How Long Does it Take to Learn Japanese?

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[@ThatJapaneseManYuta]

Learn Japanese with Yuta: bit.ly/3M2Llmy

[@narsplace]

The 2200 hours is 100% wrong. It takes way longer.

[@narsplace]

Your whole video is wrong.

[@gordonbgraham]

@@narsplace It took me about a month to be functional, 5 years to be conversational, 10 years to be fluent and 15 years to become high school level literate

[@narsplace]

​@@gordonbgraham in Japanese? 10 years would be right. The reason that he is wrong is that he doesn't understand memory consolidation. The 2200 hours that the FSI says is base on doing class 6 to 8 hours a day. Doing less hours a day means that you more time for your brain to forget what you have learnt meaning that you need more repetition than someone who is studying more time densely. So 10 years for someone who is working and maybe doing other studies is about right.

[@gordonbgraham]

@@narsplace Yes, Japanese. And that's living in Japan where all one hears is Japanese 24/7. As you've mentioned that is with having a full-time job, so basically I studied anywhere from an hour to two hours a day, 5 days a week. I've heard plenty of foreigners claim fluency in under 2 years online. I've yet to actually meet one. When put to the test most can get by with the basics in terms of functional language, meaning ordering food, asking for directions etc. but lack the ability to have a conversation beyond any topic outside of their own hobbies, interests or daily life activities. Conversations meander and when they do most foreigners who have lived in Japan for less than 5 years get lost. It takes a tonne of time to become conversational...and more to become fluent.

[@melissawijaya]

Ah.. sometimes I felt like giving up learning japanese, but then I remember how I learned English , it was definitely a long process too. years of textbook, years of practice.. there is no easy way to master a language.. so for everyone who is currently learning new language, I wish all of us the best!

[@garryferrington811]

I learned to read from comic books and MAD magazine. That kind of stuff works.

[@jonathanyehezkiel2528]

learning for fun definitely feel different than learning to pass JLPT test. i need to reach n4 minimum to apply work in jp as blue collar workers kanji is hell~

[@UzumakiHarutoJP]

@@jonathanyehezkiel2528 honestly, compared to many other things, kanji one of the easiest parts of Japanese and it makes it way easier to read in my opinion than if it was just hiragana/katakana You don't even have to write them in most cases during daily life or at the very least you can get by without writing any so it's just a matter of remembering what it looks like, remembering the most common words attached to the kanji you want to remember, the different meanings that some of the words with that kanji have, the sound of how each word is pronounced, and the memories of each section will support each other to not be forgotten

[@jonathanyehezkiel2528]

@@UzumakiHarutoJP maybe your memorization skill is better than most ppl most ppl said remembering kanji is hard. for kana, it's okay because pretty straightforward like a=あ you can use mnemonic as well to memorize but if あ = read as "a" あ- = read as "cow" あ+ = read as "aeroplane" あ# = read as "happy" i would be confused af why あ- read as cow? from where's the basis? ( the chart ) that's how i feel atm. kanji feel more like an another language entirely

[@fold-squirrel]

@@jonathanyehezkiel2528 what he means it that Japanese without kanji would be much harder to reading, imagine reading something like すもももももももものうち and tell me what it means

[@nakujpn]

In my opinion you never stop learning a language, you can become fluent in a few years but you will learn it almost all your life

[@AlkaDest]

That is very true, I've been learning English for around 15 years now, and more often than not I come across something I didn't knew, a new word, a new idiom... I can express myself fluently and understand any kind of topic even if I'm not necessarily knowledgeful in that topic

[@msvcpdll3735]

Як казав Тарас іноземну мову можна вивчити за 6 років а свою все життя 😁

[@Words-of-encouragement.-.]

@@AlkaDest I can tell that you are clearly fluent in English, but I just wanted to help you correct two things in your comment. 1. When you said " I come across something I didn't knew", the correct way to say that would be "I come across something I didn't know". Knew is the past tense of the positive form of "Know", so if you were saying " I knew you liked me", or "I always knew...something" then those would be the ways to use it in a positive sentence. When you're going for a negative sentence, it's "I didn't know". In order to use "Knew" in a negative sentence, you'd need to negate it by saying "I NEVER knew". 2. This one is a much smaller correction. You said "even if I'm not necessarily knowledgeful in that topic". You would actually want to use the word "knowledgeable". Overall, your comment is still completely intelligible and native speakers would obviously completely understand what you are saying! I hope this comment was helpful to you, my friend!

[@Words-of-encouragement.-.]

@daenackdranils5624 Watching videos of a place on KZbin and actually visiting that place are entirely different. It's not even remotely similar. You're not obligated to go to Japan, but you don't need to disrespect the people because you think they need to speak English. They don't. They are their own country, with their own language, history, traditions, and culture, and you should respect that. They don't owe you anything. Also, if you think Japanese people are "boastful", then you know nothing about them.

[@giannilyanicks1718]

@@Words-of-encouragement.-. anyway japan is too expensive. plus japan got indeed a strong american influence like the philippines and when it became a super touristy place it's normal to expect it a little of english spoken. if they refuse to adapt themselves to the foreigners, even a little , they shouldn't be surprised to be blamed. sorry but with the amount of videos nowadays about such places as well as vlogs, it's still greatly immersive. it's his right to say that. why also respecting rigid and unfair traditions? it's too much.

[@richardsonrichly8456]

Basically if you're gonna learn a language you have to incorporate and make it part of your daily life if you want to achieve atleast fluent understanding. You can go the extra mile and use that language as your monologue voice so you can become more comfortable speaking the language

[@giannilyanicks1718]

bravo you just discourage us.

[@marcelberes469]

​@@giannilyanicks1718 What is discouraging about making your TL part of your life?

