Asking because most people in my class seem to get it better than I do. But some of those people also already know an additional language, maybe that has something to do with it? I have a speaking test on Monday, and I’m worried because my teacher talks pretty fast.
My main issue is conjugation and memorizing words.
8 comments
r/learnjapanese is a better place for these questions
After 2 years living in Japan
After studying at uni 3 years and 6 months into my fourth year while abroad.
That’s been 8 years ago and will still stuck on words occasionally hahah
Classmates who took japanese in HS were a lot quicker and had more control over the language, though. By their second year in uni (third year japanese), they were much more fluent than I was.
7:36pm on the 4th of October.
It’s not a sudden switch. It’s a gradual transition depending on the complexity of what you’re consuming. As you get more competent that threshold shifts.
I took my first Japanese class in 1989. I’ve lived in Japan for about 15 years. I’m married to a Japanese person.
I think in Japanese for anything that happens fairly frequently, like discussing household chores or shopping for food. But every year, when tax time comes up, I have to relearn certain words related to filing tax returns. And I have conversations about taxes about five times each year. And then no practice of these terms for 360 days.
TLDR: Use it or lose it.
And if you don’t use it often in the first place, you can’t lose it—because you never had it in the first place.
Change your inner monologue.
When you’re thinking to yourself what you need to do before you leave the house, tell yourself. *In Japanese* . Or what tasks you have to complete for a project. Or the steps in a recipe. Whatever’s in your head, say it in Japanese to yourself.
ONLY start with vocab if that’s the only stuff really sticking so far, because you don’t want to accidentally internalize any grammar or conjugation in your head til your 100% sure it’s correct.
THIS way, you are not translating from a textbook or other written work, you’re having to think on your feet. And you don’t have to worry about mistakes, no one can tell what you’re thinking, mwahahaha! 😀
Ok, let’s assume the below is your real, actual routine for tomorrow morning. You will explain everything to yourself in Japanese:
Alright, I have to leave the house at 8:00am. I have to shower first, then make breakfast, then eat breakfast, then check my email, then drive my car to the train station. I’m going to park my car and wait for the 10:30am to take me to the city.
So, you’re in 102, so you can probably hack the above, if noun and verb only, so be it:
Leave house 8a
shower first
make breakfast
Eat breakfast
Check email
Drive car…….to train station
Park car……. at train station
Wait for train……10:30a…..train to city
………but don’t stop there! Everything you see, every day….if you’re all-in on Japanese, think in Japanese as much as possible.
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Just as with any language, I don’t think a lot of people’s inner monologues are in perfect, proper, native form, so for now, you don’t know everything, so do what works.
But **don’t** internalize *anything* you don’t know is the correct vocab or form, not easy to pull it out of your brain once it’s in there!
If it’s something that you’re burning to learn, make a note of it and look it up later. Now, every time you pass by the thing you noted, you will hopefully be able to make the vision/memory thing happen, because the vocab didn’t come from that week’s textbook chapter, it came from your brain’s own curiosity, so it will stick.
ALSO, for the love of all things holy, kids, PLEASE remember what I realized a while back, though YMMV:
I see Japanese as 2 languages- the written and the spoken.
I have met people who easily passed N1 but couldn’t hold a simple conversation to save their life.
Couldn’t find their way through the small-talk the kombini cashier was speaking.
It was eerie to watch N1 dude, who probably could recognize more kanji than the average Japanese adult, flounder in simple tasks.
I do think that some of these N1 people were just more jazzed that they could read a regular Japanese newspaper more than being able to hold a conversation in the language, and if that was their goal, they’d reached it.
For me, at least, once I realized that trying to memorize kanji while also trying to learn to speak was kinda too much at once, I did the best I could with the written (dude, my kana is still on fire after over a decade! Kanji……maybe N4? Maybe? 🤔)
My native Japanese instructor (class was in USA) started noticing that I was just writing out, in kana, some answers in the kanji parts of the tests……she told me she understood, but she still couldn’t give me full points.
So, I think the written parts of Japanese are awesome and great and you should learn enough to get along, the speaking to myself and the listening and just trying to keep Japanese in your mind as much as you can, daily.
If your mind doesn’t feel like it’s going to explode at least a couple times a week from your brain trying to remember how to say “climb stairs” or “read a book” or whatever your inner monologue is up to……..try your best, and don’t get comfortable!
If you already know how to communicate with your little Japanese mental lexicon……you need to learn more, stat!
Sauce-
Took Jpn 101/102 in USA
Lived in rural Japan for 5 years
(I LOVE the face a Japanese person gives me when I speak…..it’s been over a decade since I left, so I’m not as solid, but I had to teach myself, no Japanese classes needed in rural Japan, with local friends helping out. Sooooo, apparently, I have the most backwater, rural AF accent, not Tokyo standard for shit, and they always gently ask where I learned my Japanese, ha!
Japan and Japanese is awesome, duhhhh!
Also, I know there’s more of us out there, but it’s almost like a sin to say it- I have never really liked manga/anime. If that’s what’s keeping you on your path in life, more power to you, but please don’t be one of those people who try to speak Japanese the way they hear it in anime.
Don’t.
You will sound like a 10 year old boy who knows no proper grammar and a lot of impolite terms that will fuck your Japanese studies for life.
Hell, I suck at Japanese, and I can hear the “trying to learn to speak using anime” thing.
It may or may not be embarrassing to you, but I assure you, everyone around you will cringe inside.
Just watch your anime because you like it, **THEN** do your Japanese homework. Don’t conflate the two.
Best wishes, I hope this kind of helped with your question, and yes I will reply to comments if I feel qualified to do so.
Y’all have a fabulous Friday-into-Saturday!
ETA- For anyone else asking for my advice, I’d seriously only lean heavy on vocabulary until you know the better half of a textbook before learning any grammar.
It seemed kinda dumb to me to learn grammar points without any words to use them in.
Plus, you’ve met L2 English people, hopefully? Many of them can only communicate accurately with words, no grammar or conjugation or anything, yet you can still understand them to a point.
I’d rather be like that in Japanese than the person all proud of themselves that they memorized the grammar points enough to pass a test.
Woo hoo, you memorized a bunch of grammar you have no chance in hell of remembering unless you can actually USE it with all the vocabulary you’ve stored up, y’know?
🕉️
When I stopped studying Japanese w English assistance as much as possible. Obviously when you’re learning new grammatical concepts there is a need to an extent but I recommend studying with as little English as you can, and have conversations with yourself in Japanese. If you’re the sort of person who narrates their day in their head, trying doing it just in Japanese. I think it’s a matter of familiarity more than anything. Once what you’ve learned becomes reflexive, you’ll stop translating in your head.
The first time I banged my head on a door and instantly said “itai”! Seriously though, if you immerse yourself in Japanese sooner or later it will become natural. I was living and working in a Japanese environment as I learned Japanese and ocassionally whole new phrases popped up seemingly from nowhere. (Passed JLPT 1 IN 2003 and have been using Japanese professionally since.)