can only say a couple of things. Though kanji is really fun to learn!
I'm building my muscle memory by writing Hiragana over and over again and I think it's cool how I get quicker with each line and my handwriting gets cleaner. I think it's also good to make and keep notes to remind yourself how far you've come since the beginning when you look back on those notes.
Nice! On the other hand I haven't been able to achieve than with roman alphabet having used it for nearly 30 years now, so I don't have that expectation of my Japanese characters either... :P
I did a whole repetition practice out of hiragana (an entire notebook line of repetitions for each and every kana) with romaji for subtitles. Then when I practiced katakana, I did the same thing, only with hiragana subtitles instead of romaji for the regular ones (for the unusual ones like "hu", "vu", "yi" and such I had to use romaji).
It worked _wonders_ for both my memorisation and my handwriting. Nowadays whenever I see a word I want to transcribe, I don't use romaji at all.
Summary of Common Mistakes When Learning Japanese! 🎌😄
1. Romaji Overload! 🚫💥
Avoid relying solely on romaji when learning Japanese. Remember, hiragana and katakana have different pronunciations! Don't get trapped in romaji, folks!
2. Kanji FOMO! 😱🔤
Don't underestimate the importance of learning Kanji. It's essential for daily life, especially at work. Embrace the challenge and find a fun way to conquer those Kanji characters!
3. Goal Confusion! 🎯✨
Setting clear goals is crucial. For anime enthusiasts, focus more on conversations and take a break from Kanji. But for work or school purposes, prioritize grammar and daily conversation. Stay on track!
4. Native Speaker Practice! 👥💬
Don't miss out on practicing with native speakers! Japanese speakers can easily tell if you've learned primarily from anime. Connect with natives to improve your skills and communicate authentically. (I recommend using Teuida)
5. Beyond Textbooks! 📚🌟
Textbooks alone won't cut it. Some can be outdated and make you sound unnatural. Explore language-learning apps, have conversations with natives, and immerse yourself in Japanese media for a well-rounded learning experience.
6. Embrace the Culture! 🎎🌸
Language and culture go hand in hand. Dive into Japanese culture to gain a deeper understanding of the language. Learn about customs, traditions, and what makes Japan unique. It'll enhance your journey!
7. Enjoy the Adventure! 🚀😄
Remember, there's no one perfect method for learning Japanese. Embrace the journey, experiment with different approaches, and most importantly, have fun along the way! Let's master Japanese together! 💪🇯🇵
英語の勉強に使わせてもらってます。いつもありがとうございます
I've been studying Japanese for 2.5 years now. I've pretty much achieved my main goal which was to be able to enjoy written Japanese in video games, manga, (light) novels and whatever text I come across on the internet. I still have lot to learn but I'm really proud of the progress I've made. I have couple of tips to give:
1. While you should absolutely have a specific goal to aim for from the start, don't forget to set smaller goals to make the journey easier. The main goal will take a lot of time to achieve and there'll be times you feel like you're not making any progress but if you set smaller goals, you will reach them and you can look back on them. You can spend more time on looking at how far you've come rather than how long you have still to go.
2. Don't stop. This is especially true for flashcards and such. The longer the break, the harder it is to come back. I said I've studied Japanese for 2,5 years and I mean it. I've been actively studying every day. You don't need to go that far. You can take it more casually. Study once a week if you think that's enough for you. Just keep it consistent. That way you'll keep on learning and you don't have time to forget the things you've already learned. Of course, if you notice that you don't actually enjoy learning the language, feel free to drop it. No reason to continue doing something you don't like, unless you feel like the end result will be worth it.
3. This is not necessarily a tip from me but rather a revised version of the tip given in the video. Don't try learning Japanese by sticking with romaji.
I disagree with the reasoning that it'll make your pronunciation bad. Plenty of languages use the same alphabet, yet not all letters and words are pronounced the same. The same combination of letters can be a valid word in multiple languages, yet they're pronounced differently. For example, religion is religion in both English and German but they sound nothing alike and a Finnish 'R' is very different from English 'R'. So by that logic, it shouldn't be any different when it comes to Japanese, other than people not being able to agree on one way to write romaji, there seem to be multiple variations which makes it confusing and already a good enough reason to not rely on them.
My reasoning for avoiding romaji is that is limits you in the amount of resources you can use for learning Japanese. You'll miss out on much better resources that were written for people who actually want to learn Japanese and not just daydream about it. If you don't want to spend couple of days to couple of weeks learning hiragana and katakana, then I doubt you want to spend the time learning Japanese in the first place.
