I've been studying Japanese on and off for the better part of 4 years now. In that time I've tried a lot of methods, gone about it a lot of ways, and have learned alot about language learning in general. I am nowhere near 'fluent', a word I feel is tossed around way too lightly. In fact, my Japanese speaking abilities are novice at best. That being said, I have experience, and I do feel quite 'comfortable' dealing with Japanese. For those who are starting off learning a language, or for those who have hit a 'wall', this is for you.

1. For starters, go through a solid audio course.

The best way to start learning a language is learning how to speak it. Speech preceded written language by many thousands of years, and it is the foundation on which all grammar and letters are based. Going through an audio course will give you a solid foundation on the general patterns/sounds/rhythm of a language, while giving you the great satisfaction of actually being able to speak it! Win win! For Japanese I recommend Pimsleur, and im sure this forum could recommend even more.

2. While you are doing this, listen to native material

Audio courses aren't generally designed to take up most of your time. Pimsleur, for example, recommends a lesson a day (30 mins). What do you do for the rest of your time? Watch/listen to something!! Anything! Watch a Jdrama, a movie, listen to the news or a podcast, but expose yourself to native Japanese a little bit each day. If your time is limited, a lesson of Pimsleur and an anime episode of choice will run you only an hour. Not bad! Make sure it is *active* listening. Passive isnt bad, but I am of a firm belief learning should be done actively. Watch, pay attention, and repeat words you hear to work on your pronunciation. Not every word, but just like a kid, whatever word *speaks* to you.

3. Once you've completed your audio course, work your way through a Grammar course to develop reading/writing skills.

Many would disagree with me on this, but its not something I would budge on. Grammar is important, regardless of what anyone tells you. You don't need an in-depth understanding of it, but you do need to know it. Grammar wont help you speak, but it does help you *understand* what you *read*. If you plan on being *literate*, then learning grammar is unavoidable. Look for a course that is heavily weighted towards grammar study. You can either sign up for a class, or buy a textbook. Again, the forums can help you with this. Learn to read and write Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji while working through the book. A good course will *teach* you this with its grammar. No romaji textbooks. A good example is "An Introduction to Modern Japanese".

4. As you work through your textbook(s) of choice, do not neglect native media

Continue with your habit of watching/listening to native material after you finish studying for the day. Do not be shy about repeating things you hear. Children do this all the time after all; they repeat words without really knowing what they mean. What words/phrases you repeat is up to you, but keep in mind this is just to keep you listening and speaking. Its practice, so don't get hung up on trying to understand everything. Just enjoy it..like a kid. You'll be surprised at what you will learn. I recommend tv shows/movies over other things because visual context helps a ton. Your brain will remember it as you repeat whatever word/phrase you chose.

5. Upon completion of the textbook series, its all you from here.

This is the hardest part. At this point, I recommend tackling native material almost exclusively. With a great foundation in reading/writing/speaking/listening, you should be ready. This means read a lot of books/stories/news articles and watch a lot of tv. Do not worry about SRSing anything, memorizing new words, or any of that business. Any word worth remembering will show up enough times in your reading/media that you wont forget it. Just expose yourself to a lot of stuff..and keep reference materials handy any time you run into a new word/new grammar construction you don't understand. Look it up, understand it, reread the sentence and move on. If your goal is to learn the language, no need to SRS anything. Just expose yourself, and learn as you go.

6. What about Kanji?

How much Kanji you learn to write will be a personal decision. If you plan on living in Japan, I think it is your duty to assimilate as best you can into the culture that is "tolerating" you. This means learning how to write as many Kanji as you can. There's just no excuse to NOT learn, as it is only *respectful* to the people that have agreed to let you stay within their borders. Its just rude to not learn. Now if you have no intention on living in Japan, I wouldn't say its required. Writing Kanji does help you remember words better, so I'd recommend it. Once you finish your textbook, I'd include daily writing practice because it really does *help* you understand the language. Trust me.

