Comments on: Isn’t Real Japanese Too Hard for Beginners? /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners/ You don't know a language, you live it. You don't learn a language, you get used to it. Sat, 04 Jul 2020 16:09:19 +0900 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.1.13 By: Ron /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners/#comment-1000523055 Tue, 28 Apr 2015 13:15:23 +0000 /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners#comment-1000523055 Hi, I am a bit late coming to this party but I love reading the daily post from you Katz. Thank you I am inspired and have become an addict to language learning. Would you agree that as adults we have to overcome or somehow deal with the structures and learning of our native language we learned so well as babies. When we first learned as babies this issue didn’t exist. They learn clean, so to speak. So Katz how did you manage this issue in your learning. Did you find you needed to address this as a specific issue?

]]> By: joe /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners/#comment-1000054007 Fri, 12 Jul 2013 21:23:59 +0000 /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners#comment-1000054007 Babies probably have it easier because they have no internal dialogue already known. They will only be able to think in images or external sounds they previously heard. So any learned new sounds would “stick” easier. Plus ALL of their thinking would be in the target language.

]]> By: naijahusker /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners/#comment-323030 Sun, 03 Mar 2013 20:00:35 +0000 /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners#comment-323030 Brilliant!

]]> By: Insiya /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners/#comment-287557 Sat, 22 Dec 2012 22:15:26 +0000 /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners#comment-287557 Hey Khatzumoto!
I’ve been wanting to ask you, what was your original reason for learning Japanese in the first place?

]]> By: Sarah /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners/#comment-56583 Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:37:14 +0000 /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners#comment-56583 I was watching English-subbed TV shows for awhile, but now changing to raw ones [well, Chinese-subbed] and I found that I actually can understand much more than I thought I would..but I always find it distracting when someone says something funny that I can’t understand, and I’d *have* to go and look it up. :p sometimes I don’t get the joke (puns! Japanese love puns!)
Wish I could find some Japanese-dubbed english movies over here, but I think the only dubbed movies I can find are in Russian~ T_T

]]> By: Ken /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners/#comment-53066 Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:38:13 +0000 /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners#comment-53066 I was watching the Japanese dub of a classic Western movie the other day, with the Japanese audio track and Japanese subtitles turned on. The subtitles were in some kanji/kana font that was all sloppy, as if handwritten. (I guess that’s their idea of translating things in the Old West?) At first I wasn’t even sure it was the right language!

It took a little while, but eventually I figured out how to read Japanese in the sloppy-font. File that one under “things not found in the textbook”, too!

]]> By: The Arabic Student /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners/#comment-44836 Sun, 06 Jun 2010 14:09:30 +0000 /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners#comment-44836 Very nice article. Not often do I find someone who feels the same way about language learning as I do. Authentic material from day 1 is what you need to really learn a language. It should be obvious to everyone. I know MANY people who’ve majored in languages in college and still have trouble understanding simple things from a native. The problem is that they never delved into authentic media (TV, podcasts, movies, etc). They relied on textbooks and grammar rules. Studying grammar is something that kills language learning. Grammar isn’t something you get spoon fed from a book and then know. It’s something you slowly internalize with exposure to the language. People take grammar books and try to learn a language like it is a mathematical formula, but the brain is MADE for learning language. It naturally notices grammar and internalizes it. You’ll start to say things a certain way because it just sounds “right” that way. You won’t know the reason, but who cares what the reason is? Only people who study linguistics and grammar but who can’t speak a language other than their mother tongue.

I’m ranting here, but this is a topic that I’m passionate about. So few people (in the US at least) really know how to learn a language. They think it involves spending hours with grammar textbooks and in classes, but really what it takes is lots of exposure to authentic audio. Think about how much exposure to the language a baby has before it can even put together rudimentary sentences. At least 2 years of being immersed in it every single day. Yes, that’s a lot, but he wasn’t focusing on learning. He wasn’t having to do boring repetitive tasks. He was doing things that he liked and not stressing when he didn’t understand something.

People don’t like to start with authentic material because at the beginning there’s so much they can’t understand, and even after doing it for a while there’s still a lot that they don’t understand. They don’t feel like they’re improving. But really, you are improving. It’s just not so noticeable at the beginning. It’s something you have to keep at every day for months, but it’s not hard work. How hard is sitting in front of the TV watching a show in your target language? A lot easier than pounding your head with a grammar book.

]]> By: Rafikichick92 /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners/#comment-12325 Mon, 27 Oct 2008 13:29:37 +0000 /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners#comment-12325 Hallelujah — this is so true. I was helping out in an ESL class and a Korean guy commented on how I was helping him more that the teacher because I was speaking like a regular American–fast, slurring words, etc. rather than speaking slowly and clearly like the ESL teacher.

]]> By: KanjiCane /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners/#comment-11092 Mon, 29 Sep 2008 05:33:48 +0000 /isnt-real-japanese-too-hard-for-beginners#comment-11092 I have been reading a lot of posts here at this site ever since I learned of it from TkoSam. I must admit I am getting a grasp for this, and I really find I enjoy and learn more than if I were to take a class. In anything Japanese I listen to/watch, I always find a word that catches my ear and forces me to look it up… Stupid OCD. Anyways, I appreciate it, and I enjoy being apart of AJATT Uni, if you will. 🙂

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