[@WWEdeadman]

I mean, as somebody who is a German native speaker, like 90% of my English was learned because of KZbin, WWE, non-dubbed English shows and movies, and games. The English we learned in School was a good way to help with that, but that alone would have NEVER made me fluent. So the idea of learning a Language by using native media is absolutely not a foreign concept to me. As for the little Japanese I have learned up until now, only a tiny bit is from using a language learning app. Most of what I understand comes from Anime, Japanese songs, and your videos. I would not claim any sort of fluency in Japanese, but just from what I do understand I sometimes pick up inaccuracies in subtitles, for instance, cause I understood what a character was saying, and then read the subs and thought, "Well, that's not really what they said." Little things like that are great for being motivated to keep learning. And all that is with me not really putting tons of effort into learning Japanese, since starting to actually learn it about 3 years ago. Mostly cause I had hardly any energy or motivation to put into that during most of 2020/21 for reasons of the pandemic, and very little time last year, for reasons of starting a new job. I don't know whether already being bilungual or having German as a native language makes any difference in terms of time it takes to learn Japanese, but I'd assume if I had put in more time, and daily practicing, I'd probably be on a somewhat decent level by now. I've only just started to put more effort in now, so I guess we'll see how well I speak the language next year.

[@Whillyy]

I'm french and that was the same for me in english. Actually i've learn english for more than 10 years without really trying to learn it. When i started using internet(2005-2010) there was lot of meme in english, we didn't have them in french(or it was just poorly translated and not funny) and we shared a lot of them with my (french) friends online. Then i started watching shows, subtitled in french but i could understand enough english(also french and english are so close grammaticaly, with many common words like communication, or close l translation/traduction) to get some phrases like you in japanese and learn many worlds(i still remember the exact moment when i learn the verb "to fish", i already knew fish of course, but i didn't know we could say "to fish", it bugged me and i never forgot this word, there's many like this :D). Finally over the years i started using more and more english, the example i use the most is wikipedia, it's insanely more detailed in english than in french(except for pages like french personalities and such) and also i started watching anime subbed in english because i've watch soo much it became hard to find new ones. It was difficult at first, i remember being very reluctant and was like "no i'm to tired today i don't feel like i could read that much english", but shows like all the seasons of Monogatari Series helped me to be insanly good at reading english fast(that'smy best skill atm, i still suck at writing, even more at speaking because i've alsmot never spoken english :/). Today i'm rewatching old anime that i almost forgot, but not enough to not be spoiled, without subtitle to learn japanese and i hope it's be the same as for english. I still know the general plot so it's not as frustrating as watching new show that i've never watch because i'm too afraid to miss important information and "spoil" most of the story ...

[@DavidCruickshank]

@@Whillyy Hi, i hope this doesn't come across as rude, i just thought since we're talking about learning languages i would correct some of your sentences. (I ignored misspellings and just focused on grammar etc) "When i started using internet" should be "When i started using the internet" missing the article "the" "there was lot of meme in english" should be "there were lots of memes in english" 'was' should be 'were' and missing plurals "i've watch soo much it became" should be "i've watched soo much it became" missing past tense "watched" "no i'm to tired today " should be "no i'm too tired today " "too instead of "to" "without subtitle to learn japanese" should be " without subtitles to learn japanese" missing plural "i hope it's be the same as for english. " should be "i hope it'll be the same as english" reworded sentence "it's" changed to "it'll" and removed unnecessary "for" "watching new show " should be either "watching new shows" for plural OR " watching a new show" for singular. Over all still really good english, your mistakes like dropping articles and not pluralising words are very common with French speakers so nothing to feel bad about. Good luck learning Japanese! 😊

[@Whillyy]

@@DavidCruickshank thank you ! Yes I make mistakes because I'm not used to write, even if I'm reading English for years now, I'm not writing that much(just few comments like this one and for a few months). I'm often lost when I have to explain too complicated things like that 😅 but I'll never improve if I never try

[@JRBison23]

​@@Whillyy It was super fascinating to read your perspective. While you made some small mistakes in your writing, I find your ability to convey complex thoughts in English very impressive! I found your assessment of your different skills (reading, writing, speaking) very interesting as well. In an odd way it motivates me to keep trying with Japanese.

[@Whillyy]

@@JRBison23 thank you !!! I won't lie, writing something like this is still difficult to me, i'm struggling for many sentences and i have to check translations for few words, rewriting some sentences because even if in french i could say exactly what i want to say, i think it sounds weird and i'm not sure if it's correct. And i still make mistakes x) If i can say one thing, don't be afraid to make mistakes when you're making "output". I've watch many video of Xiaomanyc, it's a youtuber from new york, he has learnt chinese for years and now he sounds like a native, he loves to learn languages and makes many videos like "i try to speak with natives after studying for 2 weeks", everyone is impressed even though he's struggling to make sentences, stutters a lot ect ... but nobody cares and everyone still love to speak with him. I think it's very motivating :) Good luck with your japanese, it's a long journey, but if you really want to learn it's defenitly worth it.

[@Fafner888]

About studying grammar I can confirm from experience. It's much more productive to study grammar while immersing at the same time in media in the language you are studying. I watched a great deal of anime before I actively started studying Japanese, and so when I began looking up grammar it was pretty easy to understand and remember because I had already encountered all these grammatical forms countless times before. It was almost like recalling things you already knew unconsciously rather than memorizing from scratch which made things much easier to learn. I really didn't have to force myself to remember anything, it just intuitively made sense because it was familiar. Also for people who are on the opposite side and argue that immersion alone can make you fluent, that doesn't work either from my experience, because I've made so much progress in a short amount of time by reading about grammar and doing duolingo lessons, compared to the pace at which I was learning new things by passive immersion. But it wasn't useless either because I've familiarized myself with the sound system of the language and learned a great deal of vocabulary, which gave me a very solid basis to begin more serious studying. The key is to find the right balance between the two. I would also advice not to sweat over complicated grammatical rules or concepts, only read stuff you can understand and leave the rest to immersion. The more of the language you know the easier it is to understand difficult grammatical concepts, so it will come naturally with time. For example, one book I was studying (the excellent 80\20 Japanese by Richard Webb) advised not to try and memorize all the rules for verb conjugation, just to pay attention to the verb forms when they are used by native speakers until you become familiar with the different conjugations, just like people remember irregular verbs in English. Of course if you are good at memorizing grammar rules it can never hurt if you can remember all the rules, but if you dislike studying just don't worry about it.

