How To Learn Japanese

(NOTE: This was originally posted on Dumb Otaku blog when I was doing language posts on that blog)

This is a presentation my teacher asked me to do. In this post I am going to write out the whole presentation and walk you through the slides instead of just posting the slides. At the end I’ll have the slides to download too. This is probably going to be long as it is about a 20 minute presentation so typing it out makes it quite long.

This is a how to learn presentation. Often times people don’t learn how to learn so they get stuck in a a situation where they just do the same old thing over and over that so many people do and fail. I am hoping to give you some resources and tips to help you not run into that situation.

I want to start out by saying that I am generally a lazy person. I want to do the least amount of work and get the maximum amount of benefit out of it. That is why I did research into how to learn and this is what I came up with.

There are a few key things that you need to learn to effectively learn and speak another language. Those are:

• Vocabulary – Without knowing words you can’t do anything at all in another language
• Grammar – You need to actually know to use those words effectively so grammar is important to know
• Alphabet – When it comes to using the language a lot of what is needed is written so since a lot of languages have their own alphabet. This is a major priority when trying to learn.
• Culture – One thing that some people overlook I have seen in my class is Culture. Others want to learn the language but don’t learn the culture which helps to shape language just as language shapes itself. If you speak English look at all the different dialects of English and knowing a bit about culture helps you understand each a bit better.
• Listening Comprehension – while this isn’t exactly something you can “learn” per se. It is something that is needed so concentrating on it early is very important.

Generally there are 4 key things you do to learn new things and be able to effectively understand/use your new knowledge.

• Memorization – Unfortunately there is no way around it you have to memorize things langauge is no different. You have to memorize your new language.
• Practice – Lets face it if you don’t practice drills and other things repeatedly then you aren’t going to learn it so practice is definitely something you need to do
• Use – Using your knowledge is important and lets you make mistakes and learn from them so using should be one of the funnest things you can do especially since it means you learn something
• Total Immersion (if possible) – Conventional wisdom says live in the target country and consume it 24 hours a day will help you learn faster so if you can try total immersion

Now I have kind of gone on in such a way that might make all this seem hard and daunting, but the presentation is definitely something to help you accomplish all these things easier. Remember I am lazy and want to put the smallest amount of effort in to get the most out of it.

I call this the traditional way to learn a language or the 20th century way, were in the 21st century now. These are your more stereotypical ways to learn and seem the easiest ways to get started.

First you Listen to Words Over and Over think of the guy in a movie driving down the highway listening to the language tapes over and over. Beyond that you start to Try to find content in your Target Language be it books or newspapers or even local communities. Another way to practice or learn is to try to write in the language and hope it is right. Unfortunately, it can take a while to see if you are correct because you might do this with a pen pal or something so immediate feedback to learn from is more difficult.

After you have learned more and more you get to a point where you could potentially read books or be able to speak to others that know the language well. These are definitely good things to do, but finding books traditionally has been hard. Finding people is more likely even more difficult than books.

These aren’t presented as just traditional ways to learn, but are useful in the 21st century too. Lets move on to that.

Here we are 21st century learning methods or Technology Assisted Learning. We have all this technology now lets use it to our full advantage. We still want to some of the same things as before just using technology to facilitate that learning and make it easier.

Immersion/AJATT first thing we can do is let technology get us into a total immersion or almost total immersion environment. We want to take a look though at what is a total immersion environment. Well generally it consists of all your audio and visual world being in Japanese. So that means we need to do the same. With technology you can get your media, software, and most of your books all in Japanese.

The AJATT method was developed by some polish dudes a while back that wanted to laern English. They contended that if they “became” english then they would learn English a whole lot faster, thus they turned their whole environment around them to English. Well Khatsumoto, from the AJATT site, took this same method and applied it to learning Japanese.

The first part of the AJATT method is what I call the rule of 10,000. 10,000 hours and 10,000 sentences. The 10,000 hours is the amount of time it takes to get to 18 months of audio which is how long it took Khatsumoto to become fluent in Japanese to go from nothing to conversations with no problems.

The 10,000 Sentences represents how many sentences you should memorize so through the process you will learn grammar, kanji and a lot of sentences. The point isn’t to actually memorize 10,000 sentences, but to learn a number of ways to communicate. One you learn to a certain amount you can start taking sentences t you know and using your vocab to make more sentences.

The AJATT method also suggests getting all your books in Japanese you want to read therefor forcing you to learn and use your Japanese language skills and to increase your immersion.

The same goes for the world around you by maybe putting up Japanese posters or changing the language on your computer to Japanese. The over all point is to immerse yourself in Japanese.

So we have gone over local environment and a couple of key concepts of total immersion and AJATT, but lets look at some fun ways to learn and practice.

Media has to be the best way to learn. I mean who doesn’t like to watch a good show or listen to good music. While this won’t out and out teach you Japanese it will help to tune your ear to Japanese so that you can pick it up easier.

One way it has helped me is by watching more and more J-Drama’s I pick up on subtle nuances of the language and the different inflections on how to say things that give me an advantage in class when we come up on new words or speaking in general. Besides, JDramas are usually better than American dramas, there is actually a story.

