Don't agree, i have all those things and i can still sneak in half an hour every day. I just don't waste too much of my time watching tv or playing games. Plus if it's something you love doing then you'll find time for it
I study 10 minutes of an anime in several passes. 1. Japanese audio with English subtitles. ( So you know what's going on. ) 2. Japanese audio with NO subtitles. ( Immerse yourself in the sounds and images. ) 3. Japanese audio with Japanese subtitles and pause every line to take down the vocabulary and kanji. I also shadow the speakers and repeat everything they say, exactly as they say it. ( Get the pitch accent too. ) 4. Load everything you copied in step 3 into Anki and study it. 5. Re-watch the anime in Japanese with the Japanese subtitles. ( You will understand everything this time. ) Shadow the anime line for line. ( I put my mouse next to my chair and pause frequently so I can have time to repeat everything. ) 6. When you finish the anime, come back and re-watch it every other week with shadowing. You will get bored with the anime, but you will own every line 100% . Input only works if it is comprehensible input. When your mind recognizes that it has some memory of a word or phrase, you know it immediately and get excited. After a few months, you will have learned hours of natural Japanese dialogue.
no worries mate, he is speaking faster than most and not the clearest but of course it is easy for me to understand as a native english speaker. Most people, by far, speak slower. Keep at it, it only takes time. Btw your english writing is great.
THANK YOU! A child doesn't learn a language by reading or writing at first, that comes after 5 or 6 years, but I see many videos pushing for it which I disagree on. I learned english by listening and speaking bits at times. Took me a good 8 years I kid you not to be fluent and be able to translate and interpret 😊 Now at 54 I am on the quest to learn Japanese but at my own pace and no pressure. I appreciate you clarifying this point😊 Cheers from Panamá 😊
@@wrathofcorn No...but learning N1 in a year probably assumes some background and that sort of thing. However N1 test can be studied for. But no, you don't need 10 years...hard ass work you can do (with efficient study methods,,none of that text book rubbish)...this guy is right....dive straight into listening on RUclips of proper stuff, learn words from there in context....forget flash cards, memorizing etc is all slow and ineffective...
@@TheStrataminor OK, so if you've already been studying for a number of years, you can reach N1 in one additional year. That I can agree with lmao. If you want a realistic idea of language learning goals as well as much more thought out tips, I'd recommend Steve Kaufmann. If you're learning Japanese with zero prior knowledge, don't beat yourself up by comparing yourself to someone lying about being able to reach N1 in a year. It's an impossible goal that will only ever be uttered by snake oil salesmen.
@wrathofcorn Does the belief that learning Japanese is extremely difficult serve you? Which belief do you think will be more conducive to getting fluent in the language? N1 is an extremely low level for a Japanese person, a middle schooler could pass it drunk
I’m in my third month studying Japanese. I’m a 75 year old retired educator…determined to learn the language as a mental challenge. My wife and I will visit Japan this summer. Using Italki tutor.. lesson 3 Genki… lots of other apps. I can read hiragana and katakana, but I can’t write it. IS IT NECESSARY FOR ME TO BE ABLE TO WRITE THE KANA? It is a challenge to learn all of the new vocabulary, and to wean off of romagi. I’m also trying to use Japanese readers, and I am looking into the Satori reader. Thank you for the video…. Any suggestions for me will be much appreciated. Best, John
Satory reader it's really good! Im still using it after a year, it really helps to learn a lot of different vocabulary, ways to speak, express yourself, kanji and so on. You shouldn't worry about writing kanji unless you find a meaning in doing so. Just keep doing it and have fun. That's how I learnt English back then, but well actually japanese it's quite harder but not impossible.
Writing can be fun for personal development, or for memorization techniques. but probably similar to your home country, there's not a lot of times in your daily life you're going to need to be writing things down outside of schooling. I would say if you're trying to maximize your understanding in a shorter time, don't worry about writing them so much, unless you feel like writing them out helps you memorize them.
I am living in Japan and am in my same conversation and word patterns since a while. So your tips how to break out of them sound really helpful. Hope they will work
I haven't had any fun lately, 😭 so it was fun. You bring me joy!❤🙂I love the kind and generous heartwarming atmosphere that you create, your kind, easygoing, warm vibe. ❤
This might be the absolute best advice I’ve ever heard for learning Japanese, and frankly, in my opinion, any language. I’ve been living in Japan for years now, I’ve been stuck at an intermediate level forever and I didn’t quite know how to punch myself up to the next level. That last third of the video is perfect advice. I showed it to some friends fluent in both languages and they enthusiastically approved. I will be fluent in kanji reading in a year thanks to you.
Nice video man. I started learning via textbooks in 2022, did Genki 1 and 2 but then gave up due to other commitments after 3-4 months. I started again in January this year, however going down the full immersion route. So far I have done 5+ hours of intensive immersion per day and have been mining sentences for grammar/vocab. I feel like I have made 10x as much progress from this method, however, the early grammar from the textbooks definitely gave me a good head start. Keep up the videos and godspeed to you.
Going to do homestay is such a great opportunity. There is a huge difference between that and going to a meet-up. Most Japanese people at meet-ups want to speak English and youre not using Japanese out of necessesity or seeing them use Japanese in a variety of situations. You really need to be in an environment where you are forced to use Japanese all day everyday, not making yourself study, but just incidentally as part of your everyday life out of necessity and seeing other natives using it in normal everyday situations. Except for homestay, there are not many other chances to be in that situation.