[@gayluigi4122]

I spent two years of highschool taking japanese courses and in that time all i learned was how to read kana, introduce myself and ask what the time was. In the past month of simply just deliberately exposing myself to Japanese, ive managed to learn already how to express most of what I think/feel throughout the day by watching various anime and chatting with real japanese people online. It really doesnt feel like study 90% of the time

[@Karlington2]

I wonder how much you would have learned during the past month without that prior study, though? I've got hundreds, maybe over a thousand hours of Japanese input (games and TV series) and no Japanese study, and learned virtually nothing. :) I think study is necessary to begin with.

[@Whillyy]

@@Karlington2 what kind of input do you talk about ? I've also like months of time worth of watching anime, but it's all subbed, so ofc i didn't learn anything except some words like baka, ittekimasu, tadaima, ohayou and such. But since i started watching anime without any sub and actually trying to understand it, i've learn a lot.

[@numbernumber25]

@@Karlington2 Study and media input/chatting is all important. If you do not have any study, then most often you could spend hundred of hours to only figure out one or two words. Same for only study and no media input/chatting, the person would instead have more trouble with try to speak and be understood. The person will know what to say, but it will sound unnatural and difficult to understand. Study is important for laying down basic structure and parts of grammar, the media input/chatting allows more practical usage while introducing more vocabulary as well practice for more complex sentence structures. They are both important to learning a language.

[@gayluigi4122]

I should add that I do also study with a textbook that I downloaded, but that maybe makes up less than 1/4 of the studying that I do I learned most of what I know by translating things my friends say with jisho or Google translate

[@velocirapper8862]

​@@gayluigi4122 would you mind sharing what textbook you downloaded, im looking for more materials to study with.

[@satyakiray8588]

Took me 4 years to go from N5 to N2. I currently live and work in Japan

[@simonburneer1656]

2:45 nice save bro

[@Ruwuri]

as someone who's been attending a language school in japan for over a year now i do have to agree, putting yourself out there, actually listening lots and lots is invaluable. textbooks will only get you so far. there are times when i think they would serve better as a supplement rather than anything

[@japjapcat]

皆、頑張れ！ゆた先生のアドバイスはいつも便利だべさ！

[@redragon.]

Thanks for the videos ❤

[@dawsy396]

I just started your email lessons. So much good info and I never expected to laugh as much as I did. You're a very funny dude.

[@5688gamble]

Big tip for beginners: childrens TV! I used to think you needed to study a lot, my son is 4- he doesn't do much "study" whatever study really means. We talk to him, read to him, he watches pre-school TV, he has pretend play where he enacts everyday situations he sees us engauge in and plays out the conversations, but he is always having fun! If you have childrden think about how they developed their ability to speak! He is learning by using langauge and playing with it, he's 4 so he makes a lot of mistakes with grammar, conjugations and irregular verbs, but his progress is fast. Thing is that his priority is to prioritize what is either useful or interesting, which is what we adults neglect. He is interested in letters, numbers and reading, but he puts more energy into speaking and listening- which we also often forget is important, and he isn't concerned about learning to have perfect grammar, use tense and conjugation accurately or making mistakes, he describes things or makes up words (often compound-words) for things he doesn't know but wants to describe- if you have access to a native speaker, these are also good things to do- a four yearold can make their wishes known! If you can speak like a 4 year old, you will be able to communicate to some degree and you will then get to build on it over time the way a child does, probably make you more fluent too as you will be imitating those around you, not learning from a rigid plan! I think we should do most of our learning as a child would and supplement with traditional study.

[@DRAGON_K1NG_8925]

I've had some inspiration about learning Japanese but I've always given up but you're the first person I've been able to learn something about the Japanese language and made it really simple to understand im on the email thing to and so far its fun and easy to understand

[@Tama2024plus]

I totally agree with Yuta San.. one has to immerse oneself in different and various souces while studying a language.. the more sources are better is the chance of learning the language quickly.. I'm self studying Japanese and I couldn't emphasize more on this point how helpful it has been to catalyse my learning.. and Japanese is the 4th language that I am learning..

[@Tylerrcp]

That’s really dope, so I’m learning Spanish right now. Should I take my time for another year or 2 getting fluent in that and then tackling Japanese or go ahead and start my katakana journey?

[@DenisChangMusic]

2200 hours is a good figure. It took me one year to be able to speak 日常生活　Japanese. This happened especially when I moved to Japan in April 2022 (last year). Before that, I had been studying with teachers online, but because I live in Japan now and I force myself to only use Japanese, I’ve been pretty much practicing all day every day. From a tourist perspective, I have enough Japanese to enjoy what Japan has to offer. From the perspective of someone living in Japan and wanting to build a life here and integrate as much as possible, I still have a LOOOONG way to go! 日本に引っ越してくる前に日本語あまり喋りませんでした。去年、読み書きも全然できませんでした！でも今、日本に住んでるので上手くなってきました。 thanks for your wonderful videos, I hope to cross paths with you one day in 新宿 or 渋谷！

[@omkimberly]

Encouraging advice!

[@Axtacy]

Really helpful thank you

[@zeemon9623]

I never understood why it has to be all or nothing for so many. The one thing I learned about studying languages is that making it fun for yourself is what really helps the most. It just makes you naturally engage with the language and in what way you do that doesn't matter too much. Getting input of almost any kind is valuable. Of course watching [FAMILY FRIENDLY ANIME] without subtitles without understanding any Japanese is likely not going to help much but there is a rather wide margin of what types of materials are useful and the only thing that matters is that you do something.

[@BonitoJoe111]

That's really interesting, and actually relieving. For the longest time, I just assumed textbooks and classes with strict tests were the ONLY ways to learn. But I guess fun can be the best teacher in many cases.

