Did you ever watch an anime and think to yourself: ‘I wish I could watch that without having
to read the subtitles all the time.’
Well, I’ve definitely been there and it was one of the reasons that got me into learning
Japanese in the first place.
And if you’re curious how I managed to get to exactly that point today, in this video
I will be sharing with you guys how I got started with Japanese, the struggles I had
with it and 3 big tips I have for everyone interested in starting Japanese themselves
so avoid the same struggles I had.
As a quick disclaimer before we start, this is not gonna be a video about how to become
fluent in Japanese in 3 weeks or something, because the sad truth is, that’s not how
language learning works.
Learning Japanese will take time and effort.
So, what I’m gonna share with you, are some valuable insights I learned in almost 4 years
of Japanese study, that will hopefully make your learning-experience a lot more effective
and fun.
First of all: Is it worth it?
Being able to watch Anime without subtitles has paid off in a number of ways for me.
I can focus on the plot and the artwork instead of reading the subs, that are often very liberal
and sometimes straight-out bad.
Through Japanese I can understand the dialogue and cultural context of the story way better.
But most importantly learning Japanese has pushed me to move to Japan, broaden my world
view, see more places and meet new people.
So yes, it’s 100% worth it.
The 3 tips that I want to share with you based on journey into the language of Anime and
Manga are Passion, Time and Strategy.
3 things you have to do.
Or as I like to call it PTSD.
Let’s look at each of these in detail.
The first thing you need before you even start studying Japanese, is passion.
You need to have some sort of passion for Japanese if you want to study it.
I’m gonna assume you are interested in Anime if you are watching this video, so that’s
definitely a very solid start in my book.
Since I’ve always been a big fan of fantasy and science fiction I was always pretty interested
in Japanese history and culture through a number of books and movies.
Add to that my general love for Japanese food and my discovery of anime and manga at the
end of high school, I was pretty much set up for giving Japanese a shot.
I started roughly 3 and a half years ago, by taking a couple of very basic and very
free Japanese courses at my university (Thank you European education).
These courses took place maybe 3 times a month, but at the time, I already felt like I was
learning a lot.
And so, when I managed to get an internship in Tokyo back in 2018, I went to Japan thinking
that I already had a pretty good grasp of the Japanese language over all.
It took me exactly 5 minutes after arriving at Haneda airport in Tokyo to find out that
I knew exactly nothing, a phenomenon that we’ll be discussing I more detail later.
However, I never lost my passion for the language and there was always stuff that I wanted to
either watch or read in Japanese.
The reason this is so important is that you have to consume a lot of content in Japanese
and so you will want to find some you actually love so much regardless of the language that
listening to it or reading it will be fun, because it’s something that you love always.
Whether that is watching anime or listening to a podcast about the herbs and fungi of
Hokkaido doesn’t really matter.
All that matters is that you enjoy it and you can consume tons of it (insert image of
mushrooms).
The second really important thing you should be aware of is time.
Learning any language is a long-term project and Japanese is one of the hardest languages
to learn if you’re an English native speaker or pretty much any other Indo-germanic language.
I know that there are tons of books and videos out there that say that you can learn any
language in x months or even weeks, but the truth is languages take time and work.
After the initial blow to my confidence at Haneda airport, I did something that changed
my learning process significantly.
I started studying a little bit of Japanese every, single, day.
I started by mostly working with some textbooks I still had from my college course, grind
out tons of flashcards and forced myself to learn the classic “1000 Kanji within a year”
approach.
The consistency strongly increased my learning speed and also allowed me to keep newly-learned
words and concepts way easier in my long-term memory.
As mentioned before, you want to consume as much of your target language as you can and
immerse yourself in it and that is something that again takes a while.
So being aware of that fact and being patient and determined to pull through is one of the
most important premises for getting to your desired level.
No matter if that’s watching anime without subtitles or writing an academic paper, you
have to be aware that this is a long-term project you’re starting.
It’s not happening overnight, folks.
The main thing here is that new things have a really high learning curve at the start,
because, yeah, everything is new.
So it really feels like you’re getting really good really fast.
But then it suddenly gets harder and harder to learn the same amount of new things and
there will be the first major slump in your learning.
This has happened a bunch of times for me with different things, like languages or playing
a new instrument.
However slow you think your pace is, what matters is you push through this dip.
It’s where most people quit.
Called the Dunning-Kruger effect.
It’s a cognitive bias in which people with low ability at a task tend to overestimate
their ability and people with a higher ability tend to underestimate this ability.
It’s one of the most eye-opening concepts I have ever come across.
Let’s take a graph and mark my true level of competence, let’s say in Japanese, on
the x axis and my perceived level of competence on the y axis, in other words how good am
I vs how good do I think I am.
Due to that very steep learning curve at the
start, most people tend to drastically overestimate
their true skill level that is nicely called the mountain of stupid.
Once you actually hit that point, just as I did when I arrived in Japan, you suddenly
realise that this was actually an illusion and you fall into the so-called valley of
despair, where you feel like you know nothing.