Thank you so much for the tips! But can i ask what apps or books did you use to learn Japanese?
Muchas gracias por tus valiosos consejos!!!
Saludos desde México, de alguien que esta aprendiendo ingles y japones
Mochi Mochi is a good and cute app tbh🤗 . It took me only two weeks to memorize all N5 minna no nihongo vocabulary in the app that I didn't believe I couldn't do before. I knew the app from my classmate and now from you. Thank you for explaining the app, now I truly understand how it works. 👍👍
I just got it and I already love it
Thank you for sharing, i'll try it
Just downloaded it, thanks
thanks! downloading it now
@@khalilahd. Same here ^^
You always talk about Japanese learning but ¿what about Turkish learning?
I'm a new Japanese teacher ( still a beginner tho) and I agree with this video 100%!!
I've met so many learners who talk like anime characters and they sound too dramatic or poetic for me😭😂
I'm glad there're so many new learners, but please be careful how important to listen to/actually use REAL Japanese, not anime Japanese😂 Anyway thanks for making this video!❣️
Yeah exactly😂 they sound too dramatic for daily life😂😂
Oh my god, I feel you 😩
Imagine there's one person in there who IS just dramatic in general,no matter if english or japanese x'D
Hii nyan ,will u plz help me pass a MCQ test for i ve to pass an back paper examination
Specific reason = move to Japan, then secure a Japanese baddie
The only mistake I made is that i didn't meet you sooner 😳
can you do the same video but with turkish? i want to learn turkish but I don't know where to start:(
As someone who speaks daily Japanese, I must say that your feedback is pretty good. Like for any language, people must learn and practice all aspects of the language. It is especially true for Japanese where the culture is especially important, for instance, we need to understand more than just the sentence or the kanji, we kind of need to also understand the point of view of the Japanese people in order to understand them properly and ensure that our message is correctly understood. That is not an easy task but it's totally rewarding so good luck to all learners here and yes, having a specific goal and a good motivation is key to improve.
Great video! From my experience, not enough people learn pitch accent and it improves your Japanese so much. It’s like not learning stress in English, even though there are only a few words where stress makes a difference it still sounds super weird if your stress in wrong, same for Japanese. And in the case of Japanese, there are more words eg あめ vs アメ, 橋 vs 箸 vs 端, 神 vs 髪/紙, 今 vs 居間 etc. The argument is usually that different reactions have different pitch accent but it’s the same with English stress systems, they differ, that’s language lol. But learning the basic pitch patterns really improves your fluency and sounding good and pleasant to listen to in a very short amount of time too
I started learning Japanese mostly to be able to understand my favorite songs. Using them to learn Japanese was kind of a blessing and curse at the same time; I could reinforce vocabulary easily with tons of repetitions but my vocabulary is slightly skewed towards uncommon or rare words that are unusable in daily conversations. I learned 闘気、かぎ爪 or even weirder words like 鴨る and 濫觴 before learning simple words like 枕. Fortunately, I don't use just songs but also anime/drama and other sources as learning material and I quite happy with the progress I am making. Just something to keep in mind while learning a language.
濫觴 は、だれも わかりませんよｗｗ
コメントが おもしろかったです。
10:14 "there is no right or wrong in this world, there are just different of values according to different cultures and different ways of understanding."
good one.
how dare you calling me a weirdo D:
I just want to learn to read books
When it comes to learning kanji, I do it through learning lyrics to songs I like in japanese. The lyrics almost always have kanji and alot of videos have the english subtitles as well. With music words are over enunciated and slower than casual talk. it's a fun way of learning, and I think it really does help
Haha I’m Japanese and I hate kanji- I’ve hated kanji since I was a kid- I never did my kanji homework and I kind of regret that but now I’m doing all the homework again. Japanese is my first language but I’m more fluent with English because I go to an international school. I’m not sure but I feel like Japanese is easy to learn- I’m fully Japanese and Idk why but my face turned more like a American person some how it’s weird. I love your video! It’s a good advice!
