How to *actually* start speaking Japanese in real life

[@SriMJ54]

Cool update and practical tips, Yuki-san. The ordering in Japanese restaurant part is wholesome. Ganbatte kudasai!

[@YukiChiu852]

Thanks very much :D Hai, Ganbarimasu!

[@Malorants-fh1hu]

🙏 thank you

[@YukiChiu852]

Thank you for your support :D

[@repentandfollowjesuschrist6170]

Kirei 😍

[@YukiChiu852]

Thank you so much!

[@dioscaromano8666]

hey, your video was really helpful, i already learned hiragana and katakana, but don't know what to study next, i would appreciate if you give me some tips. thank you

[@JohnM...]

Vocab and phrases maybe? I’m doing that by listening to podcasts, Ask Japanese KZbin channel, and songs - always writing down phrases that catch my ear (or eye). I’m finding it difficult (むずい) to string sentences together, and I want to learn general words like ‘pavement, grass, sky, trees, birds - natural things like ‘I’m going for a walk’ or ‘yesterday I went for a walk…’😢

[@YukiChiu852]

Thanks very much! I agree it should be some combination of vocab and grammar, so that you can start building sentences. My goal was to start having Japanese conversations as soon as possible, and I started using Pimsleur together with a beginner grammar/vocab book by Inoue Kazuhiro, which is meant to be a companion textbook to his free courses on KZbin (N.B. they are in Chinese). Pimsleur is subscription-based but it's good value and you can share your subscription with three other people. I also tried an app called Mesh Class for vocab, taking only the free classes though. I recommend that you have a flip-through in the local bookstore to see if any learning material catches your eyes - any material that you will stick to is good learning material. For audio-visual input, you can find many great teachers on KZbin :D

[@D3jL]

To be honest, do what you find fun to do. Example: i dont like textbooks, so i dont use them. Only occasionaly i look into Genki for grammar, words etc. Sometime i use flashcards, when i am on public transport to kill time. But most of the time, i just listen and watch videos. KZbin: Comprehensible japanese, anime, drama, sometime podcasts. You will not understand in the beginning, but it will be better later. Right now after 7months doing this for some hours per week, i am at least able to understand topic or what people are talking about. I dont know some hard words, but it will become better. Imagine you are child again. Listen a lot, then try to speak a little, you will get better. Dont worry about forgetting. It is natural. If you cant remember some word, when you encounter it many times, it will stick :) It is fun for me and that is the most important thing for your brain when learning. Do what you like and find fun :) If you like reading, try learning some kanji, which is also nice to widen your vocab. You learn a word it represents and some others, where the kanji is used. Dont bother by learning numerous ways of reading it thought, just how the word is written. Like in 日、日本、月曜日 etc. 3 ways to say read it just from these words. Have fun and enjoy :)

[@sebastienmailbox]

I bought "Minna no Nihongo" off Amazon (the writing one) for practicing the characters after I finished my original workbook. It's been a fun supplement so far. Scratches that itch to pretend I'm back in grade school doing workbooks over summer break. I enjoyed them then, and apparently still do. It gives me something physical I can see progress in, I think. I've picked up some phrases just from spending hours watching and listening to Japanese media of various kinds. Your brain will just start absorbing it and connecting dots through association. It's built to learn how to communicate with others. It will naturally build vocabulary, as you look at a fridge and hear someone else in your head say "reizouko" because you heard it 20 times in real life when referencing the thing. You can build it through hard study. Or you can brute force it through many hours of not understanding most of what you hear. It's a trade off, and I think a good strategy is a melding of both types. I want to get to the point where I can read a kid's book without looking up every other word. Then I'll be all set to do what I did building English as a child: reading for hours a day. This is a goal. I don't have a clue how long it will take me to get there, but at 2 months of actually studying, i can nearly make simple sentences and could understand what you said in Japanese, even if I would struggle to construct those sentence, myself. So there's that to be proud of. I always recommend as much music as you can in your target language, cause it's good for building phrases and associations, especially with feelings involved. Watching a show you're interested in has a similar effect. I have an Anki deck (digital flashcards you can customize with sound clips and pictures) I wish I could get myself to add to and study more consistently, but I don't know if it works with my learning style, since it's a struggle to get myself to use it at all. Other people swear by them and use them religiously, tho, so that may be something you're interested in working building for vocabulary of your own.

[@U07gz]

Soy el suscriptor número 500😁

[@YukiChiu852]

Muchas gracias, mi suscriptor número 500 :D

[@ijansk]

My concern is with the super large number of homophones. I cannot fathom that a word can have up to 20 meanings. How am I supposed to understand such kind of words in the spoken language?

[@YukiChiu852]

I think the key is to always learn in context! Definitely don't start by learning all the different meanings a sound could have, otherwise it'd be mind-boggling :p

[@ayethandaraung9266]

ကျေးဇူးပါ❤❤

[@YukiChiu852]

ရပါတယ် :D I used Google Translate, I hope this says "You're welcome"!

[@makima7844]

日本人でもカレーを注文している時の男性がなんと言っているのかを聞き取りずらいです。

[@YukiChiu852]

えっ、本当ですか。私にわはやすぎます。