I…just randomly out of the blue decided to check this channel again as I was looking for listening practice material, figuring there wouldn’t be anything new since the last upload was a year ago. But surprisingly I see “Uploaded 3 hours ago”. That timing is craaazy. It’s early in the morning and I have a test later so I’ll have to watch this later but just wanted to say welcome back! 🎉 I missed this channel
This is really good advice. I think the notion of working on domain comprehension (mentioned during the game plan part of the video) is something that most people are not even aware of, and is severely underrated in general. It's a shame it was only mentioned in passing. Another thing that I wish you would've elaborated on is the mindset shift. That section was so short you'd moved on to the next before I even quite understood what the simple action actually entailed. For example, what do you really mean when you say ‘actually commit’? I personally don't think it's a good idea to make a flashcard of every single word you come across that you don't know, but on the whole, this is arguably the best video on learning Japanese (and probably any language in general, since it's basically the same process) that I have seen. Great job!
I've been grinding japanese for 2-3 weeks from 0. ajatting 90% for a week. Game Gengo, Khatz and this KoreKara keep me going. ♥️ I don't recommend ajatting from scratch. Just learn hiragana and katakana, then learn grammar and sentence structure. While you're learning those two things, you're gonna pick up vocab naturally. Most important tip: DON'T DO THINGS THAT FEEL LIKE A CHORE! Always make it fun, otherwise you're not gonna remember anything important. I literally just finished playing re4 remake in japanese and that was fun af even though I didn't understand 95% of it. That means 5% I understood and I'm proud of that. Don't give up. If my dumba** can do it, so can you.
So be fair, the re4 remake has a lot of super post n1 biblical terms Unless you’ve seen that stuff in something else, I wouldn’t feel bad about not understanding a lot of it, especially all the writings. I just finished it myself in Japanese and there was stuff I didn’t remember the reading of but I used kanji to cheat 😅
Honestly you could and probably should make a whole vid on a change of mindset, it’s applicable not just to Japanese (surely) but there are so many people who are frustrated and on the verge of/have given up and I think it would really encourage people that it really is possible to attain fluency
Thanks for the inspiration bro. I'm gonna try these tips to learn japanese myself. I've been learning for about 4 months but I haven't rly seen much progress (know about 300-800 kanji, but i've been slacking in grammar). But I feel like I'm much more ready to learn it now.
You can learn japanese in 1 year if: you have no family, you have no kids, you have no full time job - and so you can immerse 24/7 using ajaat or something
I like that you promote immersion a lot because it really is super important. I went to school to learn Hawaiian, if not for the fact that I could talk with my friends/teachers I would only be gaining vocab from music or old voice recordings. The main thing I would do after reaching some baseline of speaking proficiency was asking how to spell a word they used, define it (in that language), or write it down to look up later. Studying the vocab itself was largely useless without it ever coming up in conversation. Always start with the words that you are actually going to use first and ignore EVERYTHING ELSE for the time being.
Super perfect timing on this video since I’ve just committed my year to learning Japanese after visiting Japan and absolutely loving it, but being frustrated not being able to communicate. Aiming on taking the JLPT at the end of the year! Love the content. New sub!
The key point is to be persistent when learning Japanese. When I was just starting out, I find kanji to be the easiest part to learn since I am fond of memorizing stuff. Anime also motivated me to keep on absorbing new knowledge each day. As long as an individual builds a solid foundation through the right approach, then he/she can gradually become fluent in a new language over a period of time. All the best to everyone. 😄👍
2:26 as someone who took Japanese in high school, the way we had that set up was the first week (along with beginning to learn to communicate in general) was dedicated to hiragana, and the second week katakana. To learn both, including reading and writing with proper stroke order and combo sounds, shouldn’t take more than a month (not withstanding something like dyslexia)
Dude... talk about a motivational video. I'm still very new, like Duolingo new and this was exactly what I needed to see. I haven't been passionate about really anything in a long time but learning a language has been surprisingly fun. I know my pronunciation is probably horrible but the fact that I can even say the words and sentences I do know roughly is such a good feeling. I've never been good at learning especially in school but now that I'm doing it on my own time willingly I've found a passion for that, so I don't think I'm gonna have a issue on the commitment side of learning the language. My biggest hurdle is gonna be when I hit the full immersion stage, I have really bad social anxiety and don't do good talking to people even in my own language so that's gonna be something that's gonna be more trying. Sitting in my room learning and watching anime will be no issue though.
I think for me personally the last tip - to commit - is the most important advice that i had to hear. Because my interest in Japanese is quite light compared to, for example, Korean that i have achieved a speaking level after learning for 3 years and still counting. So i didn't have time to think that i actually gotta commit to Japanese if i really want to learn it. Thank you for this video and i will go think about how i want my Japanese journey to look like
man i feel so demotivated whenever i see "guy learns to N1 level in just 8 months!" type of stuff. also makes me want to rush the learning process and makes me feel like i am never doing enough. eventually i burn out and quit. happened like 4 times now. go strong for 4-6 months and just burn myself out trying to do as much as possible.
It seems to me that most people who make such claims are not 100% truthful and honest about their starting point. My advice would be: learn at your own pace.
Thank you so much for the references! I’m still in phase 1 but I was struggling to figure out how to come across native Japanese speakers without seeming like a complete weirdo. Thank you so much!
Thanks for all the tips! As a full time working dude with a family 1 year is as good as impossible for me. But I'm happy I finally commited myself to learn japanese. It's been a lifelong dream of mine, and last summer I actually made japanese a daily habit of my life. On good days I invest 2h a day, but 15min is my absolut minimum. The first try to learn it was 2010.. I was young and had the time. But lacked the Conviction to really want it. 😄
Isnt it wrong to say you learned Japanese in a year when you have been studying for many years yet went hard core in one year ...? It not like it was 0 from 100
Great video Eric! I'm blown away by the quality of the content you guys put out on this channel. I love the tip that you gave about making sure to get speaking practice in in addition to immersion. I'd definitely practice speaking more if I could redo my journey too.
