Learn Easy Japanese – Four Tips

The prospect of learning Japanese might bring back the rather scary, but exciting, moments that arose when you were learning a second language back in high school or middle school. In spite of the fact that it’s totally different than any of the Romance languages, Japanese is not that difficult to learn if you follow these four tips I formulated when teaching my students.

1. Make Mistakes. Sounds odd but that’s the best way to learn easy Japanese. So, give yourself permission to err, and you automatically give yourself permission to learn in a way you never would’ve realized. When you discover a weakness, you can figure out a way to strengthen it. So, it’s very important to fail often!

2. Learn Katakana. Every language ends up borrowing words from other languages, Katakana is a writing system the Japanese use to express those borrowed words, most of them English. Learning Katakana will help you sound out words that are very familiar to you, only they will be written in Japanese. There’s a confidence-booster for you from the get-go.

3. Take Chances. Even in your own language, you can run the risk of being misunderstood. But taking that risk is a good way to learn Japanese easily. Consider the fact that sometimes it’s important to do something and fail, than to do nothing all. No matter how awkward your Japanese may be, your efforts will be appreciated in a magnanimous way. No matter how much you bone up on your phrases and customs, you’re going to be recognized as a tourist and you’re going to make some gaffes. Realize you are what you are – a tourist; don’t be so afraid of making mistakes that you don’t have a good time.

4. Repeat, Repeat, Repeat. Repetition helps you ease into the language and the culture and lessens the chances for mistakes. The more time you spend honing your skills, especially with language, the quicker it becomes second nature.

If it happens to rain on the day you were going to the beach or go shopping, use the time to read up on culture or news and practice your phrases or language lessons. You’re commute time can double as your learning time. Put some lessons on your iPod to listen to as you walk to work, or while you’re riding the bus or train. Play CD’s in your car.

Japanese is an intriguing language to learn, being well-spoken in it can advance your career, earn yourself foreign friends, or ease your travels in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Learn Japanese Now – These Secrets Will Help

You can learn Japanese now, it is well within the realm of your abilities. With focus, commitment, and especially enthusiasm, you’re setting yourself up for a good beginning. Aside from those traits, it is, of course, important to know the basics. Japanese is written using three different writing systems:

* Kanji
* Hiragana
* Katakana

Chinese characters, called Kanji, have been borrowed and incorporated into the language.

More like Western alphabets, but based on Chinese characters, Katakana and Hiragana are syllabic scripts. Kanji and Hiragana, in combination, are the most used writing systems in modern Japanese. Katakana is used chiefly to depict the sounds of borrowed foreign words, or when there is a need to depict other sounds, like the howl of a wolf.

A running joke is that Asians do things backwards; well, Japanese scripts is written vertically, as opposed to the Western horizontal, and from right to left, as opposed to the Western left to right. The Western style has been adapted to scientific writing and for computer display, but the familiar method remains in use in practically all other Japanese publications.

The Japanese language incorporates different manners of speaking depending on the class of who is speaking or spoken to, and there are different levels of politeness used as well. Going even further, the language used within Japanese can indicate the gender of the speaker as well as the gender of the listener, this is done through the use of vocabulary, grammar, and even the pitch or tone of voice.

As expected, the sort of teaching and learning available from certain language schools is always promoted as the easiest and quickest way to pick up another language. Budget, interest level, time you have, these are three important considerations when you set about to determine how and where you’ll take up your language lessons. To learn Japanese now, you have to determine whether or not the curriculum or method of teaching is suitable for your needs. What do you want or need to do? Do you want good reading and writing skills? Will you need it facilitate your ease of travel and communication with native speakers? If your interests are academic, involving a lot of reading and writing, your needs are a lot different than those necessary for getting around, eating, getting hotel rooms, or enjoying the life of the locals.

Anyway, if you want to learn Japanese now, your first goal should be to engage the spoken language, it’s much easier than the reading or writing. Pronunciation and choice of wording is paramount when learning a new language, get audio files that employ native speakers to help you with this task. (Even if your focus will be on reading and writing, most books teaching those skills also contain CD-ROMs.) A subtle language, Japanese depends on various intonations, listening carefully and imitating them is very important.

Grammar and vocabulary are two important considerations – how much do you need of each? Practice words and phrases that you will use most often so they are easy to recall, you can flesh out your vocabulary as you proceed from there. As with vocabulary, learn more as you go along but master the basics of grammar enough to set yourself at ease as you tackle the necessities of getting around and getting along.

Of course, as with any language, make sure patience and perseverance are both in your learning toolbox. Textbooks, teachers, and drill exercises are important, but what you bring to the process is most important. Personal study is very convenient, your classroom can be anywhere, open at any hour, and conducted with a curriculum set to your own pace.

4 Overlooked Tips To Help You Learn Kanji Fast

For many people including me, memorizing nearly 2000 Kanji in the Japanese language is a sort of torture.  I’m not going to sugar-coat it, memorizing all 1945 of these little buggers is going to take some work.  Chances are good you will spend most of your energy on Kanji while learning Japanese.  But here I will show you some tips which will hopefully make things at least a little easer so that you can hold your own next time you pick up a Japanese newspaper.

Tactic #1: Ignore the old learning order

To step into the Japanese learning world, you should first study the 100 to 200 most commonly used kanji.  But the next step will be getting to know the difficult words the moment you see them, no matter how rarely they are used.  At the very start, it will feel hard, but this approach will actually save you time and energy in the long run because you won’t constantly be deferring certain Kanji into the elusive “future.”

Tactic #2: Notice the small things:

Learn 20 or 30 radicals which occur most frequently in Kanji with a simple Kanji dictionary, and put the rest of the 214 radicals aside temporarily, then you will have a solid understanding of a good part of Kanji.  Then, identifying new kanji will not be that hard.  You can sort of figure out what a Kanji means by looking at the radicals.  You can call it chunking, and you will find learning 3-5 radicals takes less effort then memorizing 15 Kanji.  The next thing you should do is just to put the radicals together.

Tactic #3: Get the tough stuff out of the way first

I’m talking about written Kanji here.  If you really want to get a good understanding of Japanese, take the time to try reading something in Japanese each and every day.  Getting familiar with the way Japanese printed writing works will help you understand common applications of each Kanji you see.  You should be able to get a decent understanding of Japanese on your own after you’ve been doing this for awhile.

Tactic #4: Speak Japanese out loud :

Three main things you should bear in mind in learning Kanji: identifying the figure, its meaning, and pronouncing it correctly.  As long as you aren’t studying in the library, go ahead and practice reading out loud. Reading Kanji aloud is a great way to kill three birds (learning structure/shape, meaning, and sound) with one, big, noisy stone.

If you want to learn Kanji, things are going to be tough, but you can manage it with some determination.  Follow my advice, and your learning speed will increase.