A big Mistake I made learning Japanese

[@Bread_Bug]

I just found your channel and it’s so comforting to me! I definitely agree that it’s tough to keep striving for fluency when you don’t live in the country or visit often. To me, the best part of language learning is all the new people you can meet that you’d have never befriended otherwise. It’s like it unlocks a whole new world! I think finding people through language exchange apps is a great way to stay motivated

[@jannahhossain4321]

me too, I love the idea of connecting with new people in a way you never could before, it's so exciting! Thanks so much, i'll be sure to check out some more apps :D

[@metalmicky123]

Another great video. I'm learning Welsh and you are spot on with goals and motivation.

[@jannahhossain4321]

awh man it's so good to hear that someone else feels the same way !

[@victorialim]

Totally feeling the intermediate language learning plateau with Spanish. But I’ve been doing my best to improve it bit by bit by setting new goals! Also, definitely check out Matt vs Japan if your goal is to get fluent. He really speaks like a native speaker as someone who has learnt most of the language out of Japan in the US :) hope you keep up your studies !! It’ll be worth it in the long run :’) Ofc learning a new language is cool too if that feels good to you!

[@jannahhossain4321]

hey victoria! thanks for the encouragement, yeah i think you're right, it's worth sticking and finding new things to get excited about :D hopefully we can both figure out the intermediate jump! good luck w spanish

[@oystershell6864]

Part of the process is finding out the the things that don't work. It would be great if you could visit Japan and use in real life some of what you've learnt. It's very empowering and motivating. As for Mandarin, it's perhaps even tougher than Japanese. Good point about all the mandarin speakers in London giving opportunities to practice. Thanks for helping my motivation in mandarin.

[@jannahhossain4321]

yes, it would be lovely to go and put the work into practise. i used to think becomming fluent was just about living in the country but i'm realising there are a lot of ways we can learn by not doing that, like reading books- what's your take ?

[@ローズ-p3y]

I certainly understand how you feel. I’m intermediate in Japanese and I struggle using all the grammar I’ve learned. I too often feel discouraged bc it would be so much easier surrounded by Japanese speakers. Trying to immerse online is hard

[@jannahhossain4321]

yes, completely relate- it is really hard. how are you getting on now?

[@lalicoca1844]

Thanks for this feedback on your journey ! I have to say, you made me reassess instantly my goals to learn japanese, I also thought I wanted to learn it to become somewhat fluent... But it will be harder to keep learning it and mostly keeping the level when I don't work in the related fiels or have any japanese friends... So my goal now will be to be knowledgeable enough to watch anime with subtitles and read mangas 😂🎉 Thanks for the vidéo ! I like it ! Nice thoughts from France 🇨🇵

[@justanotherworldcitizen9624]

Hey JH A couple(!) thoughts… Disclaimer: This is most certainly NOT a critique of your methods or decisions or anything. On the contrary. I love your spirit and following your journey is insanely relatable and soo much fun! You’re awesome 🤩 Even though it’s obvious that you found learning Japanese a lot of fun - it still sounds like you were/are (kind of) focused on results and goals instead of really focusing on enjoying the actual process. For me, I find that gaining motivation from a hypothetical future result can be somewhat counterproductive, because I really haven’t actually earned the excitement and dopamine rush associated with the achievement yet. I try to reframe my learning process in terms of my actual achievements, which is why I write down the time spent learning every day - and note down when I have reach the next CEFR level (using honest self-evaluation). I am tracking my progress in all the languages I speak and learn (I speak Danish, English and Spanish ::: currently focused on learning Arabic[Levantine] and French ::: and I am able to understand Swedish and Norwegian plus basic German, Portuguese, Dutch and Italian too). It helps me stay on track and I find a lot of motivation in creating cool visualizations of my actual results and progress. I think you will regain your motivation to learn Japanese again soon. In fact, I am quite certain of that. Japanese will continue to be part of you, right? So, my question is: Isn’t it a bit excessive to use an all or nothing approach, disregard Japanese and switch to Mandarin? Of course, you’re not going to do nothing in Japanese from now on, but it sounds like you’re framing it that way introspectively. Don’t get me wrong. Jumping to the next thing is great - I do it all the time (like, literally ADHD diagnosed, lol). But if you switch all your attention, you risk losing out on a future Japanese motivation comeback! Why not choose to keep Japanese as your backup and spend just 10-15 min/day watching a video or listening to a podcast? I have found that learning two languages (or more!) at the same time is actually really productive and motivating. You can have a primary and secondary language and switch between them depending on your mood. I perceive the value of time spent equally - no matter the language - it’s all time spend learning after all! Having a second learning language is especially awesome when they are on different levels; when being a total beginner, I find that practicing in a more comfortable language sometimes is a good way to remind myself that I’m not completely useless. So, I am not saying you should abide by the sunk cost fallacy and change your behavior because of the time you spent - I am saying that it might aid your motivation to learn Mandarin if you continue with Japanese too. Also, regarding finding people in London to talk to. I am sure you can find groups that meet and talk Japanese w/ each other. I use Tandem(app) to find new language buddies. I am regularly meeting with people in Copenhagen to practice Arabic and Spanish. In my experience, meeting people is very educational - plus making new friends is always fun 😊 I now have friends from Egypt, Mexico, Argentina, Italy and Spain who live nearby, and a friend from Syria even turned into the best roommate ever! What else.. I love the reevaluation idea. I do it regularly in my Journal (I call it “Journey”) where I write about thoughts, dreams, feelings, evaluate past days and plan ahead - also it’s fun to write in whatever language I feel like that day :D Also, I am like 99% sure that you’re not an idiot :P Keep up the great work and keep spreading love and positivity ♥

