Natural Language Acquisition Method – In Japan?

4 comments

1. My site teaches Japanese using the natural method. If you’re interested : https://drdru.github.io/stories/intro.html .

2. I understand the appeal of this method, but I am telling you as someone who has lived in Japan as a student at both absolute beginner and then later at more advanced/late intermediate levels that you are going to have a much easier/nicer/more rewarding time in if you start before you go.

3. Can’t watch the video rn, but I looked at the Reddit post, and it misses a huge issue with why the natural method is so difficult with Japanese. It’s not just kanji, it’s the fact that absolutely no aspect of Japanese grammar is intuitive at all to a native English speaker. Word order is reversed, anything that can be assumed is dropped from the sentence, things are marked in Japanese that no one would ever think of to mark as a native English speaker (or speaker of only romance/Germanic languages). The Reddit post suggests using English translations of materials you’re reading to help you, which tells me whoever made the post doesn’t even know Japanese well—English translations have to add in words, adjust the words used, and completely change the grammatical structure 90% of the time because Japanese is just that different. The natural way of saying any Japanese sentence is usually vastly different from what the closest thing in English is, and translators have to take out tons of things that would indicate what a grammar structure actually does, etc. I’m rather far into my Japanese journey and translate professionally, and I’ve been active on Japanese language learning corners of the internet for years. I’ve seen many who have learned spanish, French, German, etc. “naturally” who decide that this is how they want to learn Japanese, but I have yet to find a single person where this actually worked for Japanese. Instead, they’re the people who have been learning for years, still ask basic question and have a hard time understanding the answers, and get really really frustrated with the language. Japanese is so different from English I don’t think this method could really ever work. Perhaps a Korean speaker could manage it though.

   That being said, I’m not sure about classes in Japan, but many colleges in the US teach with a similar method—you memorize scripts and preform them in class—but there are also short grammar explanations, normal fill-in-the blank type homework, etc. After four years, you end up decently conversational but still not very literate. If this sort of method interests you, I would look for schools in Japan that teaches with Japanese the Spoken Language (or the newer book which has mostly replaced it, Nihongo Now!)

4. I’m just gonna take a gander here and say that unless you pay a private tutor to custom design a course like this for you, you’re not going to find this type of course in Japan. By far the dominant language learning pedagogy in Japan is the grammar translation method.

   Most Japanese classes teach to people from many countries, so they’ll generally be immersion based and taught entirely in Japanese from day 1, but they’ll also often very heavily grammar based. At the beginner levels especially most classes will also include lots of opportunities for you to practice speaking, but focus is generally on grammar. Possibly even on passing the JLPT. You’re just not going to find a course structured like this at any language schools because its just not in line with current pedagogical practices in Japan