After years of studying I still cannot distinguish words in Japanese

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Jamiro
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After years of studying I still cannot distinguish words in Japanese

Postby Jamiro » Fri Jun 05, 2020 5:13 pm

Hello everybody,

I didn't find the exact problem I am having so I want to give it a shot and ask if anybody can help me out here.

My Japanese learning journey started about 7 years ago with Rosetta stone. Not very successful. Later on I used pimsleur and books and apps, I listended to podcasts, had a tandem partner, I tried shadowing, I read kids stories etc. and despite all the stuff I tried I still cannot comprehend what is being said. I also want to note that I haven't been learning for 7 straight years I always stopped learning after a while because I lost motivation. I think I am at my 6th attempt now to learn this language.

I wanna try and describe my problem: Even though I listened to houndreds of japenese conversations with additional transcripts and translation and explanations I still cannot make out the words that are being said. After I listened to a recorded conversation, I listen to it again slowly and try to understand it. If I have some time to look into the sentences I sometimes can make out the meaning. After I looked at the translation, studied the conversation and did some shadowing everything makes perfect sense and my brain can "understand" what's being said - well, not really I guess because it's probably only my short term memory in action? However, same vocab and grammar I already had learned in a different context, conversation, voices - my brain goes blank. It's like I am listening to "Japanese". What I mean by "Japanese" is that it feels like my brain is telling me "Oh that's this funny language that I know from weird cartoon shows that is too far away from my native language so don't even bother to make any sense of this gibberish. Yeah, go ahead and have fun trying to find some basic words you learned, so you can feel a little proud." It's like my brain switches to "not-a-language-I-know"-mode as soon as I hear a Japanese song, for example. The words flow through my brain with no "recognition hooks" my brain should have developed by now. Yeah, some words or particles or sometimes very easy and common sentences I can catch but the rest - it's just a melody, not a language. Unlike English - not my native language but as soon as sombody speaks it I cannot help but understand what is being said.

It reminds me of the time in school when we had to learn Latin. 4 years reading latin texts and still most of the students were never able to understand it. It was so hard we didn't ever have to even speak or write it. A whole 3-4 hours test would consist of translating a rather short text from latin into my native language (German). At the same time we were studying English, reading, writing, speaking - no problem! Why? My second language I grew up with was Italian, shouldn't Latin have been easier for me? How come I was not the only one who has such big issues with that language? Is Latin really so much more difficult than other languages? And does the same go for Japanese? It definitely feels like Latin to me. Reading and analysing every word and its conjugation, the grammer, the sentence structure. How would I ever be able to follow a conversation at full speed?

So what do you guys think? Is it a psychological blockage I have? Or is the answer just to study even harder. I am sure that will help as well but I still have the feeling something is holding me back from a successful learning experience. Even though I love the language could it be that it is just not for me?

Any kind of advice would be appreciated!

Thank you!
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Re: After years of studying I still cannot distinguish words in Japanese

Postby devilyoudont » Fri Jun 05, 2020 7:50 pm

In the past I've struggled with similar issues, tho not exactly the same ones. Here are somethings which I feel have been helpful for me.

1) Don't listen to Japanese which you can't understand passively. For me, I was more or less training my brain to hear Japanese as static and automatically tune it out. You should be concentrating on what is being said whenever you listen to Japanese. If you can't find something to listen to which you can understand, it needs to be a movie or something which provides a lot of visual context clues.

2) Study up on Japanese accent. Training myself to hear pitch differences corresponded with a sudden improvement in my listening comprehension. I may not be able to produce pitch accent perfectly, but the improvement in my listening comprehension alone was worth it.

3) Choose materials appropriate for your level. Your level in listening might be different from your level in reading. This might mean that while you choose N1 materials for when you practice reading, you choose N5 materials for when you practice listening. Resources directed towards learners like JLPT stories, short children's programs like Peppa Pig may be good choices.

4) If you have transcripts or subtitles available use them to your advantage. Read the transcript before you listen, and then relisten without the transcription until you can clearly hear every word. Read along with subtitles exactly as actors say their lines. If you couldn't match up what was said with the subtitles, relisten. Then listen without subtitles.