[@jannahhossain4321]

hi! Firstly thank you so much for taking the time to write that, it means so much and all of what you said is giving me so much to think about! Hearing from people more experienced than me is half the reason i started this channel so really, thank you ! :D I totally agree now that you've said it about not just disregarding Japanese. I think maybe I thought I could only focus on one thing at a time but its so true that as little as 10 minutes is enough. I do have a recurring terrifying thought that i'll forget everything after 2 days of not using it but that's probably my inexperience talking! I love the idea of using tandem, i'll for sure check it out. It's so hard to gain real experience of the language irl post pandemic so that sounds super exciting! thanks again, this really made me smile :D

[@JacobFerrero]

You never really forget anything totally, when you get back at it it all comes right back to you :)

[@nsevv]

@@jannahhossain4321 Focus on Japanese and master it don't jump to mandarin.

[@jannahhossain4321]

@@nsevv yes, I don't think i will- thanks for the advise!

[@karinvasu3005]

im in circles where fans of japanese artists have never gone to japan but get to an insane jpn level. this is the immersion they get. theres an insane amount of japanese media out there, and becoming a fan of something basically solves the problem of immersion for most language learners i think

[@jacobduffles-andrade8485]

I just started learning and it's an incredibly daunting language. I am a native English speaker, and I am fluent in Spanish and Portuguese (I'm Brazilian). I feel overwhelmed by how distinguished the language is and I don't know what tools to use to establish a solid foundation without getting carried away with the quirks of the language. My current goal is to learn enough to converse with people in Tokyo, where I plan to visit in December. I hope that I will persevere in this language journey and become a life-long learner of Japanese!

[@encapsulatio]

If you want to master asian sound systems, Stuart Jay Raj's channel is what i recommend the most. He has a course for language learners of how to use technology, tools that are free, to make your custom learning environment, not need to depend on courses or paid apps. To those tools he adds all the tips he's discovered while learning his 15-16 languages that he studied over 2 decades, especially what mnemonic techniques work the best for retaining long term your new vocabulary for the languages your studying. And of course ways of practicing that new vocabulary because memorizing words in itself is not useful if you can not apply them masterfully in your conversation or in your writing. He is one of the very few polyglots who mastered at a very high level multiple languages and his specialty is how to decipher and hear sounds you're not used to hearing from chinese dialects(Mandarin,Cantonese) or Thai.

[@jannahhossain4321]

woah thanks for the recommendation, sounds amazing - ill deffo check stuart out!

[@myuniyt]

I randomly found your videos and I am obsessed 🤩🤩 thank you for this video!

[@jannahhossain4321]

omg that's literally the nicest thing, I really needed this so thank you! :D

[@Felixxxxxxxxx]

I was learning Russian and studied quite a lot until I traveled to various former soviet republics for about 5 months back in 2019. Your video makes a lot of sense and I know that the language and the countries that speak Russian still fascinate me, but I really did not have a specific goal. I just decided to take a week's trip to the eastern parts of Estonia and Latvia that is Russian speaking to have something specific to look forward to with my learning. Do you mind sharing how your progress went in learning Mandarin Chinese?

[@jannahhossain4321]

ah, i never started chinese - i instead did a similar thing with urdu which i posted recently. chinese will always be a dream, one day hopefully!! :) how is russian going?

[@Felixxxxxxxxx]

@jannahhossain4321, I have continued with Russian since I wrote my comment. , and my vocabulary has expanded significantly compared to what I had before, despite taking a four-year break from Russian. So your video was very helpful to me - Thank you! My previous struggle was attempting to read while listening, but since I started incorporating listening into other activities like cooking, cleaning, and working out, I have been able to dedicate many more hours each day to the language than ever before.

