Asking Japanese teachers how to learn Japanese FASTER

what's the best way to learn Japanese from scratch how how would you answer do you tell your student to learn Kan or you don't really recommend when you watch anime does it help to learn Japanese hey guys how you doing I'm Takashi from Japan so today I'm going to interview Japanese tutors what's the best way to learn Japanese and I also interview my foreign friend who speak really good Japanese so I ask her how she Japanese as well okay let's get started okay thank you for your time could you introduce your background hi hi my name is k Sensei I am from Tokyo Japan and right now I am online Japanese tutor I'm risako onishi from Osaka Japan I'm currently living in Mexico City as a Japanese tutor and content creator hi I'm sayaka and I teach Japanese online I've been teaching Japanese for like five six years now I live in Nagoya lived in United States for two years in total in Japanese in Japanese okay as a Japanese I'm going to ask you some questions first of all what's the best way to learn Japanese from scratch how how would you answer um in the beginning or the earlier stages I would say to focus on pronunciations because over time if you start uh building up the habits of saying words in Japanese it will be difficult to fix it so I would focus on like um pronunciations by working on the shadow Ing and then listening so no wrting reading of course hiragana and Katakana are pretty important that's well because H and Katakana are the reading syllables for us um to read a Kani we need hiragana and Katakana so I would say these two I would start from learning the characters but not just the characters but also some basic phrases and stuff I think it's important to learn all of it all together at the same time I wouldn't just focus on H but I would try try to learn phrases and try to write those phrases in and kak I think it'll be a kind of approach for them to start from letters from kak start to associate each letter with each sound you develop like to absorb vocabulary with that vocabularies you can learn to express so small units like letters like for many people first step in learning Japanese How I Learned Japanese uh I started off back in 2013 and I started just like looking up how do you learn Japanese so right now you know you can learn Japanese fairly a lot easier than maybe like 20 years ago because there's so many resources um and so then I looked up How I Learned Japanese and I found some blogs on the exact process to do it and I was like well let me just try this out and I downloaded a bunch of apps on the App Store and I just tried all of them and I was like okay there's a couple I like I started learning kagana Katakana and then kanji and then I started to understand a little a little bit of the grammar and then I was just watching a lot of anime dramas and stuff listening to Japanese music already and so then after a while it was like really exciting to hear words that I learned it's better almost to watch like TV dramas and stuff cuz when you have example sentences you're attached to the context of that show and you know what they're saying and so it's easier to remember words and how to say it so he speaks Japanese English Spanish right so what are the differences English Spanish and Japanese pronunciation the letters know structure and everything can you explain the similarity I see between Spanish and Japanese is how close there are in pronunciation each letter tends to be constituted of two elements which is consonant and vowel that makes two languages sound similar in pronunciation so would you say that it's easier for Spanish speakers to pronounce Japanese language I think so I personally think aaso they have great Advantage difference is Japanese writing is a bit more complicated three patterns right of writing and I think it's a huge obstacle for beginners I think English and Japanese are completely different so I feel bad for Japanese people learning English because yeah it's just so difficult and I speak telu which is also a language from India and we have the same grammar structure so it's a lot easier for me to pick up Japanese because I understood the verb noun structure what about pronunciation pronunciation is like oh my God I feel like it's so different English is just we have a lot of like T or like R and T sounds I think are very like rough like the way we say it but then Japanese where you say the T sound and then the r sound it changes where you're putting your tongue like at the roof of your mouth and so I had to kind of study where to place it each time the way you approach the language it's different depends on your native language I think there's definitely a difference when if you only speak English and you're suddenly learning Japanese I think there's definitely a bit of a hurdle because it's tough to get used to the new sounds the the grammar structure and so for me I do feel like it was a little bit easier because the telu pronunciation and the grammar structure is slightly similar and in general if you speak at least two languages I think you have that flexibility and able you're able to pick up languages a lot easier and especially if you Chinese you don't need to Lear Ki you know yeah ex particle is probably the uh biggest thing Joshi um or GA or o and those are um kind of similar to prepositions in in English but not necessar the same and that uh is a framework um of a sentence so connecting a words together and a make a sentences in Japanese and I think um that's one of the hardest part of learning Japanese as well when you watch anime does it help to learn Japanese it definitely helps because the more you hear the more you get used to hearing Japanese and get used to the intonation of Japanese the students I've met who have the best pronunciation or intonation they all have been binge watching anime so I think it totally helps and also to develop vocabulary any negative