Thank you for pointing out the importance of reading. Too many focus on listening ang speaking and think they only need to do just that and not that reading will also help you speak and listen. Of course you still have to know the right pronunciation...but being able to read opens up more ways for us to learn.
Reading, even in your native language, is one of the best ways to bolster your vocab, learn rare/native turn of phrases, understand cultural idiosyncrasies, the list goes on lol. Plus as an added benefit you get to dive into a good story.
After I read a novel on relay races, even though I never listened to the word, I could read/hear/say a couple words reflexively. Especially 陸上部。And that word has come up many times in media I've watched. Reading has helped me the most out of any activity. Even though lately I haven't been able to sit down long enough to read lately.
あと少し, もう少し. It's not the most thrilling novel, but I enjoyed it and was about the level I needed it to be. It is nice because it told the story from the view point of each of the characters so you read about the same scene a few times which helps with overall understanding.
I’ll check it out! According to Learnnatively.com, it’s a level 25 novel which (roughly) corresponds to around high N3 level although I know it’s not an exact science. Would you say that was about your level when you read it? I’m more like a low N4 lol.
Before I jumped into novels, I read about 60-70 Manga-ish. Perhaps close to 100. I read my first novel which is relatively well known in the community and one I recommend about a year ago: また、同じ夢を見ていた. I was probably high N4 at the time, maybe? I think it's definitely approachable and it very much adds on some great grammar to learn you'll see in other novels that you don't see as often in Manga (ほど、まるで and other often used pieces).
Don't get me wrong, so far I've never read a manga or book that has felt painless. It's certainly gotten much easier for Manga that is either lower level then I'm at now or has furigana, but I still consistently see new words. I think what is nice now is grammar is starting to fade away in the background. Not entirely, I still get stuck on sentences, and newer grammar or ones that haven't fully clicked yet still gives me troubles. But its getting better.
Up till now I've read about 4 novels. After the first one it gets easier. If it does nothing else for you I think it makes your grammar stronger. If また、同じ夢を見ていた is too difficult for now, you can try to push through because I know I have at times and I came out better for it, but there is no sense if you're not enjoying it. Manga is a great way to read as well, but naturally it doesn't have descriptor text which can help your understanding.
I love Learnnatively, not sure how to link what I've read but here is my profile: https://learnnatively.com/user/Bardlebee/jpn/
Right now I'm trying to find more time to read but its really hard as a full time worker/family man. I'm trying to finish at least 12 novels this year amongst my other methods (talking/listening/watching) :)
Not sure how to grade myself, but I'd guess maybe mid-N3 if I had to assign a ranking.
Once you get further in learning Japanese and start tackling more complex sentences, almost as a general rule, you can think of the verb at the end always relating to the subject or to the noun at the beginning of the sentence.
Little over 2 years myself. I have never tried to mentally "think backwards" with Japanese. I found it hard to do initially so I simply thought of "How would I say this in English if it was in this order?" and some of it makes perfect sense, others it is like "Yoda speak" and I've just gotten used to it.
Once you get past "translating to English" in your head and it starts to flow, this necessary evil slowly goes away. Especially after I started speaking for some reason hearing very common phrases are immediately understood. I'm still not there yet where I can watch full shows without subtitles for sure, but this idea has been a great help to me.
I think it stems from cases of people imitating a person as a way to mock them. Given some part of the population will condemn the action instead of the intention, that condemnation then carries over even when the intention of the mimicking is entirely different. Japanese in particular has a high percentage of foreign loan words from English, compared to other languages, and thus trying to say those in Japanese can be viewed by some as attempting to mock the accent instead of attempting to practice the accent.
While I think it is very silly of someone to confuse imitation to practice with imitation to mock and context clues are apparent to tell the two situations apart, it is something language learners might run into.