[@tohaason]

Many years of daily Japanese learning, in various ways (including lots of input - which seems to work better than most methods), and I'm definitely not even near an intermediate level. Sigh. The only thing I've managed is to understand grammar and structure etc etc etc etc really well. But I just can't get good at understanding, not to mention speech (how can one speak when one don't understand what's said, outside of simple phrases). I'm literally immersed most of the time. Friends, environment, not to mention spouse.. still, I'm not getting there. A decade of this now. Kind of annoying and frustrating. I did learn English decades ago, through immersion and input.. and I can listen to this video and get all of it even while at the same time concentrating on writing this comment. What a difference.

[@John_Krone]

I started learning Japanese and the course I was taking started with learning the characters / reading / writing. Japanese is an inefficient written language, too many characters and no spaces and all three characters sets mixed in one line with no spaces. Yay to tradition!! :P Sadly I gave up. After seeing your video I saw how you impressed your friend without knowing how to read, which is what I would had wanted as I only wanted to speak it but not read/write it. Not sure if I still want to learn it. Currently learning Spanish (I know you don't like it that much - haha)

[@jannahhossain4321]

hey John, agreed- Japanese is very difficult to become literate in and that was the beauty of learning with immersion, good luck with Spanish and let me know if you start with Japanese again :D

[@alonsochanakya538]

I need to polish my English I am a native Spanish Speaker. Maybe a exchange .

[@tohaason]

Hm.. the Japanese writing system isn't inefficient at all, quite the opposite - it's very efficient. A simple way for non-readers to check this out is to look for user manuals for Japanese items, I have here two manuals for a Sharp electronic thingy, one English, one Japanese. The chapters are exactly the same, with the same graphics etc. However, the Japanese user manual have 30% fewer pages. My reading ability is low, though I can read some of it and it also definitely feels efficient. TL;DR: The Japanese writing system is not inefficient, it's the opposite. But it's difficult. But that's actually the price for efficiency.

[@John_Krone]

@@tohaason I understand your point. But I refer from a simplistic perspective to portray sound to image. For example in English you only need to learn 26 basic images to read/write the language. Japanese you would need to learn 2,344 basic characters. Here the breakdown: Hiragana total 104 Monographs 71 Digraphs 33 Katakana total 104 Monographs 71 Digraphs 33 Kanji is 50,000 characters according to the Dai Kan-Wa Jiten. But at least you would need to learn 2,136 for functional literacy in Japanese. So for basic literacy you need to learn 2,344

[@tohaason]

@@John_Krone (Just to start with - the 50k number is irrelevant of course, maybe there are in principle some 40k Chinese characters, but that's not used in Japanese, not since way back when Japan had just got Chinese visitors arriving with a writing system). What my point is is that it's incorrect to call the writing system inefficient. Don't mix up difficulty of learning with efficiency. Once learned (though it's arguably hard), it's very efficient. Just as the hexadecimal number system is much more efficient than the decimal one - the former can encode 0-255 in two characters, the latter 0-99. Not to mention B64 which can encode much more - but is more difficult to learn for a human. I can easily read hexadecimal but B64 I can't. When that's said, even though the "official" number of Kanji (the ones you can use in e.g. newspapers) are 2136 or so, not everyone knows all the kanji all the time. It *is* a bit difficult. But it's delightfully easy and efficient to read once you actually can (as for myself, I can't read all, but I can read some, and what I can read *is* easy and efficient). Also, it's not correct that you need to learn only 26 characters in English. You need to learn capital as well as lower case letters, they're not the same, we just think of them as the same because we have managed to integrate them in our brain.. Some are somewhat similar, or very similar, just as some Hiragana and Katakana are similar or somewhat similar, but others are not (and many are different in different fonts), same for Hiragana vs Katakana. It's easy peasy when you know them, but learning them from scratch isn't. (As for missing spaces - that's only a point if everything is written in Hiragana, which is only used for small children. It's a non-issue in normal writing)

[@DarkStarRules]

Thanks for telling me this. After I reach the short term goal in May I want to achieve, I'll know to make a new goal! Always keep working towards some new goal; otherwise, you might not improve.

[@jannahhossain4321]

gotta remind myself of this too tbh, consistency is probably key :D

[@DarkStarRules]

@@jannahhossain4321 100%. Good luck on your Chinese :)

[@sethharding2102]

U r gonna be famous and influential.

