●Steve Kaufmann's TH-cam Channel th-cam.com/channels/ez-2shYlHQY3LfILBuDYqQ.html ●Steve Kaufmann's website for you to learn more languages www.thelinguist.com/ ●The language learning website mentioned in this video: LingQ www.lingq.com/ja/ ▼Who is Shogo? What is this channel about?▼ th-cam.com/video/nhEamHfzyyg/w-d-xo.html ▼Related videos in this channel▼ -Why Japanese are Unwilling to Improve their English th-cam.com/video/7Z2LLYrwUGE/w-d-xo.html -Five Situations in which Tourists Had Trouble with Japanese Locals th-cam.com/video/3_6R1elIIgI/w-d-xo.html -Why It's So Hard to Conform to Japanese Social Norms | Japanese React to Paolo fromTokyo’s Video th-cam.com/video/5DaLRL41CuE/w-d-xo.html ▼MY DREAM▼ th-cam.com/video/EgowIV_kagA/w-d-xo.html “To make every Japan lovers’ dream come true, by making Japan a more secure, comfortable, and safer place for everyone to visit, study, and live in” I will be using the profit I gain from this channel at restaurants, hotels, and cultural facilities in Kyoto to introduce them. The more you watch the videos on this channel, Kyoto and Japan will become a more exciting place, and you can support your own and others’ dreams in the future even more. ▼Join our Membership▼ th-cam.com/channels/n7DCb9ttrcw9h3vh9dfnVw.htmljoin ●Membership benefits -Limited behind-the-scene videos -Weekly Zoom call or live stream -Priority reply to comments ▼[Sub-channel] “Shogo’s Podcast”▼ th-cam.com/channels/ZAe1VayWxp5NLO4Net78DA.html Please subscribe!! The perfect channel to learn about Japanese culture and history in your spare time, during your walk to school or work, and when you are cooking or doing house chores. Not only will I be covering the topics in this main channel, but also some topics that you will only be able to enjoy in the sub-channel, like answering questions I receive, and my opinions towards some of the comments. ▼[Listen to the real voices of the Japanese] "Voices from Japan series"▼ th-cam.com/play/PLpIWoYf9KNFXxLyeQa85jDudDKqkwPg-2.html ▼[Places recommended to visit in Kyoto] "Kyoto Hidden Gems" series▼ th-cam.com/play/PLpIWoYf9KNFU7LIIFB0P_reDt_oMdkCOq.html ▼Instagram▼ instagram.com/lets_ask_shogo/ *Please ask me questions through the DM here!（⚠I do not use e-mail）
Conichiwa Sensey, in southern Texas state they have a new law there that you can have open LICEANCE to carry a Japanese Samurai sword in public Sensey shogo sign SwordkingJedimaster00?
By the way the reason why English - Japanese is a particularly difficult combination for one native speaker to learn the other language is linguistics. So basically, there are different ways for languages to function, to form sentences, to specify subjects and objects, etc. The more the two languages have in common in how they function, the easier it will be to learn the language. This is the main point, because there are some words that are part of nearly every languages vocabulary, and you often start with very basic vocabulary that includes some of these words, but you have to learn two basic things, one of these is how the language sounds (so you can speak it and it sounds correct it's not sufficient to read for example every letter the same: pacific ocean - all c sounds are different) and the second is how the language functions, otherwise you can only communicate in very basic concepts like "hunger. Food." instead of being able to say "i am hungry". Therefore if two languages are extremely different in this internal workings of a language, the learning process is usually harder.
15.11 to 16.24: Listening to both Shoo and Steve, I swore I was listening to Japanese linguistic discussion 😮😮😮! I did join Lin--Q three years ago to do Spanish...time to re-start with Lin--Q! Subarashi, Shogo and Steve desu!
I think the goal is the barrier in difficulty my goal is to speak Japanese and not to read though it is important to read and I'd love to it's more important to me to learn how to speak and listen. People who study learn the writing system first I would do the opposite and learn how to speak and if I can understand and listen properly I'll learn how to read.
I learnt Japanese many years ago but because i wasn't using it every day, only in my lessons, it was hard to get to grips with it. I would love to start again.
@@khalilahd. most of it comes down to comprehensive input but i do have a few tips first tip enjoy the language right in the beginning even if you don’t understand anything second tip watch things you already have watched you already know the story all you have to do is listen and third tip don’t translate even if you’re starting to understand
@@khalilahd. AJATT (All Japanese All The Time). Completely immerse yourself in the language, read your news, social media, and books in Japanese. Watch your tv and movies in Japanese dubs. Make Japanese friends and make an effort to speak to them only in Japanese.
The big thing is thinking in the second language, your inner voice has to be in the language you are trying to learn. I also feel that changing your electronic devices to the desired language and finding alternatives to the media you use now in the desired language is of massive use
@@rizzwan-42069 I liked your tips here third one "don't translate" you mean that you should focus first on reading kanjis and visual memorisation rather than focus on translating and understanding them, did I get it right?
If you are using VPN, set your VPN to the country whose language you wanna learn. You’ll start getting ads in that language which means free constant listening material. Some ads appeared often enough and with captions so I was able to fully understand a couple of Japanese ads by now and that really adds to your learning.
I got a teary eye when Steve started talking in japanese. I'm trying so hard, studying for so long, and still it seems I know so little. And yet, I managed to understand almost everything he said without subtitles. Thank you, you both. I won't give up ^_^
The biggest shocker for me in learning Japanese, was discovering that *Listening is a skill,* and *That skill can be developed.* I see so many people studying Japanese, and they focus almost entirely on reading and writing. And I did a lot of that. But then I discovered *Listening.* And I played tons of anime and listened to recordings of anime and I struggled to hear Japanese, and -- little by little, but unnoticeably along the way, I developed the capacity to *hear* Japanese. I was just in a sushi restaurant that's well visited by Japanese people, and was shocked by how much of the Japanese I could understand. It was like the words were complete and distinct from one another, right in front of me -- whereas a year ago, it was just a mush of syllables. I could read Japanese, but I couldn't hear it. But listening skill is really a thing! And it's something really different than reading Japanese, writing Japanese, or speaking Japanese.
I'm german and can say the same for english. Back in school for various reasions I learned allmost nothing. Only the recent years because of listening to for me intetesting TH-camrs, at first with automaticly translated subtitles, I learned english, until now, where I can write most things entirely without translator. Speaking is yet a problem, tho. xD
Oooh.. so right! I don't know if my situation is common and related to but I feel like it is - prior learning English with listening skill, I could comprehend someone speaking my native tongue with heavy accent immediately but now I need to be pointed out that person trying to speak it - I think its have something to do with my brain understanding on some deeper level that there is different languages and each has it's own flow and tempo and brain stoped trying to comprehend things that too differ from any language I know. Also, apologies - I am very bad at grammar, in any language.
thats great advice, I've started to watch more anime without subtitles, and I think this will definitely help my listening skills over a long time, I can then try to think in terms of a Japanese instead of translating everything to english before understanding it.
@@LorenzJahnthat's how i've learned everything i know of English. I always enjoyed videogames and almost everygame that i played when i was a kid was in English dub, also my dad loves Gun's and Roses...so i was listening english all day. Now i'm doing it with Japanese, playing videogames in Japanese dub and listening Japanese music from the 80s to 2000s. I cannot speak it correctly and i don't even know the meaning of so many words, but i recognize a few. My progress is better than the last month, i don't know how to read katakana completely, but playing games that i've played in my language before but now in japanese without Kanji is helpful to improve my speed and way to read the Japanese language. I'm rusty in english sorry if you had a hard moment reading me.
That is a great advice and works for every language that you learn, ppl forget how powerful listening is in the process of learning. I think that’s mostly because of bad teachers with their cd players and boring listening classes 🤣🤣 I say this based that I’m brazilian and traditional English teachers always do such thing, that is the absolute definition of boring for a student 🫠
I have dyslexia and learning japanese has been an incredible struggle for me. Once I learned to read Hiragana, this was sucha huge feat for me that it taught me that no matter how impossible it might feel, with enough time and will power I can do it! I'm now learning basic kanji and getting tripped up over sentence order :D Thank you for your videos, they're a huge help!
read with one eye closed. I can't remember how they determine which, but it gets rid of dyslexia pretty quickly. (Was a pretty common way to fix it in my grandma's time, but finding that info is hard and she doesn't remember most of it)
Maybe use an overlay when you're reading text? There are few out there so you'll probably have to test them out and see which one works best for you. I'm sure you know more though or heard of this tip. I don't personally know as much, but this is something I've seen teachers provide their dyslexic students.
