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perdicas good evening afternoon hello
hello from Beppu Japan where I am joined
by oh I guess I am joining Dogon today
what we want to do is talk about
basically how to learn Japanese how to
get a solid grasp on the language and I
thought Dogon was the perfect person to
do this video with so I've put this
video off for like a year we need to
meet up for a long time yeah
that being said a little bit of I guess
a background on both of us I've been in
Japan I came here for the first time in
2005 moved in 2007 I spent a lot of time
to the point of almost living with
Japanese people back in Canada which is
where I picked up a lot of my Japanese
skill but since coming to Japan I have
used Japanese for things like car
drifting and I think more than anything
is my work in shamisen so that Japanese
is basically part of my daily life I
would not be able to survive and do what
I do without it and I think for the most
part you can definitely say the same no
yeah absolutely so I kind of have a
similar story I came to Japan 2007 study
abroad in 2007 to 2008 was in Tokyo for
one year went back to the States
finished my degree then came back since
I came back to Japan even before that
really I knew that I want to do creative
writing in Japanese so I was always
doing creative writing on the side then
I would just try and do it in Japanese
and have like my friends look at it and
give me feedback on the Japanese now I'm
doing full-time comedic I would say
jokes in Japanese primarily about life
in Japan all my content is in Japanese
stuffs and it's some of the best content
on the internet in Japanese if you
haven't seen it I'm just gonna go ahead
and roll a clip right now you don't sign
mouthing so I'm I don't see
sorry mustn't say although I love that
I'm here
you guys show you my set
welcome today what we're gonna do is
talk about how you can learn Japanese
kind of based on our experiences for me
it's really really really really simple
said too many relays do something every
single day do not skip a single day not
one day something every single day a
language is really more of I think a
lifestyle than anything else making sure
that that is a part of your everyday
life that kind of in the same way that
let's showering brushing your teeth
would be you're not just gonna not do
those things in that exact same way if
you make a Japanese study or
learning Japanese using Japanese
watching something in Japanese writing
single thing in Japanese whatever part
of it it is that you're the most
interesting especially at the beginning
because we all start somewhere making it
a part of your every single day life
every single day life your dater life
your daily life is going to be just
essential that's the biggest tip that I
can get that's how I went from no
Japanese to being able to have
conversations with Japanese in like
under a year yeah it's funny our our
mutual friend enjoyed the anime the
anime man he's half Japanese but he
taught himself a good majority of the
Japanese that he knows in terms of like
reading and writing grammar kanji and
stuff like that I mean he made a really
great video way back in the day and it
was like the secret to becoming fluent
in Japanese huh he was like here's the
secret study your ass off yeah yeah
that's that's number one piece of advice
a lot of people they'll see us now and
it's when you only see that you don't
realize that we've both spent decades
yeah studying Japanese so I actually had
a teacher in high school the teacher
actually spoke Japanese right he was
like dude you should learn Japanese
someone does not just learn Japanese and
he brought me in this little johan
english japanese dictionary and he's
like i'll tell you what if you can learn
hiragana in the next month i'll just
give you the book so every single day
for a month i just practice hiragana
yeah
didn't even take a month it was like two
weeks in and I was good to go the rest
of it was just having fun and that's
kind of how my Japanese learning started
and then the rest was just practicing
speaking every single day once I made
Japanese friends but we were talking
earlier that not everybody has that
luxury and I kind of want to step off of
this onto doggins more technical points
because I think this is where a lot of
the value in this is going to come from
on his advice on actually how to
approach learning Japanese okay yeah
great so in addition to doing comedic
content on YouTube I actually teach
Japanese phonetics that's kind of a
fancy word for pronunciation I I'm
really passionate about teaching
Japanese phonetics in particular because
it's in my opinion an overlooked element
of the language I pause you for a second
you did that foot out the video yeah
yeah does that count in your mind oh
yeah absolutely absolutely okay here's
one of my favorite examples of Dogen
teaching or playing with Japanese
phonetics
hey don't what does she want GOx a this
Dorgan cox age an octave okay say yes