[@jannahhossain4321]

most likely not but appreciate the encouragement 100 fold! :D

[@maa7528]

@@jannahhossain4321 why not? You have high spirit and nice smile Try to make an interview with Steve from lingq he knows Japanese and learns Arabic Mike Still he speaks Arabic fluently and learned Japanese in one Month Olly Richards he speaks Japanese and Arabic, and you like his courses They are friendly and have a large number of followers

[@jannahhossain4321]

haha, you're very kind :D I actually filmed a video already with Olly funnily enough- was a lot of fun!

[@maa7528]

@@jannahhossain4321 have you posted it, because I couldn't find it among your videos Please don't ever give up, you are an inspiration, I bought Olly's course after watching you, your name means Paradise people work all their lives to reach it without giving up even if they are not perfect and with mistakes Best regards

[@jannahhossain4321]

that's really sweet and so motivating, thank you! :D and it's going to be on his channel but i'm not sure when, sorry!

[@Nighteye88]

I think it's all about what it is you want to do with the language and you could create plenty of opportunities to speak with Japanese people online. Which is what I've done by streaming on different sites in Japanese for the last 4 years. I've spoken with probably at least 1,500 different Japanese people total in the last 4 years. And I live in the middle of no where I the USA. Lol... It's not in person but if I get the chance to live in Japan one day it's all worth it. And you live in London right? There's probably a MeetUp group for language exchange or others learning Japanese. Definitely for Chinese if you go that route. Good luck with your Chinese.

[@jannahhossain4321]

hey Jason! yeah totally agree, the digital age is so useful sometimes. I've been using tandem recently to meet people- thanks for the tip on meetup i'll for sure check it out :D. I hope you get to Japan sometime soon !

[@Karin-fj3eu]

Well ive never lived in an english speaking country but in a sense the internet is a country and english is its language so it just happened

[@gabi.a]

lovely video, and you're so nice 😊 two things: "fluent" is actually a veeery broad cathegory. A 5 year old is fluent, and so is a 30 yo with a PhD... It's best to talk about levels as basic, intermediate, advanced and native, it's a lot more clear. 😊 2:44 you absolutely DO NOT NEED to live in the country to get advanced! I never set foot on an english speaking country and I'm above the advanced level, I can understand technincal language in english just as well as in my native language.

[@jannahhossain4321]

awh thanks! that's such a good point about 'fluency' being a tricky term! Also, mind sharing some tips about progressing when you cannot live in a country- with omicron i might not be able to go for a long time!

[@tohaason]

The problem with the term "fluency" is that most people (including language teachers on KZbin and elsewhere) misunderstand the term. "Fluent" simply translates to "flowing", like water. In other words - you can speak without constructing sentences in your mind first. It just _flows_. Whether you're *proficient* or not is an entirely different matter. You can be totally fluent but you may only be able to speak about certain topics.. it could be your job, for example, maybe you can speak all day about particular things, but you completely miss the vocabulary and terms when your friends starts speaking about fashion or parties or whatnot. But way too many people believe that "Fluent" means "being able to converse about anything and everything". But being able to do that means you're _proficient_. For some reason many people switch those terms around.

[@jamjunctionfm]

6:47 the woahhhhh hahah woahhhhh man amazing!

[@jannahhossain4321]

thanks :D

[@town944folk]

Well done Jannah. Studying medicine and Japanese. Beautiful. You should follow Ikenna on KZbin.It seems you have a similar approach to language like he does

[@jannahhossain4321]

I LOVE Ikenna's videos- i think watching the one he did on French was the first time i ever thought that learning a language could be possible :D

[@John_Krone]

Same, not many Japanese here where I live in NY. Man, there are Chinese people everywhere. Shang Chi, lol. It does sound cool in the movie

[@jannahhossain4321]

best movie ever!

[@wajiali4251]

Salam… can u suggest me some courses to learn Danish but please free thank u… yr video is so simple and sharp nice dressing always thanks

[@stuartlong6217]

''cos I'm a bit of an idiot'' Anyone listening to you can tell that's the very last thing you are. You've got the bug now so just keep going. I don't think that trying a few languages for size is a bad thing - at some stage one will grab you more than the others for whatever reason, possibly in an emotional sense rather than for a career purpose.

[@jannahhossain4321]

awh thanks Stuart. Yes, I do want to try out a few different ones and then really properly invest in the one i see myself using the most in life but we'll see! and totally agree- learning has to be emotion driven for it to pan out !

[@uchinan_chiburu]

check out the videos from matt vs japan. he became fluent in japanese without living in japan.

[@jannahhossain4321]

very true, gota learn from the greats!

[@massanohero]

Are u bengali If u r im proud for u And u know bengali vocabulary is a POWER

[@jannahhossain4321]

haha yes I am, maybe one day i'll have to learn some bengali :D

[@massanohero]

@@jannahhossain4321 well thanks for replying