@@zzBaBzz That doesn't work on all forms of dyslexia. There is one form that is strictly mechanical and is caused by what's essentially some filters inside your eyes being aligned differently than normal, which confuses your brain and causes reading problems. That misaligned filters issue obviously gets fixed by closing one eye so you're only using one filter at a time, and it's something every dyslexic definitely should try, but not all forms are caused by that filter misalignment issue. Some are brain wiring problems etc.
Honestly the close out "If you are studying a language you better believe it is worth it" really says a lot. And perfectly sums up me wanting to learn and continue learning japanese.
9:51 Okay I've heard that before. A native Puerto Rican supervisor I had said the hardest part about learning English was that there is a ton of slang. He was saying that you can't solely learn from speaking English in public because too much of the language is left out or spoken incorrectly. Sentence fragments, run-on sentences, mispronunciation, you know. I think the most important thing is the 2nd step that Mr. Kaufmann said, keep yourself interested. Before I got extremely lazy, I drew a picture of the spanish word I was learning, and only wrote the English translation on the back. That way, I kind of forced myself to remember the spanish word without thinking "Does it sound like it does in English?". I aim to learn at least two languages other than English one day. Awesome video, Thanks Mr. Kaufmann and Shogo!!
From the other direction with Japanese much of their language seems to be implied when speaking, this could partially be because of the placement of the subject in the back of many sentences instead of the beginning so you have to assume who/what someone is speaking about before they finish saying something. And of course add to the confusion they have MANY homonyms.
@@JohnA... That didn't cross my mind, its a definate obstacle for anyone trying to learn from scratch. And learning the orthography must be brutal as well. Considering there aren't any rules from English that apply the same way as they do in Japanese. A TH-camr who was raised in America but moved to Tokyo for a culture shock said deciphering and learning to write Kanji felt as though he was learning to talk for the first time, haha.
@@jscriber100 The written language is a major hurdle. English (and similar base Latin languages) have ~26 characters that are used to make words. Japanese has well over 200 (Hiragana & Katakana) that words are formed with AND the many hundreds of Kanji themselves being full "words" or concepts to memorize. Its a daunting task. And you need to keep up with it, I had the Hiragana chart memorized a few months ago and started on Katakana, then I took a month or so off and I'm already forgetting some of the Hiragana. Needless to say its a daunting task, especially if you aren't immersed in it.
Remind me of a certain scene in Thor: Ragnarok, where Korg casually went:" The hammer pulled you off?". Years later I still giggling whenever I think about it
@@phyxiuss honestly I have a friend who’s learning Japanese through college and I’ll try to speak to him. Other than that honestly learning from beginner books and going from there helps
Honestly when I was trying to learn Japanese I didn't find it any harder than learning English when it came to rules. It was just more words, so it felt like being required to learn the entire dictionary to graduate high school. It's a lot sure but doable. My problem came when most software stopped once it was time to learn sentences and obviously no one to talk too in Japanese.
I took four years of French in high school and got all As, but I didn't enjoy it, didn't want to use it in my professional life, and wasn't into French culture aside from the cooking and the art. After nearly twenty-five years of not using it, I've lost near all of the French I knew. However, when I was going to a a college that offered conversational Japanese as a special topics course (meaning it was a one-time only thing), I was more enthusiastic about learning the language and culture. Japanese felt more logical that French, the course was so much fun, it never felt like a chore, and I'd love to resume learning Japanese.
I started learning Japanese on Duolingo (i have no other options as i cannot afford classes) and yesterday was my 100th day streak! I can read hiragana and katakana and form the most basic sentences :))
Nice! But I would say that as long as you're motivated enough, there are definitely plenty of free resources for learning languages. So I wouldn't worry about having to spend a ton of money on classes.
I've been studying Japanese for a year and a half now and it is so nice to see a video like this. Nobody who knows me is aware that I have been studying Japanese, and honestly sometimes it gets a bit lonely to be completely self-study with nobody to talk to about it, so seeing this video made me feel a bit better (especially the part at the end when Mr. Kauffman gave an encouraging message). Thank you.
You must know that you're not alone. Though in my case everybody knows that I'm learning languages. Don't give up! ...oh, and I see you are also the rabbithole fellow )
I feel this, if i feel like there is any pressure on me (even my own invented social pressure) my adhd gives me anxiety about it. But if i isolate it a little, Its so much easier to do it consistently. Idk if that is why but it reminded me of myself haha. Its amazing that you are learning Japanese, however far you get up to complete mastery, at least you are working on doing something to improve yourself, it makes such a difference in day to day life just doing something productive.
Personally one of my excusse for learning Japanese is just to keep my brain active with something intellectually stimulating and challenging so that my mind doesn't grow lazy, and that's enough motivation :v Some play Fortnite, do some sports, play some instruments or take care of their puppies to waste time, so might as well spend some parts of my afternoon mainlining kanjis :v
Best thing you can do I find online langauge exchange groups with actual Japanese people and make real friendships with Japanese people. This will make learning Japanese MUCH MUCH easier and less lonely.
I'm still learning but I've noticed I learn Japanese the best by consuming entertainment (anime, video games, etc) that I'm already familiar with but do so in Japanese. Using context and my memory of the last time I experienced it I can figure out what they're saying and learn new words through that context
I was really turned off by Anime with English voice-overs. Once I started listening to the Japanese and reading the captions, I found Anime that were interesting and funny. Now, I have basic understanding of Conversational Japanese, sentence structure, and some cultural references. Latin was harder because no one makes Latin cartoons. I would like to thank you both for making second language more accessible to those who wish to learn.
When it comes to reading, Asterix comic books are available in a number of languages, even small languages and dialects (with less volumes translated), I'm pretty sure Latin is one of them. If you like French comics, that is. And a number of radio stations in Europe have some time slots dedicated to Latin, though it's often just news, not as much fun. Still not that many sources, nothing compared to Japanese.
Anime with English over it completely Americanizes absolutely everything, everyone is less polite and childish. I remember buying Yakuza 7 and rushing to the options menu because for some ungodly reason they made both an English and a Japanese dub for it, for the first time since like 2004.
So I’m learning Japanese and I surrounding myself with as much Japanese content that I can understand as possible. It’s difficult but what’s always pushing me is when I rewatch anime and I can understand the what the character as saying. I do understand that anime isn’t proper Japanese, but it always bring me joy when I learn a new word and I can hear it in context.Writing Japanese is hard and I try to read as much as I can and one day I do hope to visit Japanese to experience the culture.
Anime does use "proper" Japanese, don't worry! Of course they are going to yell obscenities and magical spells and stuff, but it's pretty obvious what's normal and what's not as you improve! Also, writing might be something you want to put off until you are fluent, as it takes a lot of time you could be using listening and reading, and the reward is very small and not used often. you can always learn to write later
@@DanielMorales-jm3ll this is actually not true at all. Attack on Titan for example is full of difficult words and concepts. Most fantasy will be like this. you can however find easier anime, like certain slice of life anime. They do speak very clearly in anime compared to real life, but anime is full of difficult words and rare usages. This is why I wouldn't really recommend it to a total beginner unless they have a dictionary that shows how rare the words are or something.
@@humanbean3 Even though AoT is technically a shonen i wouldnt classify it as such. Your right that it would probably have some difficult words in it. I havent used that show personally for learning. I have yet to take the step of watching anything without english subs because im afraid of not understanding whats going on, and even though i know im supposed to rewatch stuff without eng subs, or with JP subs. I have a hard time with rewatching stuff as i would rather spend time with something i have never read or watched before.
@@DanielMorales-jm3ll don't be afraid to try watching an anime without subs. The brain is lazy and won't absorb as much of the language cuz If you can use English, why not just use that instead, y'know? Besides, you can figure out a lot of stuff if you pay attention to the context of a situation 😁 Comfort zones are not where language is learned, trust me. I'm still a beginner at 13 years of on and off learning, because I was scared to get uncomfortable. But in like, 2 weeks I've learned more than I did in the past decade. You can do it!
I'm currently studying Japanese at University and of course its extremely tough. It can be especially difficult as I won't be going out to Japan until my 3rd year which is 18 months away. I keep telling myself that it will be worth it in the long run. Thank you for uploading this video, I want to keep trying
Thank you so much for this episode. I dove head first into learning Japanese, studying 1-2hrs every day. Honestly I hit point where I'm getting a little frustrated with myself for mixing up certain Hiragana & I had to take a day off to refocus my mind and reaffirm my commitment. The words of affirmation came at the perfect time for me.