aspect of learning Japanese by watching anime you learn some bad words and uh uh some words are not really used in real life real life so maybe that's the disadvantage to study Japanese or to learn something just in general you have to have a passion right I always tell my students to have passion in Japan like learning Japanese and if it's just if it's just a understanding anime I think that's that's amazing and also um anime is a great way to build up your vocabulary or um phrases that we use in daily lives you know action animes they use the phrases that we don't really use in the daily conversations like maybe or like um or something like that so that's something that you should be careful with but it's nothing wrong with like being familiar with those I believe interesting because I get so many DMS on Instagram and some some people call me like Kama which is very very very rude I never heard of any real life but very rude but you know they use it a lot in anime so I think they assume that it's okay to use it but like it's not okay though don't don't call me anyway I think it's difficult to learn everyday Japanese words from anime I think it makes it difficult because you don't know which is which but what I think it does help is with listening practice because you will hear words that you've studied before and you'll get used to hearing Japanese so I was watching a lot of anime the first 3 four years that I started Japanese learning and there are animes that have very natural speaking Japanese as well so I think you can totally use it but I think if you ate it with something like TV dramas you'll get an idea of what what normal Japanese speaking is the first five six years that I started learning Japanese my entire world that I lived in was in Japanese like I would make notes in Japanese I would watch TV in Japanese and I would just try and make my entire environment that language and that included music I listen to Japanese music uh TV shows like variety TV shows as well like comedy uh anime and I would call my friends in Japanese or I would write blogs blog posts in Japanese and yeah basically every single part of my life was in this video I'm asking Japanese teachers what's the best way to learn Japanese I also want to share one of the best method from my perspective that's prepi today's video sponsored in fact several friend of mine who are studying Japanese are actually using prepi and they say it's really good so I ask them to sponsor this video PR is a userfriendly language learning platform that connects you directly with native speakers and experienc teachers it's designed to make language learning more interactive and personal than other apps instead of just repeating phrases you will engage in real conversations and learn cultural nuances making your study session enjoyable and effective with over, 1500 Japanese tutors available it's easy to find a match for your schedule and then learning goals prep stands out by offering ta out oneon-one interactions ensuring you get attention and guidance needed to improve your skills effectively you can receive 50% discount on your first lesson at prey by clicking the Link in the description let's start learning Japanese by signning up for pre okay let's get back to interviews any common mistakes Japanese Learners tend to have tend to make at the beginnings in the beginning I would say the biggest one is the pronunciations we have like certain like or specific pronunciations that only exist well probably only exist in Japanese like long vowels for example is um uh if we say movie in Japanese is a in written but when a e a sound and a e sound together you would say so hold it like a long sound and which is can which can be difficult in the earlier stages and um I always Focus um on teaching long vowels and also double Conant which is small uh the pause in between and like I mentioned um each each character represents one sound so um we have to say them properly otherwise it will it will sound be like an accent in Japanese anything you did but you didn't need to oh I bought like a dictionary of all Japanese verbs and I tried to memorize like every single day like a verb and it didn't work at all like it was such a waste of time because I didn't have anything to work off of like you need some kind of TV show or some kind of context or you know practical something practical or else you're just kind of like sitting there trying to memorize something that has no relevance to you and so now what I do is I use flash cards and even then like a lot of people uh recommend Anki for example I recommend it too but I've never used it because I think that for me flash cards it it was just easier for me to use the apps that I had but anyway I would put in words from conversations that I've had and those words is what I would use because I'd have the context if that makes sense one of the things that I see often is start learning Kani so much before building a lot of vocabulary if you learn the Kani first and then you learn vocabulary you are learning do things at the same time but if you knew the vocabulary I think it's easier to apply the Kani to what you know already and also not speaking out people are just writing down and understanding but because they don't really pronounce it try to do the output work the output work is also as important as doing the input work do you believe that Kani is really important to learn acquire to live in Japan to to be able to speak Japanese like what do you think like oh as someone who actually lives in Japan like what's your opinion I think it's really important um it's not important to write it I don't write Japanese I just type it yeah I don't think you need to do that but um I try to make sure that I know the Kani of like Signs around me or just in general I think it helps so much because it reduces the amount of time you have to think it's like you know the kanji so you know generally what something