Honestly practicing with native speaker is the easiest way to learn Japanese . But it is hard to speak with native japanese speakers cause they arent that much friendly and they dont show interest in talking with u...so ultimately the only way i find ifficient is watching anime and lipsinging it with the character 👍
Well you can find some videos of daily routine if your target is listening and speak, it's a good tip because there are ppl talking normally daily conversation
@@KaniForLife thanks for u r advice
i think there are websites where you can talk to native japanese speakers who are willing to help you learn
@@taududeblobber221 can u mention the names of websites you are talking about
We would love to know more about Japanese culture can you please make some videos on them..
You are absolutely correct on interacting with native speakers. That is how I learned Finnish, Swedish, and English. Japanese came later and by now it is reduced to : "僕は少し日本語を話しました" or some such. Surprisingly Finnish grammar and pronunciation are not unlike Japanese.
i'm learning swedish also
its a very pretty language i like it a lot
Memorizing kanji and vocabulary takes time in my opinion.The way I quickly remember it is by writing it in a book .listening is the next level🙂
Hii saktia ,will u plz help me pass a small test for i ve to pass the test as i got back paper in Japanese language subject.
@@aryaheis .i am amateur
Wonderful and inspiring video. I love your point about the importance of considering the culture when learning another language. That does seem to be too often overlooked. The language learning process can be made much more meaningful and effective when we take our time and delve into the culture, history and literature of the language we are studying.
I JUST SAW THIS WHEN I JUST FINALLY LEARNED TO READ HIRAGAN AND KATAKANA PROPERLY BUT KANJI IS KILLING ME. THANK YOU.
My main goal with japanese is reading about matters, that are difficult to find in non japanese formats, especially mythology.
Sure there are some books here and there, but these have been translated and translated multiple times and lost some of their meaning. Next to that country and language are extremely attractive/interesting. I wouldn't go learning Japanese by anime, that feels like a weeb thing to do. Just imagining someone walks up to me and screams "DaTtEbAyO" or any other anime line makes me cringe.
The romanji aspect is new to me, I thought it was clear to use a language, learn how its written, structured, spoken, lived. It does explain why sooo many people scream "Sasoooke" or "Narooto".
I decided to study japanese again pretty recently. I was in the middle of a Japanese Lesson when this video popped up on my recommendations. What a timing. :3
For me, japanese is incredibly hard to learn its quite discouraging. I've learned hiragana and katakana. I have spaced repetition my kanji for about maybe 130 words (not a lot), but I cant retain them all lol probably like 40 I can recall from my head. Studied particles and other simple grammar notions that do with stucture, and I tried immersing a lot. But my retaining skills are horrid, it really sucks I'm a 4.0 student but I guess I never learned how to study outside of academia lol. Have a friend who started last year and he can consume media properly. Good luck to anyone who finds their best way to study. I havent found it yet
How long have you been learning? Don't beat yourself up, should take a few years to get more comfortable with it if you're just starting out (within your first year)
I felt comfortable after about 3 years, and after 10 years I can never forget how to read common kanji (like 99%) , it's just writing that's easy to forget if you don't do it, native speakers also suck at writing and forget their own language too so it's a pretty hard language for written at least.
10,000 hours of listening will get you close to fluent for comprehending almost anything. Immersing a lot isn't a lot until it's years of immersion.
It's common to remember bits and pieces and forget others if you just immerse when your vocab knowledge is low too. It's better to know a few thousand words first before immersing in it. Or while you immerse work on building up those words. You mentioned 130 words, but you need 10,000 if you wanna feel like you got the language completely down xD
@@phen-themoogle7651 I have been learning for 2 years now seriously. I've mentioned 130 really because I feel like thats a range I can say if I saw it in the wild I would be able to recognize and read it. I've done anki decks that go up to like 500 and something words and finished them, and also half of RTK so at least kanji looks normal to me because I know the radicals. I don't have much hrs of listening seriously for sure lol. Maybe like 15 hrs max of serious study with listening. Its so hard for me to not burn out while doing it but im trying to get a routine going. Especially because I want to be able to read over writing and speaking (Dont think ill be going to japan any time soon, there is not many japanese people were I live, probably less than 5%.)
Do you have any tips for listening and getting those hours up?
Thanks for the reply and feedback
ありがとうございました。
@@Peraliq Gotcha. Similar to this proverb:「好きこそものの上手なれ」”what you like doing is what you’re gonna be/get skilled at”, if you’re having fun you’re less likely to burn out.
For sure it’s hard to remember stuff in a language if you’re just treating it like a foreign language.
