I play games and watch my anime in Japanese. I visit Japanese sites and go to local Japanese stores often. All of the songs I listen to are almost exclusively Japanese. I even do Duolingo on the side, to try and link things together.
It’s gotten me nowhere. At best, I can speak complete jibberish and have it sound eerily like Japanese by replicating the speech patterns and tones of a native speakers, but it’s just mimicry. I’ve listened to some Japanese songs so many times that I can sing along with them accurately, start to finish. But I feel I’m not learning anything.
I’ve been doing this for years. My music playlist has been comprised of Vocaloid and J-Pop stars ever since I was 12. And yet, when I look online for help on how to finally learn this language, all I get are list upon list of “just watch movies, listen to music, read books, exposure exposure exposure”. Okay, but how do you use that to actively learn the language? What do I pair it with so that these webpages go from aesthetic scribbles to actual, understandable, words? Just staring at Japanese reading, just randomly listening to Japanese podcast and songs, in isolation isn’t working.
I’ve tried text buddies. I never understand them. It’s still a jumbled mess when anything more complicated than an introduction becomes the topic. I integrate it into my life, calling things by their Japanese names, counting in Japanese, changing everyone’s names in my contacts list to katakana. None of it sticks.
I want to move past this. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, or why just rubbing your face on Japanese seems to work for everyone else in the world. So how do you use this exposure effectively? How can I turn my favorite songs into a positive learning experience, or climb to a point of bare bones navigation on the Nico Nico site without Google translation? How can I use Dragon Quest 11’s Japanese to bring me closer to my goal of being able to understand more and more, bit by bit?
5 comments
just making sure- you have done other studying besides duolingo,right?
Maybe try books?
If you can’t read books yet you could do a textbook or two and then jump right in.
you have to consume content thats proper for your level, you cant just start at native media. you have to know a lot grammar, words, kanji and also have proper reading and listening skills, because guess what, its content made for natives, people that use this lagnuage since they were born.
Trying to comprehend this stuff whilst not even being a intermediate learner(even at this level most stuff is more looking up words/grammar points instead of actual “pure” comprehending) is the equivalent of trying to benchlift 200kg after starting out in the gym.
Yeah its nice to consume native content(or lift these big numbers),because its stuff you already enjoy in your freetime, but sometimes you have to swallow your pride and go to the “easy” things.
if you consume content at your level(or slighty above) you will encounter just a few unknown things(words,kanji,patterns,grammar) and its easier to grasp them, because you were most likely able to comprehend the full sentence with, it just had a “_____” at the spot of the unknown thing. this helps grasping its “meaning” as you saw how it got used in context.
If your content is way out of reach, you will have like 15 new words, 10 new kanji and 5 new grammar points in a single sentence, so you not only have to learn much more at once, but you would also not be able to comprehend the sentence, you could just guess the “meaning” solely based on the words you just looked up.
Im pretty sure youre going to be able to comprehend native content much faster if you gradually work your way up instead of starting right at the top.
***wall of text incoming***
(note to the OP: Please don’t take this as a personal attack on you or anyone. I’m posting it because I think *a lot* of beginning learners in your position could benefit from hearing it.)
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Here’s a harsh truth: the people who insist that you can learn simply by “immersion” in the sense of bombarding yourself with incomprehensible Japanese are, more or less, full of shit.
I’m firmly convinced that basically 100% of these people fall into one of two categories: (1) people who don’t really know anything about Japanese and are just parroting what they’ve heard even though they’re still beginners themselves, or (2) people who *have* actually studied the language through textbooks/classes/online resources and yet downplay this and pretend it’s not necessary and/or didn’t help them, even though *they themselves did it* before they started or along with “immersing” (e.g. MattvsJapan is infamous for this, insisting that he became fluent entirely through “immersion” despite the fact that he started with traditional learning, which almost *certainly* gave him a basic foundation that made the content he was “immersing” with comprehensible).
(I guess I could include [3] natives or near-natives who acquired the language as children — though, fortunately, very few of these people are naive enough to suggest that adult second-language learners can just do what they did and get the same results)
So what to do? How to actually learn the language?
Read the [Starter’s Guide](https://www.reddit.com/r/LearnJapanese/wiki/index/startersguide/) on this sub, if you haven’t already. If you’re having trouble finding a structured study plan, a basic introductory textbook like Genki is a respected, proven way to actually learn the fundamentals of the language. (aside: there are people who blindly shit on textbooks because they don’t teach you “natural” or “native” Japanese. Well, that’s because textbooks are not designed to make you fluent/native *all by themselves.* They’re designed to teach you the basics so that you can *eventually understand and mimic native Japanese*. If you just try to take in native Japanese without learning the “building blocks” of the language, what happens is…well, exactly what’s happening to you. 99.999999% of it goes over your head and you never really make progress.)
If you’re limited to free, online resources, then you can also find links to those in the Starter’s Guide, though it’s going to require more discipline on your part to find the resources that work for you and use them effectively. (Duolingo is not generally recommended here — and even those people who do recommend it will admit it’s basically only good as a fun/gamified introduction to the language, and is not sufficient to take you to advanced proficiency).
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**TL;DR**: **The people who preach “immersion” without** ***any*** **active studying/learning — i.e. just bombarding yourself with incomprehensible Japanese until one day it all magically makes sense — are selling you snake oil.** The key is learning the fundamentals of the language (grammar, sentence structure, vocabulary, etc.) and *then* reinforcing/expanding this knowledge by exposure to native Japanese *that is partially/mostly comprehensible to you*.
You can’t just start at the end and shortcut the process. Fortunately, you’re not the first one trying to do this and there are good resources out there to help you on the way.
(*edited for clarity)*
I feel like input has helped me a lot. But I don’t just sit there and listen to japanese. I take *every* sentence I see, and do the investigation needed to understand it. Looking up words with yomichan, checking grammar on imabi, etc. When I first started one sentence might take 10 minutes. Gradually the time decreased until most sentences became instantly comprehensible. I think that’s the key point. You won’t learn much of anything without effort. “Input” for me is just a way to focus my effort on something fun, enjoyable, and relevant instead of abstractly studying things that I don’t know when I’ll use.
Also, I built a basic foundation before I started with cure dolly’s youtube course and 2000 words from anki