Learning the grammar is relatively easy learning hiragana and katakana is very easy i cant say the same for kanji but ive managed altogether i like seeing how different people explore our language and learn in the best way they can keep up the good work
for example, if I watched this vid just a year ago, i would have not been able to understand anything due to your fluency in english despite the fact i really know english. But I bought a vr headset and spent all of my days with natives englishes and that can sound kind of weird but I usually talk to myself in english (Im french) so I gained much more fluency. Im prolly going to do this for Japanese. Anyways thanks for the video
These apply to every language as well! Did this with Spanish which was super easy due to coworkers speaking it, recommending me dramas and movies, every show on the planet having a Spanish dub and there being a plethora of textbooks and material.
I so agree with your points and moving from the beginner stage. I noticed with Japanese, unlike other languages, that one beginner grammar point opens so many other beginner grammar points - small ones, and it is so easy to go in circles and fall into some kind of Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole where you repeat the same beginner material when you feel like you are forgetting something slightly - you never progress.
I’m a bit confused. You’ve been learning Japanese for well over 2-3 years. You have videos dating back 2 years ago to 3 where you are still studying japanese. It just makes it hard for me to believe you did everything in 1 year and passed N1. I studied very hard myself as well and I think passing N1 in one year even with your methods would prove impossible. It’s just me. But as always great content 👍🏻
By the time I made the video I had already passed 2-3 years ago. I also had the opportunity to live in the country for 4-6 months and was living in Japanese all day + grinding anki for 2 hours per day. It would be hard to not pass imo. That being said my Japanese wasn't perfect, I could communicate no problem with anyone, read novels, and function. But far from Native after 1 year. I guessed many questions, many words I didn't know, and made many mistakes. But I also interviewed the doth + harry who passed under 1 year and got near perfect scores. So it's not impossible if you set it as a goal
Watching anime in Japanese with Japanese subtitles is really effective to immerse your self in Japanese. Recently, I'm learning English with anime I've ever watched like DragonBall, Pokémon and Naruto and I realized there're lots of modification even in serious situations haha
Great tips. That ‘Japanese’ dictionary app you recommended is amazing. It has greatly sped up my study flow. I used romajidesu up until now.. it’s outdated and slow comparison. Have you guys made a video about what keyboard to use a smartphone? I use Romaji on iPhone right now, but it makes me wonder if I should switch to the full Japanese keyboard based on your recommendation to switch all your devices to Japanese. Thanks again for the tips. This video has inspired me to fully commit to learning Japanese!
This is good content. I will use these tips in my language learning. Something to note: You are speaking unnecessarily fast and slurring some of your words. I am a native English speaker and this really stood out to me. Also, the music is too loud at several points which is competing with what you are saying. You may want to consider these points for the future, especially since the content you are offering is about language learning (and communicating) and is valuable.
The video and the way it’s explained is the best.. But can you share with us whats your daily/weekly learning schedule for japanese? Like the apps or books you use and how you apply it?
This is overall a great video and I respect what Eric/KoreKara created and have done with the podcast and it's cool to see a return, that said, I'm gonna pushback on something that I think has been a toxic part of the language learning community (especially in the Japanese learning community, *in my opinion*) and that I wish would be left behind or more critically dissected. And that's to "give up the timeline (to fluency)". I get it, it's necessary clickbait (how else could you structure this sort of video), but the sea of "In under a year/fluent in X months" videos have done nothing but set the wrong expectations about what the language leaning journey and experience is. And I'm speaking as someone who is trying to do this as fast as possible myself lol (I'm on N3-level content after 8 months, and aiming for this December's N1 -or N2 if I don't feel ready when sign-ups open in August lol-). Even the people that KoreKara have interviewed, some have been learning for over 5-10 years! From watching all these videos the only thing that has ever mattered is pushing your limits and near-daily consistency, everything else is noise. Showing up every day to do the work is already hard enough, remove the pressure of the "fluent in only X year(s)/months" timeline. I'm definitely not trying to say it's an impossible feat at all or that you shouldn't set high standards. But "fluency" has such a nebulous definition already and you can make the perfect plan, but life happens and things can get in the way. I mean, this channel itself literally went on an almost 2 year hiatus lol. Again, that's my only gripe with this video I don't want to sound like I'm trying to rip it apart. I'm also not trying to say that Eric is setting up bad expectations here btw! Encouraging early output is refreshing to see when the old AJATT thinking was "NEVER OUTPUT UNLESS YOU'RE PERFECT", which is just categorically wrong. And "immersion is training for a fight, while speaking (outputting) is like being in an actual fight" is an excellent analogy.
Yeah I agree with you, thank you for your comment. The idea with setting a time-bound goal is to help motivate people to step up their Japanese game, but of course at the end of the day truly learning a language to near native fluency is likely going to take a decade or a lifetime. That being said I think N1 in 1 year is definitely doable in a year if that's the goal from the beginning and having N1 opens up a lot of doors, like being able to move to Japan. A handful of people that I interviewed have reached that level in 1 year (like the Doth or Harry) Functional fluency in 1 year is also doable in my opinion especially if you have the opportunity to be in a Japanese environment. It's obviously harder if you're outside the country but when I was in Japan I saw plenty of study abroad students get to full fluency after just 1 year in Japan immersing in Japanese non stop. (Functional fluency meaning 0 problems in the country, will never get lost in any situation, can communicate any idea and understand most things) I definitely think you should take breaks if life gets in the way, nothing wrong with that. But if someone is trying to get fluent as fast as possible taking breaks in the beginning really makes the whole process slower since you might have to go back and re-learn words concepts. But once you get to a certain threshold of fluency taking breaks is a lot more manageable since you already have "acquired" the language to a certain extent. The same way how a beginner lifter might have to hit the gym multiple times a week for multiple years to build up a base, but once they build up a base it only takes 1 day per week to maintain that muscle mass.
