Job Discussion Forums

[MrCAPiTUL]

Besides being immersed in the language and culture, what other methods did you employ to learn J? Thanks in advance.

[luckyloser700]

There are many foreigners that can speak Japanese on various levels, but I'd guess most aren't fluent. Passing the JLPT at level 2 doesn't make you a competent user of the language even though you're qualified for many jobs in Japan.
If you don't use the language almost every day and are not constantly trying to learn new grammar (or refresh what you've already learned if you're a level 1 kyu) and spending little or no time reading Japanese, unless you're truly gifted at learning languages, you won't advance to anywhere near native-level ability.
I've spent the last year living in the sticks and usually the only time I speak English is when I teach. I put in a fair amount of time studying, but I like to get out a lot so I'm not doing it every day. However, I've been using Japanese so much every day I've gotten to the point to where I can converse with just about anyone (except for old farts and people who insist on using their local dialect). But, I'm nowhere near fluent.
For many people it's easy to pick up the ability to have basic, fun conversations inside of a year with just about any Japanese person. But, becoming competent is a whole 'nother story.

[Apsara]

Sounds like my level is about similar to luckyloser's. For me, the combination of these three things got my Japanese to the level it is today- 1: Starting to learn Japanese in the NZ school system at age 12, continuing until I finished university 8 years later. At that point I was a lot like most Japanese people are with English- I knew lots of grammar and vocab, but couldn't follow a conversation and sentences were halting.

2: Having lived here for almost 9 years in total now, in 3 separate stays. I believe I have absorbed a fair bit by osmosis- just hearing announcements, TV commercials etc. over and over again, staring at advertisements on the train etc. I learned a lot of vocab and kanji from TV- I watched anything, especially programmes where they put subtitles in Japanese to emphasise what the speaker is saying, like some of those variety shows- very useful. I even watched enka shows because it's sung quite slowly so the subtitles are easy to follow!

3: Often being in situations where I had no choice but to express myself in Japanese for hours or days at a time, like staying for a couple of weeks a year with a Japanese family, which I have done every year since I arrived. I have also lived with Japanese housemates who spoke limited English, and worked in jobs (teaching and other) where the majority of the staff spoke very limited English.

I pick up a textbook about twice a year and have a look at a chapter or so, basically I feel I had enough grammar lessons and kanji and vocabulary cramming at school and once I arrived in Japan, didn't want to do it anymore.

Obviously most people trying to learn Japanese don't have the benefit of starting at age 12 or living here for 9 years, but I can't stress enough how important number 3 has been/still is (actually this is my usual situation these days- I use Japanese 95% of the time in my job, and many of my Japanese friends don't speak much English or just speak to me in Japanese anyway) .

When I was still teaching English and less immersed in Japanese, the times when my Japanese really made huge leaps ahead was when I would spend 3 days in Kyoto speaking nothing but Japanese. It was tiring, sometimes frustrating, and I would even get headaches, but once you have the basics of Japanese you have to find ways to put yourself in that kind of situation if you want to improve your fluency.

I realise you said you wanted to know about methods besides being immersed in the language and culture, but there are different levels of immersion, the proof of which are those guys who have been here for 10 years, have a Japanese wife, and still have little more than a few standard phrases. You can alter your level of immersion quite a lot, which I think is key. It's important to really take advantage of actually being in Japan if you want to improve your Japanese.

[canuck]

[PAULH]

[sidjameson]

PaulH, I am sure I am not the only one who has read your post above and just seen another side of you. I dont know you from Adam of course, but the idea of a young Paul singing his way through Karaoke and thumbing lifts from burly truck drivers. Imprsessive.

[gaijinalways]

PaulH posted

[moot point]

I picked up my conversational Japanese by drinking in the local yakitori shop. I picked up the kanji from watching tv since most quips by comedians are subtitled.

I don't know where I learned how to read a newspaper, but I guess things actually do happen through osmosis naturally. Krashen's "natural approach", perhaps?

[whatthefunk]

Like others said, avoid the NOVA type crowds. I think you need a few foreign friends to hang out with sometimes, but try to make friends that have similar intrests in learning about Japanese language.

Go sit in a Japanese bar and almost always somebody will start talking to you within 5 minutes.

Reading is VERY important. It refreshes the memory and can do wonders to your vocab. Start with easy things like Doraemon and the like and hopefully you will be able to move up to short kids books and small articles. Look in the kids and young adult section at the bookstore for books with furikana. I always read things that are a little under my level because having to thumb through dictionaries and grammer books while you read really takes the pleasure out of it.

Put yourself in situations where you must use it. Instead of going to the supermarket, go to the market area and buy your fruits, rice etc. from the local dealers. You can actually get better deals by doing this and the owners of the local stands are usually pretty nice and willing to have a bit of a conversation with you.

Ask stupid questions that you already know the answer to. For example, ask the old woman sitting next to you on the train what stop you should get off at, even though you already know. Almost always, if you break the ice with your pointless question, they will ask you where you are from, what you do etc.

Go to volunteer classes. Mine always had parties or dinners once every couple of months that were fun and its a great chance to meet foreigners outside the NOVA universe. The lessons arent always great, but theyre dirt cheap so you cant complain to much. Good for review.

Watch Japanese movies. I watch them once with Japanese audio and Japanese subtitles, then usually watch them again with English subtitles if they are availible. Stick with simple movies at first. You might not understand everything, but thats okay.

Listen to Japanese music and sign karaoke.

Watch Japanese TV. It may be stupid, but it will help your listening alot.