I've been studying pretty intensely for over a year and consider myself a pretty solid intermediate by now. I read and watch native content etc... I STILL mix up certain hiragana and katakana from time to time. ぬ and ロ pretty much exclusively. I will glance over them and they will be ね and コ to me sometimes. It takes a long time to get completely used to a new language as different as Japanese, and the only hurdle is time. As long as you don't give up and are learning new things everyday, you will learn the language. It is a pretty big commitment though, make sure you aren't better off spending that time elsewhere. edit: As long as you are learning new things, *and reviewing what you've already learned*, you will learn the language
I ❤️ STEVE! He is truly a gem in the Language learning community and I listen to his podcast daily. LingQ is an amazing platform and he put alot of work into his craft! I really enjoyed seeing the two of you talk about language and culture together and the importance of the two ❤️ ☺️!
Just learning Japanese alone seems like such a mountain to climb just by itself, I can’t imagine what it must be like keeping 20 languages in your head straight with all the various grammar rules and other differences. Steve is an amazing dude.
As someone who has been studying Japanese on and off for the past 2 years, as well as someone who will be moving to Japan in the next few months, I very much needed to hear Steve’s last encouraging message. Thank you Shogo and Steve for this discussion; I feel very motivated and optimistic yet again!
Yeah I can't seriously imagine having to learn English. We have so much slang, people don't speak properly as taught in lessons, and we have so many rules that have exceptions to them. I'm glad I really love Japanese as a language because I definitely can feel it fueling my learning. I have almost no motivation for most things so feeling myself come alive when listening to j-rock or doing a lesson is amazing. Keep it up guys.
This is the same for all languages. Actually this is even worse in Arabic, because written formal Arabic (fus-ha) which is used in books and news reports is completely different to spoken dialects which people use.
Biggest advice I have is making sure you have a REAL reason why you are studying Japanese. When the studying gets hard you need to have motivation and reason to push through.
Yeah for me i have quite a few reasons and they keep me motivated.. 1. The language is BEAUTIFUL its so nice to hear so calming 2. The basic anime manga reasons ect ect 3. I actually plan to move there once i am fluent. The culture is amazing to me and id love to live there (yes i know what culture shock is and i understand many aspects of living in japan that are great downsides*
I’ve been studying with an iTalki teacher for a few months, and she’s great, and I’m studying hard, but it’s a long road to really learn any language. I’m also using WaniKani to learn kanji and Satori reader. I really needed to hear those closing comments from Steve. It is a struggle, but I will not give up!
It's really amazing for Shogo to meet up with Steve Kaufmann! I can see how Steve is able to speak in about 20 languages. I see why speaking Japanese can be hard for other people, but once they are learning more to speak Japanese and be fluent, I'm really sure that they will be very perfect and accurate in speaking Japanese and be successful. Practice always makes perfection! Thank you so much for a wonderful video and meeting up with Steve Shogo!
I think most of those languages he is fairly weak, like I have studied a lot of Spanish and his Spanish is quite weak. It's generally better to speak a small number of languages well than brokenly speak a very large number.
I studied Japanese in highschool for 3 years and now studying in my own time. Learning writing was pretty easy as it has rules and you can follow rules. Listening to Japanese was the hard part to me. Learning mostly the polite and formal Japanese, it was difficult to listen to Japanese using a little bit of slang or other variations of conjugation. What I also find difficult is the vocabulary + Kanji, but that comes with immersion and study time. What I usually do for study time is immersing myself in Japanese Manga and translating it, as well as saying the sentences as well.
Definitely need Motivation. I was trying to study Japanese. I was using Wanikani and NHK World Easy for reading and listening. At one point I was able to read and understand most of the NHK Easy website. But as the years went by. My motivation has wained. I was studying at least 1 hour each day when I first started then it was every other day, then every few days, then once a week. Once the pandemic hit and I was questioning when Japan was opening for individual travel. I pretty much lost the remaining motivation I had and haven’t studied in a while.
7:42 I found that the most enjoyable way to shadow Japanese for me was listening to Japanese music. I'd been a huge j rock fan for years before I started learning the language, but one I started studying it I found that I was actually more easily able to sing along and pick apart what's physically being said. Not necessarily translate or understand what is being said, but the phonetics of Japanese became abundantly easier to understand. I'm guessing it's because my brain had been exposed to it for years, so once it started gaining the rest of the puzzle pieces it was able to start making out the large picture. Shadowing via music is a really fun technique and Japan hosts nearly every genre under the sun so I always recommend it.
I'm Christian, and personally I don't like listening to music that isint Christian but I love rock and hyperpop anything alternative but there isint much options for me especially in Japanese :(
I need to pick up my Japanese again. I’ll be stationed in Japan for the Navy soon, and will want to see everything while I’m there. Being able to speak Japanese will be a wonderful skill to have.
Thank you so much for this video. I have been learning Japanese online for a few months now, I've been getting a little discouraged about it, but this video makes me want to learn it even more! I know it'll be hard, but I think it'll be worth it! I love Japanese culture and language.
Dedication, motivation and desire. I've wanted to learn Japanese for 20+ years now. I can watch shows and understand conversational Japanese but can't actually speak it myself. I am learning to read but still struggle to put my own sentences together because I'm not thinking in Japanese. Pandemic hit and I jumped into WaniKani for Kanji memorization, and here I am almost 1000 days later on level 55 (of 60) and really want to move on to other tools to learn.
I’ve been studying Japanese half-hearted for a few years (but it accumulates to 9 months realistically). What I can agree is reading and writing do play a huge role since you’re using the language, when there aren’t many natives around. Just like MattvsJapan’s method, Steve’s method relies on immersion similarly. They basically share the same root and for sure, I will have to find more ways to read. (Learning new language as a teen can be difficult since we’re young and there are other temptations).
I am fluent in German and Russian and English. I have studied Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic and Kazakh. It takes a lot of work to be able to SPEAK a language.
The two things that I've learned over the last few years learning Spanish that I've tried to carry over into learning Japanese is, like you were saying in your video, even if you don't get the right formality or tense right, people are very understanding and pleased that you're even attempting to talk to them in their language and if you focus on learning the sounds of a language, they'll be even more impressed with how natural you sound, even if your vocabulary is limited. I still have a long way to go before my Japanese is even close to how fluent I am in Spanish (which I still have a long way to go on that one too), but I'm pushing forward and using the content I'm enjoying, whether it be anime or games like FFXIV or other content, to help with at least understanding and recognizing the words I'm learning.
Wonderful video!!! Steve gives some great advice for sure. One thing that is helping me right now is reading everything out loud, even if it's words I don't yet know. I notice reading out loud is so much harder for me, but when I push through I am able to say those words and phrases faster and without hesitation.
I learned Japanese when I was in college, but I learned so much more when I went to the country than the classroom. I struggled learning in the classroom actually! Engagement is so important, and I really want to relearn it again. Great video!!
I'm around N3ish level with zero classroom or textbook use! I've been studying for a little over a year with nothing but Anime and video games and a flashcard program! I will add that I did google a lot of grammar in the beginning! You don't need textbooks or a classroom, tons of people get very fluent without either! 頑張ってください！
I spoke Japanese a lot as a child living in Japan, but I never learned to read. Now half a century later, I understand a bit but would be unable to communicate.
I've found Komi cant communicate super helpful. It has a lot of written dialog on the screen like a manga so it's helpful to read and learn kanji. They're high-school students so you hear a lot of typical conversational language between friends.
This was such a huge thing for me to hear. Enjoyment is super super important when doing something as hard as learning a language. Why I thought my 2 hour painstaking schedule of active immersion, passive immersion, flashcard grabbing and subtitle usage would work... when i always passed it up for some more fun activity. Not to say that that doesn't work for people, please continue it if it does and please please don't give up! Stay positive.
My six year old started studying Japanese and I cannot believe the work they put into it but its because they have that motivation. It's wonderful to watch!
Just by listening to Steve Kaufmann talking and expressing himself, I can see how smart he is. It was definitively a privilege. Thank you for sharing with us. Love your channel!
Love that you interviewed Steve Kauffman! Wasn’t familiar with Steve before your video but goddamn he makes me proud to be a Canadian! What a dynamic guy! Very cool 😎
Brings a smile to my face seeing the fascination on each of yours regarding language. One thing I noticed when learning a few different languages is that there seems to be an underlying common language. Days of the week being based on the same things and some in the same order as others. Sunday and Monday, in both English and Japanese, for example. They both mean the same thing, have the same etymology and same spots on the week sequence. My fascination as a budding polyglot is noticing these little similarities that link the languages and cultures seemingly unknown to the vast majority of people.
OmGod! Shogo...buddy...what an amazing interview. Great topic to cover and this man is now one of my favorite people. HE'S INTO WOOD AND JAPAN! He's my Canadian spirit-brother! Now, I'll have to subscribe to him and watch all his content...just brilliant! Thanks Shogo!