Could you please recommend some RUclips channels! I consume so much RUclips but have a hard time finding similar channels to my interests. Japanese RUclips is such a different place haha. I’m looking for video essays on economics, game analysis, and pop culture ✨
Great advice imo. And really great job on music choice and timing. Editing was enjoyable. I got flashbacks watching the part about using the language before you are fluent. I too would recommend this. I've been living in japan for half a year and at least once a month i embarrass myself heaps and i can always laugh about it although it can be a bit traumatizing. Know i think of using the language is the same as trying to sell something to someone, the more failures you have the closer you are to success.(a sale or in language - fluency or something near it). This and learning to say that you don't understand and ask someone to repeat themselves (politely ofc), if that fails learn to ask for the meaning or similar words. When you get into this pattern you are truly learning on the spot and just as he says - your brain will do whatever it takes to remember what is being said in order to avoid embarrassment in the future. Currently my hairstylist and i speak for an hour straight and he almost knows zero english so it's always a bit nerve-racking knowing that i will be expected to use japanese for an hour straight even when im not in the mood to struggle, but most often we both end up having some good laughs and it goes better than expected.
I gotta admire your determination. Inspires me. As an older learner whose closest connection to anime is my 24 yo grandson, where should I look other than youtube for Japanese content to watch? That I might be able to comprehend? I'm thinking of watching sumo matches in Japanese but I don't think they have subtitles. Or watch Japanese singers perhaps as I like the Enka music.
I like this video so much. If you don't mind, I would like to ask your permission to share this video to the other website in China for the embarrassing reason that RUclips is blocked fromac cessing in China. Of course, I will give sources of the original website. Thank you very much.
I’m kinda stuck in the endgame where I have enough vocabulary to have a conversation and I know enough to understand everything I need to whenever I watch a drama or an anime in full Japanese, but I don’t have anyone to practice with consistently and nobody to net enough focus to expand my vocabulary vastly enough to reach past business level. I could be consistent on my flashcards, but it’s weird because you don’t want to farm flashcards all the time and just want to learn words you know you’ll actually use organically.
my problem is 1.that I am 14 witch means I'm always with my family so I can't do any type of call so I have to find another way 2. english is my 2nd language and I'm translating from Japanese to english mostly witch noticeably slows me 3.I can't just figure out how to use anki and those card stuff
I have been learning for 6 weeks. I learnt Hiragana and Katakana within 2 weeks. I'm going to classes and finding remembering vocabulary really hard. I don't have the best memory in general, so I'm concerned I'll never be able to do it well.
I hope you guys have not forgotten how to smash the like button
You should check out the Japanese language learning video games in development. Wagotabi, Shujinkou, Nihongo Quest N5, and Koe.
:v
Good job on the move to Skool, big things coming up for that platform
Depending on ur definition
My strategy for my alter-ego would be: " Have no family, have no job, have no life, have no duties....and have an infinite amount of time and talent"
Don't agree, i have all those things and i can still sneak in half an hour every day. I just don't waste too much of my time watching tv or playing games. Plus if it's something you love doing then you'll find time for it
But you do have time to watch a video about learning japanese, and I'm sure is not an uncommon occurrence
That is me
I study 10 minutes of an anime in several passes.
1. Japanese audio with English subtitles. ( So you know what's going on. )
2. Japanese audio with NO subtitles. ( Immerse yourself in the sounds and images. )
3. Japanese audio with Japanese subtitles and pause every line to take down the vocabulary and kanji.
I also shadow the speakers and repeat everything they say, exactly as they say it. ( Get the pitch accent too. )
4. Load everything you copied in step 3 into Anki and study it.
5. Re-watch the anime in Japanese with the Japanese subtitles. ( You will understand everything this time. )
Shadow the anime line for line. ( I put my mouse next to my chair and pause frequently so I can have time to repeat everything. )
6. When you finish the anime, come back and re-watch it every other week with shadowing.
You will get bored with the anime, but you will own every line 100% .
Input only works if it is comprehensible input. When your mind recognizes that it has some memory of a word or phrase, you know it immediately and get excited.
After a few months, you will have learned hours of natural Japanese dialogue.
where do you watch with japanese subs?
@@fightthisfreezeNetflix has them
@@fightthisfreeze animelon is a good site
@@admirll2601 i was wondering if there's any site like this but for novels. having the raw and translated lines together would be great.
Native Japanese here, your high speed speaking is a real challenge for me, but I should be stepping out of my comfort zone as an English learner lol
I’m trying to refine my English and balanced it with my Spanish, I’m starting to learn Japanese
@kei3363 こんにちは
Don’t feel bad. He is not only speaking extremely fast but he is slurring some of his words. Most people do not talk this way in real life.
no worries mate, he is speaking faster than most and not the clearest but of course it is easy for me to understand as a native english speaker. Most people, by far, speak slower. Keep at it, it only takes time. Btw your english writing is great.
@kristinlowther6260
That's not true. Most people do talk this way in real life.
THANK YOU! A child doesn't learn a language by reading or writing at first, that comes after 5 or 6 years, but I see many videos pushing for it which I disagree on. I learned english by listening and speaking bits at times. Took me a good 8 years I kid you not to be fluent and be able to translate and interpret 😊 Now at 54 I am on the quest to learn Japanese but at my own pace and no pressure. I appreciate you clarifying this point😊 Cheers from Panamá 😊
I actually have heard to not try to speak for a full year. Only listen. After that, start reading.
N1 in a year is amazing. Thanks for the inspiration!🙏🏾📿
It's also impossible, even native Japanese people don't reach N1 for over a decade.
