There is a currently a [recent interview by Rick Beato of Marty Friedman](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_SHZkqsIDQ) up on YouTube. There is an interesting bit near the beginning (00:01:35) where he talks about how he acquired the language and why he thinks he was able do it.
7 comments
I agree with his sentiment that some things are more important/necessary than other things, to get by in daily life; and for him that was being able to communicate in Japanese.
I watched it earlier today, great interview! Love his work with Megadeth, also he got me into Momoiro Clover Z lol.
It was funny when he used the 金魚の糞 idom but in English.
At this point I’m just so used to him speaking Japanese in Japanese TV shows that it almost feels weird to hear him speak English 🙂
Nice. Thanks for this. I remember first seeing Friedman speaking Japanese in a guitar duel with Paul Gilbert on some Japanese TV show. [Found the clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLWH5a8ohYA).
He’s one of the guys I really pay attention to because he’s one of the few famous monolingual English speakers I know of who became fluent after starting in their late 20s. Most of the YouTube gurus have been studying since their teens or earlier but kinda brush it under the rug
What a great interview!
Awesome link!
One of the first things he said really resonates.
In the industry, we have do all our briefings, and guidance in Japanese, because the company and level of care is directed to them.
When someone comes up speaking English, we end up saying the Japanese response in our head, and then translating on the fly to English because we are so unused to doing any of those things for English speakers.