[@lovelifeandcrafts5003]

I am learning Japanese myself and since using duolingo: my reading and texting is getting better using hiragana and katakana characters. I also have friends that I've known for years that I speak to in both English and Japanese. I'm a kinetic learner (learn by doing, watching/listening and reading). One thing I haven't improved is calligraphy and speaking (visually impaired and deaf). I do have a small amount of sight and have aids to hear. I don't let it stop me though 😊. I hope that one day I can use what I've learnt and already use in person rather than just online. I am also learning Turkish which I find is harder than learning Japanese lol. Hope you are well yuta-san. Leon 🇬🇧 xx

[@Chibi1986]

Between your course, Busuu, LingQ, iTalki, all the manga and anime I've got, games with Japanese language tracks, etc., I'm having more fun learning the language versus what I had to do for two years with Spanish in high school. (My school had Japanese as an option, but they dropped it the very year I was able to take it. German too.)

[@roadtripwarrior]

THANK YOU. I hate when people say you cant use anime to learn Japanese. It feels like Gatekeeping. But I learned most of my Japanese from watching anime and Japanese streamers mixed with actual studying.

[@walkerlocker6126]

Yeah, I guess I can understand because there some words and phrasing used in Japanese anime/dramas that are never used in real life. That being said, Japanese people will still understand you even if you speak like a cartoon- you might get an odd look but it's still useable Japanese. Plus the more you study proper grammar alongside authentic materials, the more you'll be able to notice when the Japanese isn't natural. Besides, textbooks are notorious for having awkward or very old fashioned speech... Speaking in "Textbook Japanese" alone sounds weird, too. I remember my Spanish teacher reminding us constantly that, while mostly correct in translation, the Spanish used in our textbooks was kinda old and formal. She said it was like the equivalent of an American 50s housewife lol

[@Gia_Games]

you can but anime japanese is different from regular speaking japanese

[@spiele_maus]

I an learning Japanese for nearly half a year now but only like 10-25 min a day, so I am not than far into it (yet) but I totally agree with everything you said cuz that’s literally the way I learned English. I am German school I learned English and French. However my French is shit. In real life environments like conversations/movies etc. I miss like half on the context and are rarely lost sometimes. With English however, it’s the opposite. I mean my grammar isn’t that good and I still make mistakes, however I never had any problem with reading/understanding and unlike in French, I can just start talking and have a conversation in English just like I would do in German, in French however I can’t just casually talk cuz every time I want to say something I first need to think of how I could say it. And the reason for this is that like 40% of my day is in English, since many games, movies, and overall most things I do on the internet are…well you guessed it…in English. And that’s also how a learned a lot of the „casual“ English, I never learned in school. That you can simply say/write cause or cuz instead of „because“, you can say „gonna“ instead of „going to“, and overall how to talk a bit more casually. The English in school was (in my opinion) way to formal, with French I never had any experience outside of school, so that’s probably the reason why I am so bad in it. With Japanese it isn’t that extreme as with English. However I would say that my day consists of like 5-8% Japanese (and it increases a bit every week) so I hope that my Japanese will turn out like my English and not like my French xD

[@Wulpul]

Something people tend to forget when asking "How long does it take to learn x language" is that it also really depends on your own ability to learn a new language. If you've spoken only one language for your entire life, chances are it'll be be pretty rough and quite time consuming. I consider myself lucky enough to be trilingual from a very early age, and I tend to pick up new languages very easily, even if they're totally different from the ones that I know. But one thing is true for everyone learning a new language, and that is that with enough work, practice and patience, you can master a new language! So to everyone out there who feels like they're stuck sometimes or feel like they can't improve: It's okay! Take a break, and return to it the next day! You got this 💪!!

[@briannemeth9417]

It's not a sprint, it's a life long learning, mind expanding growth process. It's fun!

[@taududeblobber221]

6:59 correction, the japanese partical は isn't actually a subject marker. it can used to indicate the subject, but it's really a topic marker.

[@EvelynL.1112]

OMG YOU HAVE A POCHITA PLUSH!!! 🧡🐕⛓️🪚

[@kaito7132]

🪚🐕

[@vicky121wicky3]

🪚🐕

[@abdhaikal1675]

Yess input guys. I've been watching anime then japanese youtuber without sub I started to understand the gist of what they're talking about then I start japanese class it just help me understand the grammar part, all of my vocab is from my input

[@amarug]

I started learning Japanese about 3 years ago. I have to say, that I tend to be a quite fast learner in general - but still, although I can pretty much speak about most topics and have fun times over extended periods of time with my Japanese friends, I still have the feeling I make a lot of mistakes and use really unnatural expressions at times. I am just "good enough" to understand pretty well how to express myself in a manner that others understand me. So to say, I have somewhat "mastery over my unnaturalness and mistakes", as it basically never happens that I am not understood. I guess I should be happy with that. :P

[@Igor-vk8fl]

write in chatGPT and ask to it correct to you. Now you know where are you being unnatural

[@SushiJapaneseChannel]

great lesson

[@EinChris75]

So I am learning something like 50 hours till now... I get a lot of hiragana and katakana, and I even recognize about 30 or 40 kanji. In May I will be in Tokyo. That will be fun. And I subscribed to your E-Mails. Looking forward for the input. And I agree. I learned most of my vocabulary in English and go a feeling for the natural sound of that language by reading Star Trek novels. About 200 of them.

[@KosunaKoizumi]

So, if I study for 24h every day it will only take 3 months

[@leni4179]

And in 3 day you fell dead 💀

[@shallowsleep15]

I think language learning is a long process, and beginners think it won’t take long at all, and they give up. I started learning Japanese 10 years ago this year. I passed N3 of the JLPT in 2019. I used to only use textbooks and apps, which helped with formal Japanese and learning the basics and sentence structure and all that. But ever since I passed the test, I’ve only been doing this version of “studying.” I watch Japanese movies with Japanese subtitles, and listen to Japanese podcasts while I’m driving to work. I watch Japanese KZbinrs, listen to Japanese music. Most of my free time is spent listening to Japanese in some way. I don’t really need subtitles anymore, and I usually say “That’s not what they said” to my husband when he’s watching anime with subtitles 😆 That’s another level of language learning is being unhappy with the subtitles. I definitely think that learning Japanese through native material is the best way once you’ve gotten to an intermediate level. Because like you said, you start seeing that a lot of formal study material is sort of “Japanese for foreigners” and not how real Japanese people speak.