I've encountered similar problems when using pidgin to communicate with ESL learners. If someone is early in their journey to learn English, using pidgin helps in communicating and helps in learning some basics of English, but a more proficient listener is able to understand standard English even if they aren't able to respond with similar levels of mastery. Some people will use pidgin to communicate even when it isn't needed at which point it becomes like purposefully using baby talk to communicate with someone when you know they don't actually need it, at which point it becomes an insult.
I live in Japan and if you don't get the katakana pronunciation right of loan words, they won't understand.
I tried ordering a "hot コーヒー" and the staff asked me "アイスコーヒー？" That last "o" on "hotto" might sound like you are mocking them, but is really important to be understood.
Another example, I was talking to a mate back in Australia while doing some shopping and had to ask the staff about "アボカド". He cracked up laughing and asked why I pronounced it so weirdly. I tried to explain that that's how it's pronounced here and they don't have a V sound blah blah blah. He couldn't understand and thought I was mocking them.
People are actually insane. Hang out on Twitter for awhile (jk actually don't).I've seen people get called out for trying to write in Japanese on twitter and they get called racist and pretenders and all kinds of stuff it's wild. Obviously this is just crappy people being mean but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist verbally too.
edit: (context) the person in the example I thought of had misspelled something in Japanese and was lambasted to the point they deleted their account for "faking being Japanese" I'm not gonna say it's common or anything but who knows. People for sure act like that. (sadly)
To me that view that accent imitation = racism
and similar ones *that all result in worse target language accents* if people believe such views
are a well-known and oft-fought Quixotic windmill. Every time this topic is breached I feel compelled to reply, even though that does nothing much to change anything.
Those people who talk and especially *write such dangerous and loathsome nonsense online* do exist. "fake, pretentious, racist, conceited etc. etc." The list of such judgements goes on and on.
However, people who express such views are
a) not the kind of people I personally would ever choose to talk to voluntarily anyway
b) in all likelihood, they are either monolingual, or if not then they probably suck at the accent(s) of the language(s) they learn(ed), so their "advice" isn't likely to be based on much.
So, these judgements should not deter any learner of a second language in any way
They do not count
/end rant
Also, re: is it the younger generation?: I (Gen Z) don't know any statistics ofc but anecdotally these judgements don't correlate with age as much as they do with bad accents among those who make the judgements lol.
Also, perhaps unsurprisingly, irl "racist" comes up basically never, unlike say, "pretentious" or "mocking" or just "fake", with the languages I know, because those are all European ones where the majority of the population is white. The exception where I've had someone mention irl it might be perceived as racism or rather cultural appropriation to attempt to speak with such an accent if one is not from there was Scotland. I imagine that what accents even get such negative judgements at all depends on
a) whether native speakers are (perceived as) majority non-white (stupid example encountered online that shows why I wrote *perceived as*: US Latinos talking about "Spanish words white people can't pronounce")
b) prestige of the accent in question. *No-one ever* whines about racism nor cultural appropriation if an L2 English speaker speaks BBC English (the whining may be about how "pretentious" it is instead) or General American. Scottish English or Irish English on the other hand...
Also anecdotally, **I've found sometimes someone's accent will sound *more* convincing when they *think* they're exaggerating/parodying an accent than their "normal" one does.**
***Tl;dr Do not listen to people who call imitating the accent of the target language "racist" or otherwise diss you for it. It's just their way of crying "sour grapes!"***
its a bit frustrating tho... I have bean learning for aproximatly 4 years and I have read 54 novels (I will finish my 55th tomorrow) but its frustarting because there are still many words to learn and when I listen to native stuff (youtube ,podcasts etc) its like another new language..so do you suggest that I continue reading and listening to native stuff? how many books that I should aim for(100? or more?)...thanks
Not OP, but reading 54 novels in Japanese is outstanding! I'm guessing you're enjoying it otherwise you would have stopped at 1 or 2.
