Learning Japanese

[The Forest Ninja]

Hello,

 

Just wondering how many learned to be be fluent in Japanese.

Like how did You go about doing it and how long did it take?

 

 

Cheers

[Joseph P.]

Hey Forest,

I am not fluent in Japanese (yet). I have been studying for several months. I learned Hiragana and Katakana in one or two months give or take, it was really fast and easy. Basically I practiced writing the entire Hiragana/Katakana alphabet over and over again, and used what I wrote as a chart to study. If you watch Japanese TV shows or read manga, any Japanese interest really, you can practice writing words in hiragana and katakana using the chart as a reference (like katana, wakizashi, anime characters, Japanese actors, etc). You will memorize the characters pretty quickly. Kanji is where it gets challenging, it may be easier to learn the spoken language than to learn kanji.

As for the spoken language, I have learned some but not really a whole lot. It's actually less difficult than it seems. It can take years to properly learn spoken Japanese and kanji, in my opinion. Usable Japanese though? Not really that difficult to learn.

[Mikaveli]

There's good stats around the JLPT levels, where (assuming you're not already familiar with 2000 Kanji), the learning hours are approximately:

 

N5 (beginner) 350-500 hours of study.

N4 (basic) 750-900 hours.

N3 (intermediate) 1200-1400 hours.

N2 (advanced) 2000-2500

N1 (near fluent *) 3500-4000 hours.

 

At N3, you should be able to have decent conversations socially, but won't understand everything at native pace - and you wouldn't be able to study / work in a Japanese-only environment.

 

N2 is about as far as you need grammar wise.

 

Now, do the maths about how much study time you can put in. I do 5 hours or so weekly, and have been for the last 6 years.

[Mikaveli]

As for how, my recommendation would be to get lessons with a native Japanese speaker. Personally I use Italki (it's kinda a online tutor marketplace) - it has a range from community tutors for $5-10 per hour, through to professionals with much more expensive rates.

 

Obviously there's apps like Duolingo - these are good for rote learning of vocabulary and familiarisation.

 

I use a app called Kanji Study for, you guessed it 😂 

 

Textbooks are good too - Minna no Nihonto, Sou Matome, Japanese for Busy People etc - but these are best with a teacher - rather than solo learning.

 

If you have a local language exchange group, they can be awesome - but less useful before you have a basic grasp of the language.

[Stephen]

I'm going to play The Devil's Advocate you won't get anybody to teach you Japanese calling yourself a Ninja

[Bugyotsuji]

Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee. 
Some great advice above. 
When you look back, your path will have been different again.

I’m lazy, so I only put in those hours when I felt the motivation, wasting much time in between.

One rule of thumb that always helped. If you learn a new word, try it out on someone in a real situation within 24 hours, and it’ll stick. がんばって 

頑張って Ganbatté! 

[Stephen]

I had to get on laptop to see if you sign Forest, nope 

please go too your profile and add a signature with  a first name per NMB rules

[The Forest Ninja]

3 hours ago, Stephen said:

I'm going to play The Devil's Advocate you won't get anybody to teach you Japanese calling yourself a Ninja

 

I was told long ago to not trust the Devil.  

[Stephen]

NA

[Bugyotsuji]

The old membership rule of engagement here was your real names, both first and last names.

 

This was relaxed to real first name, but an initial only for your second name would be acceptable.

 

[Brian]

It IS a requirement. At least first name, unualky followed by initial.

[waljamada]

I can speak Japanese conversationally and generally say whatever I would want to but it wont be perfect.  I think the key for me in the beginning was understanding the grammar and conjugation...the general structures of the language.  Once you have that in the bag the words become plug and play.  So start at the foundation and then decorate with vocab.

 

As to the second part of your question, I lived in Japan for 7.5 years (and didn't speak a word when I first arrived for college) but the "foundation" part probably took like 1.5 years for me to really lock it in with all the vocabulary I was learning.  I could have gone faster but I was also busy just taking in every experience I could and good ol socializing along with my other non-Japanese language college courses.