[@theprophet2444]

I learned English almost exclusively from watching movies, reading text in videogames (NES) and then looking up words I didn't understand in a dictionary. In school I only learned a very small portion of my general knowledge of English. After a few years I was at a level where I could think and read in English, instead of thinking about translating everything I've heard.

[@XSpImmaLion]

Yeah, this kinda reflects my own experience in learning English and that of friends. I personally had a very long time in private English language school, plus the basic English lessons that are given on regular schools, but I only really learned how to write in English by forcing myself to use it a lot. My spoken English is still pretty poor because I don't use it a lot, but I can write words up to extremely long comments pretty easily, because I do it so much on the Interwebs. xD The main reason why I never got to learn Japanese is because I didn't follow a similar path, so to this day, despite having Japanese ancestry, I still don't know a whole lot of Japanese. Basically because I was never forced to read, write, and consume content in pure Japanese. As for friends, I have noticed over the years that even people who got to the same level of learning in schools and getting to the same level of proficiency as myself, if they didn't use English everyday and didn't consume content in English, their skills have degraded a lot overtime. Mind you, the private school I went to is considered among the hardest in terms of grammar here... by the end of the course we take a test that gives you a certificate that is required to stuff like teaching classes in US and UK universities, or teach advanced English courses here. But that was like... over 20 years ago now? If you don't use the skills, it just fades overtime. In a sense, I think this is why it gets harder to learn a language when you get older... it doesn't exactly have to do with biology or brain physiology, though this might play a part. It's because the older you get, the more set in stone you culturally get. I just don't have the same openness and willingness to get into say... Japanese trends, content and music as much as I had for English when I was younger. I still do watch a whole ton of anime and read a ton of manga, but it's all with English subtitles, which is how I got used to doing it from start. It helped me learn English a lot, but in turn it certainly damaged my ability to learn Japanese instead. xD Oh well...

[@Aiello_]

i've learned english with youtube, having conversations with streamers and other forms of entertainment without ever really studying it, unfortunately i couldn't do it with japanese and had to seek a school to start learning it not that you can't do it but because if i have to actually study by myself i just won't i would love to learn more with anime and children's books but still is a bit too difficult at the moment

[@JohnDoe-ro4nf]

For comparison, it takes about 2400 hours to max in Old School Runescape. Thought that was interesting. You can do it sub 2000, but you need to use high intensity methods.

[@Leviathanrko]

With mobile OSRS now it’s not a chore anymore! Very passive haha

[@GenkoKenja]

I can't speak any more than basic Japanese...simply because I don't practice speaking Japanese as it was never my focus...yet it is sooo easy understanding anime, manga and even Visual novels and light novels. Before starting Japanese, I had never read a light novel or watched JDramas and barely read manga. Now I do all of that all the time, depending on what I feel like consuming...according to practice tests I've taken I'm at N1, at least when it comes to understanding the language....its just a matter of creating a habit to study daily (by consuming media)...I do agree with Yuta in a lot of points in this video..... I personally started consuming content meant for natives right after learning kana. And it wasn't even graded readers....it was games, and my own hand picked games (not suggestions from the internet)...you just have to be patient. If your goal is to learn simply to watch anime or read manga....just read and listen a lot...if your goal is to communicate as soon as possible, start doing that early on. No matter what your goal is, its just a matter of repetition doing a certain skill...no amount of textbook or classes/course (sorry Yuta) will ever get you to understand Japanese by itself... On may 3, 2023 it will be officially 3 short years since I even learned my first hiragana character....and now I can't imagine my life without Japanese :D. I do have to note that since I wanted to consume media as soon and as painless as possible I did study Kanji for 4 hours daily...very intensively....and grammar using 日本語総まとめ (にほんご　そう　まとめ/nihongo sou matome) both kanji and grammar all the way to N1 level...and used anki for words I didnt understand....but all this studying I did WHILE consuming content that I wanted to consume daily....its basically what kept me going....Now, I only read and listen daily...no more hard core studying....except maybe anki still (but not nearly as much as I used to)..and everything just "clicks"...i love it :D

[@popadoru9037]

I didn’t have time for you tube for a while but since the last video I seen your English got very good, I feel shy of my Japanese level

[@FPSRayn]

I remember back when I was about 10 or 11, being the average internet-obsessed Baltic kid, I learned English through being interested in just watching English content on KZbin. Started speaking to a Canadian kid online back when I was 12, and at this point (I am about to turn 20 this month), I speak English at a level where people cannot distinguish an Accent and they think I'm from America until I mention my timezone. I still have fond memories of me watching Yogscast back then. All you have to keep in mind is that you gotta start somewhere. It's easier to learn if you can do it while speaking to somebody who knows the language, or if you watch content that is in that language.

[@MsBrooklyn11232]

Off topic, but I see that you are a Chainsaw Man fan with the Pochita stuffed animal on your desk. I love Chainsaw Man and it is ❤‍🔥

[@chujundongjeremybbss7407]

4:18 There's another anime this season which I think is very good for learning, 事情を知らない転校生がグイグイくる。 I totally agree with this video, understanding everything is not a need, if it is, people will only be able to consume content meant for revision, people should be less afraid of starting immersion, I was also very hesitant for the first year of study and got no where, so I suggest everyone to just do it.