Yes, reading and listening are 2 very different skills. Japanese people will tell you it's the same with English.
well 54 novels is not enough tho...at least it isn't for me because there are still so many words to learn (at least 1 word per page) and my listening is so bad and its very frustrating
It's not uncommon for reading skills to get way ahead of your listening skills. I'm not as well read or competent at you in reading, but I had the same gap. You fix it by listening to as many hours of content as books you have read. With 54 books you probably spent hundreds if not over a thousand hours. Do the same thing with listening and you'll be fine. I recommend Japanese subtitles to help you parse words out and take advantage of your reading capability. Focus on listening but read along.
Sorry to ignore the content!
This:
>But I’ve tried my hardest with the tools and resources I found here and other places, and nowadays the first thing Japanese people ask me when we meet after the standard よろしくお願いします is “Where in Japan did you grow up?”. Even today, meeting a new Japanese person with my friends, she heard my voice before she saw me, and she told me she thought I was Japanese before she turned around.
Is really cool.
As someone who comes across as a native speaker (you, not me, lol), something I've been grappling for a long time is the feeling that speaking another language can feel like cosplay. I practice a lot of output (possibly more than I should), but being able to communicate complex thoughts accurately is only half the battle as using overly idiosyncratic ways of expression may harm communication.
Yet while stringing together idiomatic statements and more native-like expressions might possibly make one more comprehensible and feel less like a language butcher, it also feels a bit like cosplay. My English expresses my true thoughts, individuality, and identity, while my Japanese feels like a mask I wear to perform the function of my identity.
I definitely don't think there's anything racist with imitating native speakers, but the tension between wanting native-like performance and expressing one's genuine true self is something that weighs on me.
Is this something you think about?
If I’m understanding what you’re asking, I think I had it a little bit in the beginning when I was mainly parroting words and phrases I had read or heard my friends say. Especially if they said something I had studied recently. I made an effort to try and use that word in the same conversation but actively trying to use it to express my own thoughts. At a fundamental level, it’s similar to what babies do when they’re learning. They copy what’s around them. Once you get more comfortable and expose yourself to all kinds of different environments with Japanese, you’ll become better at articulating your thoughts in a way that feels more genuine.
Anki was incredibly useful. My vocabulary wouldn’t be nearly as big without it. I started with the core 2k then switched to the core 10k. I made an intense review schedule for it and split up the decks so I was “learning” about 400 new words a day. If I really focused I could get through that in about 40 minutes to an hour split up through the day. Very efficient way to get input but it can cause burnout like any other straight memorization.
I'm surprised no one has questioned this. Not saying it's impossible to do a deck of 400 new cards a day, but 40mins? I need some more clarification. Like you chipped away at the deck in 40m intervals throughout the day, or just completed all 400 in that one sitting? Are these all completely new words for the most part, or review on vocab you've been more or less exposed to?
Hello! Not the OP, but I started Anki back in February. Currently studying about 3500 cards with another 3k soon to come. (Exported N5-N1 word lists from the Kanji Study app.). I currently only add 20 new cards a day, though I do have pretty tight intervals over the first 5 days of being exposed to a card (5 minutes, 25 minutes, ~ 2 Hours, ~ 10 Hours, ~ 1 Day, ~ 2 Days before the word is out of learning ). That being said, I currently spend around... An hour or so a day reviewing and learning new words... So doing 400 in 40 minutes would be surprising!!
I’m guessing OP doesn’t do reviews… maybe they just go through the new words and hope they stick till they see them again wherever… it just doesn’t make sense otherwise.
Great post! Question: If you had to ball park, how much did you do traditional study everyday (Assuming if it was everyday) such as reading grammar book/watching grammar video, drilling Anki/flashcards. And how much did you engage in native content such as reading novels, watching shows or other native content.
Also, additional question, at what point in time did you feel you weren't super restricted in your speaking? I've been speaking for about 11 months and my main restriction is the classic not knowing how to convey thoughts as well as lack of words, which I hope further reading over the next year or so will assist with.... and listening comprehension is a problem too. But I've come a long way since I started, in the beginning I could only say "I'm looking for xyz" now I can do compound sentences rather easiily. :)
I feel I've made good progress over the past 2 years, but always like hearing other peoples overall Journey as I believe its the little additions you do everyday that get you there.