Thank you for this video! I’ve only been studying Japanese for about 3-4 weeks. Steve’s recommendations are exactly how I’ve been studying. I started with learning hiragana & hatakana. Then watching a lot of video on sentence structure & vocabulary. It’s going very well! I can’t wait to learn more!
I always wanted to attend a Japanese language school in Japan. I tried learning at home but I think learning it in the country itself , talking/listening to locals is the best way to learn it. Maybe, someday I will get the money together to be able to do that for half a year! It would be so amazing!
I'm new to learning Japanese, but I've always dabbled in languages so I feel confident in saying that this whole thing of 'It's hard to learn Japanese and it's hard to learn English' mindset is probably the biggest hurdle people have and it's one that they do to themselves. Strangely, I find the best thing to do is NOT think too hard about it. Study, yes, practice, yes. But telling yourself it's hard? That is going to MAKE it hard. Just go with the flow. Everything new seems daunting at first. Don't think about how many kanji there are, just learn one, then learn two. You will get there in the end. Every meal has to be eaten in bites.
talking with native speakers to learn the language is right. I served in the army in Ukraine, although I am Russian, I began to speak with the Ukrainian dialect and spoke for 10 years.I remember once I met with a Ukrainian, we spoke with the same dialect. So the Ukrainian thought that I was also from Ukraine.
I honestly don't understand why so many language associations put Japanese as one of the hardest to learn. I'm still learning Japanese and have tried to learn a bit of German in the past but I find Japanese to be surprisingly easier for me. No plurals, no genders, no cases, easy pronunciation, only 2 tenses. Japanese is only really hard to write. Finnish would probably be harder. Arabic is probably also completely out of my reach
If you just want to speak finnish to be understood, you dont really need to study too much. My sister's Nepali husband learned finnish naturally while he moved here (he might have taken some basic courses but when he and my sister started dating he didnt really know finnish) and he might never use the "perfect" finnish but he is for me very very fluent and he is easily understood and no one thinks his finnish has any problems. We either do no expect the harder grammar or phrasing from people. We just care for basic pronounciation and words to be understandable. I think people wrongly list finnish as hard, it would be if you aimed for perfection in all aspects but i would say most languages will be hard to master perfectly. heck, i am a finnish person and if i was given finnish advanced phrasing or mothertongue exam, i would not be perfect in it, cuz in everyday life it is not needed.
For me, it's changing gears and speaking/thinking like Yoda. It's the syntax- it takes a moment for me to reverse what I was thinking to say. Otherwise I agree with everything else.
Exactly. I think the only reason is for the same reason as many other subjects - the idea of the "exclusivity" of Japan/Japanese purported by the Japanese establishment.
@@ballet_plum686 when I say gender, I'm not referring to people, I'm referring to words. German has 3 genders: male, female and neutral. That's why singular nominative words usually follow the articles der, die or das. And that's just the nominative case. They also change based on whether the word is accusative, dative or genitive. Japanese, on the other hand, has neither genders nor articles nor cases. That's why Japanese grammar is significantly easier than German grammar
I like how when people learn a language they also end up learning the physical/cultural mannerism that go along with the language. It's so awesome to see!
This video is really nice to listen to. We have exchange students from different countries at my school and I want to learn not only because I want to, but to connect with them better.
I've been watching some of your videos for the past few hours. I'm a french person, learning Japanese currently. I talk english and german already, but I must admit that, as far as the alphabet bareer go, when you pass through it, Japanses stays a really logical language, in terms of grammar and stuff. On the other hand in french we have exceptions in exceptions in excpetions, it's awful even for most of the native french speakers to be fair. I enjoyed those few hours a lot, and it motivated me keeping on learning. Thanks. Subbing. Also, Mr. Kauffmann really sounds like the motivational grandpa character that we often see in anime characters, made me smile a lot.
I needed this video. Thanks! I’m trying to learn Japanese myself. I’ve always wanted to learn another language, but was never interested or motivated enough to really try, until I started trying Japanese. It’s difficult, but the language & culture really interests me. I want to learn more & more. This video has given me a little more motivation & hope. Thanks you! 🙏🏽
I am newbie at your channel! I loved so much the content it self but my favorite part is how excited you are to do this interview with Steve! Thank you so much it made me to more excited to continue my journey to learn Japanese! ❤
It was very interesting to have him on, but I noticed he mostly just recommended "listening, reading, and speaking" for how to learn a language. That requires the groundwork of being able to understand some vocabulary, a rudimentary understanding of the grammar and sentence structures, and knowledge of the writing style of the language. I would've liked to hear his process for how he approaches a brand new language with 0 experience. He mentioned he got much of his experience from business meetings in Japan, but surely he didn't arrive in Japan with no knowledge, hear these businessmen/women speaking Japanese and just subconsciously pick up on it; so I would've liked to know more about the process of starting from the ground up.
Interesting, I learnt English in Michigan as well. Then I moved to Canada and the UK. (I'm mexican though). Now I'm in Japan and I'll be here for a year. I agree with Steve, trying to use neutral language is kind of the best strategy. :D
With every new language, you learn a lot about yourself and your own culture. It's like you are in a room and, with every new language, a new window appears and lights up your world. Personal recommendation, learn at least one language that is very different from your own. Thank you both.
I've been learning Japanese because I plan to visit in the summer. I already knew some from when I was in my karate class when I was younger. I tried Duelingo first and it got so confusing because they don't use any easy translation so it's hard to tell if you're making the right sounds when reading the words. Then I checked out Busuu and it clicked so much easier. They use easy translation and slowly work into the Japanese writing so it's easier to understand and learn how to correctly speak and read the language.
Thank you for this video I just recently started learning Japanese and I've been having a tough time but this was a nice insight, the words of encouragement helped me alot and I hope to keep improving everyday!
Great video Shogo. Steve is a legend and always has great advice. I recall reading somewhere that the reason for the difficulty rating Japanese gets is primarily due to the reading system being included in the evaluation. Speaking at a business level, and also reading at an equivalently high level in Japanese is the reason for the high ranking relative to other languages with easier reading systems.
I'm surprised Steve didn't immediately raise the point about grammar as being the most difficult aspect about learning Japanese from an English background and vice-versa. With English, when one isn't talking poetically, is very much subject, action, object, whilst in Japanese, that order can appear every which way. For a native English speaker, it's really tough to get your head around when someone says an entire sentence at you and you're having to pick up from conversational cues who they're talking about.
I was in a bit of a slump for a few months but have added transcribing some of what I hear and it has helped me a lot. Even gave me some confidence. But him mentioning finding topics that are of interest in the language sounds great. Will add that to my learning.
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Conichiwa Sensey, in southern Texas state they have a new law there that you can have open LICEANCE to carry a Japanese Samurai sword in public Sensey shogo sign SwordkingJedimaster00?
Sir, I think I was scammed by someone pretending to be you.
By the way the reason why English - Japanese is a particularly difficult combination for one native speaker to learn the other language is linguistics. So basically, there are different ways for languages to function, to form sentences, to specify subjects and objects, etc. The more the two languages have in common in how they function, the easier it will be to learn the language.
This is the main point, because there are some words that are part of nearly every languages vocabulary, and you often start with very basic vocabulary that includes some of these words, but you have to learn two basic things, one of these is how the language sounds (so you can speak it and it sounds correct it's not sufficient to read for example every letter the same: pacific ocean - all c sounds are different) and the second is how the language functions, otherwise you can only communicate in very basic concepts like "hunger. Food." instead of being able to say "i am hungry".
Therefore if two languages are extremely different in this internal workings of a language, the learning process is usually harder.
15.11 to 16.24: Listening to both Shoo and Steve, I swore I was listening to Japanese linguistic discussion 😮😮😮! I did join Lin--Q three years ago to do Spanish...time to re-start with Lin--Q! Subarashi, Shogo and Steve desu!
I think the goal is the barrier in difficulty my goal is to speak Japanese and not to read though it is important to read and I'd love to it's more important to me to learn how to speak and listen. People who study learn the writing system first I would do the opposite and learn how to speak and if I can understand and listen properly I'll learn how to read.
Thank you Shogo for having me, it was a pleasure speaking with you.
You're a legend
You're such an awesome guy, and your message at the end was really motivating!
i love you sir
Japanese!
I need you to speak Kazakh 🇰🇿😁, we will be very surprised.
I learnt Japanese many years ago but because i wasn't using it every day, only in my lessons, it was hard to get to grips with it. I would love to start again.
I’m learning now and it’s quite difficult. Besides these tips do you have any tips for learning?
