How I went about learning Japanese.

I was asked how I learned Japanese, so here it is, as well as I can remember.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• learn Japanese
• Kanji
• LingQ

[JapaneseRuleof7]

The fact that you spent so much time reading Japanese clearly helped you acquire the language. That's the part of the Japanese that many people avoid, and it severely limits vocabulary acquisition later on.

[lingosteve]

@JapaneseRuleof7 Agreed, reading is tremendously helpful in gaining the vocabulary we need and getting used to the language.

[perrin4869]

What are your thoughts on Heisig's Remembering the Kanji?

[lingosteve]

@perrin4869 I did not use it but my son Mark did and found it very effective. If it had been around when I studied Chinese I might have used it.

[Hiltongroupie]

Hi Steve, you can easily learn Katakana in a few hours using the Heisig method.It's invaluable for reading japanese loan and the titles of manga, videogames, and what have you. Considering how much you've accomplished, it'd be a walk in the park for you.:)

[lingosteve]

@Hiltongroupie The issue is not learning it. It is easy to learn. The issue is using it. I don't write in it, and I avoid reading it.

[aethelwulf19]

Also, your experience is very interesting.

I too learned chinese (in beijing) before moving to Japan,

and the texts with kanji are certainly much easier to read!

[aethelwulf19]

Katakana is the first thing you should learn as an english speaker! Its basically all english!

[PSNnightmare]

Just found your videos steve and i have to say the sheer number of languages you've managed to get yourself fluent in is amazing? im here trying to learn spanish as best i can, whilst there are heroes out there like you who do such a good job in many more! subbed and cant wait for more of youre insights on learning new languages.

[Feitan3DS]

Ahaha, this old man seems nice.

Kinda wish you were my uncle or grandpa or something..

[Natreg44]

@Steven676 well for one there is the punctuation on the vowels which sometimes appears, and sometimes doesn't appear depending if the sentence is a question or not. Also the verb forms are quite difficult (too many). I'm a native and for me it's more difficult to write correctly in spanish than in english. Of course, all that is not strictly necessary to speak, read or write spanish.

[Steven676]

@Natreg44 I don't see why English would be easier than Spanish. What about Spanish is difficult? You can always tell how to pronounce a word from how it is spelled, unlike English. Also, there are not many vowel sounds whereas in English there are more than 20 vowel sounds, I forget how many.

[Earl3d]

Hey Steve. Love your videos. One question for you. You said knowing the Kanji from Chinese helped you, but how exactly did you pick up the readings for the Japanese words? Using furigana and/or the dictionary? I went through Hesig's first book and loved it, but am finding picking up the readings a bit of a slow process. When I read a book or something should I not worry about checking every single word I don't know?

[Natreg44]

@Steven676 About Skyrim I suppose it's a good way to learn spanish. I'm spanish, and in my opinion, it's far more difficult to learn Spanish than English, but if you enjoy learning while playing, you'll probably will learn it without even noticing it.