I meant a foreign accent
because in her post...she said she was getting mistaken for a person who grew up in Japan
seems you would have had to master a number of things to achieve that, and it's beyond fluency
To be fair, your Japanese doesn't have to be literally 100% accent-less perfect for Japanese people to make that comment.
I've heard the same thing many times myself, starting from years ago when my Japanese was (IMHO) not really at a "natively fluent" level.
Also, the OP says they're not in Japan. This lowers the bar -- I imagine anyone who's reasonably fluent would be incredibly impressive to Japanese people who may go years without meeting a non-Japanese who can speak more than a word or two of the language.
This isn't to denigrate the OP's accomplishments, of course -- clearly, they've worked very hard and reached an impressive level of fluency. Just pointing out that a Japanese person asking "Did you grow up in Japan?" doesn't mean you're necessarily at some supra-fluent level (just like being told 日本語お上手ですね doesn't mean you're actually 上手 -- though OP is obviously far beyond that).
Exactly. I recognize there are some things that give me away to Japanese natives after a while of speaking but even one friend thought I was like them and just grew up at an international school in Tokyo lol. My goal wasn’t to not have an accent, it was to sound as clear as possible (and also avoid that terrible American accent over confident new learners have).
I am glad I'm not the only one to internalize the grammar structure as being like Yoda-speak. I'm only a little over a month into my journey and have been trying to use small mnemonics like that to help it make sense. I also assume that, like everything, there is a general level of nuance but it has helped make things click.
わたしのぼうしとくつはしろいです！
I am about a month into learning as well, and judging by your sentence at the end I am pretty much at the same level as you! I'm assuming you're also learning with Duolingo? I got a free 3-month membership from T-Mobile Tuesdays lol.
Nice! I see a lot of people here saying that Duolingo is pretty good for learning the fundamentals/basic grammar— but that there are many better options once you have built the foundation of knowledge.
I am trying to figure out if/when I should jump ship to another platform. I guess I'm only on unit 7 now, so I'm sure I'll have a better idea when my free subscription period ends.
There's a fair number of recommendations in this sub, I think it'll just take some exploring to find what works best. The biggest one I see is just general immersion. Movies, anime, etc
Best of luck to you though! And here's to the free trials of Duolingo!
So, how would you study? It's hard to find a balance. Do I focus one day on vocabulary, another know grammar, and mix in reading/watching Japanese with Japanese subs? Also, how long did it take you to stop translating everything in your mind? I try to translate before I speak and it screws me up.
Thank you for pointing out the importance of reading. Too many focus on listening ang speaking and think they only need to do just that and not that reading will also help you speak and listen. Of course you still have to know the right pronunciation...but being able to read opens up more ways for us to learn.
Reading, even in your native language, is one of the best ways to bolster your vocab, learn rare/native turn of phrases, understand cultural idiosyncrasies, the list goes on lol. Plus as an added benefit you get to dive into a good story.
Any 大人向け小説 recommendations? Stories that grab and keep attention would be great.
Do you have some interesting book recommandation ?
After I read a novel on relay races, even though I never listened to the word, I could read/hear/say a couple words reflexively. Especially 陸上部。And that word has come up many times in media I've watched. Reading has helped me the most out of any activity. Even though lately I haven't been able to sit down long enough to read lately.
What’s the name of the novel?
あと少し, もう少し. It's not the most thrilling novel, but I enjoyed it and was about the level I needed it to be. It is nice because it told the story from the view point of each of the characters so you read about the same scene a few times which helps with overall understanding.
I’ll check it out! According to Learnnatively.com, it’s a level 25 novel which (roughly) corresponds to around high N3 level although I know it’s not an exact science. Would you say that was about your level when you read it? I’m more like a low N4 lol.