@@khalilahd. most of it comes down to comprehensive input but i do have a few tips first tip enjoy the language right in the beginning even if you don’t understand anything second tip watch things you already have watched you already know the story all you have to do is listen and third tip don’t translate even if you’re starting to understand
@@khalilahd. AJATT (All Japanese All The Time). Completely immerse yourself in the language, read your news, social media, and books in Japanese. Watch your tv and movies in Japanese dubs. Make Japanese friends and make an effort to speak to them only in Japanese.
The big thing is thinking in the second language, your inner voice has to be in the language you are trying to learn. I also feel that changing your electronic devices to the desired language and finding alternatives to the media you use now in the desired language is of massive use
@@rizzwan-42069 I liked your tips here
third one "don't translate" you mean that you should focus first on reading kanjis and visual memorisation rather than focus on translating and understanding them, did I get it right?
If you are using VPN, set your VPN to the country whose language you wanna learn. You’ll start getting ads in that language which means free constant listening material. Some ads appeared often enough and with captions so I was able to fully understand a couple of Japanese ads by now and that really adds to your learning.
that's awesome advice, thank you for sharing.
I've occasionally gotten Japanese ads just by looking up stuff in Japanese
I got a teary eye when Steve started talking in japanese. I'm trying so hard, studying for so long, and still it seems I know so little. And yet, I managed to understand almost everything he said without subtitles. Thank you, you both. I won't give up ^_^
That means your studying is paying off !!
based
Thats impressive well done!
keep at it man!
I'm just beginning to learn the alphabets myself.
@@WhuDhat do you use any apps to assist you in Japanese?
The biggest shocker for me in learning Japanese, was discovering that *Listening is a skill,* and *That skill can be developed.* I see so many people studying Japanese, and they focus almost entirely on reading and writing. And I did a lot of that. But then I discovered *Listening.* And I played tons of anime and listened to recordings of anime and I struggled to hear Japanese, and -- little by little, but unnoticeably along the way, I developed the capacity to *hear* Japanese. I was just in a sushi restaurant that's well visited by Japanese people, and was shocked by how much of the Japanese I could understand. It was like the words were complete and distinct from one another, right in front of me -- whereas a year ago, it was just a mush of syllables. I could read Japanese, but I couldn't hear it. But listening skill is really a thing! And it's something really different than reading Japanese, writing Japanese, or speaking Japanese.
I'm german and can say the same for english. Back in school for various reasions I learned allmost nothing. Only the recent years because of listening to for me intetesting TH-camrs, at first with automaticly translated subtitles, I learned english, until now, where I can write most things entirely without translator. Speaking is yet a problem, tho. xD
Oooh.. so right! I don't know if my situation is common and related to but I feel like it is - prior learning English with listening skill, I could comprehend someone speaking my native tongue with heavy accent immediately but now I need to be pointed out that person trying to speak it - I think its have something to do with my brain understanding on some deeper level that there is different languages and each has it's own flow and tempo and brain stoped trying to comprehend things that too differ from any language I know. Also, apologies - I am very bad at grammar, in any language.
thats great advice, I've started to watch more anime without subtitles, and I think this will definitely help my listening skills over a long time, I can then try to think in terms of a Japanese instead of translating everything to english before understanding it.
@@LorenzJahnthat's how i've learned everything i know of English. I always enjoyed videogames and almost everygame that i played when i was a kid was in English dub, also my dad loves Gun's and Roses...so i was listening english all day.
Now i'm doing it with Japanese, playing videogames in Japanese dub and listening Japanese music from the 80s to 2000s. I cannot speak it correctly and i don't even know the meaning of so many words, but i recognize a few.
My progress is better than the last month, i don't know how to read katakana completely, but playing games that i've played in my language before but now in japanese without Kanji is helpful to improve my speed and way to read the Japanese language.
I'm rusty in english sorry if you had a hard moment reading me.
That is a great advice and works for every language that you learn, ppl forget how powerful listening is in the process of learning. I think that’s mostly because of bad teachers with their cd players and boring listening classes 🤣🤣
I say this based that I’m brazilian and traditional English teachers always do such thing, that is the absolute definition of boring for a student 🫠
I have dyslexia and learning japanese has been an incredible struggle for me. Once I learned to read Hiragana, this was sucha huge feat for me that it taught me that no matter how impossible it might feel, with enough time and will power I can do it! I'm now learning basic kanji and getting tripped up over sentence order :D Thank you for your videos, they're a huge help!
read with one eye closed. I can't remember how they determine which, but it gets rid of dyslexia pretty quickly. (Was a pretty common way to fix it in my grandma's time, but finding that info is hard and she doesn't remember most of it)
Maybe use an overlay when you're reading text? There are few out there so you'll probably have to test them out and see which one works best for you. I'm sure you know more though or heard of this tip. I don't personally know as much, but this is something I've seen teachers provide their dyslexic students.
I can't imagine how much you must have to fight with dyslexia to learn Japanese. It's hard enough as it is. Great stuff!
@@zzBaBzz That doesn't work on all forms of dyslexia. There is one form that is strictly mechanical and is caused by what's essentially some filters inside your eyes being aligned differently than normal, which confuses your brain and causes reading problems. That misaligned filters issue obviously gets fixed by closing one eye so you're only using one filter at a time, and it's something every dyslexic definitely should try, but not all forms are caused by that filter misalignment issue. Some are brain wiring problems etc.
Very interesting! How about kanji? Does dyslexia get in the way?
Honestly the close out "If you are studying a language you better believe it is worth it" really says a lot. And perfectly sums up me wanting to learn and continue learning japanese.
Always find your purpose.
9:51 Okay I've heard that before. A native Puerto Rican supervisor I had said the hardest part about learning English was that there is a ton of slang. He was saying that you can't solely learn from speaking English in public because too much of the language is left out or spoken incorrectly. Sentence fragments, run-on sentences, mispronunciation, you know.
I think the most important thing is the 2nd step that Mr. Kaufmann said, keep yourself interested. Before I got extremely lazy, I drew a picture of the spanish word I was learning, and only wrote the English translation on the back. That way, I kind of forced myself to remember the spanish word without thinking "Does it sound like it does in English?". I aim to learn at least two languages other than English one day. Awesome video, Thanks Mr. Kaufmann and Shogo!!
From the other direction with Japanese much of their language seems to be implied when speaking, this could partially be because of the placement of the subject in the back of many sentences instead of the beginning so you have to assume who/what someone is speaking about before they finish saying something. And of course add to the confusion they have MANY homonyms.
@@JohnA... That didn't cross my mind, its a definate obstacle for anyone trying to learn from scratch. And learning the orthography must be brutal as well. Considering there aren't any rules from English that apply the same way as they do in Japanese. A TH-camr who was raised in America but moved to Tokyo for a culture shock said deciphering and learning to write Kanji felt as though he was learning to talk for the first time, haha.
@@jscriber100 The written language is a major hurdle. English (and similar base Latin languages) have ~26 characters that are used to make words. Japanese has well over 200 (Hiragana & Katakana) that words are formed with AND the many hundreds of Kanji themselves being full "words" or concepts to memorize. Its a daunting task. And you need to keep up with it, I had the Hiragana chart memorized a few months ago and started on Katakana, then I took a month or so off and I'm already forgetting some of the Hiragana.
Needless to say its a daunting task, especially if you aren't immersed in it.
Remind me of a certain scene in Thor: Ragnarok, where Korg casually went:" The hammer pulled you off?". Years later I still giggling whenever I think about it
I have been studying Japanese for the past three months ( conversational only ) and I love it…motivation is definitely key!!
What resources have been helpful for you? I really want to visit in hopefully a year from now.
@@phyxiuss honestly I have a friend who’s learning Japanese through college and I’ll try to speak to him. Other than that honestly learning from beginner books and going from there helps
Motivation is the spark, but consistency the vehicle that will drive you to the goal
Appreciate the feedback y'all. Definitely need more motivation.
How can i practice conversations if i don’t have anyone to talk with in Japanese?
Honestly when I was trying to learn Japanese I didn't find it any harder than learning English when it came to rules. It was just more words, so it felt like being required to learn the entire dictionary to graduate high school. It's a lot sure but doable. My problem came when most software stopped once it was time to learn sentences and obviously no one to talk too in Japanese.
Well Japanese is on a whole different level. Where are you from?
My plan is to get a pen pal, I might not be able to speak it well, but I can at least be literate
What’s your native tongue ?
@@energizerbee720 OH, please share
@@energizerbee720 Yeah, links are not welcome on yt. Thanks!