7. Why no SRS?

This is a controversial subject, but I do not believe word lists help you in any way shape or form. A list is just that... a list. It doesn't make words readily available for speaking, and even if you do sentences it doesn't make those available either. The only reason I'd SRS anything is to study for a test. So if you plan on taking JLPT, SRS is basically a requirement. If you are not doing JLPT, skip the SRS as you'll learn faster without it. After all, before SRS there was the "book". If you read a lot of books (few do), you will learn a lot of words. I owe a lot of my success in college to the fact that I read tons. My strong English vocabulary never came from flashcards, but by seeing the same words in different places over and over and over and over again.

8. This is just advice

This is not THE way to learn a language, just advice based on experience. I can tell you that if you do anything for long enough, you will learn. It is inevitable that you'll learn. Learning, however, does require some structure, and that's where the advice comes in. How you structure your learning will be entirely up to you. There are a billion roads that lead to Rome, so the important thing is to find what works for YOU.


In closing, this is just really something to help the beginners out there. If you are an advanced learner, none of this will really help you, though it might provoke some thought.

I think you're misunderstanding the reason for using an SRS. Or rather, you do understand the reason. Quite well, actually, the thing is that there are some of us (or maybe that's just me) who use it for another reason. Basically, the SRS is my "audio course" - it gets me started. I get explicit knowledge of some things so I can then actually translate the things I find and start to do lots of reading. It got me to the point where I can actually deal with native texts (I use the word text in the broadest sense here, meaning all kinds of media, written, audio, or otherwise)

I agree completely that at some point doing lots of reading will help more and I'm not so sure if those people who do "10'000 sentences" aren't handicapping themselves - though of course, I don't have 10'000 sentences in my SRS, so I can't say that from experience. Maybe it's actually really time efficient and I'm handicapping myself by not doing it, but there's only one way to find out, and that'll take a while.

SRS is a general method to aid with learning any kind of information, it doesn't have to be used with a "list of words".

Learning to write kanji because it's rude not to do so is the strangest reason I've heard for learning it.

Think of an SRS in language learning as a simulation of coming across a word in every day life time and time again without actually having to live for __ years to do so. SRS is a handy way to cheat nature. Surely no one thinks they can just stuff vocab lists into an SRS, neglect reading entirely and suddenly understand a language..? Of course diving into and actually using the language is the most important thing. SRS programs are just there to help you get it all packed into your brain and keep it there.

I've also been studying Japanese ~4 years. My Japanese is high C1/low C2. I'll avoid the word fluent as people define it differently but I imagine you could call anyone with a language at C1/C2 "fluent" and get away with it.

.. and I love cheating nature with my SRS.

Zlarp Wrote:Basically, the SRS is my "audio course" - it gets me started. I get explicit knowledge of some things so I can then actually translate the things I find and start to do lots of reading.

Honestly, I never got the whole audio+SRS thing to work out so I wasn't even thinking of that when I wrote my OP. Good lookin' out! I'd certainly recommend an SRS for that. I don't have the patience to figure it out lol.

Quote:I agree completely that at some point doing lots of reading will help more and I'm not so sure if those people who do "10'000 sentences" aren't handicapping themselves - though of course, I don't have 10'000 sentences in my SRS, so I can't say that from experience. Maybe it's actually really time efficient and I'm handicapping myself by not doing it, but there's only one way to find out, and that'll take a while.

Based on experience (ie I tried it), I wouldn't recommend it lol. A sentence out of context is about as useful as a word out of context..ie not useful at all. The more I practice, the more I realize that "speaking" is just a matter of being able to translate very quickly. If someone says "good morning" to me in Japanese, I recognize I want to say good morning in response. My brain translates this into Japanese, and then I say it. The more your brain makes the same mental connection (ie saying good morning), the faster itll come to you, until you get to the point where its instantaneous.

drdunlap Wrote:Think of an SRS in language learning as a simulation of coming across a word in every day life time and time again without actually having to live for __ years to do so. SRS is a handy way to cheat nature.