Hope this helps and good luck.
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Re: After years of studying I still cannot distinguish words in Japanese

Postby Sayonaroo » Fri Jun 05, 2020 9:12 pm

i recommend learning from song lyrics just to give yourself variety and it's a way to effortlessly remember japanese. i recommend using a pop-up dictionary on firefox/chrome/etc. It sounds like you need to read something you actually want to read in Japanese. you're missing the fun, compelling content etc. The easiest compelling japanese that's accessible to beginners/intermediates is song lyrics. You can also learn from the comments on youtube, amazon.co.jp reviews, interviews with the artists on websites etc especially since japanese learners can use pop-up dictionaries.

here are my recommendations





































[/spoiler]
Last edited by Sayonaroo on Fri Jun 05, 2020 10:20 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: After years of studying I still cannot distinguish words in Japanese

Postby Jamiro » Fri Jun 05, 2020 9:22 pm

@devilyoudont: Thank you for your answer. I just watched a few videos on pitch accent, never really focussed on that but it might be an important clue. And yeah, movies and TV-Shows, I do watch them once in a while. But I also realize there seems to be certain animes that use special expressions that sound rather weird in a real conversation so I tried watching terrace house on netflix with subtitles. that worked to a certain degree.

@Sayonaroo: Thank you for your answer. Good advice on learning stuff I enjoy. I actually were able to learn the lyrics to a Japanese song that I liked but unlike with English songs, I don't remember it now only a few months later. But I am currently learning another japanese song and see how it goes.
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Re: After years of studying I still cannot distinguish words in Japanese

Postby alaart » Sat Jun 06, 2020 1:13 am

Ok, so Japanese is a very fast spoken language - but the sounds at least are pretty unambiguous (except for しちじ). I can only say that for me massive input (music, videos, conversation) / output (speaking in language exchange) in combination with repeating the words I learned, and speaking them out loud in Anki did the trick.

I remember watching videos from Easy Languages and going through every speaker. Some of them I could understand very early, but others not until much later. This is normal and it just takes time I think.
A thing that might make listening difficult for you (in Drama, music etc.) is that there are quite a lot of quirks in spoken Japanese, for example like と言う might change to って and it is changes like those that can confuse the learner, especially since a lot of those spoken points are not covered in text books.

Songs, in Japanese they often leave out half the sentence and just assume that you get the meaning, and they add some emotional particles from speech. So I like them too, but they have their own quirks that need to be figured out. Good thing is that those repeat quite often, so if you do more and more songs it will get easier - but I know some people who find songs difficult.

An easy song I remember is Sayounara Universe - lyrics.

Good luck!
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Re: After years of studying I still cannot distinguish words in Japanese

Postby Dragon27 » Sat Jun 06, 2020 4:57 am

Jamiro wrote:Is Latin really so much more difficult than other languages? And does the same go for Japanese?

No, it isn't. All languages are about the same level of difficulty. Some languages can feel easier if they're closer to your native language (or languages you already know well). All languages are difficult, but all languages are learned perfectly fine by their native speakers, so you can do that as well. Don't bother your head thinking about how it is too difficult, etc., it will serve no other purpose than to demotivate you from learning the language. Your brain (your psyche) just wants to drop this whole project thinking it would be better for you.

Jamiro wrote:It definitely feels like Latin to me. Reading and analysing every word and its conjugation, the grammer, the sentence structure. How would I ever be able to follow a conversation at full speed?

You won't if you keep doing that during the conversation. No native does that (analyze every little detail) when listening to their own language, it's too much work. You get better at whatever skills you're working at. If you practice linguistic activities like grammar/syntax analyzing you might get better at that, but that's not the skills you want to improve, right? You want to be able to directly understand the actual speech, and that's what you should practice.

Jamiro wrote:Or is the answer just to study even harder.

Studying even harder will lead to exhaustion, burnout and, like you've done that many times already, quitting.

Here's another thread with a similar problem
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 14&t=14530
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Re: After years of studying I still cannot distinguish words in Japanese

Postby Gustav Aschenbach » Sat Jun 06, 2020 5:19 am

I studied Japanese for a few years and I was in Japan three times (including with a host family where I just spoke Japanese for a month), I could read (and write) 2000 kanji, I basically knew all the grammar (not all 文型, mind you) and I can converse a bit, but I still wasn't able to understand a TV show. Really close to zero. It's tough. It just takes time and hard work (I gave up almost a decade ago).

alaart wrote:Songs, in Japanese they often leave out half the sentence and just assume that you get the meaning, and they add some emotional particles from speech.


That is actually a characteristic of Japanese and makes it even harder. I think you can only really learn to understand the language if you spend a lot of time with native speakers.
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Re: After years of studying I still cannot distinguish words in Japanese

Postby Saim » Sat Jun 06, 2020 7:28 am

What’s your vocabulary like? How does Japanese feel when you read, how often do you need to use the dictionary? Japanese has a much higher vocabulary load than European languages, so it might not (just) be “pure” listening skills that are tripping you up. The pragmatics of Japanese (what is explicitly expressed and what is thought of as assumed) is also very different to English.

Edit: I just reread your post and you said that you’ve spent 7 years on Japanese, but also quit 6 times. How many hours do you think that is overall? And do you know more than 3000, 4000, 5000 words?