Listening to him speak Japanese at the end reminds me of my grandfather. He sounds just like him. Memory unlocked! 🥰🥰🥰
I took four years of French in high school and got all As, but I didn't enjoy it, didn't want to use it in my professional life, and wasn't into French culture aside from the cooking and the art. After nearly twenty-five years of not using it, I've lost near all of the French I knew. However, when I was going to a a college that offered conversational Japanese as a special topics course (meaning it was a one-time only thing), I was more enthusiastic about learning the language and culture. Japanese felt more logical that French, the course was so much fun, it never felt like a chore, and I'd love to resume learning Japanese.
I started learning Japanese on Duolingo (i have no other options as i cannot afford classes) and yesterday was my 100th day streak! I can read hiragana and katakana and form the most basic sentences :))
Nice! But I would say that as long as you're motivated enough, there are definitely plenty of free resources for learning languages. So I wouldn't worry about having to spend a ton of money on classes.
@@tempchannel101 aww thanks mate i genuinely appreciate the encouragement 🥺💙
Sugoi
Wanikani has the first few levels free to learn kanji if your interested you'll learn over 80 kanji and 200 vocabulary it's a great start
Duolingo has a shitton of errors in most languages, even at basic level. So do be careful.
I've been studying Japanese for a year and a half now and it is so nice to see a video like this. Nobody who knows me is aware that I have been studying Japanese, and honestly sometimes it gets a bit lonely to be completely self-study with nobody to talk to about it, so seeing this video made me feel a bit better (especially the part at the end when Mr. Kauffman gave an encouraging message). Thank you.
You must know that you're not alone. Though in my case everybody knows that I'm learning languages. Don't give up!
...oh, and I see you are also the rabbithole fellow )
I feel this, if i feel like there is any pressure on me (even my own invented social pressure) my adhd gives me anxiety about it. But if i isolate it a little, Its so much easier to do it consistently.
Idk if that is why but it reminded me of myself haha. Its amazing that you are learning Japanese, however far you get up to complete mastery, at least you are working on doing something to improve yourself, it makes such a difference in day to day life just doing something productive.
Personally one of my excusse for learning Japanese is just to keep my brain active with something intellectually stimulating and challenging so that my mind doesn't grow lazy, and that's enough motivation :v
Some play Fortnite, do some sports, play some instruments or take care of their puppies to waste time, so might as well spend some parts of my afternoon mainlining kanjis :v
@@tincoeani9529 Same for me. I started learning Japanse and German after I got a bit tired from math and programming.
Best thing you can do I find online langauge exchange groups with actual Japanese people and make real friendships with Japanese people. This will make learning Japanese MUCH MUCH easier and less lonely.
I'm still learning but I've noticed I learn Japanese the best by consuming entertainment (anime, video games, etc) that I'm already familiar with but do so in Japanese. Using context and my memory of the last time I experienced it I can figure out what they're saying and learn new words through that context
Yeah you might think that. Because thats the level of comfort you want to feel while learning.
I was really turned off by Anime with English voice-overs. Once I started listening to the Japanese and reading the captions, I found Anime that were interesting and funny. Now, I have basic understanding of Conversational Japanese, sentence structure, and some cultural references. Latin was harder because no one makes Latin cartoons. I would like to thank you both for making second language more accessible to those who wish to learn.
When it comes to reading, Asterix comic books are available in a number of languages, even small languages and dialects (with less volumes translated), I'm pretty sure Latin is one of them. If you like French comics, that is.
And a number of radio stations in Europe have some time slots dedicated to Latin, though it's often just news, not as much fun.
Still not that many sources, nothing compared to Japanese.
@@Ph34rNoB33r They had Asterix comics in German class. Thanks.
@@Ph34rNoB33r they got comics in latin?! where can i get them?
Anime with English over it completely Americanizes absolutely everything, everyone is less polite and childish. I remember buying Yakuza 7 and rushing to the options menu because for some ungodly reason they made both an English and a Japanese dub for it, for the first time since like 2004.
Anime in English takes the soul away. The characters change a lot.
So I’m learning Japanese and I surrounding myself with as much Japanese content that I can understand as possible. It’s difficult but what’s always pushing me is when I rewatch anime and I can understand the what the character as saying. I do understand that anime isn’t proper Japanese, but it always bring me joy when I learn a new word and I can hear it in context.Writing Japanese is hard and I try to read as much as I can and one day I do hope to visit Japanese to experience the culture.
Anime does use "proper" Japanese, don't worry! Of course they are going to yell obscenities and magical spells and stuff, but it's pretty obvious what's normal and what's not as you improve! Also, writing might be something you want to put off until you are fluent, as it takes a lot of time you could be using listening and reading, and the reward is very small and not used often. you can always learn to write later
@@humanbean3 not only that, but since anime is generally made for younger audiences, it will have easily understandable vocabulary.
@@DanielMorales-jm3ll this is actually not true at all. Attack on Titan for example is full of difficult words and concepts. Most fantasy will be like this. you can however find easier anime, like certain slice of life anime. They do speak very clearly in anime compared to real life, but anime is full of difficult words and rare usages. This is why I wouldn't really recommend it to a total beginner unless they have a dictionary that shows how rare the words are or something.
@@humanbean3 Even though AoT is technically a shonen i wouldnt classify it as such. Your right that it would probably have some difficult words in it. I havent used that show personally for learning. I have yet to take the step of watching anything without english subs because im afraid of not understanding whats going on, and even though i know im supposed to rewatch stuff without eng subs, or with JP subs. I have a hard time with rewatching stuff as i would rather spend time with something i have never read or watched before.
@@DanielMorales-jm3ll don't be afraid to try watching an anime without subs. The brain is lazy and won't absorb as much of the language cuz If you can use English, why not just use that instead, y'know? Besides, you can figure out a lot of stuff if you pay attention to the context of a situation 😁
Comfort zones are not where language is learned, trust me. I'm still a beginner at 13 years of on and off learning, because I was scared to get uncomfortable. But in like, 2 weeks I've learned more than I did in the past decade. You can do it!
I'm currently studying Japanese at University and of course its extremely tough. It can be especially difficult as I won't be going out to Japan until my 3rd year which is 18 months away. I keep telling myself that it will be worth it in the long run. Thank you for uploading this video, I want to keep trying
where are you studying?
How's it going?
頑張れ！！！
Nice, you taking it as an elective?
頑張って！
Thank you so much for this episode. I dove head first into learning Japanese, studying 1-2hrs every day. Honestly I hit point where I'm getting a little frustrated with myself for mixing up certain Hiragana & I had to take a day off to refocus my mind and reaffirm my commitment. The words of affirmation came at the perfect time for me.
I've been studying pretty intensely for over a year and consider myself a pretty solid intermediate by now. I read and watch native content etc... I STILL mix up certain hiragana and katakana from time to time. ぬ and ロ pretty much exclusively. I will glance over them and they will be ね and コ to me sometimes. It takes a long time to get completely used to a new language as different as Japanese, and the only hurdle is time. As long as you don't give up and are learning new things everyday, you will learn the language. It is a pretty big commitment though, make sure you aren't better off spending that time elsewhere.
edit: As long as you are learning new things, *and reviewing what you've already learned*, you will learn the language
I ❤️ STEVE! He is truly a gem in the Language learning community and I listen to his podcast daily. LingQ is an amazing platform and he put alot of work into his craft! I really enjoyed seeing the two of you talk about language and culture together and the importance of the two ❤️ ☺️!
@Shady Whale THANK YOU! I Will definitely check that out too 😊!
Just learning Japanese alone seems like such a mountain to climb just by itself, I can’t imagine what it must be like keeping 20 languages in your head straight with all the various grammar rules and other differences. Steve is an amazing dude.
As someone who has been studying Japanese on and off for the past 2 years, as well as someone who will be moving to Japan in the next few months, I very much needed to hear Steve’s last encouraging message. Thank you Shogo and Steve for this discussion; I feel very motivated and optimistic yet again!
Wow it’s so cool to see Steve here too! I follow his channel and use LINGQ to help me study Japanese so it’s cool to see him explain his method 💜
Yeah I can't seriously imagine having to learn English. We have so much slang, people don't speak properly as taught in lessons, and we have so many rules that have exceptions to them. I'm glad I really love Japanese as a language because I definitely can feel it fueling my learning. I have almost no motivation for most things so feeling myself come alive when listening to j-rock or doing a lesson is amazing. Keep it up guys.
None of that is that unique to English. It is common to all natural languages.
That's every language.
This is the same for all languages. Actually this is even worse in Arabic, because written formal Arabic (fus-ha) which is used in books and news reports is completely different to spoken dialects which people use.
i relate to that last part a lot
Biggest advice I have is making sure you have a REAL reason why you are studying Japanese. When the studying gets hard you need to have motivation and reason to push through.