Well idk, I've certainly seen advice in random places on the interwebz suggest stuffing words/sentences into an SRS in an attempt to learn the language. Really though, nature is basically an SRS, though a lot less predictable lol. The only reason im not a huge fan of SRS is that I feel if you don't see a word enough in nature, you don't really need to force it in your head via other means.

Then again there are people who study random words they find in their first language, just so that they know them. I never understood that, which is probably why I don't get the whole SRS thing lol. It doesn't seem fun, and is quite dull a lot of times

amtrack Wrote:Really though, nature is basically an SRS, though a lot less predictable lol.

Exactly....! That's why I use an SRS reason #1..!

amtrack Wrote:The only reason im not a huge fan of SRS is that I feel if you don't see a word enough in nature, you don't really need to force it in your head via other means.

This is true in the long run but not in the short run.. and possibly not at all as an adult. There are words and situations that adults simply don't find themselves in contact with anymore. Really simple words. Really basic words. Words you'd never think to *study*..
I wrote an example somewhere else on the forums about the word 炭 in my SRS. Saw it once, put it in Anki. Saw it again 2 years later and thanks to Anki I didn't have to think about what that word was.
That's why I use SRS reason #2. :]

amtrack Wrote:Based on experience (ie I tried it), I wouldn't recommend it lol. A sentence out of context is about as useful as a word out of context..ie not useful at all.

But if a word is part of a sentence, regardless of whether or not the sentence is part of a bigger paragraph, the word is not out of context. The main idea of sentences on flashcards (well, the way I interpret it) is to make words easier to learn by giving them context, while also reviewing a grammatically correct usage of it. Contexts for the sentences aren't needed for this purpose as long as you can understand them.

amtrack Wrote:The more I practice, the more I realize that "speaking" is just a matter of being able to translate very quickly. If someone says "good morning" to me in Japanese, I recognize I want to say good morning in response. My brain translates this into Japanese, and then I say it. The more your brain makes the same mental connection (ie saying good morning), the faster itll come to you, until you get to the point where its instantaneous.

If you're monolingual it might be difficult to imagine this, but in my experience, speaking and understanding a foreign language fluently means no process of internal translating at all. You think in the target language.

Like how even though my native language is Swedish, through the massive amounts of exposure I've had to English over the years there just hasn't been any need for having Swedish in my head at all when it's come to using English. By not having an active need for speaking or writing English, but having a desire for understanding it when watching movies, playing games, browsing the internet, I've learned from early on to understand English "as it is" when I hear/read it. Stemming from that ability, when I speak/write it, the thoughts of what I want to convey immediately take the form of English. I'm in "English mode", just as if I'm speaking my native language, and it's been like this since I was about 14 years old, tops.

I'm not at all fluent in Japanese yet, but I can speak to my ability without frequent problems like stopping, planning word order, comparing with Swedish/English, et cetera. This, I'm convinced, is simply because of not worrying about what so and so means in any other language and understanding the language "for what it is" when acquiring through exposure. The monolingual approach, AJATT, whatever.

amtrack Wrote:

drdunlap Wrote:Think of an SRS in language learning as a simulation of coming across a word in every day life time and time again without actually having to live for __ years to do so. SRS is a handy way to cheat nature.

Well idk, I've certainly seen advice in random places on the interwebz suggest stuffing words/sentences into an SRS in an attempt to learn the language. Really though, nature is basically an SRS, though a lot less predictable lol. The only reason im not a huge fan of SRS is that I feel if you don't see a word enough in nature, you don't really need to force it in your head via other means.

If they're suggesting substituting exposure for brutal SRSing then I agree, not a fan of that either. But I think you should see SRS as something to use alongside input as an effective means of reviewing lots of information in a short amount of time. It's certainly very useful when we're starting out from scratch and have trouble finding enough comprehensible input in a vast world of native content.