I’m asking because there’s a difference between building listening out of nothing and simply having your listening skills catch up to your reading skills. The latter is far easier especially if you’re not living in the country / not spending more than 2 hours on the language a day.

If you use Anki, maybe try adding audio to your cards? If you’re doing word cards add audio from Forvo on the front and the pitch notation (Wiktionary and OJAD) on the back, if you’re doing sentence cards add recorded audio from Audacity using “stereo mix” as your audio input. I think sentence cards with audio will have a more direct affect on your listening abilities, but make sure you understand all the words in the sentence except one.

Jamiro wrote:But I also realize there seems to be certain animes that use special expressions that sound rather weird in a real conversation


So does most non-fiction writing, so do novels, so do news broadcasts.

Your priority with input should be to find things that are as interesting as possible while also still being somewhat comprehensible. Whether or not the language there is immediately usable in a casual conversation isn’t really an issue.
Last edited by Saim on Sat Jun 06, 2020 8:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: After years of studying I still cannot distinguish words in Japanese

Postby smallwhite » Sat Jun 06, 2020 7:47 am

Jamiro wrote:
Japanese
about 7 years ago
6th attempt now
cannot make out the words that are being said
my brain goes blank

Latin
4 years
never able to understand it
My second language I grew up with was Italian


I agree your experience sounds horrible. With something this bad, I think it'd be a bad idea to just tell you which parts of your method to change. You may be doing 10 things but just telling us about 6 of them, misrepresenting 3 of them, and then leaving out the 1 most critical thing altogether.

I think it'd be better for you to just look at successful people and do as they do:

Iversen's Guide to Learning Languages
PM’s French Adventures in the Matrix

These are the only 2 mimic-worthy people on this forum I can think of right now.

Jamiro wrote:
Or is the answer just to study even harder.


Will you study even harder if that's the advice we give you? (No point analysing and typing if studying even harder is something out of the question at this point).
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Jamiro
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Re: After years of studying I still cannot distinguish words in Japanese

Postby Jamiro » Sat Jun 06, 2020 11:31 am

Thank you for all your replies! Very helpful!

@alaart: Yeah, that's what I discovered too, that they leave out certain words but luckily there are usually more than one translations out there for popular songs and nowadays the internet is a great blessing to figure out a lot what is being said.

@Dragon27: Yes, I agree to some degree. But whenever I go into practicing just speaking and listening without analyzing anything it's just as I said. Nothing sticks. Only after I learned about the conversation things get clearer and stick (at least a little longer). Sometimes I feel like I am missing the basis and have to get this fixed first so I have a better understanding of the spoken language. Thanks for the link, I am reading the thread now.

@Saim: According to my japanese-pod101 vocab-list I have mastered around 2000 japanese words :D (listening and speaking) But I would say realistically maybe it's 1.000? And it's again depending on the context if I recognize the word. with the flashcards (variation of audio, Kanji, Romaji and translation) I have more time to think about it and will get it right more often than in a fast paced conversation where there might be 4,5,6 vocabs in a row that I learned but either can't distinguish in that context or recall fast enough. I don't write japanese and reading doesn't go much further then kana and a few basic Kanji. I am very slow at that. My main priority is to have conversations and kanji is something that at this low level always broke my motivation. For faster understanding what has been said in a conversation I sometimes only read the romaji, depending on how much time I give myself for the lesson. But in addition of the kanji-learning-challenge I shy away from putting to much of my time into reading since I met a few people (especially in Asian people learning a foreign language) who were able to read books or write perfect emails in English or German but when I met them in real life it was impossible to have a basic conversation with them. But from your post I think you would recommend to also put more time into reading/writing?

Hard to tell how many hours all together I spent learning, could easily be somewhere around 1.000 hours, maybe even more... including not only the times where I actively sat down to learn but also listening to audio-lessions on my way to work etc. but keep in mind that with every new start I had to re-learn stuff which took quite some time of course.

@smallwhite: Agree, many factors come into play here. But to answer your question: If I would follow the advice to study harder would largely depend on my life circumstances. Like last year for example I had more time for myself and took half a year to dedicate about 8-10 hours a week to studying Japanese. Other times it's more casual. The good thing about Japanese and generally language learning for me is it's a fun activity. I enjoy the process and do it not only to one day be fluent in a new language but also for health benefits and mental fitness in addtion to my physcial training. That acutally motivates me a lot, just to know my brain is always challenged and so after phases of non-learning to come back to that activity. That's also why I don't feel I lost anything by having tried to learn the language in the past 7 years. sure, it can be frustrating and I start questioning my methods sometimes, just like now, posting this in a forum :) But in general it's mostly an enjoyable thing with little successes each day and not a critical goal I have to achieve. Maybe that's my problem :D Maybe I should make it a real goal again.
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