I'm currently a college student that is quickly discovering that I don't want to take my life slow. I don't want to waste my time while I'm young and I want to get out and see the world. Dreams of every middle aged wife that got knocked up too young and chose not to get the abortion. ( Did I just lose some readers? Okay they're gone now we can continue. ) I study [Your favorite major] at [Your University] as well as Japanese. Now [Your favorite major] is pretty common but ask anybody what they think about Japanese and people are pretty amazed and exclaim that it must be SUPER difficult, like cure cancer and AIDS simultaneously difficult. This can't be true. I have a little brother and sister out in Japan that speak perfect Japanese and as far as I know they haven't cured neither cancer nor AIDS.
I have some immediate family in or around the area of a little city called Tokyo, which if you're reading this I'm assuming you want to be. (Unless of course you don't.) I, however, did not have the benefit of growing up multilingual, even though I'm half Peruvian and half White and have family in Japan. Well I am fixing that as we speak. I recently ( 1 week ago ) adopted a popular method call All Japanese All The Time. If you haven't heard of it head over to www.alljapaneseallthetime.com . Don't forget the address I know it's a hard one to remember. OK cool. This blog is going to be a place to check my progress and my current thoughts about learning this language. You can use it to compare yourself to someone else on your same quest if your the competitive type. Or just take my advice and learn how I learn as I learn it.
Let's Break Down the Steps:
::::::Step 1. Desire
Do you want to learn Japanese? Check. Now wait seriously DO YOU WANT TO LEARN JAPANESE?!! Check. Ok then let's do it. Together 一緒に。 Now you just need to believe that you can do it and if you're unsure I suggest going over to that website with the long name I gave a second ago and read. Khatz is a good motivational speaker.
::::::Step 2. Immersion and Everything that goes with it.
First you need to quit English. Forget English. It never existed.
Next you need to start doing everything you like doing but this time in Japanese. This includes movies, cartoons, music, websites, friends (ouch! Well it's bound to happen some friends just don't understand when you're committed to learning a language.)
::::::Step 3. You know Japanese
Wait I missed something. Oh yeah during immersion you have some learning to do. This is done in 3 other steps.
Lets Break Down The Steps:
::::::Step 1. Learn Kanji (Chinese characters used in Japanese).
Learn the meanings and how to write them. Don't worry about how to say the words just yet. The book I'm using to do this is Remembering the Kanji 1 and 3 by James Heisig. I also use a program called Anki found at http://ankisrs.net/ . Together It is impossible not to learn. I'm currently learning 20 new Kanji per day. At this rate I will get through the basic 2047 or so Kanji by May 5th. (I started a week ago?) add another 1000 Kanji to this and ill be done with those by end of June. AWESOME!
This first part may seem slow but I have been studying Japanese for roughly 1.5 years and trust me this past week has done wonders for me. Once you know the meanings of the first 2000 Kanji you'll start to learn how to read and use Japanese much faster ( I assume from reading AJATT blog). Really it will and I can tell because from classes you don't really have a great understanding of the language at all. This immersion thing is the best way.
::::::Step 2. Learn the kana.
Learn Hiragana and Katakana, 2 other ways to represent the Japanese language. Combine the three Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana and you now have the Japanese writing system. Japanese does not have 3 alphabets. It is just one system.
Now it makes sense that if you already know the meanings of kanji you will be able to write them while learning how to speak. Also I already know both Hiragana and Katakana from my classes. So I guess that's an unfair advantage and will probably knock off about 4 or 6 days off my journey. Yeah It's not hard to learn. But, it is perfected through practice so unless your using it there is no point in learning these until your ready to start learning readings. (After the first 2000 Kanji)
::::::Step 3. Pick up the language naturally.
You have now been immersed in the language for about 3-4 months right? Are you going crazy. Idk I guess we'll see together but Step 3 is to start taking sentences from all those books, music, TV shows, and movies you collected over the past few months. You load these sentences up into Anki as well and start learning them the same way as Kanji. The Goal is 10000 sentences in your deck at any time. This will be built up over time don't worry. Kids don't learn from someone drilling into them that this is a door and those are walls. (Well a little) But the grammar part is definitely not explained to them. They pick it up from context and copying those around them. Most Japanese don't know the grammar points we think we know. They do not sit there and convert to て-form switch it to a た or だ and add "blah blah" to it. They just react to what they know and feel is true. Try thinking about how you speak your native language. Yeah it just happens if you had to think so much you wouldn't be able to communicate effectively. This is the goal from sentences. You know the meanings of the sentences and can say it and reproduce it even if you don't know the specifics about every slight change in sound. You develop knowledge of nouns and particles and how things work NATURALLY.
Now this scattered version of a blog is just me letting you know what I'm up to. I suggest you check out AJATT and come visit me to see how I'm doing and let me know how you're doing. I have some more reviews I need to do before bed.
So, jaane.
じゃあね。
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