So You Want to Learn Japanese

| Monday, December 19, 2011
By Mia Spark


Out of all the world's languages, Japanese is usually considered to be one of the hardest. It is not easy, especially for speakers of Western languages who are not accustomed to the subtleties and almost musical quality of Japanese. With study, however, you will start to pick up on the many beautiful characteristics of this unique language. The problem for some people is that they think Japanese is so hard they never give themselves a chance to learn it. The good news is this: anybody can learn a new language! It is only necessary to put forth a certain amount of time and effort. Just make up your mind that you will become fluent in Japanese, and you can make it a reality. If you want to make the process a little simpler, follow some of these helpful tips.

To really learn a language like Japanese, you need to really be around it. Travel to Japan if you possibly can; explore the country without anyone's help. It will be challenging, but you might find you can speak and understand enough to survive. For most people, there is no better way to be exposed to a new language than to go to the country where it's spoken. Being in another country puts you in a situation where you have to learn another language, and it opens your mind to its ability to do this. The next best solution, if you can't go to Japan, is to find a Japanese neighborhood where the language is spoken a lot. If you can't find a Japanese neighborhood nearby, you can immerse yourself in the language by watching lot of movies and television in Japanese without the help of subtitles. If you want to learn a lot of vocabulary, this is a good method to use.

Don't overdo it in the beginning. Don't over complicate the process; start off with something simple like learning vocabulary. Be careful of trying to learn all of the names of a particular object; all languages have lots of ways of saying the same thing. Rather than work on learning all of the Japanese words for ?hungry?, for example, learn just one or two so that you can function in a conversation. Don't focus on the number of words you learn until you are aware of the more subtle meanings of those words in any given situation. Being able to comprehend the small differences words that are similar is a major step in learning a language and is a signal that you have advanced past the beginner's level.

You will also learn faster if you work with flash cards. It will be useful to have several varieties of flash cards for studying Japanese. You should have a set of flash cards used specifically for grammar rules and vocabulary. You also want to be able to read in Japanese, so you should have flash cards that teach you how to form and understand all the characters of the alphabet.Use Japanese on one side and then spell out the answers phonetically on the other side of the cards. Try to keep the sets from mixing, especially in the beginning, or you could end up confused and frustrated!

Japanese is becoming an increasingly popular language, which also means there are lots of ways to learn it.There are many different approaches you can take when it comes to learning the Japanese language. These are just a few hints that you can use to help make sure that the things you want to learn are better able to stick in your brain. No one would claim that learning Japanese is easy or something you can do overnight. These tips are designed to make you more comfortable in your study of this fascinating language.




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