 

Oh and learning hiragana and katakana is really important because it also gives you all the sounds and syllables to the entire language which will allow you to pronounce things correctly. 

[Stephen]

Guess stupid dad jokes don't work up here with the intellectuals

[atm]

I am a novice Japanese learner, having used Duolingo and tofugu.com to learn hiragana and @Ray Singer flash cards for swordsmith and province kanji. As others say, learning hiragana helps a lot with pronounciation. I am on to katakana next. Before learning hiragana, I initially learned basic phrases through Duolingo and memorized them phonetically so that I could say basic things while ordering food or purchasing something in Japan. That worked well enough for most tourist situations, but I was lost on reading anything.

[Bugyotsuji]

Would never say this on a public forum, but when I was at college in the US we were given hiragana and katakana to learn as homework. I sat on my bed, leaned back against the wall, lit up, inhaled deeply, and then set to work. Amazing sometimes how you can concentrate. Anyway, I learned the whole bang shoot at one sitting. (Not for a moment suggesting that this would work for anyone else!)

 

Some things were hard, though... too many to record here!

[Ray Singer]

24 minutes ago, atm said:

I am a novice Japanese learner, having used Duolingo and tofugu.com to learn hiragana and @Ray Singer flash cards for swordsmith and province kanji.

If you are interested Forest, please reach out to get more information on the flashcards. I crafted them to be tailored specifically for Japanese sword collectors with examples of commonly seen swordsmith names, provinces we often see in inscriptions, time periods that appear in nengo, etc.

https://swordsofjapan.com/product-category/supplies/flashcards/  

[John C]

I've been trying to learn slowly - Ray's flash cards, general kanji flash cards, study and practice books (all in hiragana and katakana). One thing that has helped me is that I speak German, which has the same basic rule of putting the conjugated verb at the end of the sentence. So if you speak german, or can at least practice putting the conjugated verb at the end, you may find it helpful.

 

John C.

[SteveM]

As they say; It's a marathon, not a sprint. 

 

The journey comes with a never-ending series of revelations about just how little you know, and how much remains to be mastered. So, "fluency" is one of those words whose definition seems always just out of reach. 

 

Memorize hiragana and katakana. Usually in that order, because that is the way Japanese kids learn written Japanese, and that usually provides the best foundation. But some people choose to learn katakana first because they feel that will give them more immediate benefits if/when they visit Japan. Either is fine, as long as you learn both and don't get lazy, and recognize that hiragana gives better gas mileage than katakana. There are only 46 characters in each alphabet, and some are similar, so its not such a daunting task. 

 

Start to memorize the fundamentals of kanji when you've got hiragana and katakana more or less mastered. Stroke order, stroke direction, construction, balance, etc... You don't need to memorize all 2000 at one go. University students will know upwards of 8000-10000, but many of those are single-use kanji, or specific to a particular branch of the sciences, and not particularly useful in everyday life. The point is, learn them as you go, and don't worry that you only know 50 or 100 or 200...you'll pick more up as you go along. 

 

Start speaking as soon as you are able. Get a tutor or a mentor or an online partner, or youtube tutorials, anything. Speaking is a different beast than reading and writing, but each supports the others. 

 

Before long you realize that things like hierarchy and politeness are hard-coded into Japanese in a way that they are not hard-coded into English. It isn't necessary to nail down all of these nuances right away, so don't waste too many brain cycles trying to complete all of these side-missions. It's enough to be aware that the language has politeness levels imbedded into it, and as you become more proficient in Japanese, you can start to get better at using the correct/appropriate language for the audience. If you try to figure out everything all at once, you won't get anywhere.  

 

The language of the sword/fittings world is a specialized field. Don't expect the average Japanese person to understand the vocabulary of the sword world. Its full of jargon and rarely-used kanji and specialized readings...etc. It adds a complication to your Japanese studies. It's like a beginning English student trying to understand the language of nuclear physics. It just doesn't happen overnight, or without a lot of specialized study. 

 

Took me one year to become marginally conversational. 