@@wrathofcorn No...but learning N1 in a year probably assumes some background and that sort of thing. However N1 test can be studied for. But no, you don't need 10 years...hard ass work you can do (with efficient study methods,,none of that text book rubbish)...this guy is right....dive straight into listening on RUclips of proper stuff, learn words from there in context....forget flash cards, memorizing etc is all slow and ineffective...
@@TheStrataminor OK, so if you've already been studying for a number of years, you can reach N1 in one additional year. That I can agree with lmao. If you want a realistic idea of language learning goals as well as much more thought out tips, I'd recommend Steve Kaufmann. If you're learning Japanese with zero prior knowledge, don't beat yourself up by comparing yourself to someone lying about being able to reach N1 in a year. It's an impossible goal that will only ever be uttered by snake oil salesmen.
@@TheStrataminorFlashcards are neither slow nor ineffective.
@wrathofcorn Does the belief that learning Japanese is extremely difficult serve you? Which belief do you think will be more conducive to getting fluent in the language? N1 is an extremely low level for a Japanese person, a middle schooler could pass it drunk
I’m in my third month studying Japanese. I’m a 75 year old retired educator…determined to learn the language as a mental challenge. My wife and I will visit Japan this summer. Using Italki tutor.. lesson 3 Genki… lots of other apps. I can read hiragana and katakana, but I can’t write it. IS IT NECESSARY FOR ME TO BE ABLE TO WRITE THE KANA? It is a challenge to learn all of the new vocabulary, and to wean off of romagi. I’m also trying to use Japanese readers, and I am looking into the Satori reader. Thank you for the video…. Any suggestions for me will be much appreciated. Best, John
Satory reader it's really good!
Im still using it after a year, it really helps to learn a lot of different vocabulary, ways to speak, express yourself, kanji and so on.
You shouldn't worry about writing kanji unless you find a meaning in doing so.
Just keep doing it and have fun.
That's how I learnt English back then, but well actually japanese it's quite harder but not impossible.
Writing can be fun for personal development, or for memorization techniques. but probably similar to your home country, there's not a lot of times in your daily life you're going to need to be writing things down outside of schooling.
I would say if you're trying to maximize your understanding in a shorter time, don't worry about writing them so much, unless you feel like writing them out helps you memorize them.
I am living in Japan and am in my same conversation and word patterns since a while. So your tips how to break out of them sound really helpful. Hope they will work
I haven't had any fun lately, 😭 so it was fun. You bring me joy!❤🙂I love the kind and generous heartwarming atmosphere that you create, your kind, easygoing, warm vibe. ❤
This might be the absolute best advice I’ve ever heard for learning Japanese, and frankly, in my opinion, any language. I’ve been living in Japan for years now, I’ve been stuck at an intermediate level forever and I didn’t quite know how to punch myself up to the next level. That last third of the video is perfect advice. I showed it to some friends fluent in both languages and they enthusiastically approved. I will be fluent in kanji reading in a year thanks to you.
Hey man how's your progress going?
Nice video man. I started learning via textbooks in 2022, did Genki 1 and 2 but then gave up due to other commitments after 3-4 months. I started again in January this year, however going down the full immersion route. So far I have done 5+ hours of intensive immersion per day and have been mining sentences for grammar/vocab. I feel like I have made 10x as much progress from this method, however, the early grammar from the textbooks definitely gave me a good head start. Keep up the videos and godspeed to you.
Going to do homestay is such a great opportunity. There is a huge difference between that and going to a meet-up. Most Japanese people at meet-ups want to speak English and youre not using Japanese out of necessesity or seeing them use Japanese in a variety of situations. You really need to be in an environment where you are forced to use Japanese all day everyday, not making yourself study, but just incidentally as part of your everyday life out of necessity and seeing other natives using it in normal everyday situations. Except for homestay, there are not many other chances to be in that situation.
Glad to see you guys back. Missed you ❤
Thank you!!
Haven't seen you for a long time, it's great to see that it was for good reasons it seems, welcome back here 😊
Great video. Thank you for this. The last thing you mentioned about being committed is the hardest action for someone learning Japanese. 頑張れます
I…just randomly out of the blue decided to check this channel again as I was looking for listening practice material, figuring there wouldn’t be anything new since the last upload was a year ago.
But surprisingly I see “Uploaded 3 hours ago”. That timing is craaazy. It’s early in the morning and I have a test later so I’ll have to watch this later but just wanted to say welcome back! 🎉 I missed this channel
That's crazy
This is really good advice.
I think the notion of working on domain comprehension (mentioned during the game plan part of the video) is something that most people are not even aware of, and is severely underrated in general. It's a shame it was only mentioned in passing. Another thing that I wish you would've elaborated on is the mindset shift. That section was so short you'd moved on to the next before I even quite understood what the simple action actually entailed. For example, what do you really mean when you say ‘actually commit’?
I personally don't think it's a good idea to make a flashcard of every single word you come across that you don't know, but on the whole, this is arguably the best video on learning Japanese (and probably any language in general, since it's basically the same process) that I have seen. Great job!
I've been grinding japanese for 2-3 weeks from 0. ajatting 90% for a week. Game Gengo, Khatz and this KoreKara keep me going. ♥️ I don't recommend ajatting from scratch. Just learn hiragana and katakana, then learn grammar and sentence structure. While you're learning those two things, you're gonna pick up vocab naturally.
Most important tip: DON'T DO THINGS THAT FEEL LIKE A CHORE! Always make it fun, otherwise you're not gonna remember anything important.
I literally just finished playing re4 remake in japanese and that was fun af even though I didn't understand 95% of it. That means 5% I understood and I'm proud of that.
Don't give up. If my dumba** can do it, so can you.
my man
So be fair, the re4 remake has a lot of super post n1 biblical terms
Unless you’ve seen that stuff in something else, I wouldn’t feel bad about not understanding a lot of it, especially all the writings.
