Learning Japanese From Zero

[golyplot]

Today, I read Yotsubato ch3, and watched eps 3 and 4 of Carmen Sandiego. I also finally finished my second time through 4989 American Life, and started listening to a new podcast called Japanese with Shun.

I found the unnaturally slow pace of Japanese with Shun a little outputting at first, but it does make it a lot easier to understand. My one complaint is that it's a pain to have to manually skip past the ads and word lists at the end of each episode.


Also, in 4989 American Life ep 145, I noticed Utaco using a word that sounded like "kakukomi" a lot, but I wasn't able to figure it out by looking it up. Anyone know what that might have been?

[kelvin921019]

Also, in 4989 American Life ep 145, I noticed Utaco using a word that sounded like "kakukomi" a lot, but I wasn't able to figure it out by looking it up. Anyone know what that might have been?

Perhaps you already know it, but 4989 American Life actually has transcript for their more recent episodes in their homepage
https://www.4989americanlife.com/post/ep-145--%E7%94%9F%E6%B4%BB%E3%81%AE%E3%83%AA%E3%82%BA%E3%83%A0%E4%B9%B1%E3%82%8C%E4%B8%AD
Ep 145, I guess the word you're looking for is "書き込む" (to fill in [a form, a document])

[golyplot]

Also, in 4989 American Life ep 145, I noticed Utaco using a word that sounded like "kakukomi" a lot, but I wasn't able to figure it out by looking it up. Anyone know what that might have been?

Perhaps you already know it, but 4989 American Life actually has transcript for their more recent episodes in their homepage
https://www.4989americanlife.com/post/ep-145--%E7%94%9F%E6%B4%BB%E3%81%AE%E3%83%AA%E3%82%BA%E3%83%A0%E4%B9%B1%E3%82%8C%E4%B8%AD
Ep 145, I guess the word you're looking for is "書き込む" (to fill in [a form, a document])

Thanks. I actually forgot that they had transcripts. (Starting with ep89, IIRC)

[lemme_try]

If not, that sounds like a least efficient and torturous way of learning a language. I will keep following your progress! Good luck!

What would you recommend instead? I'm definitely not deliberately trying to make things hard on myself.

You need to find your level, and challenge yourself, but it should not be too difficult. You should pick up a self-study book, anything really, Genki, Minna no nihongo (pretty expensive though), Japanese for busy people, basically anything, and stick to it. I don't know what is the best one, seriously, but I think anything would be more efficient than what you are doing. I know you are hard working, if you can do this, then you can go through a self-study course book.

There is active listening, and there is just listening to the sounds. You might familiarise yourself with the sounds, but in order to be able to actually make out what is being said is difficult, if the material is difficult for you.

So maybe, even if you stick to your method of learning through listening, you could get the transcript what you are listening and try to break it into more manageable pieces and try to get the meaning out of them, and see a pattern, look it up the constructions, introduce more and more grammatical structures into your armour, and keep tackling. There are levels, and if it is too difficult, then it is tremendous work, and mentally draining. You need to increase the difficulty gradually. You can use that energy on learning more. What you need is a deliberate practice, and it requires active feedback. So if you do something, you need to get an immediate feedback what you did wrong and what you did right. That's the cool thing about textbooks and audios. There are exercises after each chapter, and answers at the back of the book.

I am not an expert on Japanese, but I learn languages. So the principal still holds for Japanese, or for anything basically. Good luck!

[golyplot]

So basically, you're arguing for doing more intensive listening rather than extensive listening?

[lemme_try]

So basically, you're arguing for doing more intensive listening rather than extensive listening?

Yeah, basically. I don't know, maybe you are different, but personally speaking, after living in Japan for X number of years. I don't know anything but how to ask for a bag in shops, and exchanging pleasantries. It is a failure on my part, because I was not interested in learning the language. I thought I am staying here temporary, but ended up staying much longer. And let me tell you, every person around me tries to talk to me in Japanese. I force shy Japanese people to talk to me in English. Anyways, if there is a chance of learning a language by just a mere exposure, then I would have learnt it.

[crush]

Not sure if you've seen this, but Stevijs 3 is one of the immersion learning success stories (i think they passed the N1 after a year and a half of study or something), and they recently posted a video on things they would do different if they had to go about learning Japanese again:


Main things seem to be:
1. More reading.
2. More intensive listening (including using subtitles, basically aiming for 100% comprehension, even if it means relying on English subs from time to time).
3. More comprehensible input.

They recommend using subtitles for more intensive listening, otherwise most of your learning of new words will be from reading as without subtitles it'll be harder to pick out and learn via context the words you didn't understand when listening. Refold also seems to agree with some of those, especially in their "stage 2" regarding prioritizing reading over listening.

[golyplot]

Yesterday, I read ch4 of Yotsubato! and watched ep 5-6 of Carmen Sandiego. There was one scene in the former where Jumbo jokes that he's so tall because his father's ancestors were giraffes. But in Japanese it was written kirin. I always thought that kirin was just a mythological creature and had no idea that it could also mean "giraffe" in Japanese. Another interesting point was when they said "よつばちゃんち", translated as "Yotsuba-chan's family". I eventually figured out that the ち was probably 血 (blood), but I'd never seen it used to mean "family" before. I'm also not sure where there's no "no" in there. Is it a bit like "-tachi"?


I finished listening to Japanese with Shun yesterday morning (it's very short, especially if you skip through the ads and word lists like I did), and started Noriko again. In ep17, she says something like "kaishouhouhou" a lot that I wasn't able to figure out. Also, in the あいづち episode, she said something like "fira", which I couldn't figure out either.

[vonPeterhof]

Yesterday, I read ch4 of Yotsubato! and watched ep 5-6 of Carmen Sandiego. There was one scene in the former where Jumbo jokes that he's so tall because his father's ancestors were giraffes. But in Japanese it was written kirin. I always thought that kirin was just a mythological creature and had no idea that it could also mean "giraffe" in Japanese. Another interesting point was when they said "よつばちゃんち", translated as "Yotsuba-chan's family". I eventually figured out that the ち was probably 血 (blood), but I'd never seen it used to mean "family" before. I'm also not sure where there's no "no" in there. Is it a bit like "-tachi"?

The suffix "んち" is a very colloquial clipping of "のうち", so it means "X's place" and/or "X's family". There's quite a few manga and anime with it in the title - あたしンち, オレん家のフロ事情, 小林さんちのメイドラゴン, etc. In the case of よつばちゃん it just appears as "ち" since there's already an ん present.

[golyplot]

The suffix "んち" is a very colloquial clipping of "のうち", so it means "X's place" and/or "X's family". There's quite a few manga and anime with it in the title - あたしンち, オレん家のフロ事情, 小林さんちのメイドラゴン, etc. In the case of よつばちゃん it just appears as "ち" since there's already an ん present.

Thanks, I would have never guessed that.