Took me five years to become barely literate.

Took me twenty years to become "fluent-ish". 

I started diving deeper into Japanese sword/fittings vocabulary after about 25 years, and realized I didn't know diddly squat. 

From there, each incremental bit of knowledge added to my ability, and made me slightly more fluent. 

I have N1 and a translator's certificate. I got these fairly quickly, after about 10 years of living in Japan. But really, its only after I got these things that I realized how much I had yet to learn. 

 

Still running the marathon... 

[Mikaveli]

33 minutes ago, SteveM said:

You don't need to memorize all 2000 at one go. University students will know upwards of 8000-10000, but many of those are single-use kanji, or specific to a particular branch of the sciences, and not particularly useful in everyday life. 

 

That sounds like a huge overestimation to me.

 

The average Japanese person is said to know perhaps 3000 Kanji (but will typically only know how to write half of that).

 

4000 is a approximate figure that applies to well educated people. Some university students may know upwards of 6000, but (at least to my knowledge) that's very rare.

 

For the OP, so that they're not completely terrified - after a point, most Kanji are compositions of other Kanji. For example, 木 (tree), 林 (woods), 森 (forest).

 

Also, even in Japan, rarer Kanji is often written with the pronunciation (in Hiragana) written above.

[nulldevice]

3 minutes ago, Mikaveli said:

 

Also, even in Japan, rarer Kanji is often written with the pronunciation (in Hiragana) written above.

 

I noticed that when visiting the sword museums the kanji that I know (swordsmith name kanji and sword terms) all had hiragana pronunciations above them meanwhile everything else I couldn't read a lick of.

 

I need to step up my Japanese learning and find room for yet another thing to take up this space in my brain

[Baka Gaijin]

This will be interesting:

 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2024/03/06/Japan/Japanese-romanization-rules-change-explained/

[Mikaveli]

6 minutes ago, Baka Gaijin said:

This will be interesting:

 

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/commentary/2024/03/06/Japan/Japanese-romanization-rules-change-explained/

 

For most Western learners, Hepburn has been the de-facto romanization standard for a long time.

 

Even then, there's exceptions, based on prior understanding and convention. For example, Tokyo should be Toukyou (as both the vowels are long とうきょう or 東京).

[Toki]

Hi,
While I´m nowhere near fluent and still just a beginner, I attended Japanese basic classes at my University.

And now, while we are on semester break, I just work through the books while using  Anki to learn/refresh Kanji.

[Bugyotsuji]

There are all kinds of background hints that can suddenly help smooth the way in your language-learning journey. 

 

For example, someone told me that the Emperor does not need to look up or down on anyone, so he uses simple, almost elementary-school Japanese, necessarily devoid of register. The only male in Japan actually permitted to do this?

 

In the same way, foreigners coming into Japan and the Japanese language will be forgiven for using simple 'desu/masu'verb endings, since in the beginning they are automatically given similar honorary 'neutral' status. As with Japanese children, the ability to communicate basic desires is of primary importance. Refinement of the language will come later.

 

By the same token, you cannot lean on this forever. It is rare (but a valuable insight when it happens) that a Japanese person will correct your usage of Japanese, so you need to listen and be aware of things and to grow in wisdom, otherwise you can become over-confident, and a walking laughing-stock. My life is full of, "Oh, yes, how come I never noticed that before?" (This is why tutors and teachers are useful!)

 

Actually I experienced similar in the US, although on a gentler level. I remember one day when a bunch of us were in the car and I pointed out "Look, there's a car park!", as we were searching for one. My good buddy Charlie March laughed at me. How long have you been here, and you still call it a "car park'!!!" This was a shocking moment for me!

 

[John C]

2 hours ago, Bugyotsuji said:

you still call it a "car park'

Well...you know in America we park on a Driveway and drive on a Parkway. Go figure.

2 hours ago, Bugyotsuji said:

simple 'desu/masu'verb endings

That's timely. I just finished watching the original Shogun series and Mariko stresses that when teaching anjin-san.

 

John C.