You gotta mix your hobbies with it to naturally expose yourself and enjoy it more. Like what do you normally do for fun in English? You watch RUclips videos about Japanese related things? Maybe subscribe to some Japanese only RUclips channels that seem interesting. Even if you don’t understand everything at least it’s based around your hobbies or normal lifestyle.
For me I’m a gamer, so I watched 実況プレイ動画 where gamers play through games on RUclips. I like rpgs so I watched Japanese people play them and read off the lines. Although before I did this I tried playing the games myself in Japanese since this was like 20 years ago and there weren’t many cool gaming channels in Japanese, I don’t even remember RUclips being a thing or popular when I started out lol 😂 a lot of kanji in ff6 or old rpg games were super blurry too. Was so hard looking stuff up back then.
But I played the games in English first so I had an idea for what was going on.
Bilingual activities help bridge gaps sometimes. Although eventually it’s better to process only in Japanese when you get more advanced since you don’t want to rely on English always.
Are you an introvert or extrovert? Extroverts seem able to learn from talking with people a lot, I’m more of an introvert so I did more reading and gaming than anything else. Also I grew up with anime and would buy vhs or dvds back in the day and turn off English subs.
One of the first activities I did to get used to the language was try to hear what they were saying and write it out in hiragana. Just attempting to shadow with spoken Japanese or dictate stuff helps a lot too.
Nowadays it’s easier to check your work because of sites like animelon where they have Japanese subs or Netflix etc
Also rewatching series you like many times helps you remember the vocab, I love certain classic anime from the 90s so I’ll rewatch stuff like once every year or something. I’ve made notebooks with lines from them too.
Of course I also studied Japanese with textbooks or native speakers, used to live with some before too. Occasionally would throw myself into situations where I’m at someone’s house and their family or people only knew Japanese too.
But for me many rpg games and novel games like fully voiced games really helped a lot. There’s hundreds of hours alone I’ve spent on 1 Japanese rpg game even...
And when I burn out I just focus on gameplay and doing random stuff that doesn’t involve convos too much.
Or retalk to npcs cuz they repeat the same lines often too.
There’s a new game on ps4 Thirteen sentinels which seems very easy to study from , at least for me.
From just one rpg game I’ve filled up a whole notebook before, about 1000 words. And I write the words in context.
Occasionally I remember them better than words I study outside of games just cuz they go with the story too.
@@phen-themoogle7651 Thank you for the deep given reply, these tips really would help me from not burning out. I will try to bridge my hobbies more. I actually am a big fan of Manga and visual novels, I always wanted to be able to read something that wasn't translated, I actually did it for the final panel of the berserk manga before it was translated. I was able to use enough of some simple knowledge to get the general idea of what the text was conveying, you just reminded me how much fun I had doing that. I also do play a lot of games and I really like jrpgs too, I always thought they look too hard to just dive in but with the resources you had in the past lol sounds like its not as bad anymore. I love horror games to I tend to type in 怖いゲーム often on youtube lol but I did end up getting bored. I should just keep switching like I do in English. I really appreciate the advice from your experiences, thanks again! I'm also not introverted but I do get tired of extroverted activities quickly lol.
i love kanji because i'm chinese and it helps me to see the meaning or context better than just using hiragana or katakana :)
Same here! :)
I have no real interest in anime or manga, I want to be able to just speak conversational Japanese so I can talk to people... it would be nice if I ever go to Japan, or even if I'm in a Japanese restaurant & someone has limited English, if I know some Japanese, it might make communication easier...& It might be fun to be able to speak another language... I'll probably never be extremely fluent, but if I can speak enough to just get my point across would be nice...Lol! I do want to learn about Japanese culture... I'm pretty fascinated by it... I especially love Japanese artwork too... I'm just very interested in the Japanese in general... just like their culture & would love to go there someday...
As a South Korean trying to learn a lot of languages, this tip really helped me in learning Japanese!
Thanks!
Why I'm learning japanese, I wonder…well, there's no any special reason, just I'm really interested in the language. By the way as a student too of calligraphy (書道）I love kanji!!💓気をつけてくださいね🙇🏻♂️
Don't use romaji except to learn hiragana and katakana.
The way I learn more kanji is by reading texts. It seems difficult at first but, the more I read the more I got familiar with kanji in which it enriches my vocabulary knowledge by reading diverse topics. Also these days, technology makes everything easier with vast array of online dictionary and apps.
I was a little skeptical at the beginning - but this is a very valid and good video. A lot of really good points raised and I love the educational perspective.