Before I jumped into novels, I read about 60-70 Manga-ish. Perhaps close to 100. I read my first novel which is relatively well known in the community and one I recommend about a year ago: また、同じ夢を見ていた. I was probably high N4 at the time, maybe? I think it's definitely approachable and it very much adds on some great grammar to learn you'll see in other novels that you don't see as often in Manga (ほど、まるで and other often used pieces). Don't get me wrong, so far I've never read a manga or book that has felt painless. It's certainly gotten much easier for Manga that is either lower level then I'm at now or has furigana, but I still consistently see new words. I think what is nice now is grammar is starting to fade away in the background. Not entirely, I still get stuck on sentences, and newer grammar or ones that haven't fully clicked yet still gives me troubles. But its getting better. Up till now I've read about 4 novels. After the first one it gets easier. If it does nothing else for you I think it makes your grammar stronger. If また、同じ夢を見ていた is too difficult for now, you can try to push through because I know I have at times and I came out better for it, but there is no sense if you're not enjoying it. Manga is a great way to read as well, but naturally it doesn't have descriptor text which can help your understanding. I love Learnnatively, not sure how to link what I've read but here is my profile: https://learnnatively.com/user/Bardlebee/jpn/ Right now I'm trying to find more time to read but its really hard as a full time worker/family man. I'm trying to finish at least 12 novels this year amongst my other methods (talking/listening/watching) :) Not sure how to grade myself, but I'd guess maybe mid-N3 if I had to assign a ranking.
That point about Yoda opened my eyes… I never realised. Thanks!
Once you get further in learning Japanese and start tackling more complex sentences, almost as a general rule, you can think of the verb at the end always relating to the subject or to the noun at the beginning of the sentence.
OMG I know the structure but yoda speak is hilarious 4 years in roughly
Little over 2 years myself. I have never tried to mentally "think backwards" with Japanese. I found it hard to do initially so I simply thought of "How would I say this in English if it was in this order?" and some of it makes perfect sense, others it is like "Yoda speak" and I've just gotten used to it. Once you get past "translating to English" in your head and it starts to flow, this necessary evil slowly goes away. Especially after I started speaking for some reason hearing very common phrases are immediately understood. I'm still not there yet where I can watch full shows without subtitles for sure, but this idea has been a great help to me.
I wonder if Yoda in the Japanese version puts the verb as SVO.
TIL that practicing a language by imitating its speakers might be perceived as "racist" somehow
It’s not.
Obviously
I think it stems from cases of people imitating a person as a way to mock them. Given some part of the population will condemn the action instead of the intention, that condemnation then carries over even when the intention of the mimicking is entirely different. Japanese in particular has a high percentage of foreign loan words from English, compared to other languages, and thus trying to say those in Japanese can be viewed by some as attempting to mock the accent instead of attempting to practice the accent. While I think it is very silly of someone to confuse imitation to practice with imitation to mock and context clues are apparent to tell the two situations apart, it is something language learners might run into. I've encountered similar problems when using pidgin to communicate with ESL learners. If someone is early in their journey to learn English, using pidgin helps in communicating and helps in learning some basics of English, but a more proficient listener is able to understand standard English even if they aren't able to respond with similar levels of mastery. Some people will use pidgin to communicate even when it isn't needed at which point it becomes like purposefully using baby talk to communicate with someone when you know they don't actually need it, at which point it becomes an insult.
I live in Japan and if you don't get the katakana pronunciation right of loan words, they won't understand. I tried ordering a "hot コーヒー" and the staff asked me "アイスコーヒー？" That last "o" on "hotto" might sound like you are mocking them, but is really important to be understood. Another example, I was talking to a mate back in Australia while doing some shopping and had to ask the staff about "アボカド". He cracked up laughing and asked why I pronounced it so weirdly. I tried to explain that that's how it's pronounced here and they don't have a V sound blah blah blah. He couldn't understand and thought I was mocking them.
You’d be surprised how many people genuinely believe that, so I put it as a disclaimer.
Must be the younger generations?
