hi, you mentioned Japanese was your third language, could you share some tips and ways you learnt it? I’ve been meaning to learn some Japanese but I just can’t figure out how to get started. Thanks ^^
Oh yeah of course!! I’m always happy help out in that regard :)
On top of all of this, I have to lead with the fact that guidance from a teacher or tutor of some kind is always good, so if you have access to that I do highly encourage it. I know it’s very hard though, especially if you’re still in the West at a time like this.
You might remember hearing about things like “auditory learning” and “visual learning” and then never thinking about them again. They’re actually really important for the path you take when learning a language. I had a really hard time remembering the materials I read, for example, but the ones I heard and practiced in class were much easier.
The four types, to get rid of their technical names and make them more obvious, are seeing, hearing, reading, and hands-on approaches.
People who learn though seeing will benefit from manga or watching children's shows, while those who learn best through hearing will get more help from podcasts or traditional lectures. If you learn by reading, taking notes and reading texts will help (although you should take notes regardless lol). And if you do best hands-on, you'll want to multitask, whether it's doing something unrelated while reviewing, or using a task or goal to practice.
You aren't limited to, and shouldn't limit yourself to, resources that fit your learning type best, but when you're finding yourself stuck it's useful to have an idea of how you'll most easily be able to push forward. Language has two main element pairs—reading/writing and speaking/listening—and while you'll want to get used to everything, it's fine to focus on one or the other at first, especially with pictorial languages like Japanese. If you find yourself reading a lot, kanji will be a more immediate concern, but if you're focused on speaking you won't need to worry about it for a while. The opposite is true for tone-indicating particles like ne or deshou.
Anyway, with that in mind, you'll be able to fine tune your experience, but here are some overarching tips that should apply no matter what kind of learner you are.
It's obvious once you get started, but you want to master hiragana before you even begin to think about katakana or kanji. You can use hiragana In any situation, technically, and you'll want to be able to look back at your notes and be able to pronounce them later.
On a similar note, it's much more important to be able to read kanji than to be able to write it.
As soon as you can, stop using the Latin alphabet to label pronunciation. It'll help you with your hiragana, and the further you detach your Japanese from your English, the better.
What I mean by that last sentence is, Japanese and English are different languages, so if you try to think of everything with a one-to-one relationship to English, you'll find yourself getting stuck very often. Sometimes things won't work the way they do in English, and "that's just how it is" is going to be the most helpful answer. (Which is why practicing in any way you can is really important).
Be active in your learning! Don't just "get the gist of it", really dig into the sentences you read or hear to make sure you're picking up on everything that’s being said.
When I get something wrong, I find it useful to figure out what it is I accidentally said or wrote (for example, instead of watashi no saifu [my wallet] watashi wa saifu [I am a wallet]). It helps me remember to not make the same mistake later.
Above all else, keep it fun for yourself! If you hate your book, there's probably a better one out there. Learn songs. Play games. You're more likely to remember things if you actually care about the information, so give yourself something to care about.
For learning any alphabet, hiragana and katakana included, watching YouTube videos will help you best see how to naturally write it.
LingoDeer is actually pretty good for the Japanese syllabaries too, so that's also an option.
Children's books, slice-of-life manga, news articles, and video games without timed text are some of my favorite ways to practice reading.
For writing, journaling is usually pretty fun, and of course if you're up for it you can always find a study buddy or a pen pal to write back and forth with.
The important thing is to stay on your level and not overwhelm yourself with things you don't know yet, especially with writing. You're going to sound like a preschooler for a little while, and that's fine.
Periodically test yourself on groups of kanji to make sure you're retaining them.
Unfortunately, Japanese can be really picky about its writing (look at 未 [not yet] and 末 [end], or わ [wa] and れ [re], for example), so it's important to keep close track of it and practice a lot so that your muscle memory can start to take over.
The absolute best option is to go to Japan, since that will force you to practice, but assuming that's not going to happen (lol) and you're working on your own, children's cartoons, songs of all kinds, and YouTube videos are going to be your best friends.
Repeat everything you hear to get used to saying it! Repeat prompt questions before answering them, and while you don't need to parrot literally everything in a video, if something catches your ear or is being heavily emphasized, give it a whirl.
Tsu and r are the sounds that are noticeably different from English, so you want to get used to those. U and f are technically different too, but you can get away with using their English equivalents.
If you find yourself getting bored in your spare time, try to talk to yourself in Japanese, whether it's narrating what you're going to do tomorrow or answering imaginary interviews for when you inevitably become famous. Even if you get stuck, it's one of the most natural way to practice verbal sentence building.
LingoDeer is an app with some free lessons on top of a subscription service for the full package. In terms of languages like Japanese and Chinese, it feels a little more natural to get started with than Duolingo.
That said, Duolingo is free and very useful.
Maggie Sensei, HiNative, and Japanese Language Stack Exchange are great for explaining grammar points. Keep in mind that the latter two are forums, so you should check to make sure people aren't disagreeing with an answer.
Jisho is a useful dictionary for both standard Japanese and slang! Just be sure the words are breaking up where they should, because Jisho always takes the first option it sees. Isolate parts of a sentence if you think other kanji or particles are getting in the way.
It won't work for everyone, but I have this book called Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig that's proved helpful for me. You can find all of the introduction and part one for free here.