I started learning a few months ago but had to stop progress for some time due to many things going on at once - managed to keep up what I've learned so far (Kana, some numbers, the の and は particle) and now I've set my goal to visit Japan for some weeks in maybe 2-3 years with the goal to just get through with using Japanese. Having that clear goal motivates much more and things like "yo, I could theoretically order sth in the restaurant" feel like huge milestones early on :D
One of the main reasons I want to learn Japanese is because of kanji, they're really interesting and fun, and I feel like the way that a lot of kanji is structured (which specific radicals) really reflect Japanese mentality and culture. It's actually really easy for me to memorize kanji because I have a good memory, but the only thing that offers hindrance to my progress in Japanese, is that most learning material available on the Internet is in English. I already speak two other languages fluently and I feel like my native language is comparably more similar to Japanese than English. So i would prefer if i could get some material in my own language. But I'm not gonna give up on learning Japanese.
Hello, I just started making Japanese vocabulary videos if you need some easy learning material :)
Thank you for making this video! I noticed that I have made almost all of these mistakes. I stopped learning Japanese over 6 months ago but I'm planning to re-learn it this upcoming summer so thank you for making this video! It helps a lot and I'm so excited to start re-learning the language!
JapanesePod101 have a great way of teaching the signs, but I don't know about the Kanji. I never got that far.
A lot of systems teach:
"This is how they look, this is how they sound, deal with it!"
Pod101 use the logic way to remember:
あ looks like an apple (and they show and tell)
ア looks like an axe (when we learn Katakana)
MochiMochi sounds like a great tool. Thank you!!!
"don't MAKE these mistakes" :)
For me the pronounciation is easy because I am hungarian and we have 14 vowels in our alphabet (like u, ú, ü, ű, ó, á, é,). I started right away with hiragana and katakana, and found that english apps are having trouble describing how to pronounce japanese letters, and sometimes they just can't. In hungarian I can directly describe the sounds of the japanese alphabet, for example the く can not be described in english with letters, but in hungarian it would be "kü". English people literally have to learn how to make new sounds, which must suck. Hungarian also has the almost the exact same word order in sentences as japanese, and very similar intonation, so it's a huge advantage. I have to get a hungarian japanese language book because I just can't bear the english descriptions. Looking forward to learning japanese.
I'm polish and I have no problems with the pronunciation too! Polish also has many more "sounds" which are hard to describe in English. For example, "tsu" in Japanese sounds exactly the same as "cu" in Polish. Sometimes it's funny to me how english natives try to pronunciate words from other languages, as they simply lack of a few sounds in their own alphabet! And it's fascinating, how it would not be a problem for them if only they were taught a different language as a child.
Ruri your videos makes me so so so happy and I really really enjoyed watching your videos so so much you inspired me so so much and I wish you reach 500K Subscribers very very soon!♥️😊🥺
"10:13 there is no right or wrong in this world
10:16 they're just different values according
10:18 to different cultures and different ways
10:20 of understanding"
With those wisdom words you will help to better this world! You Rocks!
At university I study Chinese and Japanese, and in fact I have seen many of my fellow Japanese who are terrified of kanji.
Actually in my Chinese course the study of characters (hanzi) is considered as a natural step to get to read Chinese, while in my Japanese course most of the students are immediately in crisis. In my opinion kanji are the least of the problems for a Japanese student.
First they come (in random order):
1) The SOV sistem (subj. obj. verb.).
2) Double system of verbal and adjectival conjugation (you must know the class to which each new verb or adjective belongs)
3) The particle system (personally not my problem but it is a topic that sometimes creates doubts)
3) The negative form of an expression does not always mean its opposite... (I know it sounds mysterious)
4) Not being able to speak directly of a feeling, desire, thought of another person, we must use a periphrastic form*, like:
Verb / い adj + と 思 う
Noun / な adj + だ と 思 う
*ok seems like a small thing, but English is a very straightforward language and remembering to use this form is not easy at first
finally to return to the kanji:
To pass the HSK 6 (Chinese C2) about 2,500 characters
To pass JLPT N1 (Japanese C2) about 2,000 kanji
So, why for students of Japanese kanji are so scary?
Because western students don't need to memorize much so their memory muscles are weak. Western schooling places too much emphasis on understanding. To be successful at kanji you actually need to memorize and many of us aren't great at that
Meh. I expected more specific and practical advice, like avoid speaking like a woman if you're a man, or what keigo to use in which situation.