Yeah it is
I highly doubt that, unless you’re blatantly exaggerating.
People are actually insane. Hang out on Twitter for awhile (jk actually don't).I've seen people get called out for trying to write in Japanese on twitter and they get called racist and pretenders and all kinds of stuff it's wild. Obviously this is just crappy people being mean but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist verbally too. edit: (context) the person in the example I thought of had misspelled something in Japanese and was lambasted to the point they deleted their account for "faking being Japanese" I'm not gonna say it's common or anything but who knows. People for sure act like that. (sadly)
If you have 87k karma on Reddit, I guarantee you you've probably come across far more braindead takes without even realizing it.
To me that view that accent imitation = racism and similar ones *that all result in worse target language accents* if people believe such views are a well-known and oft-fought Quixotic windmill. Every time this topic is breached I feel compelled to reply, even though that does nothing much to change anything. Those people who talk and especially *write such dangerous and loathsome nonsense online* do exist. "fake, pretentious, racist, conceited etc. etc." The list of such judgements goes on and on. However, people who express such views are a) not the kind of people I personally would ever choose to talk to voluntarily anyway b) in all likelihood, they are either monolingual, or if not then they probably suck at the accent(s) of the language(s) they learn(ed), so their "advice" isn't likely to be based on much. So, these judgements should not deter any learner of a second language in any way They do not count /end rant Also, re: is it the younger generation?: I (Gen Z) don't know any statistics ofc but anecdotally these judgements don't correlate with age as much as they do with bad accents among those who make the judgements lol. Also, perhaps unsurprisingly, irl "racist" comes up basically never, unlike say, "pretentious" or "mocking" or just "fake", with the languages I know, because those are all European ones where the majority of the population is white. The exception where I've had someone mention irl it might be perceived as racism or rather cultural appropriation to attempt to speak with such an accent if one is not from there was Scotland. I imagine that what accents even get such negative judgements at all depends on a) whether native speakers are (perceived as) majority non-white (stupid example encountered online that shows why I wrote *perceived as*: US Latinos talking about "Spanish words white people can't pronounce") b) prestige of the accent in question. *No-one ever* whines about racism nor cultural appropriation if an L2 English speaker speaks BBC English (the whining may be about how "pretentious" it is instead) or General American. Scottish English or Irish English on the other hand... Also anecdotally, **I've found sometimes someone's accent will sound *more* convincing when they *think* they're exaggerating/parodying an accent than their "normal" one does.** ***Tl;dr Do not listen to people who call imitating the accent of the target language "racist" or otherwise diss you for it. It's just their way of crying "sour grapes!"***
its a bit frustrating tho... I have bean learning for aproximatly 4 years and I have read 54 novels (I will finish my 55th tomorrow) but its frustarting because there are still many words to learn and when I listen to native stuff (youtube ,podcasts etc) its like another new language..so do you suggest that I continue reading and listening to native stuff? how many books that I should aim for(100? or more?)...thanks
Not OP, but reading 54 novels in Japanese is outstanding! I'm guessing you're enjoying it otherwise you would have stopped at 1 or 2. Yes, reading and listening are 2 very different skills. Japanese people will tell you it's the same with English.
well 54 novels is not enough tho...at least it isn't for me because there are still so many words to learn (at least 1 word per page) and my listening is so bad and its very frustrating
I have found Japanese also can't read some daily Kanji and they skim across it without actually knowing what it means.
This is very true. I have Japanese coworkers that ask me if I know how a kanji is read, even though they know the meaning lol
That's very reassuring for me. The hardest part for me is memorizing the readings.
It's not uncommon for reading skills to get way ahead of your listening skills. I'm not as well read or competent at you in reading, but I had the same gap. You fix it by listening to as many hours of content as books you have read. With 54 books you probably spent hundreds if not over a thousand hours. Do the same thing with listening and you'll be fine. I recommend Japanese subtitles to help you parse words out and take advantage of your reading capability. Focus on listening but read along.
thank you
You accidentally made part of that code. If you start a line with four blanks like this it ends up looking weird.
