Is switching my phone to Japanese a good idea for learning?

19 comments

1. Absolutely! …. once you know enough kanji and vocab to comfortably navigate your phone’s settings and system menu, and read any notifications your phone shows you (especially ones related to updates, storage space, errors, etc).

2. I doubt it. Learn something fun instead of something that will just inconvenience you.

3. I have seen people who benefited from it, but personally, I like my phone in the language I am most used to [English] because I want using it to be as brainless as it can be.

4. Absolutely! That’s what I’ve been doing for many years now and to me it was definitely a positive and beneficial decision.

   The only downside is that while you can learn the meaning of a lot of kanji this way, unfortunately this won’t teach you the readings, so you have to put the extra effort in yourself to look them up in a dictionary. Or, if your phone has a screen reading accessibility feature, you can make use of that, too. If you’re using an iPhone I can show you my settings for it, so that only pops up when I want it to.

5. I started doing it off and on since if I don’t, apple music tries to translate the titles of Japanese songs, which I hate.

   I don’t like it when it comes to trying to navigate through features I rarely use since I never remember what the Japanese means. Main reason I don’t think I’ll ever buy a Sony camera (current Nikon user) in Japan since as far as I know, it doesn’t have an option to switch language and I’m not interested in having to memorize all those Japanese technical terms which are confusing enough in English.

6. For me thats not helping, been using my phone in japanese for 4 years for the same reason, and i barely understand anything written there, i just know from memory what should be clicked.

7. As long as you know how to switch it back to English if/when you need to, sure, why not? The only real trouble at first IMO is push notifications/warnings that you can’t read on the spot, but I just took a screenshot of those to look at them/study them more closely later (when I had time). Now my Japanese is at a level that I doubt I’ll ever feel a “need” to switch it back to English

8. No

9. i did it and i didnt like it

   idk, maybe for languages without kanji its worth it, but having hundreds of kanjis everytime i need to do anything in my phone isnt really helpful, too much input and almost none is comprehenseble

10. I tried doing this but I use my phone to send work emails and it would append Japanese characters in different places without me knowing. Caused a lot of confusion at work.

11. I do this

    Often idk if it helps me *learn* but rather reinforces what I already know. So I need to learn the words with Anki or something, but using my phone in Japanese allows me to constantly stay exposed to these words (well, some of them at least)

    Just be aware of differences in vocabulary, for example, often you’ll see 送信 for to send, not 送る

12. If you pay attention to what’s on your screen, yes!

13. I assure you, yes. I might be daunting at the very first time, but it’s the first step, like how I learned English.

14. I did this and then now I switch the language to English to learn more English. I think it’s more a thing for familiarizing words related to IT and UI, which is very important nowadays. I felt it did help a lot. A drawback is that when you encounter technical issues, it’s hard to search for solutions if you’re not using English.

15. Using voice to text on a Japanese keyboard has helped me learn more kanji than I ever did using flashcards, or something like that. I like to say the sentence, and then read it back in my head to make sure I understand each part. I’m not confident enough to change my phone settings for fear I’ll end up stuck and not be able to figure out how to change it back to English lol

16. Try it and find out.

17. Yesss!!!! For the asthetically pleasing!!! I’ve always had my smartphones in Japanese, I feel that the kanji makes everything stand out a lot faster and easier. I’ve had iPhone and Android (current) and tbh I will never want to change it to the other two languages I know simply because my eyes have gotten used to looking for the specific kanji or katakana. I learned a lot more kanji this way, not really how to pronounce it but more like how to recognise it. Same with my laptop, I’ve had it in Japanese ever since the system could let you change it without having to buy it outside of the country. It’s also a major plus when you have nosy people want to use your phone only to find out they can’t navigate it. Sucks for them.

18. Yes I absolsutely recommend it! I did that for Spanish and it has helped immensely. The thing about language is that you must be constantly practicing.

19. Personally, I would probably disagree with many. But if you enjoy it to begin with, I see no reason to ask. Just do what you enjoy?

    That aside, immersion learning is great and I always suggest it. But you also need to do it at your level, switching your phone to Japanese will not benefit you if you’re not able to read anything to begin with. All you’re going to do is struggle to use your phone. Maybe you’ll memorize where things are, but will you actually be reading anything? Or just mindlessly clicking on the application/setting location that you memorized?

    It’s like having someone with little experience in Japanese and suggesting they listen to a podcasts in Japanese, or watching movies/TV shows with no subtitles. There is little benefit to it since they can’t comprehend what is begin said.

    Immersion is great, but do it at a level where your knowledge matches. That’s when you’ll get greater benefit from it.