Also, while we're certain to see the few thousand most common words enough in nature, the tens of thousands of infrequent words we ultimately need to know will of course take very long to come across. Savoring the occasions we're exposed to them by reviewing them alongside in an SRS is sure to save some of that time, I think.

TwoMoreCharacters Wrote:If you're monolingual it might be difficult to imagine this, but in my experience, speaking and understanding a foreign language fluently means no process of internal translating at all. You think in the target language.

This this and more this!
I can hear people thinking in English when they speak Japanese and vice versa.
I'm sure that stands for every other language as well.

TwoMoreCharacters Wrote:If you're monolingual it might be difficult to imagine this, but in my experience, speaking and understanding a foreign language fluently means no process of internal translating at all. You think in the target language.

I agree, but this is impossible when you first start speaking a language. Before speech there's thought, and most of us think in our native language initially. So in the beginning, there is always a translation process. After all, we are not children, thus are incapable (to my knowledge) of communicative thought without putting language to it. This is probably why learning a second language as an adult seems so difficult. Children go from abstract to language, while adults go from abstract -> native language -> second language.

The first connection between abstract and native language happens so incredibly fast you are unaware of it. It is automatic and instantaneous. The second connection is what gives us language learners problems. To be honest, I'm not entirely convinced the native language -> second language connection ever goes away, just like how the abstract -> native language connection doesn't go away. I think we just reach a point where the translation becomes automatic and instantaneous without us being aware of it.

Then again, I've had dreams entirely in a separate language, so I can't say a direction connection between abstract-> second language is impossible. I just hold the general belief that your mother tongue will always possess some level of influence on your thought patterns unless it has been completely abandoned for several years.

It's pretty obvious when someone is using knowledge from their native language in another language. Thought process is just too different between languages to continue to translate at a fluent level. And by fluent I guess I mean native. It's perfectly possibly to express oneself well in a foreign language while still being affected by ones native language. It's just obvious.

amtrack Wrote:I just hold the general belief that your mother tongue will always possess some level of influence on your thought patterns unless it has been completely abandoned for several years.

You don't have to abandon your native language for years.. not exactly? anyway. Disconnecting L1 from L2 and creating an L2 brain is kind of like abandoning your native language. But only while you work in your learned language. Not all the time. Same effect? I guess. My two brains don't communicate very much.. this sometimes poses problems when attempting to translate.

Are you bi/multi-lingual by chance?

drdunlap Wrote:Are you bi/multi-lingual by chance?

No, i would not call myself bi-lingual, though I have had limited conversations in a second language. Mostly just small talk, as my vocab was limited to what you'd normally talk about during downtime in a school day.

I'm mostly just theorizing based off of different research in regards to bilingual/multilingual speakers. I also wonder if a second language learned by a child is stored differently than a second language learned by an adult. The problem of course is that most of language is subconscious, so there's no way of knowing what the hell is going on. Its partly what makes it such a fascinating subject to me.

I have noticed its fairly difficult to switch from one language to another, but I am not quite sure why. One one hand, if the abstract -> native language -> second language connection was always in effect, it shouldn't be difficult to bounce between languages. Clearly that is not the case, so maybe the brain stores it differently. We know for a fact that our first language was learned by defining and translating the abstract into words. This begs the question, though, how exactly do we learn a second language past the child stage?

If you think about it, we don't use abstract to learn a language, because that is just about impossible for an adult as far as I know. A child sees a car and its just a blob to him, but even if i show you a picture of a car it is not an abstract blob to you. Since that is the case, a second language must be stored differently in a manner that makes it difficult to switch back and forth from.

....

Luckily you don't have to theorize too much because the world is teeming with people who became bilingual from birth, childhood and adulthood to consult. (With wonderfully varied results).