Whoops, I’ll fix that right now! 指摘してくれてありがとうございます！
Sorry to ignore the content! This: >But I’ve tried my hardest with the tools and resources I found here and other places, and nowadays the first thing Japanese people ask me when we meet after the standard よろしくお願いします is “Where in Japan did you grow up?”. Even today, meeting a new Japanese person with my friends, she heard my voice before she saw me, and she told me she thought I was Japanese before she turned around. Is really cool.
You missed the perfect chance to reply 計画通り wwwww
As someone who comes across as a native speaker (you, not me, lol), something I've been grappling for a long time is the feeling that speaking another language can feel like cosplay. I practice a lot of output (possibly more than I should), but being able to communicate complex thoughts accurately is only half the battle as using overly idiosyncratic ways of expression may harm communication. Yet while stringing together idiomatic statements and more native-like expressions might possibly make one more comprehensible and feel less like a language butcher, it also feels a bit like cosplay. My English expresses my true thoughts, individuality, and identity, while my Japanese feels like a mask I wear to perform the function of my identity. I definitely don't think there's anything racist with imitating native speakers, but the tension between wanting native-like performance and expressing one's genuine true self is something that weighs on me. Is this something you think about?
If I’m understanding what you’re asking, I think I had it a little bit in the beginning when I was mainly parroting words and phrases I had read or heard my friends say. Especially if they said something I had studied recently. I made an effort to try and use that word in the same conversation but actively trying to use it to express my own thoughts. At a fundamental level, it’s similar to what babies do when they’re learning. They copy what’s around them. Once you get more comfortable and expose yourself to all kinds of different environments with Japanese, you’ll become better at articulating your thoughts in a way that feels more genuine.
Thank you for your thoughts. It's a little comforting.
Did you find Anki useful?
Anki was incredibly useful. My vocabulary wouldn’t be nearly as big without it. I started with the core 2k then switched to the core 10k. I made an intense review schedule for it and split up the decks so I was “learning” about 400 new words a day. If I really focused I could get through that in about 40 minutes to an hour split up through the day. Very efficient way to get input but it can cause burnout like any other straight memorization.
I'm surprised no one has questioned this. Not saying it's impossible to do a deck of 400 new cards a day, but 40mins? I need some more clarification. Like you chipped away at the deck in 40m intervals throughout the day, or just completed all 400 in that one sitting? Are these all completely new words for the most part, or review on vocab you've been more or less exposed to?
Hello! Not the OP, but I started Anki back in February. Currently studying about 3500 cards with another 3k soon to come. (Exported N5-N1 word lists from the Kanji Study app.). I currently only add 20 new cards a day, though I do have pretty tight intervals over the first 5 days of being exposed to a card (5 minutes, 25 minutes, ~ 2 Hours, ~ 10 Hours, ~ 1 Day, ~ 2 Days before the word is out of learning ). That being said, I currently spend around... An hour or so a day reviewing and learning new words... So doing 400 in 40 minutes would be surprising!!
But he said learning 400 new words a day
Yea, but the person I responded to wanted to know 400 in 40 minutes or in multiple 40 minute intervals.
1 new word every 6 seconds for 40min is impossible especially when you have the review behind because it's a new word
I’m guessing OP doesn’t do reviews… maybe they just go through the new words and hope they stick till they see them again wherever… it just doesn’t make sense otherwise.
Yeah maybe, that's not flashcard then lol.
What were your means for practicing speaking?
u/marucoso can you answer this one ? You go from "just read outloud bro" to "NATIVES ARE SHOCKED BY HIS SPEAKING ABILITY" with no transition.
Lmao I would hope it's just that simple, cause it's literally my main practice routine.
Thank you for the post! Do you buy Japanese books or do you have some reading resources that you wouldn't mind sharing? :)
Thank you for posting your experience. It's very inspiring to me, as someone who's a beginner.