I just finished it myself in Japanese and there was stuff I didn’t remember the reading of but I used kanji to cheat 😅
Renshuu is a great app to learn hiragana and katakana
Honestly you could and probably should make a whole vid on a change of mindset, it’s applicable not just to Japanese (surely) but there are so many people who are frustrated and on the verge of/have given up and I think it would really encourage people that it really is possible to attain fluency
Thank you for this clear and succint advise. Much appreciated!
I feel like I’ve seen this somewhere…. 😂
Also, congrats on the release!
😂 You are an inspiration man. Thanks for all the help :D
welcome back
You're the last person I excepted here, I used to watch your DDLC videos years ago.
Thanks for watching and supporting over the years :)
@@icehound6763 same XD
おかえり
Thanks for the inspiration bro. I'm gonna try these tips to learn japanese myself. I've been learning for about 4 months but I haven't rly seen much progress (know about 300-800 kanji, but i've been slacking in grammar). But I feel like I'm much more ready to learn it now.
Good to see you back man! Very useful video!
thanks for watching!!
Glad your back! 😊
good to be back :)
You can learn japanese in 1 year if: you have no family, you have no kids, you have no full time job - and so you can immerse 24/7 using ajaat or something
I like that you promote immersion a lot because it really is super important. I went to school to learn Hawaiian, if not for the fact that I could talk with my friends/teachers I would only be gaining vocab from music or old voice recordings. The main thing I would do after reaching some baseline of speaking proficiency was asking how to spell a word they used, define it (in that language), or write it down to look up later. Studying the vocab itself was largely useless without it ever coming up in conversation. Always start with the words that you are actually going to use first and ignore EVERYTHING ELSE for the time being.
I'm a Japanese and English grammar is hard for me, thank you for learning our language!!
Super perfect timing on this video since I’ve just committed my year to learning Japanese after visiting Japan and absolutely loving it, but being frustrated not being able to communicate.
Aiming on taking the JLPT at the end of the year! Love the content. New sub!
Let's go!! You can do it
@@KoreKaraPodcast Appreciate it dude! Much love 🤟
Thanks for getting straight to the point!
The key point is to be persistent when learning Japanese. When I was just starting out, I find kanji to be the easiest part to learn since I am fond of memorizing stuff. Anime also motivated me to keep on absorbing new knowledge each day.
As long as an individual builds a solid foundation through the right approach, then he/she can gradually become fluent in a new language over a period of time. All the best to everyone. 😄👍
2:26 as someone who took Japanese in high school, the way we had that set up was the first week (along with beginning to learn to communicate in general) was dedicated to hiragana, and the second week katakana. To learn both, including reading and writing with proper stroke order and combo sounds, shouldn’t take more than a month (not withstanding something like dyslexia)
Thank you!
Great video. So clear. Thanks!
Dude... talk about a motivational video. I'm still very new, like Duolingo new and this was exactly what I needed to see. I haven't been passionate about really anything in a long time but learning a language has been surprisingly fun. I know my pronunciation is probably horrible but the fact that I can even say the words and sentences I do know roughly is such a good feeling. I've never been good at learning especially in school but now that I'm doing it on my own time willingly I've found a passion for that, so I don't think I'm gonna have a issue on the commitment side of learning the language. My biggest hurdle is gonna be when I hit the full immersion stage, I have really bad social anxiety and don't do good talking to people even in my own language so that's gonna be something that's gonna be more trying. Sitting in my room learning and watching anime will be no issue though.
I think for me personally the last tip - to commit - is the most important advice that i had to hear. Because my interest in Japanese is quite light compared to, for example, Korean that i have achieved a speaking level after learning for 3 years and still counting. So i didn't have time to think that i actually gotta commit to Japanese if i really want to learn it. Thank you for this video and i will go think about how i want my Japanese journey to look like
Welcome Back!
man i feel so demotivated whenever i see "guy learns to N1 level in just 8 months!" type of stuff. also makes me want to rush the learning process and makes me feel like i am never doing enough. eventually i burn out and quit. happened like 4 times now. go strong for 4-6 months and just burn myself out trying to do as much as possible.
It seems to me that most people who make such claims are not 100% truthful and honest about their starting point. My advice would be: learn at your own pace.
Wait you believe this guy who says he was fluent in one year? 😂
Thank you so much for the references! I’m still in phase 1 but I was struggling to figure out how to come across native Japanese speakers without seeming like a complete weirdo. Thank you so much!
Thanks for all the tips! As a full time working dude with a family 1 year is as good as impossible for me. But I'm happy I finally commited myself to learn japanese. It's been a lifelong dream of mine, and last summer I actually made japanese a daily habit of my life. On good days I invest 2h a day, but 15min is my absolut minimum. The first try to learn it was 2010.. I was young and had the time. But lacked the Conviction to really want it. 😄
Welcome back! Was cool running into you guys in New York at Kinokuniya a few years back
Dan!! That was crazy, thanks for watching :)
"You should always be outside your comfort zone when you are learning".
The meaning of this line is really deep.
Isnt it wrong to say you learned Japanese in a year when you have been studying for many years yet went hard core in one year ...? It not like it was 0 from 100
為になる視点をありがとう！
I ragged you on your other excellent channel for abandoning us here, now I will praise you for returning to us よくできました！ 👍🙇♂🙏
Ahaha thanks for supporting nevertheless
Great video, thank you!
Great video Eric! I'm blown away by the quality of the content you guys put out on this channel.
I love the tip that you gave about making sure to get speaking practice in in addition to immersion. I'd definitely practice speaking more if I could redo my journey too.
thanks Ben!!
This is the video I needed to watch! It is so straight to the point and extremely honest :) Thank you so much :)
glad you found it useful :)
Great to see you're back. Loved the video :)
Glad you enjoyed it!