Like I said- it's very obvious when someone is using one language to interpret another and when they're not. I don't know about the neurolinguistics side of things but I'm not sure it matters really.
Anyway- there's plenty more published material on linguistics/neurolinguistics and etc etc that can probably sate your curiosity better and more safely than speculation! Unfortunately I can't suggest anything because I ran away from linguistics when it got in the way of my language study (irony!(?)).

Thinking less has done wonders for me in breaking apart the relation between L1 and L2 and moving on to higher stages of language proficiency.
I highly suggest it.
It works wonders for some.

amtrack Wrote:The first connection between abstract and native language happens so incredibly fast you are unaware of it. It is automatic and instantaneous. The second connection is what gives us language learners problems. To be honest, I'm not entirely convinced the native language -> second language connection ever goes away, just like how the abstract -> native language connection doesn't go away. I think we just reach a point where the translation becomes automatic and instantaneous without us being aware of it.

I really don't think this is the case. At least when I analyze the way I personally use English and Finnish. They are completely separate in my head, and as such translating can be a massive headache. The languages are too different. It makes no sense.

Just to butt in with my 2 cents on SRS.

First off, word lists aren't the right way to go. The way I used it was I only ever put stuff in that I encountered in real world material. Through SRS I was able to retain 80% of that at any given time which was far far FAR more effective than just forgetting it.

Secondly, it's a tool. One of many... It's definitely not for every one but I'd say if you can stomach it it's study's secret weapon.

First year of study I just did audio/sentences and learned grammar. Second year once I had basic sentence structure down I Anki'd 10,000+ vocab that I found all through my immersion environment. End of the first year? Could hold extremely basic (boring) conversations... end of the second? Could hold 2 ~ 3 hour 1 on 1 discussions comfortably on a wide range of topics.

It was kinda hard slog but extremely effective.

I'm a bit curious about this, because I don't think that I "think" in a particular language. Certainly, I can think *up* and compose words in a language, as I'm doing now, but it's at least a mildly taxing mental task, like adding numbers in your head, and it's not something that I do all the time as a matter of course.

I can't imagine how jumbled my head would be if I had to think in a language. If a car passes by, am I supposed to compose a little narrative, like, "Wow, that is a car. C-A-R. An automobile. A Ford Focus, late model. It has tinted side windows the hue of smoky quartz. Its engine rumbles softly - and there's the doppler shift as it passes by. It kicks up a breeze that ruffles my hair..."

No way! How long does it take you guys to think about stuff?

That said, if someone were to ask me what language I think in, I'd probably take that to mean, "In what language can you perform production with the least amount of effort?" It sounds like some people take it to mean something more though?

Mushi Wrote:I'm a bit curious about this, because I don't think that I "think" in a particular language.

You don't have any form of internal monologue whatsoever? Ignoring that the reality is most thoughts don't (need to) contain any form of language as you say, I think what people mean when they say "thinking" in a language is what language you use when you mentally talk to yourself. For example on some form of public transportation near a loud child thinking "for the love of god and all that is holy will you please shut up", or the menial example of counting something arbitrary in your head. All of which you will unconsciously do in your native language unless you're very fluent in another language.

As for myself I'm not referring to inner monologues, I don't really do that. If I took note of a certain car that passed by I wouldn't really sub-vocalize anything, just think about what it looks like. Maybe go as far as "Nice car". Or if one would abruptly pass by really close and throw me off a bit - "Whoah, a car!?", "あぶないな"

What I'm talking about is how you're internally dealing with messages during communication. If you as a native English speaker read a sign that's in English, that's a one-step process of simply understanding what the words mean. If you read a sign that's in Japanese, would that be the same process of simply understanding the Japanese, or would you evaluate the Japanese words and quickly convert them to English in your head?

It's not reading "喫煙禁止" and then going "Alright, I guess no smoking here then" or something, I'm talking about reading it and automatically having to filter it into "smoking prohibit(ed)" as you understand it. If you have to think about what it translates to in another language, that's what I call "not thinking in Japanese"

The reverse goes for speaking.

