Hi, so I got in an argument with my brother the other day about learning Japanese.
So my situation is kind of weird. I’m a half-japanese and my mom tried speaking to me in Japanese. I could understand it but not speak, and then I basically forgot all of it due to going to a normal American school. My mom is from Japan but sounds like a complete native speaker with almost zero Japanese accent (except for some tricky words like jewelry). My mom kind of gave up on my younger brother too as I only spoke English and my dad couldn’t speak Japanese too well.
Anyway, my brother is a complete beginner and thinks that he can learn without any self study. He solely watches anime and talks to my grandparents (they only speak Japanese). I recently got Genki and have been using WaniKani for around a month and can read ひらがな＋カタカナ, while he can only read ひらがな slowly. I’m kind of concerned for how well he will learn, but I asked my mom and she said that is how she learned English. She says that everybody learns differently and that we’ll both do fine.
Any comments?
11 comments
>I asked my mom and she said that is how she learned English
There is a grain of truth in what your mother said. It is possible to learn to speak Japanese just like English. It just won’t work for reading and handwriting because of kanji (not just because of the symbols themselves, you also have ateji, jukujikun, etc.).
Talking and writing stuff is the definitive way to get things to stick, but may feel too demanding in the beginning. So you can do exercises like “fill in the blanks in the text using the words in this box”, or, say, “choose いる or ある as appropriate” (or more complex ones) that you usually find in textbooks. Even asking yourself why a person used の instead of こと in a sentence helps.
Just remember the basic rule: no output=no active skills. Well, at least within a reasonable time frame.
Edit: added disclaimer at the end.
Basically you get better at whatever you practice a lot of.
If you spend a lot of time watching things and reading, you’ll probably get good at those skills, but maybe not speaking and writing.
Listening and reading are good when you’re speaking and writing because you can monitor yourself, if you’re aware of what sounds/reads right, but just training in those two skills alone don’t guarantee that you have any sort of edge.
True immersion – living or learning in a TL (target language)-only environment – does increase speaking, however.
To a certain extent it is different strokes for different folks. There’s no one right way to learn.
Though, your mom’s not entirely right when she said that that’s how she learned English. You mom had 6 years (possibly more depending on her university program) of heavily grammar based English instruction. She (like most people) probably couldn’t speak English very well in school and therefore feels like she learned her English immersively, by living in the U.S. and talking to people. While this no doubt had a huge impact, she was still building upon a base of formal grammar knowledge, which is very different from the 0 grammar approach your brother is trying to take.
Ultimately I think you’ll both get there eventually, you’ll just have different hurdles. Your bother will have to take care to be extra observant and very good at mimicry. You’ll have to take care to create lots of opportunities to use Japanese irl and talk to people. Your brother will likely have really fluid speech, but with lots of (relatively minor) grammar mistakes that will take quite a while to iron out. You’ll likely have more precise grammar, but it will take longer for your speech to develop a sense of naturalness and fluidity. You will be much better at reading than your brother. He will probably be better at listening.
So your paths will differ but as long as you both put in the effort and clear your respective hurdles, you can both get there eventually.
You’re prioritizing different things. Your brother will almost certainly be talking casually to your relatives faster than you, but I would bet on you reaching fluency faster (assuming there’s some immersive component to your routine).
IMO you can go heavy on the anime like your brother alongside the dry study, given your background (just no English subtitles). Being a legacy speaker is a huge advantage even if you’re many years removed, as re-learning is much easier than learning from scratch.
>She says that everybody learns differently
Pet-peeve time. Everybody does not learn differently, learning styles are a myth.
it’s true that people learn in different environments better or worse, but also it still takes effort and focus to learn no matter what, so if the brother is doing this half-assed as a way to just watch anime with subtitles and talk to his grandparents once a month, then yeah, he will learn extremely slowly if at all. then again, maybe he needs to hit that brick wall before he decides to change. or maybe he never decides to change and just gives up. ultimately it’s up to him. if you want to help you can always talk with him in japanese as you learn, that will help both of you.
Your both fine; most likely your japanese will be more textbook and ‘polite’ and you’ll read better than your brother.
On the other hand, your brother’s Japanese will be more ‘impolite’ and possibly ‘anime-ish’ but **he’ll probably have better listening and conversation skills** *(since you never mentioned whether or not you are trying to talk in Japanese with your grandparents, and he is practicing in that aspect.* ). Though it sounds like you both might already have amazing listening skills.
You might encourage him getting Japanese subtitles on his anime so he can have more interaction with ひらがな＋カタカナ and perhaps encourage him to get the manga version of one of the shows he watches. He might be more willing to practicing reading おまえはもうしんでいる out load than これはりんごです
>She says that everybody learns differently
This myth was debunked ages ago and it amazes me that people still think learning styles are a thing
You’ve got three native speakers who love you and will be patient and supportive. You’d be insane not to make interacting with them in Japanese as much as possible a big part of your study routine. The cartoons? Take ’em or leave ’em.
Seems to me that there’s only one way you may change your brother’s mind, to study a lot a show yourself better than him. Then he might come ask you to lend him your books.
And in the event you won’t get better than him, there wasn’t a problem in the first place. 🙂
>I’m kind of concerned for how well he will learn, but I asked my mom and she said that is how she learned English. She says that everybody learns differently and that we’ll both do fine.
Many commenters seem to disagreeing with this because learning styles have been debunked, but I do think it’s true that some people acquire the ability to output without actually outputting very much. I had nine years of English education from elementary to high school, but my opportunities to actually produce English were limited. I would pretty much only speak English when called upon in class and only write English for the purpose of passing exams. And I didn’t have any native speaker friends, so I didn’t really speak English outside of class either. What I did have were books, movies and the internet.
But when I did eventually make friends with native speakers as a university student, everything went pretty smoothly and I had no issue conversing fluently right away. It sounds like your mother may have had a similar experience.
By the way, how is your brother speaking to your grandparents if he’s a complete beginner and they don’t speak any English?
If your brother is watching Japanese-language TV and understanding more-than-nothing, he’ll definitely make progress as long as he continues to do that. Whether it’s the most efficient study plan he could be following (which it’s probably not) isn’t really important if he’s having fun with it.
There have been some self-experiments trying this approach (watching TV exclusively while doing no other study) and generally it seems to work but is inefficient hours-wise. (Usually people would at least allow themselves to use a dictionary, for example.) There have been some discussions of it but I wasn’t able to find one with a quick search, sorry.