A few months ago I decided to start learning Japanese. I've had a lot of ideas and thoughts about language learning but haven't had the time to sit down and formulate them into thoughts. I plan on writing some shorter posts rather than try to get everything out of my head.
I've always been fascinated by Japanese, the seed was probably planted when I was a kid and my dad went on a business trip to Osaka. I remember looking through some language books, tracing kanji numbers, and eating dried seaweed snacks he brought back. Japanese has always intimidated me, but that's a great reason to try it.
So far my approach has been different from any language I've tried to learn before 1 . In the past I was much more methodical, focusing on grammar and structure more than raw input. This time I'm only focused on getting as much Japanese as possible into my eyeballs and earballs, and putting off much of the grammar for later.
I'll talk through some things I've learned in future posts, but for now I'll say I'm really glad I jumped in! It's a beautiful language and I'm learning a lot about the culture, which is one of my favorite side effects. It's been really fun.
My brain has been stretched and squished. I'm not proficient yet but slowly getting there. Vocabulary is just memorization/repetition, the harder parts to stick are word order (subject-object-verb) and cultural differences in the phrasing. And the word particles. Oh, those particles.
There's a mountain of language resources out there. Duolingo is outstandingly good when you combine the lessons with the forum. I listen to podcasts while I walk my dog, and there are a few Netflix shows I can watch. My dad dug up his old books. There is so much content on YouTube. One video I came across had an interesting check for fluency I had never heard before: if you hear a language and can't not understand what they're saying, you're fluent. Think of a conversation at a table near you, where you can't focus on anything else. Annoying, but hey, you're fluent!
I started wondering how far I could get in six months. Turns out pretty far! I can read hiragana easily now, katakana pretty well, and maybe a few hundred kanji. I can slowly work my way through NHK News Web Easy articles, usually getting the gist even without knowing every word. When I watch Terrace House (which has become a guilty pleasure) I watch with Japanese subtitles and can pick up between 30% and 90% of what's being said. Pretty wide variation, but I understand more when people are talking in concrete terms (doing things, meeting people), and less when they're talking about abstract things (relationships, emotions). I'm still not at six months yet, so we'll see what else clicks this month.
The main "trick" I've discovered is not getting bogged down in trying to memorize every single word and grammar rule. Just listen and try to pick out words. Our brains passively pick up a lot more than we think, they're like magic if we leave them to their own devices!
More to come!
1: Italian, French, and German... which went molto bene, comme si comme ça, and überhaupt nicht gut, in that order.