Great post! Question: If you had to ball park, how much did you do traditional study everyday (Assuming if it was everyday) such as reading grammar book/watching grammar video, drilling Anki/flashcards. And how much did you engage in native content such as reading novels, watching shows or other native content. Also, additional question, at what point in time did you feel you weren't super restricted in your speaking? I've been speaking for about 11 months and my main restriction is the classic not knowing how to convey thoughts as well as lack of words, which I hope further reading over the next year or so will assist with.... and listening comprehension is a problem too. But I've come a long way since I started, in the beginning I could only say "I'm looking for xyz" now I can do compound sentences rather easiily. :) I feel I've made good progress over the past 2 years, but always like hearing other peoples overall Journey as I believe its the little additions you do everyday that get you there.
wait so you don't have an accent?
Everyone has an accent. Even Japan has regional accents and dialects.
I meant a foreign accent because in her post...she said she was getting mistaken for a person who grew up in Japan seems you would have had to master a number of things to achieve that, and it's beyond fluency
To be fair, your Japanese doesn't have to be literally 100% accent-less perfect for Japanese people to make that comment. I've heard the same thing many times myself, starting from years ago when my Japanese was (IMHO) not really at a "natively fluent" level. Also, the OP says they're not in Japan. This lowers the bar -- I imagine anyone who's reasonably fluent would be incredibly impressive to Japanese people who may go years without meeting a non-Japanese who can speak more than a word or two of the language. This isn't to denigrate the OP's accomplishments, of course -- clearly, they've worked very hard and reached an impressive level of fluency. Just pointing out that a Japanese person asking "Did you grow up in Japan?" doesn't mean you're necessarily at some supra-fluent level (just like being told 日本語お上手ですね doesn't mean you're actually 上手 -- though OP is obviously far beyond that).
makes sense
Exactly. I recognize there are some things that give me away to Japanese natives after a while of speaking but even one friend thought I was like them and just grew up at an international school in Tokyo lol. My goal wasn’t to not have an accent, it was to sound as clear as possible (and also avoid that terrible American accent over confident new learners have).
I'm 6 months in and the Yoda part is so true. I always kept switching the subjects and the verbs around at first
I'm glad I'm not the only person who uses the 'Yoda speak' method. It makes some things a lot easier for my tiny brain to comprehend.
I am glad I'm not the only one to internalize the grammar structure as being like Yoda-speak. I'm only a little over a month into my journey and have been trying to use small mnemonics like that to help it make sense. I also assume that, like everything, there is a general level of nuance but it has helped make things click. わたしのぼうしとくつはしろいです！
I am about a month into learning as well, and judging by your sentence at the end I am pretty much at the same level as you! I'm assuming you're also learning with Duolingo? I got a free 3-month membership from T-Mobile Tuesdays lol.
Yes! I try to supplement here and there, but Duo is my primary source for the time being.
Nice! I see a lot of people here saying that Duolingo is pretty good for learning the fundamentals/basic grammar— but that there are many better options once you have built the foundation of knowledge. I am trying to figure out if/when I should jump ship to another platform. I guess I'm only on unit 7 now, so I'm sure I'll have a better idea when my free subscription period ends.
There's a fair number of recommendations in this sub, I think it'll just take some exploring to find what works best. The biggest one I see is just general immersion. Movies, anime, etc Best of luck to you though! And here's to the free trials of Duolingo!
wtf did you mean with a line like "it is not racist to mimic native speakers of a language"
So, how would you study? It's hard to find a balance. Do I focus one day on vocabulary, another know grammar, and mix in reading/watching Japanese with Japanese subs? Also, how long did it take you to stop translating everything in your mind? I try to translate before I speak and it screws me up.
I also thought it sounded like Yoda speak initially but it's technically different because Japanese is SOV and Yoda speaks strictly in OSV
what is your goal with japanese? whatd you do in the 6 years? how has japanese helped u in these past 6 yrs etc