Her advices are actually very good, but you wouldn't be learning keigo so fast when you just begin... 😅
I've done some of these mistakes already 🤣 I think for me(and the rest of the Spanish speaking world) is easy to learn the pronunciation. For you A I U E O is for us A E I O U. Same sound, different order. Check this out, I learned all Kana characters in one night cause I wanted to read manga(I was reading Nanatsu No Taisai at the time🤘😆) and not wait for the translators anymore. Necessity made me learn, I put myself on the spot... and it was fun. Today, I understand enough japanese that I can play a movie or anime when I'm cooking and not read the subs. Now Hermosa Ruri, a preposition: I trade you Spanish conversation for your Japanese conversation skills. I guarantee that when you're done learning my Spanish(which is Puerto Rican) you're gonna sound for the Spaniards like Spanish version of a JoJo charcater 🤣 Thank you for this video 💜 Love, hugs and kisses 😘
I thought for a long time about which language I wanted to learn: Korean, Japanese or Chinese. After this video, I felt motivated to learn Japanese. Although this language is more difficult than Korean, and all the information I need to learn scares me. But I really like Japan, its culture and anime. This language sounds so beautiful to me. So I want to start learning Japanese to be able to speak and understand native speakers. thanks for this useful video❤️
But, by the way, is it true that if you know, for example, Japanese, learning other similar languages (Korean, Chinese) will be easier and faster? 🤔
Japanese On Yomi 音読み is a derogative of chinese, meaning kanjis that have readings from chinese orgin. So if you learn Kanji and the On Yomi and Kun Yomi meanings, it should be easier to learning Chinese readings. But I've heard chinese is a tonal language and that is why it so difficult to learn regardless.
Yes it's true, because the sentence structure is a lot more similar to Chinese or Korean than it is to english.
That's definitely true ! I started learning Korean a few years after I started Japanese (my level was N3 at the time) and it really helped me ! Korean and Japanese are similar (or very close) in many ways, the sentence structure is the same, both languages have particles, counter words, and some vocab sounds pretty much the same - Like としょかん/도서관 toshokan/toseogwan, しゃしん/사진, きおん/기온 kion/gion
I feel exactly like you! At first I wanted to learn Korean but I soon gave up. Then I decided to learn Japanese! I love Japan so much! It’s a very beautiful country with a beautiful language and I like the culture!
I m a native Spanish speaker and I think the sounds in japonese are very similar to spanish sounds. I think that helps me learn japonese a little faster . kanjis was a little bit hard to understand but I think I get it
I just want to learn
I don't know why 🗿, until I get bored
基本単語
i→俺、俺様、僕、わたくし、わたし、自分、僕ちゃん、うち、せっしゃ、わがはい、我、etc.
You→お前、あんた、あなた、君、etc
We→俺ら、僕ら、吾輩達、自分ら、うちら、あたしら、わたしたち、etc
They→あいつら、かれら、etc
I recommend not using romaji at all, I think it's better for you to memorize hiragana and katakana and them switch to using furigana for helping with your kanjis till you learn them
Yeah I think so too but in my previous video some people preferred to use romaji in the beginning 🧋
Appreciate your energy and positive energy. Thank you MochiMochi. 😉
Having a strong reason for learning will be so vital to even have the passion to keep going.
I really love your content Ruri, I intend to learn Japanese and your advice broadens my mind. Thank you so much.
One of my biggest dreams is to go, maybe to live in Japan.
It could be a certain cliché or something, but all started with my passion of animes, like Naruto, HxH, MHA,..
The backgrounds, the language, the culture ! Everything in Japan fascinates me, so even if it took me 4 years to learn Japanese, at least I could use those 4 years practicing to experience something really great in my life with Japan.
I’m Beatboxer, and in Japan, Beatbox is something known, not like here in Belgium where half of the time people look at me weirdly only because I’m a beatboxer hahaha.
But yeah, I have a friend, FootboxG, who won recently a Beatbox Battle in Japan (BeatXFes 2023) and as he said, it’s his best life experience.
I can’t wait to have a stable situation and to take my first flight to Japan. I really can’t wait.
Thanks for this video, that helped me a lot and now I know from where I have to start.
Arigato !!