Really great video thank u
Learning the grammar is relatively easy learning hiragana and katakana is very easy i cant say the same for kanji but ive managed altogether i like seeing how different people explore our language and learn in the best way they can keep up the good work
Welcome back Eric!
Thanks mally 🥹
@@KoreKaraPodcast Anytime!
Thank you for such good advice🤝
60 days in a row, but Anki only... yet 💪
great video man, this definitely has given me some good insights on my own Japanese journey, thanks for sharing!
Glad you enjoyed it!
for example, if I watched this vid just a year ago, i would have not been able to understand anything due to your fluency in english despite the fact i really know english. But I bought a vr headset and spent all of my days with natives englishes and that can sound kind of weird but I usually talk to myself in english (Im french) so I gained much more fluency. Im prolly going to do this for Japanese. Anyways thanks for the video
your videos are really inspiring
thank you so much
hey higuchi :)
@@hitsujihonyaku hehe
These apply to every language as well! Did this with Spanish which was super easy due to coworkers speaking it, recommending me dramas and movies, every show on the planet having a Spanish dub and there being a plethora of textbooks and material.
How are spanish dubs? This reminds me that there's a company emailing me every month telling me they want to dub the KoreKara Podcast into Spanish 😂
I so agree with your points and moving from the beginner stage. I noticed with Japanese, unlike other languages, that one beginner grammar point opens so many other beginner grammar points - small ones, and it is so easy to go in circles and fall into some kind of Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole where you repeat the same beginner material when you feel like you are forgetting something slightly - you never progress.
Looking for a video like this for about two weeks now, thanks!
Great video
My goal for this year is to get a 90% mark on the jlpt n4
I’m a bit confused. You’ve been learning Japanese for well over 2-3 years. You have videos dating back 2 years ago to 3 where you are still studying japanese. It just makes it hard for me to believe you did everything in 1 year and passed N1. I studied very hard myself as well and I think passing N1 in one year even with your methods would prove impossible. It’s just me. But as always great content 👍🏻
By the time I made the video I had already passed 2-3 years ago. I also had the opportunity to live in the country for 4-6 months and was living in Japanese all day + grinding anki for 2 hours per day. It would be hard to not pass imo. That being said my Japanese wasn't perfect, I could communicate no problem with anyone, read novels, and function. But far from Native after 1 year. I guessed many questions, many words I didn't know, and made many mistakes.
But I also interviewed the doth + harry who passed under 1 year and got near perfect scores. So it's not impossible if you set it as a goal
Bro got asian blood
RESPECT 🎉
Nothing hard to believe he’s not the only one to get to n1 within a year
@@treebush that's so fire bro
Fully immersed
Just started this Journey ! Hopefully it gets good from here ! Thanks for your content ! I been enjoying
Yooo the return of KoreKara!!
Watching anime in Japanese with Japanese subtitles is really effective to immerse your self in Japanese. Recently, I'm learning English with anime I've ever watched like DragonBall, Pokémon and Naruto and I realized there're lots of modification even in serious situations haha
Great tips. That ‘Japanese’ dictionary app you recommended is amazing. It has greatly sped up my study flow. I used romajidesu up until now.. it’s outdated and slow comparison.
Have you guys made a video about what keyboard to use a smartphone? I use Romaji on iPhone right now, but it makes me wonder if I should switch to the full Japanese keyboard based on your recommendation to switch all your devices to Japanese.
Thanks again for the tips. This video has inspired me to fully commit to learning Japanese!
久しぶりですね
3:13 that's why I watch my childhood show. Because I don't wanna waste my story understanding, as in the beginning, I won't understand everything.
wow you're back .
one hug
🤝
This is good content. I will use these tips in my language learning. Something to note: You are speaking unnecessarily fast and slurring some of your words. I am a native English speaker and this really stood out to me. Also, the music is too loud at several points which is competing with what you are saying. You may want to consider these points for the future, especially since the content you are offering is about language learning (and communicating) and is valuable.
Im glad my counselor knows Japanese and once went to japan 😂 she gives me small Japanese lessons sometimes
Bro WELCOME BACK!!!!
let's get it!!
The video and the way it’s explained is the best.. But can you share with us whats your daily/weekly learning schedule for japanese? Like the apps or books you use and how you apply it?
He’s back
Yesssir
algorithm hit me, trying to learn korean here lol but i think i can implement how you learned Japanese to how i should start learning korean
This is overall a great video and I respect what Eric/KoreKara created and have done with the podcast and it's cool to see a return, that said, I'm gonna pushback on something that I think has been a toxic part of the language learning community (especially in the Japanese learning community, *in my opinion*) and that I wish would be left behind or more critically dissected. And that's to "give up the timeline (to fluency)". I get it, it's necessary clickbait (how else could you structure this sort of video), but the sea of "In under a year/fluent in X months" videos have done nothing but set the wrong expectations about what the language leaning journey and experience is. And I'm speaking as someone who is trying to do this as fast as possible myself lol (I'm on N3-level content after 8 months, and aiming for this December's N1 -or N2 if I don't feel ready when sign-ups open in August lol-). Even the people that KoreKara have interviewed, some have been learning for over 5-10 years! From watching all these videos the only thing that has ever mattered is pushing your limits and near-daily consistency, everything else is noise. Showing up every day to do the work is already hard enough, remove the pressure of the "fluent in only X year(s)/months" timeline. I'm definitely not trying to say it's an impossible feat at all or that you shouldn't set high standards. But "fluency" has such a nebulous definition already and you can make the perfect plan, but life happens and things can get in the way. I mean, this channel itself literally went on an almost 2 year hiatus lol. Again, that's my only gripe with this video I don't want to sound like I'm trying to rip it apart. I'm also not trying to say that Eric is setting up bad expectations here btw! Encouraging early output is refreshing to see when the old AJATT thinking was "NEVER OUTPUT UNLESS YOU'RE PERFECT", which is just categorically wrong. And "immersion is training for a fight, while speaking (outputting) is like being in an actual fight" is an excellent analogy.
