There’s a video up on YouTube by some guy who claims to have “learned Japanese” in just 2 months. Dude must be really ****ing smart lol. I’ve been at it for over 10 years now, and I’m not close to making a statement like that (and I’m pretty good tbf).
Just makes my blood boil when idiots trivialize the language like that
by Crazy_Researcher6789
16 comments
I did it in 5 min. I just used The Matrix to upload it into my brain. EZ every time.
The click bait around Japanese is massive. You just have to deal with it. Most of those guys incl fake polygons always talk about how they studied rather than demonstrating what they’ve learned. The only time I saw someone actually that, they said boku no syuuumi ha manga Wo yomimass. It’s just how it is :). And it’s always in headlines like “I used manga, listening to news”. Not specific note-taking or reviewing techniques
I don’t get that worked up about it, but the clickbait does get me a bit peeved. Like, when the title says “learned in two months” but the video content says “lived in Japan with Japanese wife for a decade, somehow learning absolutely fuck all until this magic program came along and I used that for two months specifically.” Unless you were some sort of vegetable child to your Japanese wife, the 10 years that’s spent in part with your Japanese wife probably does have a bit to answer for in your abilities.
Surely no one on the internet ever LIES right?
Seriously though there are several probabilities here.
* they’re feeding off of, and downplaying, any past education they had
* they’re not as good as they say they are and are banking on the illusion of fluency to fool you
* this is carefully tailored to make them seem better than they really are.
* or they’re outright lying.
Depends on your needs, learning comes in different flavours. I work in Engineering, if I wanted to get a job in Japan as an Engineer “learning” would be very different for me than someone “learning” enough to visit for a 90 day holiday.
When I started learning I thought of looking for some guides on YouTube and every damn video I found at first was like: ‘STOP wasting your time’ and some guy pointing at a kanji book.
Or ‘FIVE biggest MISTAKES japanese learners make’ and is all just clickbait, they rarely have any substance to them and just want to sell courses.
But the guys who claim to dominate a language in just ‘x’ amount of time are the worst. I feel like they just want to feed their ego or something, not really trying to help anyone out there.
Did he make any caveats or did he just claim he’s a fucking god
What it means to “learn a language” varies so wildly from person to person that it’s not worth getting worked up over. For some, learning a language is just A1, while others might say C2 is the minimum. You also have those that take the “I am 14 and this is deep” stance of “You will never learn a second language because there will always be something you don’t understand / can learn” (in which case I have yet to learn my first language lol).
Just let them be. Maybe A1 is all they wanted out of Japanese in the first place and just wanted to travel Japan a little easier. In that case, they’ve finished learning Japanese. If your goal is to become a lawyer in Japan obviously you’d need to learn a lot more.
The ones I really can’t stand are those that peddle some bogus learning course for crazy amounts of money to people desperate to learn a language without putting the time and/or effort into it. They kinda prey on people’s gullibility, which I find distasteful.
Step 1: Already know kanji/words from Chinese
Step 2: Already have been studying it before
Step 3: Go through Genki 1 & 2 in two months.
There, call it mission accomplished at like N3 level.
I think because Japanese has a pretty large number of people who start learning it, often out of enjoyment for popular media or some other ‘non-practical’ reason, these kinds of ‘get fluent quick’ programs are easy bait. Present that to some bright-eyed kid who likes anime and they’re gonna eat it up like no one’s business. It wouldn’t surprise me if Japanese also has a pretty high quit-rate because of how different it is to English, and these kind of videos and phony subscriptions are just setting people up for disappointment. I don’t think anyone but the most experienced linguists could become anywhere near fluent in any language that quickly, even then it’d require some pretty insane work, but the average person has no chance.
I think the biggest issue is that too many people are putting arbitrary deadlines on things like fluency when that is a life-long accomplishment that you work on for years and years. Even if you could miraculously go from zero to passing N1 in one year, that doesn’t mean you just know everything there is to know. If you need to make some kind of desired ‘achieved fluency’ timeframe then you ought to be looking around the ballpark of ten years, depending on what’s available to you (self-studying part time, attending full-time language education, living in the country, etc).
Ive also studied for 6 years and it doesnt bother me. Trivialize? They didn’t say “how I MASTERED japanese in 2 months”. Not sure what’s wrong about the title. Did you watch the video?
Haven’t seen the video you’re talking about, but these usually end up with the “fluent” speaker walking around talking to strangers saying things like “Nihongo hanasemasu.” “Nihon daisuki.” “Sukina tabemono wa tonkatsu.”
I’ve just started learning Japanese with a tutor once a week and Duolingo, loving it so far!
When do you expect to get to a stage where you can have a conversation with someone?
God, I really hate these “how I learned/mastered Japanese in [inset amount of time]” click bait videos. I’ve been coming across them more and more frequently on YouTube recently and they’re starting to becoming a annoying. Anyone who has studied Japanese even remotely seriously knows full well that ain’t nobody mastering this monster of a language in a measly 6 months to a year. To think otherwise is delusional. Even Chinese and koreans, who linguistically have an easier time with Japanese than westerners, cannot go from zero to full blown fluent in a mere months. I follow Mui Mui, a Chinese speaker, who speaks Japanese far better than the average native and it still took her several years of full on immersion plus a year or 2 on exchange program in Japan before she became completely comfortable with Japanese.
Now let’s look at the westerners that speak Japanese natively: Matt(American), Nick(American, Anaya(American), Steve (Canadian) and Ashiya(Russian) . It took all them 5+ years to become even baseline fluent and over 10 to reach close to native level.
Matt -started at 15 years old
Anaya – started at 13-15
Nick – started before 20
Ashiya – started before 20
Steve – Started in his 70s but could already speak Chinese fluently
Mui Mui – started 14-16
I don’t think even an exceptional Korean can full on master Japanese In a year. All these videos are just click bait.
not sure if im talking about the same dude but i’ve seen this one channel where guy claimed to be “dope at japanese” (his words), had several videos with studying tips etc (no actual grammar lessons) but never actually spoke it, except a word here and there. thankfully his vids don’t make it into my feed anymore.
“How I learned Japanese in 2 months.”
…
“I lied.”