[@matildawolfram4687]

The perfect video! Many thanks to the author of the channel for the recommendations! The problem with many people is that they want to take a "magic pill" or get "secret knowledge" and immediately have skills and abilities. However, the truth of life is that knowledge, skills, and abilities do not come by themselves. You can't learn a foreign language without doing anything, without wasting your time and effort, just like you can't learn to ride a bike lying on a comfy couch, listening to lectures and watching videos about "modern methods of learning" on a bike. To really learn something, you have to really practice every day. You're going to fall down while you're learning, and you're going to get bumps - that's normal! The ups and downs of learning are an integral part of our lives. Motivation from success and depression from failure will always be your study companions. However, every student has problems in his or her studies that he or she lacks the knowledge to solve. It can be: poor memorization of words; no progress in language learning; the student can speak, but does not understand speech by ear; misunderstanding of grammar; incorrect pronunciation, etc. Agree that a problem you don't know how to solve is very demotivating. In order to find the answer to our question we have to spend a lot of time to read videos, articles and books by polyglots. In today's world, we have to solve problems as quickly as possible. I don't have time to study and analyze a huge amount of information. My goal is to master the basic knowledge of a foreign language as quickly as possible and already start earning money effectively in the international arena. I settled on the practical guide by Yuriy Ivantsiv " Polyglot's Notes: practical tips for learning foreign language". This book is always in my bag. If I have a problem while learning a language, I quickly find the answer in this book. There are many different techniques and tips for learning a foreign language in Polyglot Notes. I have made my own individual schedule and plan for language learning. Now I know what I am going to study, how I am going to study, when I am going to study and what results I am going to achieve. No problem could stop me! With an effective language learning plan my professional skills are more and more in demand internationally every day. Friends, don't stop there! Everyone has talents that millions of people around the world need! Learn the language and make your ideas and dreams come true! Thanks to the author of the channel for the informative and useful video! Your videos motivate me.

[@bokumo7063]

I thought the passive, causative, and passive-causative were just textbook forms that nobody actually used. But I was surprised to learn from KZbinrs that people really use those forms. "Don't make me laugh" is 笑わせないで, using the causative form. .初めて言われました means "the first time anyone ever said that to me", using the passive form. Also, I learned that when native speakers say 'pantsu', the katakana pronunciation of "pants", they mean underpants. Long pants is ズボン (zubon), which I think is a katakana word from French ("jupon"), though it has a kanji (洋袴), which I think katakana words don't usually have kanji, do they?

[@imamsanji]

I started learning hiragana and katakana like 4 years ago, but I gave up in about a month later. And I just restarted again this month, I am surprised that I still can read hiragana and katakana and familiar with a lot of words. ❤

[@Luigifan4ever11]

I'd love to learn a language, but I struggle even with easy ones like French. I think my learning disability makes it hard to understand and absorb, which just breaks my heart - so many people in the world I can't communicate just because my brain doesn't want to be trained in the ways I have available.

[@groorg24]

I hope my Japanese is good as your English someday.

[@nath1606]

I feel like this is why I've forgotten most of my French (which is part of the school curriculum here). It always felt unintuitive to just memorise all the words & phrases.

[@iamthestormthatisapproaching69]

Man, it's a totally different experience reading visual novels in Japanese over English. You can really visualize the scene in your head because you'd already know the types of characters that are speaking. You know how they would sound, their personalities, it's kind of like you see it as anime

[@IIIEPJIOK221b]

I've learned Japanese language for a year and now I am in Japan as foreign student. I used to think that Japanese language is one of the hardest languages in the world. But when I arrived in Japan and started to live here, I realized that japanese is easier in terms of speech, expressions and sounding more natural as the letters are easier to make compared to other languages. I'm saying this as a person who became pretty much fluent in russian and learned german, italian, english languages.

[@mizukinati0n]

I learned English watching movies and playing games with english voices over in just 6 months. After that, i was able to read everything in english and talk fluently. In school, i have english for 12 years (since kindergarten), and i never understand it there.

[@royalkumar795]

It took me 3-4 years to learn the English I'm still learning English if I don't know some English words I translate them into my own language though google translate app, I didn't learn from school or coaching classes because English teacher don't know English themselves some coaching start own English spoken classes to make profit on people hesitation because English is clearly alien language to them, how I learn the English, first I have noted 500+ verbs forms in regular and irregular verbs, start to watch Hollywood movie with subtitles because I wasn't used to English accent where I take notes of some English words and remember it some words like Gonna Or wanna which doesn't exist in English Grammar text books, but it's mostly used by English man while they are speaking to other character I understand those words means, gonna means "going to" And wanna means "wants to ", because English man use shortest words possible to save energy and complete the sentence , later I came cross video games series called persona series which had 100 hours of gameplay and tons of English dialogue where I have invested in this series for 100-500 hours where I learn to read English, even understand meaning of them which helps to lots on understand English, I have watch lots of English KZbinr which helps used on English voice where I can easily understand them without help of subtitles, I used to Type lots in English too. Talk with others on chat which helps me with English communication with others even to foreign people , but I am Not good with talking to people in English because I'm very introverted in nature who talks only related to the topic and nothing else , now I am. Bored with English I'm interested in learning Japanese because it's close to my mother language and it's easy to remember someone's name is unlikely with Korean names where I still don't remember the name of the main character of solo leveling manhwa

[@Shattered-Realm]

My current method of learning Japenese is do all the daily quest on duo lingo at minimum then do some more units of duo lingo if I have time for it. Knock out 1-2 kanji lesson's on Duo lingo - those take 1-2 minutes maybe do some Katakana practice cause I still suck at katakana. Then do all my Wani-Kani reviews followed by a half hour of native content. Ideally this should all be done within 2 hours.

[@gingajones3093]

at sompoint i reached the stage where sometimes i didn't even look at the subtitles while watching my hero for simpler sentences. The hard part for me is learning vocab since all i know is what i retaned from Japanese class a few years ago.

[@TheBombayMasterTony]

Sounds good.

[@sweet_yellowstrawberry_moo9126]

9:10 That’s true. I usually don’t speak English IRL because per day I have to speak another 3 languages. Means I can also be practicing Japanese while speaking other languages.

[@Andrex1326]

Im hungarian and im learning japanese and i think its easier for me to learn japanese than english speakers for example the grammar is a bit similar for example: hungaran: Osakában sushit ettem this means i ate sushi in osaka the japanese de partice in is ban is in this case osakáBAN sushiT the t means wo and ettem means i ate so tabemashita.

