Anime Learning Japanese

Gilgamesh the Hero

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So... Is anyone in the forum fluent in Japanese? If so, do you have any tips for learning it? I've taken a mini-course in Japanese but it wasn't nearly enough to learn how to read or understanding speech. I'd really like to decently learn the language.
 
While I'm neither fluent nor interested in learning the language, my belief about language acquisition is that greater exposure leads to greater improvements. And it helps a lot that the Japanese culture is rather popular, so you easily have access to plenty of material in Japanese, which should help you whether you're planning to converse in the language fluently, or understand the written form of the language.

Ideally, you would have like-minded people getting together to actively use the language at every possible opportunity. It would certainly take a lot of motivation, but doing so would definitely be the quickest way to learning it provided you really do use it in every conversation, and to even think in Japanese. Now that's something.

But I doubt that's rather challenging. In which case, I would recommend watching Japanese dramas or reading the lyrics to Japanese songs. Those should provide a good understanding of the usage of the language in real-world settings, which is likely, mostly informal in style (unless you're speaking to a superior or elder). Anime should help as well, but considering the anime settings may bring in author-created vocabulary that doesn't exist in the real world, it might confuse you, which is why I recommend dramas over anime, but it's a matter of choice and preference.
 
I'm not fluent in Japanese but I am actively learning it from japanesepod101.com. Highly recommend the site.

First, some of my thoughts on Mikasa's replies.

Ideally, you would have like-minded people getting together to actively use the language at every possible opportunity.

This really can't be overstated. There's no faster way to learn a language than to regularly engage in conversation with it. If you don't have anyone to talk to, then talk to yourself. Force yourself to think in the language, even where you feel your vocabulary is too limited to express your thoughts. Even when your vocabulary is still small, you'll find that when you really try you can say/think the things that you want in a roundabout way, which increases your understanding of the language and helps you memorize that vocabulary even better.

I would recommend watching Japanese dramas or reading the lyrics to Japanese songs.

Here I have to disagree. Lyrics and drama don't frequently employ natural, conversational language, and in the case of lyrics things get worse when you're dealing with something picturesque or even abstract. Metaphors frequently differ between languages, so you'll just find yourself frustrated with trying to understand them too soon. It doesn't hurt to listen to Japanese music and try to pick out words you understand, and getting yourself thinking about Japanese will keep you motivated and interested, but don't try to learn the language from the music. To a native Japanese speaker, talking in J-Pop or anime style would be something like speaking to an English speaker in Shakespeare style.

which is likely, mostly informal in style

Better not to presume this. Unless you are Asian and could pass for being Japanese a native Japanese speaker will appreciate you trying to speak the language at all, formal or informal, but in Japan formalities and honorifics in language are very important, and it's always better to be more polite than necessary than not polite enough. Impoliteness isn't something you really need to learn--you basically just leave off certain bits and pieces from polite speech, for the most part. You should focus on just learning polite speech, and that way nobody will be offended.

I'm something of a language geek, and Japanese isn't the first foreign language I've learned. In general I have a higher aptitude for language than the average person, but I don't think talent has everything to do with it. A lot of starters go about learning new languages the wrong way and incorrectly conclude that the language is too hard for them or they aren't good with second languages when what they really need is just a change of technique.

Some pointers:

-Don't try too hard to memorize words by wrote. Learn by doing--use the words you're learning, even if that just means replacing one English word with one Japanese word in your head (since you won't start out being able to create full sentences, of course)

-Eventually your brain will get behind what you're learning. Don't be discouraged. On a regular lesson schedule, it's completely normal to be a couple weeks behind your material. Just keep going at it. You'll find that a lot of things just 'click' into place when they're good and ready.

-As soon as possible, try to stop translating in your mind. Connect the essence of each Japanese word with its meaning and bypass English entirely. Japanese has several words with no direct English equivalents, but you'll find that many of them just 'sound' like what they mean.

-Learn like a child. You didn't pick up your first language with mounds of books and hours of repetition. Expose yourself to the language consistently and take things in small steps. With time you'll be able to take in more and more information, but don't rush things. You're never running late in learning a language; move at your own pace.

-When learning Hiragana/Katakana take just two or three new letters a lesson and practice writing them, saying the name/sound of the character as you go. 5 times per character is a good starting point. Don't move on from one row (a/ka/sa/ta/na/ha/ma/ya/ra/wa) until you can easily recall the row you're working on and all previous rows.

-Quizzes and games are great teaching tools. Usagi-chan's Genki Resource Page has some nice, simple flash games for practicing the alphabets (don't skip writing them yourself for the games, though!) and if you get a Premium subscription on japanesepod101.com you'll get flash cards and review tools with each lesson. There are many other learning tools to be found with some Googling, too.

I'm sure there's more, but I don't want to overwhelm you. Japanese is very different from English but it's not that difficult to learn, so just go at it one step at a time and you'll do just fine :)
 
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