MochiKanji is 1000x better than Duolingo at least in my experience. Duolingo is just so boring and maybe thats because ive used it my whole life for school spanish and stuff but in my opinion, the topics are boring, you don’t efficiently learn vocabulary (and even when you do it’s in very specific context) and the vibe of mochiKanji is so much more relaxed.
Thank you so much, Ruri!
This video was so helpful. In most Japanese books like Genki, they explain pronunciations of Katakana and Hiragana with "Romaji". I wonder if it's ok....
I just got started, and although I am no where near ready to talk to a native speaker, I'm very happy to know I did start the right way. I practice via apps like Duolingo (and the one you recommend, from now on lol), I have a dictionary at home and on my phone, I practice writing Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana, and listen to RUclips videos where people speak Japanese (althoug I don't understand a lot because it's so fast, I can pick out several characters already and name them). Thanks for this insight, it really made my whole day :3
Alternative advice - from someone very bad at Japanese.
Background: I used to be a classics scholar, became interested in linguistics, choose to study Japanese to learn a CV structured language, outside of Indo-European, with tones, that loved verb conjugation.
Advice -
1. I want to first address 'don't use romaji.' This is not bad advice, but it doesn't actually go far enough. Japanese doesn't use syllables in the way English does. The base unit is the mora. The kana are built from this (language exists in the mouth and ear). The reason reading kana helps is because of mora. Introduce this early.
2. Don't neglect particles. Language is held together by the small word ('is' 'to' 'not' 'by). You probably get 'ha' and 'ga' and 'ni' early, but, hearing particles is important. Even if you don't know what they do, at least be aware of what the common ones are to start hearing them 'attach' to words.
3. Don't neglect verbs. I came to Japanese because I love conjugation. Japanese loves conjugation. Do look ahead. Don't worrry about the weird conjugation endings you don't know how to use yet, but look at them. I would rather know 'taberareru' is going to work as a verb than hear 'tabe' and wonder where the wordd ended.
4. Listen actively.
5. Don't forget, Japanese is tonal. This gets me in some hot water, as some people want to argue the point. But, pitch/tone are an important factor in hearing and understanding the language. Japanese has a lot of homophones, this will help sort...some.. of them. Also, particles usually attach before pitch is determines (from what i gather, bad at Japanese). This is just cool.
6. Learn the radicals before/as you're learning kanji. You can cram the kanji. But, even you memorize the newspaper kanji, you get to japan, find a new word, go to the dictionary... Knowing the building blocks will let you take apart the whole. It's like 250 vs thousands.
7. Don't get distracted by the minutia. This is my bane. I spend three months trying to memorize the rules of rendaku instead of just trying to speak, making mistakes, and getting a natural feel for it. Rules are rules. Languages do kind of sort of a little follow some rules sometimes. But they are things that flow naturally out of the mouth too. The only way to pass the hurdle of actively thinking about it all the time, and just doing it, it by doing it, a lot.
8. Aizuchi. This is a bit like 'listen actively.' but in listen actively, i mean, listen for verb conjugations and sentence structure. Here, 'listen actively.' Aizuchi. - Japanese works with a lot 'unstated' and so there is an art to signaling polite listening. If you can sound fluent in this way, people will feel more comfortable and natural talking to you.
9. Grammar is God. I could have put a bunch under this, like conjugation, particles, etc. I originally was going to talk about how funky japanese adjectives are, and how few of them really seem to be true adjectives, but I thought about more verb things. I know people know this, but the grammar is matters. Vocab matters too, Japanese especially doesn't' really have a lot of cognates in the core of the language, so a lot of core concepts are built in very different ways than in English, but some of that also gets swept up in grammar and syntax.
10. Talk to Japanese people. Really, it is a remarkably welcoming language culture as a whole (sure there is a bit of 'talking monkey' or whatever, but there is more genuine excitement that foreigners want to learn the language. Embrace that, it's a rare treasure.) I come from a study of dead languages. You have no idea how cool it is to be able to have native speakers. It's not some dead language or some conlang where there is endless debate over this or that, it's a living language. No one cares to debate because they have lives to live that require use of the language. Talk to Japanese people. Several would like to talk to you. Some want to speak your language, some are happy to let you practice theirs.
I love Kanji, they're like little drawings and look so cute. I also love learning so this'll be an easy next four years (hopefully only 4) to fluency.