[@eyesonmarymahaney1731]

Well, I’ve gotten some of my Japanese back. Oh I’m able to speak a little bit but I want to get better so I’ve been practicing every day and I am still finding that I’m having trouble and then I’m also taking a class but we have to read it to speak it and write it all in one which is really hard but so much fun. What is the best way to become fluent in Japanese😊❤

[@thrillhouse4151]

Yuta! My sister wants to go back to Japan next year and for me to come too, I need to save some money!!! 2:40, that reminds me of watching Star Trek Next Generation with the Japanese dub, unfortunately I only have the first (worst) 2 seasons on Blu-Ray. It reminds me so much of Gundam. It’s the naval ranks and voice acting. Worf 中尉､ はしん！

[@esxivy1944]

As a spanish anime fan, once I decided to dip my toes into japanese I thought it was cool that I new some vocabulary and expresions. I hated english SO MUCH when I was in primary school, after watching and reading and playing games in english, I manage to improve a lot. Having fun is an important factor because otherwise you are going to drop it (like I have dropped japanese 3 times jsjsj)

[@blazi2293]

As a French native speaker, I was introduced to English through video games before taking formal English classes. As a result, I already knew a lot of vocabulary and expressions that weren't taught until years later. For example, I learned words like "hammer," "fire," and "thunder" from playing Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga. Although I have been studying English my entire life, it never felt like I was studying. Now, I am trying to learn Japanese by playing Pokemon Fire Red in Japanese. It's nice because I can read at my own pace and choose when to open a text box. I spend more time playing the game, and it's easy to read. I don't try to translate everything, but instead focus on what I already know and pick up new vocabulary and grammar as I go. Sometimes I even skip the text altogether because the point of the game is to play. ゼニガメ is the best ;)

[@RoseNZieg]

when it comes to learning Japanese, I consider it easy. as with most languages, retaining it is the hardest part.

[@Venom23456789]

Im going to japan on 2025 july and i want to interact to the fullest. I found this channel and was very happy, this is my 4th language to learn as my main language is Spanish ☺️ thank you for this looking forward

[@madecahyana4121]

I just started learning Japanese, for the first step, my friend who is a Japanese language teacher here in Bali told me, Master at least 50-150 basic vocabulary then break them down into which one is verb or noun, then master Hiragana & katakana (It's a must). then for some grammar, he used a song to teach me about Te~kei (て形) , The song goes like this : Minna-san Te-kei yo benkyou simasho I, Chi, Ri = Tte Bi, Mi, Ni = Nde KI = Ite Gi = Ide Shi = Shite 😄

[@EvgenyUskov]

depends on your definition of "to learn japanese": took me 5 years to finally pass the Kanji Kentei level 1 and Nihongo Kentei level 1 - i guess i can say that i have "learnt" it

[@coreymorgan949]

Can you make a video on your thoughts of learning Japanese by watching Japanese VTubers and how easy would be to do so? I watch Inugami Korone and Nekomata Okayu, but would you say other vtubers would be easier to learn Japanese from?

[@guinganosobo]

In my personal opinion, Aki Rosenthal and AZKi in Hololive have clean and clear Japanese.

[@willc3799]

My view on the japanese learning process has always been, that trying to learn it as a complete beginner is rather unpractical. This is not to discourage, if you really want to learn thats great and dont let anyone say otherwise. However I do think that some may bite off more than they can chew, this is quite possibly the worst thing a new person learning japanese could do. Some will just give up as they are testing their self dicepline, patience and learning ability all at once, this without help will not go well at all, if the person is not up to the task. I think its even more important to prevent dropouts than to pretend that this will be easy. Basically dont go into it trying to do everything and be frustrated when you dont have the patience to do so. If you just keep at it trying to read untranslated manga, putting on kanji subtitles instead of english subtitles and just in general engage in the language you will find yourself to be fluent. If you are learning japanese, im sure you can succeed just keep at it and maybe one of these days you yourself can do the teaching, until then just remember that there is no correct way of learning japanese. As long as you learn something. I concider that the correct way of learning japanese. (Cant say im an expert on the subject since im avarage at best. But there has been alot of dumb bs I have heard recently, basically trying to make japanese sound like this unreachable sumit that is just pretensious trying to reach. So I wrote this for some reason.)

[@kokitsunetora]

I wrote and drew a short manga the first semester I started learning Japanese. My sensei was impressed. I think making my own materials and having any mistakes explained really helped!

[@zerohbeat]

Omg I did something similar!!! I used to write extra short stories for my Japanese teacher to check most weeks. After I would re-write (and re draw) my short stories. It was so useful.

[@minakhatri2523]

I want to learn Japanese language

[@illuminatipl2952]

3:36 poland mentioned 🥳

[@TranQuil.Art18]

I'm very passionate about Japanese and Japan, I think when I'm done with high school, I want to go to a Japanese school and learn Japanese

[@cloudinlight4194]

I can say this statement of watching your favorite shows with no subs does teach you as I had hindi speaking neighbors and we were kids at the time so we didn't know each other and couldn't communicate with each other so it was hard to tell them toys and stuff so I started watching hindi cartoons like zig sharko doremon ninja hattori stuff like that and I didn't know any hindi back then and slowly after 2 months of watching the cartoons and stuff I was able to speak with them And understand them my hindi then was nothing good but for my age was good as 7 year old's aren't expected to speak profound ones and I had gotten along better I'm from south India so idk how much south languages helped in Hindi

[@Moonlark_Edits_]

Learning on Duolingo, I wanna talk to locals in Japan SO BAD AHH

[@feylights166]

Oh man, it's going to take me forever. I know kana and a few kanji, but I don't have time to do 3 hrs every day lol, not on the days I work, anyway. But I will try! It's not like I don't have free time (my work-lifr balance is decent), I just have other hobbies, too.

[@eduardoestrada4545]

I have studied japanese for almost 6 or 7 years by myself on the internet , I'm still struggling when it comes to speaking the language , I understand some anime , music and videogames I feel very confident when it comes to my listening but when I try to say something people say that I sound like a robot, and I guess that's because I'm always trying to follow the grammar rules and pretending like japanese is like english grammar , I guess it is just a matter of time , really awesome language maybe I can't speak like a pro but at least I can watch some of the things that I like and understand in the native language

[@theanimegamer366]

The thing that kills me about learning Japanese is trying to understand the grammar. Everyone always rants on about the kanji but when exposed to it enough, kanji isn’t that hard. The grammar on the other hand is like giving a sugar hyped 3 year old who has ADD a bottle rocket and trying to predict where it will fly for me. It’s been so hard on me that as someone whose been studying for almost 5 years and I can say that I’m barely in and N4 level, like that’s how hard it is for me.