Yeah I agree with you, thank you for your comment. The idea with setting a time-bound goal is to help motivate people to step up their Japanese game, but of course at the end of the day truly learning a language to near native fluency is likely going to take a decade or a lifetime.
That being said I think N1 in 1 year is definitely doable in a year if that's the goal from the beginning and having N1 opens up a lot of doors, like being able to move to Japan. A handful of people that I interviewed have reached that level in 1 year (like the Doth or Harry)
Functional fluency in 1 year is also doable in my opinion especially if you have the opportunity to be in a Japanese environment. It's obviously harder if you're outside the country but when I was in Japan I saw plenty of study abroad students get to full fluency after just 1 year in Japan immersing in Japanese non stop. (Functional fluency meaning 0 problems in the country, will never get lost in any situation, can communicate any idea and understand most things)
I definitely think you should take breaks if life gets in the way, nothing wrong with that. But if someone is trying to get fluent as fast as possible taking breaks in the beginning really makes the whole process slower since you might have to go back and re-learn words concepts. But once you get to a certain threshold of fluency taking breaks is a lot more manageable since you already have "acquired" the language to a certain extent. The same way how a beginner lifter might have to hit the gym multiple times a week for multiple years to build up a base, but once they build up a base it only takes 1 day per week to maintain that muscle mass.
Could you please recommend some RUclips channels! I consume so much RUclips but have a hard time finding similar channels to my interests.
Japanese RUclips is such a different place haha. I’m looking for video essays on economics, game analysis, and pop culture ✨
Really nice Tips btw whats the name of the song in the end scene
Great advice imo. And really great job on music choice and timing. Editing was enjoyable.
I got flashbacks watching the part about using the language before you are fluent. I too would recommend this. I've been living in japan for half a year and at least once a month i embarrass myself heaps and i can always laugh about it although it can be a bit traumatizing.
Know i think of using the language is the same as trying to sell something to someone, the more failures you have the closer you are to success.(a sale or in language - fluency or something near it). This and learning to say that you don't understand and ask someone to repeat themselves (politely ofc), if that fails learn to ask for the meaning or similar words. When you get into this pattern you are truly learning on the spot and just as he says - your brain will do whatever it takes to remember what is being said in order to avoid embarrassment in the future.
Currently my hairstylist and i speak for an hour straight and he almost knows zero english so it's always a bit nerve-racking knowing that i will be expected to use japanese for an hour straight even when im not in the mood to struggle, but most often we both end up having some good laughs and it goes better than expected.
I gotta admire your determination. Inspires me. As an older learner whose closest connection to anime is my 24 yo grandson, where should I look other than youtube for Japanese content to watch? That I might be able to comprehend? I'm thinking of watching sumo matches in Japanese but I don't think they have subtitles. Or watch Japanese singers perhaps as I like the Enka music.
I like this video so much. If you don't mind, I would like to ask your permission to share this video to the other website in China for the embarrassing reason that RUclips is blocked fromac cessing in China. Of course, I will give sources of the original website. Thank you very much.
THANK YOU SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH
Glad it was helpful!
The GOATs back
Thanks for watching!!
Good video!
Thanks man!
3:30 Fun Fact: the Genki series includes 1,700 vocabulary terms (and 323 Kanji)
Me casually learning Japanese with the hope that I could hopefully finish it in 2-3 years
I’m kinda stuck in the endgame where I have enough vocabulary to have a conversation and I know enough to understand everything I need to whenever I watch a drama or an anime in full Japanese, but I don’t have anyone to practice with consistently and nobody to net enough focus to expand my vocabulary vastly enough to reach past business level. I could be consistent on my flashcards, but it’s weird because you don’t want to farm flashcards all the time and just want to learn words you know you’ll actually use organically.
RETURN OF THE KING
JJK kaisen in thumbnail 🔥
I learned basic Japanese from jjk ❤️
Regarding Anki card structure who puts only kanji on the front, and who does both kana and kanji on the front?
bro i can feel my brain growing by the second
😂
my problem is 1.that I am 14 witch means I'm always with my family so I can't do any type of call so I have to find another way
2. english is my 2nd language and I'm translating from Japanese to english mostly witch noticeably slows me
3.I can't just figure out how to use anki and those card stuff
I have been learning for 6 weeks. I learnt Hiragana and Katakana within 2 weeks. I'm going to classes and finding remembering vocabulary really hard. I don't have the best memory in general, so I'm concerned I'll never be able to do it well.
Genki was terrible for me...Japanese textbooks with no English helped me a lot more
Any advice for learning Japanese specifically for understanding JAV? I have intermediate Mandarin proficiency as well.
watch more
YOO ma Boi mr.rey rey just Uploaded a hella succulent video, leuuuz goo🙏🙇♂
Yooo thanks for watching Ritchie!! Let's get ittt
LET’S GOOOO!
日本語学習頑張ってますね！
日本人ですが、すべての漢字を読み書きできるわけではありません！😅
よく使う漢字の読み書きができれば大丈夫ですよ。
日本で会えたら良いですね♪頑張ってください😊
Please share the list of books that can be used. Thank you.
言語の基本は音声ですから、英語でも日本語でも音声言語から学ぶべきです。そしてネイティブの音声を聞いて真似る学習を優先すべきです。
フィードバックを使い、改善を続ける事が言語学習では最も大事な事です。上達が実感できないと学習意欲が保持できないからです。
文字の言語はその音声を2次的利用しているに過ぎません。