This is the point most people quit and it is this point that you will have to grind
through.
After some time you will get better at judging your true level better and better and motivation
will rise as you actually get a better hold of the language.
And so going into my second year of serious Japanese study, I decided there was no way
around it, I would have to start actually consuming Japanese content - like a lot of
content.
So I sat down and at a painfully slow speed started to grind my way through my first Japanese
book - Harry Potter.
I’m gonna be honest with you, it felt pretty much impossible for a long time.
I had to constantly look up words, figure out grammar patterns, read one sentence over
and over for at leat 30 minutes because I couldn’t understand it - you get the point.
So to sum it up.
Be aware that Japanese will take time.
Be patient, because I guarantee you that even when it feels like you know nothing, you’re
actually improving.
If you’re like me and need something more precise to work with, go make 30 small boxes,
mark the date of the next 30 days on there and then cross off every day with a red pen
whenever you studied some Japanese regardless if it’s only for 5 minutes or for an hour.
This is actually one of my favourite ways of habit building.
The third tip I have for you (and I believe is the most important) based on my own experience
is that you can save yourself a lot of time and pointless grinding when you have a proper
strategy when it comes to studying.
While becoming more consistent with my studies clearly improved my learning speed, the way
I was approaching things in the end left me with a ton of individual words and Kanji and
no way of putting them together.
You don’t want to do it like me and study all over the place.
The first thing you want is a goal.
This sounds trivial, but most people actually don’t know their goal for studying Japanese.
But I found that having a definite goal makes a big difference in Japanese study.
Whether you want to be able to order food, watch anime without subtitles or do research
in biochemistry, there are definitely different skills required and ultimately, a different
way of approaching Japanese language learning.
So being aware of where you actually wanna go is essential.
I didn’t really have one when I started, but once I realised that I needed a goal,
I decided that I wanted to be able to make videos in Japanese at some point.
My suggestion to you is to sit down, think about this, and then go write it down so you
don’t forget.
That way it will be easier to track your progress.
Then, I personally find it very important to be aware of your own strengths and weaknesses.
For instance, some things I would say I’m pretty good at studying are large vocabulary,
my pronunciation and pitch accent as well as the ability to read and listen to Japanese
content based on context and without necessarily knowing every single word in a sentence.
My biggest weaknesses are writing, Keigo, which is formal Japanese communication, and
my grammar.
Being aware of what you’re good at and what you’re bad at will help you figuring out
what and how to study.
For example my reading was terrible, so I read more.
However, take note that you will always find skills you’re poor at.
For me, after starting to read more Japanese content, I realised my listening was lagging
behind, so I listened more.
then now it’s my writing, and so on.
I personally think it’s completely okay to study something you find interesting, it’s
actually in accordance to tip number 1, passion, however always make sure that it’s structured
and that you are aware of what you’re working on at the moment.
For instance, if you are really into watching anime, be aware that’s gonna be listening
practice.
If you’re really into learning new kanji, well that’s gonna be kanji practice.
And if you’re really into reading novels, then that’s gonna be reading practice.
Just be mindful of what you’re doing.
Implementing these things, very slowly, I got better, and better and better and finally
I was able to read my books and manga pretty comfortably.
Not gonna lie that felt pretty good.
Only now I had to address a new problem, my reading was improving, but my listening skills
were absolutely terrible.
So I did the same thing again, this time with Japanese podcasts and of course: Anime.
Today, I have finally managed to find a way more balanced way of doing things, but I will
admit that right now my writing is still lagging far behind reading, listening and speaking.
I’m still experimenting with new and different leaning methods, but I now have a very solid
base I can build up on.
I think that these 3 tips can help you in overcoming some of the common struggles that
people experience when it comes to language learning.
Also makes your studies more effective and fun.
If you’re feeling that you’re not making any progress, be aware that this takes time
and that progress usually comes in break-through episodes.
If you ever feel like you are forgetting stuff, this is normal.
The important and more commonly used stuff will stick.
Those will always come back later.
The same goes for feeling that you get 2 new unknown things for every thing you learn.
Remember the Dunning-Kruger effect and the graph.
It will become better over time.
Plus, language learning never really stops, literally.
I’m feeling pretty damn fluent in English at this point and even then I still learn
new stuff all the time.
If you have other things in your life threatening to overshadow your Japanese studies, make
sure to prioritise and make a habit out of it, that you simply do every day.
And to counter burn-out, make sure you do things you enjoy and are passionate about.
In the end this should be about having fun.
If you can’t stand doing grammar today, better watch some anime rather than skip your
practice completely.
Consistency over quantity.
And so, if you can stick to these 3 things, passion, time, strategy, and DO IT.
I am sure that eventually, you will be able to sit down and watch your favourite anime
as well - without subtitles.
;)
I hope you enjoyed this video.
If there is anything specific you want to learn more about in another video, let me
know in the comments below and don’t forget to subscribe to
the channel.
Thanks guys, peace.