Yeah for me i have quite a few reasons and they keep me motivated.. 1. The language is BEAUTIFUL its so nice to hear so calming 2. The basic anime manga reasons ect ect 3. I actually plan to move there once i am fluent. The culture is amazing to me and id love to live there (yes i know what culture shock is and i understand many aspects of living in japan that are great downsides*
@@scriptedtruth8193What are those downsides?
My reason is to be able to understand Xenosaga DS, particularly the 2 part of it.
I’ve been studying with an iTalki teacher for a few months, and she’s great, and I’m studying hard, but it’s a long road to really learn any language. I’m also using WaniKani to learn kanji and Satori reader. I really needed to hear those closing comments from Steve. It is a struggle, but I will not give up!
It's really amazing for Shogo to meet up with Steve Kaufmann! I can see how Steve is able to speak in about 20 languages. I see why speaking Japanese can be hard for other people, but once they are learning more to speak Japanese and be fluent, I'm really sure that they will be very perfect and accurate in speaking Japanese and be successful. Practice always makes perfection! Thank you so much for a wonderful video and meeting up with Steve Shogo!
I think most of those languages he is fairly weak, like I have studied a lot of Spanish and his Spanish is quite weak. It's generally better to speak a small number of languages well than brokenly speak a very large number.
Currently living, working and studying in Japan! His words of wisdom and encouragement really hit me. Thanks for doing this video!
I've had the same question about Shogo. His English IS absolutely amazing. He speaks better English than half the Americans living here.
I studied Japanese in highschool for 3 years and now studying in my own time. Learning writing was pretty easy as it has rules and you can follow rules. Listening to Japanese was the hard part to me. Learning mostly the polite and formal Japanese, it was difficult to listen to Japanese using a little bit of slang or other variations of conjugation. What I also find difficult is the vocabulary + Kanji, but that comes with immersion and study time. What I usually do for study time is immersing myself in Japanese Manga and translating it, as well as saying the sentences as well.
Definitely need Motivation. I was trying to study Japanese. I was using Wanikani and NHK World Easy for reading and listening. At one point I was able to read and understand most of the NHK Easy website. But as the years went by. My motivation has wained. I was studying at least 1 hour each day when I first started then it was every other day, then every few days, then once a week. Once the pandemic hit and I was questioning when Japan was opening for individual travel. I pretty much lost the remaining motivation I had and haven’t studied in a while.
7:42 I found that the most enjoyable way to shadow Japanese for me was listening to Japanese music. I'd been a huge j rock fan for years before I started learning the language, but one I started studying it I found that I was actually more easily able to sing along and pick apart what's physically being said. Not necessarily translate or understand what is being said, but the phonetics of Japanese became abundantly easier to understand. I'm guessing it's because my brain had been exposed to it for years, so once it started gaining the rest of the puzzle pieces it was able to start making out the large picture.
Shadowing via music is a really fun technique and Japan hosts nearly every genre under the sun so I always recommend it.
Any bands you can recommend for a fellow rock fan student?!
@@danielwolstenholme9649 Kinoko Teikoku is my favorite, but Culenasm, Tricot, Ling Tosite Sigure, and Hitsujibungaku are also excellent bands
@@woag2098 excellent, thankyou for your response. I will look into them
I'm Christian, and personally I don't like listening to music that isint Christian but I love rock and hyperpop anything alternative but there isint much options for me especially in Japanese :(
I need to pick up my Japanese again. I’ll be stationed in Japan for the Navy soon, and will want to see everything while I’m there. Being able to speak Japanese will be a wonderful skill to have.
Thank you so much for this video. I have been learning Japanese online for a few months now, I've been getting a little discouraged about it, but this video makes me want to learn it even more! I know it'll be hard, but I think it'll be worth it! I love Japanese culture and language.
Steve Kaufman is the best! What a great and encouraging message for new Japanese learners.😊❤
Dedication, motivation and desire.
I've wanted to learn Japanese for 20+ years now. I can watch shows and understand conversational Japanese but can't actually speak it myself. I am learning to read but still struggle to put my own sentences together because I'm not thinking in Japanese.
Pandemic hit and I jumped into WaniKani for Kanji memorization, and here I am almost 1000 days later on level 55 (of 60) and really want to move on to other tools to learn.
Congratulations on the achievement! I hope continuing gets easier!!!
Certainly an unexpected collaboration. I’m going to watch the video now
I’ve been studying Japanese half-hearted for a few years (but it accumulates to 9 months realistically). What I can agree is reading and writing do play a huge role since you’re using the language, when there aren’t many natives around. Just like MattvsJapan’s method, Steve’s method relies on immersion similarly. They basically share the same root and for sure, I will have to find more ways to read. (Learning new language as a teen can be difficult since we’re young and there are other temptations).
I am fluent in German and Russian and English. I have studied Spanish, French, Italian, Arabic and Kazakh. It takes a lot of work to be able to SPEAK a language.
The two things that I've learned over the last few years learning Spanish that I've tried to carry over into learning Japanese is, like you were saying in your video, even if you don't get the right formality or tense right, people are very understanding and pleased that you're even attempting to talk to them in their language and if you focus on learning the sounds of a language, they'll be even more impressed with how natural you sound, even if your vocabulary is limited. I still have a long way to go before my Japanese is even close to how fluent I am in Spanish (which I still have a long way to go on that one too), but I'm pushing forward and using the content I'm enjoying, whether it be anime or games like FFXIV or other content, to help with at least understanding and recognizing the words I'm learning.
Wonderful video!!! Steve gives some great advice for sure. One thing that is helping me right now is reading everything out loud, even if it's words I don't yet know. I notice reading out loud is so much harder for me, but when I push through I am able to say those words and phrases faster and without hesitation.
I learned Japanese when I was in college, but I learned so much more when I went to the country than the classroom. I struggled learning in the classroom actually! Engagement is so important, and I really want to relearn it again. Great video!!
I'm around N3ish level with zero classroom or textbook use! I've been studying for a little over a year with nothing but Anime and video games and a flashcard program! I will add that I did google a lot of grammar in the beginning! You don't need textbooks or a classroom, tons of people get very fluent without either! 頑張ってください！
I spoke Japanese a lot as a child living in Japan, but I never learned to read. Now half a century later, I understand a bit but would be unable to communicate.
I've found Komi cant communicate super helpful. It has a lot of written dialog on the screen like a manga so it's helpful to read and learn kanji. They're high-school students so you hear a lot of typical conversational language between friends.
Anime japanese is a little different from the japanese that is normally spoken in japan
This was such a huge thing for me to hear. Enjoyment is super super important when doing something as hard as learning a language. Why I thought my 2 hour painstaking schedule of active immersion, passive immersion, flashcard grabbing and subtitle usage would work... when i always passed it up for some more fun activity. Not to say that that doesn't work for people, please continue it if it does and please please don't give up! Stay positive.
Wow your channel really exploded didn't it?
I'm glad channels like this can do well, gives me hope for youtube.
I used to Watch a lot of Japanese tv shows like terrace house and turn on Japanese subtitles. You learn a lot of every day Japanese.
My six year old started studying Japanese and I cannot believe the work they put into it but its because they have that motivation. It's wonderful to watch!
Just by listening to Steve Kaufmann talking and expressing himself, I can see how smart he is. It was definitively a privilege. Thank you for sharing with us. Love your channel!
If Laoshu was still alive, he would maybe be the world’s foremost (up and coming) polyglot. Rip Laoshu.
Having A1 level in bunch of languages isn't really impressive. Can they really be considered polyglots despite not being fluent in multiple languages?
Love that you interviewed Steve Kauffman! Wasn’t familiar with Steve before your video but goddamn he makes me proud to be a Canadian! What a dynamic guy! Very cool 😎
Not the crossover we wanted, but the one we needed
Brings a smile to my face seeing the fascination on each of yours regarding language. One thing I noticed when learning a few different languages is that there seems to be an underlying common language. Days of the week being based on the same things and some in the same order as others. Sunday and Monday, in both English and Japanese, for example. They both mean the same thing, have the same etymology and same spots on the week sequence. My fascination as a budding polyglot is noticing these little similarities that link the languages and cultures seemingly unknown to the vast majority of people.
OmGod! Shogo...buddy...what an amazing interview. Great topic to cover and this man is now one of my favorite people. HE'S INTO WOOD AND JAPAN! He's my Canadian spirit-brother! Now, I'll have to subscribe to him and watch all his content...just brilliant! Thanks Shogo!
Thank you for this video! I’ve only been studying Japanese for about 3-4 weeks. Steve’s recommendations are exactly how I’ve been studying. I started with learning hiragana & hatakana. Then watching a lot of video on sentence structure & vocabulary. It’s going very well! I can’t wait to learn more!
