The Japanese Language Guru

Archive for April, 2010

You know that people say one of the best ways to learn Japanese is by speaking… well that is pretty obvious.

One mistake that I fell into while I was studying at home was that rather than saying the words out loud, I would just think them in my head.

For me it felt like I was doing the same thing.

WRONG!!

Without saying them you don’t get to hear what you sound like. You also don’t become confident with saying the words.

If you are at home in your bedroom and concerned someone can hear you – just blurt them out! There is no point being embarresed out what you sound like.

Just thinking the words in your head or writing them will lead to not being able to speak down the track.

I went through a phase where I would be in a situation where I could use my Japanese. I would make the sentence in my head but then I ended up being too scared to say them in case I made a mistake or sounded strange.

Rather than get to this point, you need to start vocalizing the Japanese language from the moment you being to practice. This will make is some much easier for you in the long run – I know this from experience!

The Guru

I hear it a lot these days… people saying that Japanese is really hard to learn.

YES – It is hard to learn… wait.. didn’t I say that it was a myth? Well.. that part is not a myth… Japanese is hard to learn!

BUT BUT BUT

So is everything other language out there! The thing is that learning a language, whether it be Japanese, English, Spanish, French etc is hard work. It certainly isn’t as easy as learning to ride a bike.

BUT BUT BUT

That being said it isn’t THAT hard… all you need to do is apply yourself.

One of my strongest suggestions is that when you start learning a language you need to dedicate some time EVERY day to ensure that you can reinforce the information you are learning.

It only takes 15 minutes a day. That would be a great amount of time. If you do that every day you will be amazed at how quickly and easily you remember things.

The problem is when people only study once a week or even worse than that!

Finding 15 minutes a day isn’t that hard and if you are really serious about learning Japanese then you will find it with easy!

So remember – learning Japanese is hard – but if you apply yourself you will learn it quickly and easily.

Cheers

The Guru