Like others said, set goals for yourlself. Set an overall goal and then smaller daily or weekly goals.

Study for at least 30 minutes a day when you can. Even a little bit will help you out alot.

Get to know your neighbors. These are the people that you see at least a few times a week and its a great chance to practice small talk and basic conversation.

Always speak Japanese with your Japanese friends. Dont give in! Resist their English! Most of my Japanese friends can speak English very well, but my refusal to speak English with them has lead to use primarily using Japanese. They all have other foreign friends who speak no Japanese, so they can practice their English on them.

I think the biggest thing with learning a launguage is becoming comfortable with using it. Even if you can only speak basic sentences, if you feel comfortable doing so, you will learn the language alot quicker than if you dont feel right with it.

[Glenski]

Other than being immersed in the culture...

For me, learning by osmosis fails miserably. I can't learn by watching TV, even with the multitude of kanji and hiragana plastered all over the bloody screen. The only 2 Japanese language educational programs I have seen include Katsuya Kobayashi's (now defunct) program with a handful of foreigners simulating a homestay at his home, and another program with 3 foreigners doing lessons with an older Japanese woman. The latter is way over my head and demonstrates a very poor way of teaching (for my way of learning anyway). The former is something I used to watch with my (then) girlfriend, who corrected many things Kobayashi "taught" as being unnatural or just not used anymore.

I have studied a wee bit after my first trip to Japan. Took night courses at an American university for a year. I feel fortunate I had native Japanese teachers then. After that, I have not enrolled in a single course. I have a handful of books, but marrying my girlfriend and having a kid pretty much but the kibosh on finding spare time to study.

My wife is admittedly NOT a teacher, so she can't/won't help me. We speak English in our home 95% of the time just to give my kid the only English exposure he'll get aside from the snippets from Eigo de Asobo programs and the once a month Skype calls from Grandma in the States. I hardly saw her parents, even though we used to live close to them, simply because I worked so much, and when I DID see them, it was 100% Japanese or nothing. They know zero English anyway.

In my work environments in the past 8 years, I have been required to use nothing except English, other than sit through mindless and pointless meetings or to discipline students a bit or explain some rare instructions. I guess one could always TRY taking notes in meetings, but I found that to be completely unproductive. By the time I looked up a word or phrase that I could hear clearly, I had either completely lost any context or the subject had changed.

Advice?
1. Enroll in some program.
2. Find a Japanese person with experience teaching to tutor you. Forget the language exchanges.
3. Study every chance you get, and MAKE the chances.
4. Have a goal in mind. JLPT2 or 1? 500 kanji by next April? Whatever.
5. Use tapes/CDs, recorded TV programs, radio (there's a Sunday bilingual program on for 2 hours, I think), whatever media you can to get listening practice.
6. Keep your native English speaking friends (or whatever nationality you may be), but hang out with as many Japanese associates as you can, and use as much Japanese with them as possible, even if they use English.
7. Realize that you will reach plateaus of learning, and don't let them discourage you into thinking you have reached the final limit.

I personally would like to know how some of the Japanese talent have gotten as far as they have. Patrick Harlan, David Spector, etc. Just to say they studied hard is one thing, but to know HOW they studied would be nice. I heard a rumor that Spector forced himself to learn 5 kanji a day, for example.

[kdynamic]

You've gotta actually study. Textbooks, flashcards, JLPT vocab lists, grammar dictionaries, the whole 9 yards.

[JaredW]

I was a Mormon missionary back in 1997-1999. I became pretty fluent conversationally and proficient as to the culture and language, at least I thought so. I can say that the best method that I and some other missionaries employed was to just be quiet, listen and have a dictionary handy when out in public. Every time you hear a new word look it up in a little dictionary or ask the native speaker what they just said. And, DO NOT just ask them to repeat everything they said because that is akin to my students (USA high school) saying they didn't understand anything after my 20 minute lesson on characterization.

Also, I avoided speaking English as much as possible or even asking English speakers about the Japanese language unless they were very, very good. If you teach 8 hrs a day and then sleep 8 hours a day, that leave 8 hours to study and have fun. I would say that you could be fluent in 1 year. I say fluent in terms of being able to speak with a respectable level of understading, vocabulay and a moderate command of prosodic features (e.g. tone and intonation).

On the other hand, a lot of other missionaries I worked with wanted to just speak incessantly every new word or grammar principle that they used, and those guys usually never achieved a high level of proficiency or fluency than those of us that just sat back and listened.

Also, I personally would avoid learning kanji until about your first year in the country. The reason why is because they are addicting and unless you're going to become deaf and write what you speak, you won't need them as a beginner. That is just my opinion. But, I saw many Americans waste their 2 years in Japan because they wanted to learn the writing to the detriment of their communicative ability. When they left Japan, they knew maybe 3rd grade kanji but they spoke as if they had only been here 3 months.

As far as enrolling in an organized class, that is up to you. If you need structure go for it. Otherwise, if you are comfortable mingling in a culture and society that might be difficut to understand at first, that will afford you the best opportunity to learn Japanese or any language for that matter.

Edit: I agree that you must set goals.

My 4 favorite books are:

1. Kodansha's Concise Dictionary (Hiragana and Katakana) a must
2. A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar (Paperback) ISBN 4789004546

3. Japanese language patterns (from Sophia Daigaku) ISBN 4900640662

4. Anything that will lower your stress of learning the language.

[shuize]

As kdynamic points out, there's no trick. You just have to study.

[PAULH]

[luckyloser700]