I always wanted to attend a Japanese language school in Japan. I tried learning at home but I think learning it in the country itself , talking/listening to locals is the best way to learn it. Maybe, someday I will get the money together to be able to do that for half a year! It would be so amazing!
This was awesome. So lovely. Steve is definitely very inspiring!!!
Oh snap you got Steve on your channel. He's so nice. This is a combo I didn't expect haha.
I'm new to learning Japanese, but I've always dabbled in languages so I feel confident in saying that this whole thing of 'It's hard to learn Japanese and it's hard to learn English' mindset is probably the biggest hurdle people have and it's one that they do to themselves. Strangely, I find the best thing to do is NOT think too hard about it. Study, yes, practice, yes. But telling yourself it's hard? That is going to MAKE it hard. Just go with the flow. Everything new seems daunting at first. Don't think about how many kanji there are, just learn one, then learn two. You will get there in the end. Every meal has to be eaten in bites.
1:23 The wood business! Such a prestigious line of work that only the best of the best can do! 😮
I am forever astounded by how fast people can switch between languages
talking with native speakers to learn the language is right.
I served in the army in Ukraine, although I am Russian, I began to speak with the Ukrainian dialect and spoke for 10 years.I remember once I met with a Ukrainian, we spoke with the same dialect. So the Ukrainian thought that I was also from Ukraine.
Ah, but can you pronounce паляниця? :P
So interesting! Great video collaboration!
I honestly don't understand why so many language associations put Japanese as one of the hardest to learn. I'm still learning Japanese and have tried to learn a bit of German in the past but I find Japanese to be surprisingly easier for me. No plurals, no genders, no cases, easy pronunciation, only 2 tenses. Japanese is only really hard to write. Finnish would probably be harder. Arabic is probably also completely out of my reach
If you just want to speak finnish to be understood, you dont really need to study too much. My sister's Nepali husband learned finnish naturally while he moved here (he might have taken some basic courses but when he and my sister started dating he didnt really know finnish) and he might never use the "perfect" finnish but he is for me very very fluent and he is easily understood and no one thinks his finnish has any problems. We either do no expect the harder grammar or phrasing from people. We just care for basic pronounciation and words to be understandable. I think people wrongly list finnish as hard, it would be if you aimed for perfection in all aspects but i would say most languages will be hard to master perfectly. heck, i am a finnish person and if i was given finnish advanced phrasing or mothertongue exam, i would not be perfect in it, cuz in everyday life it is not needed.
For me, it's changing gears and speaking/thinking like Yoda. It's the syntax- it takes a moment for me to reverse what I was thinking to say. Otherwise I agree with everything else.
Exactly. I think the only reason is for the same reason as many other subjects - the idea of the "exclusivity" of Japan/Japanese purported by the Japanese establishment.
There is gender in Japanese, feminine and masculine ways of speaking. But it’s not as intense as German
@@ballet_plum686 when I say gender, I'm not referring to people, I'm referring to words. German has 3 genders: male, female and neutral. That's why singular nominative words usually follow the articles der, die or das. And that's just the nominative case. They also change based on whether the word is accusative, dative or genitive. Japanese, on the other hand, has neither genders nor articles nor cases. That's why Japanese grammar is significantly easier than German grammar
I like how when people learn a language they also end up learning the physical/cultural mannerism that go along with the language. It's so awesome to see!
This video is really nice to listen to. We have exchange students from different countries at my school and I want to learn not only because I want to, but to connect with them better.
I've been watching some of your videos for the past few hours. I'm a french person, learning Japanese currently. I talk english and german already, but I must admit that, as far as the alphabet bareer go, when you pass through it, Japanses stays a really logical language, in terms of grammar and stuff. On the other hand in french we have exceptions in exceptions in excpetions, it's awful even for most of the native french speakers to be fair. I enjoyed those few hours a lot, and it motivated me keeping on learning. Thanks. Subbing.
Also, Mr. Kauffmann really sounds like the motivational grandpa character that we often see in anime characters, made me smile a lot.
The title should be “shogo being starstruck for 18:05”
I needed this video. Thanks! I’m trying to learn Japanese myself. I’ve always wanted to learn another language, but was never interested or motivated enough to really try, until I started trying Japanese. It’s difficult, but the language & culture really interests me. I want to learn more & more. This video has given me a little more motivation & hope. Thanks you! 🙏🏽
I'm really inspired to go listen to NHK stuff now.
I am newbie at your channel! I loved so much the content it self but my favorite part is how excited you are to do this interview with Steve! Thank you so much it made me to more excited to continue my journey to learn Japanese! ❤
OMG! Thank you for inviting Steve!! I love you both!
I loved hearing them compliment each other on their language abilities.
I can't believe how much I needed this video and didn't realise it. Thank you.
It was nice to see Shogo fanboying over Steve. And I can totally understand him )
I so needed this today. Thank you for this.
It was very interesting to have him on, but I noticed he mostly just recommended "listening, reading, and speaking" for how to learn a language. That requires the groundwork of being able to understand some vocabulary, a rudimentary understanding of the grammar and sentence structures, and knowledge of the writing style of the language. I would've liked to hear his process for how he approaches a brand new language with 0 experience. He mentioned he got much of his experience from business meetings in Japan, but surely he didn't arrive in Japan with no knowledge, hear these businessmen/women speaking Japanese and just subconsciously pick up on it; so I would've liked to know more about the process of starting from the ground up.
Interesting, I learnt English in Michigan as well. Then I moved to Canada and the UK. (I'm mexican though). Now I'm in Japan and I'll be here for a year. I agree with Steve, trying to use neutral language is kind of the best strategy. :D
That message at the end from Steve really affected me, i felt like he was talking directly to me :') STEVE IS A LEGEND
I always like to think, for everyday that you study Japanese, you've learn more than yesterday.
Languages I’d like to learn: Nihongo, Francais, Deutsch…
With every new language, you learn a lot about yourself and your own culture. It's like you are in a room and, with every new language, a new window appears and lights up your world.
Personal recommendation, learn at least one language that is very different from your own.
Thank you both.
I hope this comment gets many more upvotes because it's golden! this is exactly how it feels
@@KristenLB Wow, thank you for the sentiment. 🥰
I've been learning Japanese because I plan to visit in the summer. I already knew some from when I was in my karate class when I was younger. I tried Duelingo first and it got so confusing because they don't use any easy translation so it's hard to tell if you're making the right sounds when reading the words. Then I checked out Busuu and it clicked so much easier. They use easy translation and slowly work into the Japanese writing so it's easier to understand and learn how to correctly speak and read the language.
i love the Message from Steve Kaufmann at 15:05. That was so perfect for me.
Oh wow that’s so cool! I also live in Vancouver !
Wisdom and affection and appreciation from both sides. Thank you Team Shogo.
Another great vid, informative & inspirational as well. Especially to me as a current student of Japanese.
Love this collaboration! I love how Steve will do interviews with small and big known channels ^_^
This is amazing video now i am more motivated to learn japanese and japanese culture thank you very mutch for this video
Great interview, thank you for sharing☆
Thank you for this video I just recently started learning Japanese and I've been having a tough time but this was a nice insight, the words of encouragement helped me alot and I hope to keep improving everyday!
YOOOO HE GREW UP IN MICHIGAN💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾👌🏾👌🏾👌🏾👌🏾👌🏾🔥🔥🔥🔥
Thank you Shogo, awesome video, and, sure, thank you Steve!
Great video Shogo. Steve is a legend and always has great advice. I recall reading somewhere that the reason for the difficulty rating Japanese gets is primarily due to the reading system being included in the evaluation. Speaking at a business level, and also reading at an equivalently high level in Japanese is the reason for the high ranking relative to other languages with easier reading systems.
I'm surprised Steve didn't immediately raise the point about grammar as being the most difficult aspect about learning Japanese from an English background and vice-versa. With English, when one isn't talking poetically, is very much subject, action, object, whilst in Japanese, that order can appear every which way. For a native English speaker, it's really tough to get your head around when someone says an entire sentence at you and you're having to pick up from conversational cues who they're talking about.
I've been feeling a lot of burnout with my Japanese studies and this was the exact message that I needed. Thank you for this wonderful video!
would you ever be up for fan meet and greets once japan opens up? i'd love to meet you guys in person some day!
Maybe someday in the future😉
I was in a bit of a slump for a few months but have added transcribing some of what I hear and it has helped me a lot. Even gave me some confidence. But him mentioning finding topics that are of interest in the language sounds great. Will add that to my learning.
I actually found Japanese speaking to be much easier than some of the other languages that I've studied, but the reading and writing can be a beast.
@@electricfishfan7159 As an English teacher, I feel so bad for anyone who has to decipher English spelling 😂
Great collab! Thank you!