you know what you won't take any her
doctor on there
Oh God i'ma stop do toni90 time doctor
yeah Yuto the lactic beauty of this
product Oh sake must own it oh sorry moe
drop the rock they forgot to this slot
Oh disco yeah me hirato disco yeah drop
this oh no it's the kanji veto authority
must go so I think that this video that
you guys just saw is a good example of
the Japanese pitch accent system which
is almost entirely overlooked like just
completely when it comes to learning and
teaching Japanese and that's the reason
for that is because it's easy to become
fluent enough in Japanese to have normal
conversation so you don't need to sound
like a native in order to be
understandable in Japanese however if
your goal is to sound as native as
possible it is necessary to study
japanese phonetics and pitch oxen in
particular the thing with the various
elements of language learning slative
speaking reading writing listening those
to the main for your ability to
accurately mimic native speech
deteriorates faster than your ability to
learn grammar or learn kanji so I
strongly believe that it's best to learn
phonetics fairly early on I like to say
do six months or so with an all-around
resource such as like Genki or whatever
it might give yourself a base yes yes
okay and once you've got that six months
in then you can really benefit from the
the phonetic training but then deuce
about six months or so of intense
phonetic study and then once that's done
I encourage people to forget they ever
had that study because if you study
olynyk's too much it begins to interfere
with your ability to speak because you
think yeah should I be doing should I be
implementing this rule if this part is
this the correct intonation so you hit
it hard until it's muscle memory one
thing that I like to encourage people to
do is to pick a movie or to pick like a
30 or 40 minute episode of a drama drama
is usually better than the anime because
the speech and a lot of anime is a
little bit um I would say less than
natural yeah do you have a specific
drama but I actually do the drama the
movie that I recommend it's called Junie
mean oh yes I see Nihon gene okay it's
like a drama comedy but it's a courtroom
drama so they're just talking the entire
movie so it's nothing right but non-stop
dialogue from start to finish for two
hours okay but the key to this exercise
is to use the same movie or same episode
of a particular drama over and over
again when I say over and over again I
mean like hundreds of times yeah I would
watch that movie three or four times a
day when I was studying Japanese
seriously you know the funny thing is
while I was doing car stuff I actually
did that exact exact same thing with
initial D yeah I actually I picked three
episodes that I zeroed in on one at a
time and I think I'll probably watch
each episode like 30 times yes so the
way to do it yeah yeah it worked
work because then I was able to talk
about car stuff and I couldn't before
and the other thing the other exercise
that I would encourage a whole lot of
people to do is to record yourself
speaking Japanese and to upload it to
YouTube get it in front of other
people's eyes because if you only speak
in isolation to a certain degree it's
somewhat pointless and the the way the
quickest way to get over that I'm not
comfortable with the way that my
Japanese sounds and I'm not comfortable
with native natives hearing me speaking
Japanese is to force yourself into
situations where other people will hear
you speaking Japanese if you know other
people are gonna see you're gonna be
that much more conscious about your
speak here and a ticket that much more
seriously so I guess a quick summary and
doggins provided a lot of how to get
started with Japanese where to start
where to learn I also personally am just
gonna slip in something called the let's
learn Japanese video series that i will
link there the cheesiest videos you will
ever see film back in the 80s all these
are a good place to get start there are
so many apps out there are so many
different ways to learn Japanese in fact
Dogen even runs a patreon teaching
Japanese phonetics specifically and it's
by far one of my favorite things in the
world I'm gonna link it down below
that'll give you a really good starting
point outside of that just keep going do
something every single day I hope that
you guys got some value out of this
basically all of Dogon stuff will be
linked down below if you are new to
Dogon you have a youtube channel as well
they're mean the world to both of us if
you give that like button some love if
you're new to the channel I'd say
subscribe but maybe go check out one or
two more videos leave me a trail of
comments so I can see where you've been
Thank You Dogon now it's my pleasure
your studio okay anyway guys thank you
so much for joining us today thank you
again Dogon yeah it's been good and you
guys know I'll see you again
real soon
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