Yep, or that.

Thanks you two - that definitely gives me a better idea what's being discussed. For me personally:

Regardinginternal monologues - yes, sometimes I do this, but not frequently. I caught myself doing this the other day while shoveling the driveway. I was feeling tired, so encouraged myself by saying, "But isn't it good feeling getting some exercise in the snow?" This was in Japanese though, probably because I associate digging in the snow with happy childhood memories when my (Japanese) parents would encourage me to play outside when it snowed.

Regarding written signs, no I do not translate them to an intermediate language. Even when I was in Germany and the signs were in German, which I did not know, as soon as I figured out what, for example, "ausfahrt" was, I wouldn't think "exit" or "出口". I'd wordlessly understand that meant my having the ability to turn off there. No translation - that would have been extra effort.

[Zgarbas]

Were you by any chance raised bilingual or with lots of exposure to other languages?

Yes, my first language was Japanese, but I switched primarily to English from around kindergarten due to my parents moving to the U.S.

[Zgarbas]

That might be it ^^. I also never translate, even from languages that I don't know(it's actually rather frustrating as I can have some pretty coherent-sounding sentences...which I don't understand). I always blamed it on being raised bilingual and keeping the habit.

I'm not raised bilingually, but I never translate either... When reading or listening to Japanese, I either understand or I don't -- even if I understand what's going on, translating is still a pain in the rectal chamber.

I'm Norwegian, and English is my second langauge. The only times I actually translate from Norwegian is when I'm not too sure which English word to use, which happens next to never nowadays.

EDIT: Am I the only one who have to log in every time I visit this forum??

@Stian Go to:
Profile -> Privacy -> (and check) [ x ] Save username and password between visits.

amtrack Wrote:Based on experience (ie I tried it), I wouldn't recommend it lol. A sentence out of context is about as useful as a word out of context..ie not useful at all. The more I practice, the more I realize that "speaking" is just a matter of being able to translate very quickly. If someone says "good morning" to me in Japanese, I recognize I want to say good morning in response. My brain translates this into Japanese, and then I say it. The more your brain makes the same mental connection (ie saying good morning), the faster itll come to you, until you get to the point where its instantaneous.

Although I don't know that much Japanese yet, I don't translate unless I'm dealing with several unfamiliar words in a sentence (in which case I probably won't understand anyway). If I wanted to greet someone in the morning, I'd say おはよう, it doesn't need to go through the intermediate step of 'good morning'. Same with understanding things. I'd have to consciously think about it to translate.

I do use a SRS. Without it, I'd spend so long going over the same stuff again and again, because I just don't remember it well. Not much point in doing a textbook and forgetting it, I'd rather use it in conjunction with the SRS. Hope that explains how someone might use one.

amtrack Wrote:If you think about it, we don't use abstract to learn a language, because that is just about impossible for an adult as far as I know. A child sees a car and its just a blob to him, but even if i show you a picture of a car it is not an abstract blob to you. Since that is the case, a second language must be stored differently in a manner that makes it difficult to switch back and forth from.

I find the picture method pretty helpful, use it with my SRS. Kanji on front, picture on back (though there are various way to do it).

Mushi Wrote:I can't imagine how jumbled my head would be if I had to think in a language. If a car passes by, am I supposed to compose a little narrative, like, "Wow, that is a car. C-A-R. An automobile. A Ford Focus, late model. It has tinted side windows the hue of smoky quartz. Its engine rumbles softly - and there's the doppler shift as it passes by. It kicks up a breeze that ruffles my hair..."

No way! How long does it take you guys to think about stuff?

Hee, often I don't just think in language, I think in written language (picture what I'm thinking written down). I can't imagine being able to think straight otherwise.
(for the anime watchers here, think all the writing in Bakemonogatari. Yep, I actually think like that)