So definitely if you can get hold of some media in Japanese and start enjoying the language.

So here is where the lazy comes in. I can use the least amount of effort to learn the most if will use an SRS program. “Spaced Repetition Software”. Spaced Repetition started in the 30′s, but was quickly lost as it was localized and not a lot of information could spread easily. However, it was popularized in the 60′s again and started a new way of learning that quickly picked up speed and eventually lead to software.

It really started with flashcards, however to do it effectively over the long term flash cards became unmanageable. Couple decades later it started to be implemented in software and we are were we are today.

I did start to go into the science and all, but wasn’t to comferatlbe explaining it so I thought i’d let you watch a video from someone who writes an SRS application because they can do it much better than I can. So please watch the screen cast to get a better idea.

http://ichi2.net/anki/screencast1.html

Hopefully, that video helped with what SRS is and how it works.

These are a list of applications that implement the Spaced Repetition that can be used.

• SuperMemo – This was one of the first implementations of spaced repetition but isn’t free. It is good from what I have read, but it costing something shy’s people away
• Anki – This is a free and open source appliction with a lot of features and one of the most popular SRS apps
• Mnemosyne – I use this one I prefer it to some degree when I can’t use iKnow
• iKnow – This is the main application for the Smart.FM site formerly iknow.co.jp. I prefer this one because it takes some of the guess work out of doing SRS
• Surusu (AJATT) – This is a web version of an SRS app written by the guy that helped to form the AJATT method I haven’t used it but read good things about it
• Word Champ – This is an almost direct competitor to smart.fm/iKnow it has a couple of extra features than Smart.FM does, but it is a pay site.

Hopefully this quick rundown of different apps will help you to decide where to start in looking at what application you might want to use if you choose to go the SRS route to learn.

These are sites I try to use regularly to help learn

• Smart.fm – I use this as my main SRS application I like it because it makes SRS fun
• lang-8 – Lang-8 is for language exchange you can write journal entries and japanese people will fix it for you and help you learn
• jisho.org – This is probably one of the best dictionaries ever quick an easy to use takes kana, kanji, romaji, and english
• Google Translate – This is great for quick and easy translation of text and sites. Not always the most accurate, but enough to get the idea.

Books are an important part of the learning process I especially like Remember the Kanji to learn 2046 kanji so I can get around day to day easier. By far this has been the simplest way to learn kanji I personally have found.

Along with the book you can get a poster of all those kanji at kanjiposter.com. This is useful as it is laminated so you can mark it up and watch your progress. What thing katsumoto suggests is highlight in red what you have learned and watch it fill up in red.

Next is suggested to get a monolingual dictionary eventually. You will hit a plateau at some point where you just can’t seem to quite go anywhere. From reading apparently this will help you break it because it forces you to do a lot of work to look stuff up. I have yet to get one because i don’t feel I am close to that plateau, but I am keeping my eye out for one so if find a good one let me know.

Genki books. When i started learning 2 years ago i started with Japanese Pod 101 while this was all fine and dandy i didn’t get anywhere fast because there was no structure to my learning so it retarded it a lot. However, taking a class has helped me to gain that structure I am missing. To learn more on this please read my blog posts “Japanese Langauge Classes DON’T Suck.”

Anyway I like the Genki books because of the structure it provides that is why I recommend it.

Finally down to the last 2 slides “Resources” YAY. I am basically going to list these out and let you follow them. I went through over about 100 sites that help you learn Japanese and picked out the best ones.

FireFox Addons

• Kanji-lish
• Furigana Injector
• RikaiChan

Web Sites
- Genki Resources

• Usagi-Chan’s Genki Resources
• Genki Online
• Genki Exercises

Web Sites
- Listening Comprehension

• ?????????
• Smart.fm
• Japanese Pod 101

- Others

• Charles Kelly’s Japanese Language Study Website
• JGram – The Japanese Grammar database
• Daily Page for Students of the Japanese Language
• Japanese: Vocabulary Guide
• Japanese Lessons
• Japanese for Busy People Supplement Materials
• Learn Japanese On the Web, CosCom
• English-Japanese Vocabulary Quizzes
• Speak as Romans Speak
• NSW HSC ONLINE – Japanese
• Griffith University grammar frame
• Tae Kim’s Japanese guide to learning Japanese grammar
• Japanese for the Western Brain

I just want to point out this isn’t a “Use the AJATT method” presentation. It just so happens there are a lot of common sense things in the method that really help you to learn that is why I like it. Heck, one of the first things I started to do was listen to Japanese music without reading about the method. Some of the things just make sense.

Download: How to Learn Japanese Powerpoint Presentation

Related Posts:

• Quickly Zero Out Anki
• Why Anki is Best of Breed for SRS
• Studying Your Japanese Better With a Tablet
• Regrouping and Focusing on Attainable Things
• 10 Steps to Start Learning Japanese

Tagged as: Anki, Audio, Kana, motivational, SRS, Video