Hello! I was wondering if you had reference points, tips, or advice on learning Japanese the right way? I know some words and phrases from watching anime over the years but I know how the language is a bit complicated and with three different ways to write it, I was curious if you had a starting point for someone who wanted to start off slow and not jump in over their head? Thanks!
Heyo. So, I’m going to try to keep this brief because I know I can very easily go off on tangents.
Advice #1 is - although listening to anime dialogue is not bad for listening practice, I would severely recommend NOT using it as source material. Many times, the ‘phrase’ you may pick up from anime is going to be slang, impolite, or just odd. It’s anime dialogue for a reason - it’s not realistic, it’s a cartoon.
Now, where CAN you learn Japanese?
Well to be honest - start with online resources! How about Duolingo?
https://www.duolingo.com/learn
I have never used it personally, but I just went on there to see what they have available, and it’s actually rather decent! Good for drilling at the very least, and as a starter, it’ll get you the practice you need.
If you want to go deeper, I recommend getting something more solid - like a textbook! If you’re super into learning it, you might get quite far using a textbook and YouTube videos!
For textbooks, I recommend Genki. It’s the most digestible one for beginners.
I don’t have YouTube channels I know of, but if you know any, please comment!
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Now... is Japanese really that difficult?
Ehhhh Yes and No? Depends on what angle you look at it from.
You’re right about one thing - Japanese does have 3 separate alphabets. The first of those three is Hiragana. It looks like this:
And good news - it’s phonetic!
What the heck is ‘phonetic’?
It means one symbol (letter) has one sound. So all you gotta do is memorize which sound goes with which symbol.
This isn’t difficult. You did this for the latin alphabet.
Katakana is ALSO phonetic, and it is much like hiragana. There goes another goalpost. No problem.
‘What about the third one???‘ you ask.
Yeah, okay, fine. That one is kind of a bother. That’s kanji. The difficult thing about kanji is
They’re difficult to write because there’s typically way more complexity to them
There’s like 2000 of them you have to memorize.
They all have multiple pronunciations.
Look at this smug motherfucker. He’s not even the worst one. Kids learn about him in like, first grade.
But honestly, you don’t HAVE to learn all 2000 kanji to say ‘I speak japanese!’. People can fight me about this, I don’t care. I don’t think you need to! I can recognize roughly the first 1000 with relative ease, but still struggle with the more high-level ones. And guess what? I can still say I speak Japanese. Because... I do.
You technically don’t need to learn kanji right away. Forget about them! Wait until you have a better grasp of the language. Use hiragana and katakana first. Then, once you have the basics, you can explore kanji. And there’s apps for that.
Now, you may have seen this ‘terrifying’ post going around on Twitter and Tumblr:
And honestly, although at first I was really amused by the mapping of english word order onto other languages, after a while people’s terror gets boring.
Japanese isn’t difficult because of its word order!
Yes, most languages have different word order. And yes, when you take many lines and cross them many times, you get scary-looking complexity. Or rather, the illusion of complexity.
But realistically, Japanese word order is more flexible than English word order. And - again people can fight me on this but - Japanese grammar is actually way more straightforward and clean than English grammar! If you want to complain about grammar, complain about RUSSIAN! OR FINNISH!! You have my condolences on that front. But Japanese? No way. It’s clean-cut and elegant.
Side-note: Japanese learners - DON’T come at me with keigo, I don’t care. Keigo (respectful language form in Japanese) is, like everything, a matter of memorization. Yeah it’s complex and full of weird arbitrary rules, but plenty of Japanese people still struggle with it. Which means it’s ok for YOU to struggle with it too.
And wow, okay, yep, I went off on a tangent...
TL;DR:
How can you learn Japanese?
Use Duolingo. Memorize hiragana and katakana alphabets. Supplement with texbooks and YouTube. Go to school for it. Go abroad. Find a buddy to practice with. There are apps to meet Japanese people who want to learn English, and you can do language exchange over text or voice.
Is Japanese difficult?
No. Kanji is difficult. Japanese pronunciation and grammar is relatively straightforward for English speakers. Sure, there will be difficulties. It’s a whole ass other language! But it’s not impossible. Not with the right attitude. :)
Happy learning!