I have another advice for the people who like play video games, put an rpg or visual novel you already done in your native language in Japanese, and try to follow the history, tutorials etc in Japanese, it will be more easier and fun. Do the same with another one you never done, after this, your level gonna step-up quickly.
is learning Japanese to watch hentai without subtitles a good reason? 😂
i think u meant anime 💀
I meann🙄💀
I can't believe someone asked that 😂
Dear pridesfuneral
I think it's too difficult.
If you could learn through it.
I can't help saying "You're a genius".
Sincerely yours.
I wanna send this song all over th world.
ruclips.net/video/bGtHTz74nM8/видео.html
Dear pridesfuneral.
I think I was wrong.
I can't help saying "You must be a genius".
You only wanna say Made in Japan is the best don't you ?
Do as you like!
Don't burn out!
Great thanks to you.
From a Japanese undertaker.
Sincerely yours.
I wanna send this song all over th world.
ruclips.net/video/bGtHTz74nM8/видео.html
this video was very helpful and it makes me even more excited to learn your language & culture! thank you so much ❤️
kanjis are from chinese culture not Japan :p
And English is written in *latin* alphabet, what's your point?
@@masacatior l'alphabet latin vient du grec !!
@nicolasjanvier8374 i know, no need to french me lol, and the greek alphabet came from phoenician
Rome and Greece is to Germanic and Slavic folk what China is to Japan.
@@masacatior ok mais on parle de système d'écriture ! kanji signifie littéralement "signe/caractère de l'empire han"
I remember when I first came to Japan and was talking to someone by the phone, he said "今これます？" I became silent for a few seconds, thinking what did he meaning. Luckily, soon I realized he meant "今来られます？". Of course, no textbooks (at least at that time) will teach you that you can say in that way, so I was really confused.
Started learning way back in 2011. Now in 2023 I use Japanese every day at my job and I've had a side gig translating technical documents since 2019.
So while I think I have a long way to go, my Japanese is pretty good. I often find myself attracted to videos like this that give advice for beginners, because I have very strong opinions on the topic and want to see what people are saying. Often times I come away annoyed because the advice is not helpful and sometimes even harmful.
But the advice in this video is 100% spot on. Please anyone watching this, take all of this advice to heart. You will thank yourself later on.
I am a begginer in learning japanese and I truly recommend, as Ruri says, to use different resources: videos, apps, books are fine, music. And also I think its important to write, to practice the writting of the Kanas and Kanjis is very useful to memorize them, and of course not only read, you have to listen real conversations or examples with native speakers. In the other hand, I am practicing reading stories for kids too, such as Issounboshi, only using Kana and I am trying to let the Romaji way little by little. At the moment I'm not into kanjis yet, but I will try, anyways as you start learning you could see some Kanjis on the way, and books use to have Kanjis with Furigana (Hiragana above the kanji to know how to read it).
Couple of things about practicing with native speakers:
1) In my experience, Japanese native speakers on the internet really don't want to teach Japanese to stumbling xenophilic foreigners all day. I've been kicked out of game lobbies, ghosted, switch-to-english because studying english is far more interesting to them, etc and foreigners are annoying unculture aho swine.
2) Even when you do go to Japan, and they are interested in talking to you at a language exchange or a pub or something, once you learn good enough Japanese to have conversations, you'll largely repeat the same 5 topics going down the same boring conversation trees, basically: ("What country", "How long Japan?", "When go back?", "Do you like Anime?", "Do you like Japanese girls?"). It will take serious work and disrupt the heiwa to try and go somewhere new in these conversations. Going off that beaten path will be awkward because you won't know the vocabulary which is why you even want to practice. If it's Tokyo, people are busy and don't usually want to drag around a long term foreigner friend. Work culture is exhausting so you'd better be willing to forego some post-work rest and recovery chill time if you're serious. And if you're not, why are you even here?
So my advice: practice with books, articles, etc. Looking up kanji from radicles is an exhausting drag but it's helpful enough in the long run to have a physical document to mark up because computers are annoying distraction boxes. Unless you hire them, don't expect locals to really help facilitate your learning. People looking for a "language partner" often just want a pet foreign boyfriend/girlfriend. Studying Japanese is largely thankless work until you get to the fascinating individuals of Japanese history, science, art and philosophy who created unique events and stories. And I'm a long way off from there.
I feel all these points are valid... Especially the kanji one. You kinda caught me there. Im running from my responsibilities-
Tho i dont really have native Japanese friends, only online. Never seen one irl, and so most of my Japanese is from textbooks- How do i relearn from my mistakes