says and you don't have to think beyond that I was really glad that in moments like if I had to go to the doctor I could read kanji and I could be like oh like I think blah blah blah blah blah should be like this like you know so you don't think that you need to write kanji to memorize kanji to be to be able to read I definitely wrote Japanese to practice the beginning like nak and you really have to do a lot of image training of what each word kind of represents and after a while it really looks like what the kanji was meant to be and you grow like an appreciation for it too at the same time now days we use a lot of online resources so if you can recognize the conses and understand the meaning of them I think it's fine however um in the daily lives like if you're living here you need to know how to write them so balance is probably important um I wouldn't say like you need to know like 100% with 3,000 kjas by tomorrow you can learn like 10 a day or like even one a day is fine but know how to write them and and kind of get used to writing those at the same time time reading and understanding the meaning I think so you cannot ignore but you still you don't need to focus that much right I would say so yeah the real Japanese that Japanese people actually use in their daily life and Japanese that you learn on textbook or in the class or something like you know I think there are some differences yes in my class we use this textbook very famous one called I yes and it has 50 uh lectures lessons from 1 to 50 okay and from 1 to 2021 the information that they give you is formal this m blah blah blah from 21 you have like the first approach to informal casual style but those 20 episodes are very very important because informal Japanese is based on formal so you can't skip like any of I think textbook Japanese sometimes can be really robotic they pronounce each sound really correctly it happens in English and I I'm sure happens in other languages too for example not at all is not at all or something like that and we omit a lot of words from our sentences when we speak in real life so those are the things that are not really mentioned because I think it's important to learn the textbook Japanese first so that you can understand everything it's easier to Omit something than adding something more to what you've learned I think I know that many borers living in Japan for 10 years 20 years still don't really speak Japanese and so that means living in Japan doesn't mean automatically you know being able to speak Japanese right so any cons of living in Japan when it comes to learning Japanese yes so regarding the topic I think the most important thing is to be uh be out of the comfort zone and then try to make a Japanese friend one Japanese friend is fine but it is um sometimes it's a difficult too because Japanese people here uh want to speak uh want to learn English as well so if you come here then um it's the purpose of like maybe you get to use uh English um in a conversations and it will be easy as well from my experience when I lived in the United States um I really it was really hard for me but I try to make just at least one friend and I had a host family um they're from the United States so I just like um actively went out with them that helped me a lot with the my English as well so I would say well it's kind of different story here but um always um be out of the uh your community and then try to be try to uh jump into like Japanese communities to make a friend and then have opportunities to speak Japanese even if you're here and you're surrounded by English speakers then it doesn't help so it really doesn't matter where you are you can be you can be in Japan you can be in America or wherever you are Yeah the more you speak the better at end any advice to those who just started learning Japanese at a Japanese tutor okay what do they need to do uh like first of all just congrats your journey your decision on like learn Japanese like learning vibe in this educational ambient I think it's very positive you learn a lot of thing right you understand better yourself sometimes Japan it's a weird country really we live in a bubble without knowing that we are but that means that we have a very weird concept of lives tradition and culture so enjoy it and I think with each expression that you learn in every class you you find a bit new piece of Japan piece of culture that's that can be really interesting interesting because learning the language it's also including learning the culture right exactly uh don't forget to enjoy learning uh don't stress too much don't be afraid of making mistakes just try to use them as much as you can and if you can communicate that's all that matters I think the biggest thing is to be um to have a courage you will be coming to Japan and which is completely different culture language living setting is so completely different in Tokyo especially so it's good to have a courage to live here and then courage to learn or use Japanese and that's probably the fastest way to um learn the language as well so it's not necessarily like study skills or anything but I would say it's more like a mindset that I would always recommend my students as well to be passionate to be uh to have a [Music] courage okay thanks you for watching so far how was it that was interesting I hope this video will help you if you're learning Japanese right now and also if you're coming to Japan I just published my Tokyo guide book so if you're interested please check in the description okay anyway thank you for watching if you like this video click like button please subscribe to my channel if you have any question you want me to ask people in Japan please leave the comment too see you next time

Channel: TAKASHii from Japan

Views: 774,589

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Id: YxM_UoHcbDA

Length: 18min 51sec (1131 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 31 2024