[@danketsu-seyo]

Stop focusing on grammar at all. Just go into immersion, maybe start with a book or series you've already read/watched in your native language. It's enough if you can grasp the meaning of some sentences. Specially with yomichan, it's not that hard. It will be very slow at the beginning, but you will get better. Your brain will eventually get used to the Japanese grammar.

[@kosmiconnexions]

Extensive reading will give you more input and real world context of how the grammars are used c: あきらめないてください😊

[@timclark428]

Terrace house (Netflix), is very good for Japanese. Possibly the best show in the world to learn from.

[@csimoes77]

I watch my anime series always with original japanese audio, so I am learnning some words and expressions from japanese language!

[@bilingualchad]

the part where he said you learn a language while doing thing you like IN the language is completely true and it's actually the way I learned English, while most people in my local English course still can't speak it when they finish the course. so go watch he- family friendly anime

[@d3ad_g0at]

I learnt the hime means princess in japanese using authentic material ...and thats before i started learning the language

[@luckytai-lan2166]

They go to language school because having a student visa would allow them to work albeit part time, and by the time they graduate they can easily apply for a work visa. It may be unnatural Japanese they teach in those language schools, but it is the legal way to find work in Japan, and legal issues are everything, that's why the Chinese, Nepalese, Vietnamese, Indians etc. are enrolling in these expensive schools, because they can almost be like a job agency.

[@UzumakiHarutoJP]

Going to a language school doesn't really make it easier to apply for a work visa (unfortunately), being in Japan does :/ People go because then they can go to a university in Japan, and get a degree, which is what makes it easier to get a job in Japan. Language school on a student visa will let you work part time up to 28 hours, but you'll find just as much difficulty as without the student visa trying to get a work visa sponsored if you have no degree. If you already have a degree, you can get a job in Japan without language school anyway

[@user-vv7pz7hf1j]

indeed most of them use minna no nihongo .. the grail of odd japanese... I can tell you before I started watching actively japanese dramas and reading news even I could not understand anything... I started realy to stop videos and look up grammars and words but after years it clicked so it became natural

[@Rairosu]

I am a Native Thai Speaker who is learning Japanese.

[@csimoes77]

Takagi-san is also my favorite anime series! 😁

[@japanqui]

Me learning 日本 & Espanol

[@-Mercury-]

I listen to Japanese music sometimes, and i memorise the english lyrics of them so i can understand it. It was kinda hard though, bcs my memory is the size of a dog's memory-

[@garryferrington811]

People who learn more than one language early are much better at learning. There are Armenians here - everyday people - who are fluent in at least six languages!

[@mazharali1181]

I just subscribed to your email list and i had shocked that the text books are just teaching the formal form thats why when i watch japanese dramas i did't uderstand well.

[@kimchi2093]

So true. I went months convinced this immersion thing was all bs and it can only work when you’re a kid. I watched a ton of anime without subs and barely saw any progress (I thought). Lo and behold, I went to Japan last week and I could actually understand everyone. It was like magic, I couldn’t believe it. I did 10x better than I thought I would. All my friends were shocked by my progress, saying things like “how did you understand what that person just said?” And I would just say “I don’t know…I watched a lot of anime I guess lol”. I even kept up with my friend who had studied Japanese in school for three years…and all I did was watch anime for a few months lol. This method works. It feels like you’re making no progress for weeks, but your brain will learn the patterns, just trust the process.

[@JohnM...]

My difficulty in learning to speak and thus more effectively learn Japanese is that I don’t have a Japanese tongue…by that I mean I have to say/repeat sentences really slowly compared to natives, and sometimes it makes me scream through my teeth in frustration. All the endings like dayo, dane, etc.

[@zlatto]

3:27 Hey, Yuta San, that's my native language. 😅Have you ever had an experience with that language?

[@bobfranklin2572]

Based immersion yuta

[@RM..........]

9:23 No sir, I most definitely am not a normal human. I have debilitating social anxiety 😂😂 great video though, I would love to learn Japanese someday. It's just hard to keep yourself motivated sometimes.

[@coolbrotherf127]

It did take me about 3 years until I could talk and read pretty well. Although, it would probably take another 2-3 years to actually learn how to hand write kanji. As a foreigner, I probably wouldn't bother unless I intended to raise a family in Japan or something. 99% I can just type out the kanji on my phone or computer.

[@vasyear]

so "yo" (sry keyboard can't type in Japanese) is like starting a sentance with "Did you know?" I'm a massive fan of super sentai, i've always wondered why they put SO much English into the show, is it to help japanese children learn English since its primarily a children/teens program?

[@zeroqp]

Can "iku yo" be plural as well (us instead of I/me)? If I want to say "let's go", instead of "I'm going", does it have to be "ikimashou"? What about if I want to say "we're going", can that be "iku yo" in the right context?

[@danieldanieldanielUvu]

Learning kanji was not that hard..I mean for me I just need to memorize the pattern and meaning but included the onyomi and kunyomi reading was a slap on the head 😭

[@mordraug6662]

You do not learn Kanji readings, you learn vocabulary you see in context. That is how you learn the readings. 装飾品 - you do not learn how to read the individual ones (ESPECIALLY not all their readings...it is pointless...), you learn the word. But learning basic phonetic elements of Kanji can be useful at least for On'yomi, such as Kanji containing 意 is 80% times read as おく for its On'yomi. In Kanji such as - 憶、臆、億. Exception is when it is the word 意 (い) itself. This is obviously not useful for Kun'yomi. So, therefore it is best to learn whole words.

[@Leonidas1]

I learned english by watching KZbin/cartoons and learning English at the same time, I can probably learn Japanese by watching anime and learning Japanese at the same time