Language tips - Japan Video Transcripts
Video 1 Transcript
I learned that learning a new language is like learning math. So math is an equation, and you plug in numbers. With Japanese, it's a new grammar structure or sentence structure, and you just plug in Japanese words. And once you approach Japanese, or once I approached Japanese, how I approached math, I was able to learn much more. I just saw everything as an equation, and that was able to help me learn the patterns. So I wrote all the patterns on flashcards, or I put them on paper, and I taped them to the wall, so I was always looking at them. I'm not good at math, but once I did approach it with a system, my math medical system, I was able to learn better and faster once I had that down.
Video 2 Transcript
So kanji is all the characters for Japanese and some people enjoy studying them and think it's effective. I personally feel like studying kanji isn't going to help you with your communication skills. Once it gets to the point where you feel like you're comfortable with the language maybe you can start studying but you definitely don't need it probably for the first year or so.
Video 3 Transcript
While you're studying your grammar patterns or your words, move your mouth because there's going to be words that don't fit right in your mouth because they just say it differently like your r's they say their r's really really differently and it's hard to kind of get that pronunciation right but if you're moving your mouth while you're studying that will help you to feel like you're speaking Japanese better. Listen to the way people say things because there's going to be differences in um how they pronounce things if they have two t's or if they have two i's and those things are going to be important because it'll help them understand so move your mouth and pronunciation and work on how you say things but don't worry you got this Japanese
Video 4 Transcript
If you want to get good at learning what's going on in a language, I'd recommend buying a notebook and writing down every word, vocabulary word that you learn every day. You can set yourself a standard of learning at least ten words a day and then repeating them at the end of the day. If you do that for, you know, ten days, you know a hundred words. Typically, as English speakers, we use eight hundred to a thousand words a day. And so in the space of two and a half months, you'll be done with all the primary words that you use on a regular basis. So write it down in a notebook and then repeat, repeat, repeat, kuri kaishite, kuri kaishite, kuri kaishite. And that will help you a lot.
Video 5 Transcript
Japanese is a pretty intimidating language to learn if it's your first one. I have a few tips. First is that get the pronunciation down. Practice that a lot. Make sure you learn the hiragana and the katakana scripts. They're quite easy to learn. Just memorize them. There are a lot of rules for the language and learn the rules even if you don't get the nuances. There's a lot of cultural nuances which are difficult to understand, but if you have the basic rules down, Japanese has almost no irregulars like English does. And also kanji is intimidating, but the more you learn the easier it is. So start small and then work your way up.
Video 6 Transcript
Accents are really important. How you say things makes all the difference, and the slightest difference can change the total meaning of a word. For example, kawaii versus kowaii. They almost sound the same, but one means scary, and the other means cute. So we were actually told to not tell people that their kids were cute, because too often they were saying, your kids are scary. Another example is kami versus kame. One means god, the other means turtle.
Video 7 Transcript
When it comes to counting and numbers, you probably have heard if you've ever watched like Karate Kid or something like that, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. In Japan, usually they'll count like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. So different direction. However, what is important to have a heads up in Japan is that they have different counters for different things. So the standard 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, right? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. However, when you're counting people, for example, then people are 1人, 2人, 3人, meaning 1 person, 2 people, 3 people. If you're counting long cylinder objects like a pencil, 1本, 2本, 3本. If you're counting paper, 1枚, 2枚, 3枚, etc. So not to stress you out, but just as a heads up, you're going to learn different counters for Japan.
Video 8 Transcript
Just try to speak the language as much as possible. Honestly, that helps the most. Like you can, anyone can pick up listening really quickly. Like, learning how to understand Japanese is really easy actually, but learning how to speak Japanese takes a little bit of effort and just time. And so as, if you just keep practicing, like even if like you're washing dishes, like while you're washing dishes, think of like a sentence that means like washing dishes in Japanese, right? So just like those little things, like throughout your day, just keep practicing Japanese. Even if you're not speaking it, just like practice it in your mind.
Video 9 Transcript
Something that's important to remember with Japanese is that the language structure is always based upon elevating whoever it is that you're speaking with and putting yourself in a more humble position. So even if the way that you might talk about your mother and father, for example, so お母さん is mother, お父さん is father. So when you're talking directly to, if I'm talking directly to my mom, then she is お母さん. If I am talking to you about my mom, then I'm going to elevate you and put myself in a more humble position. So I'm going to call my mom はは. Not to, and it sounds like ha ha hee hee. Yeah, but that's it. So if I say ha ha, then I mean my personal mom. The same would be for father. If I'm talking to my father, that is お父さん. So I'm elevating him because he is my father. If I'm talking to you about my father, I would refer to him as ちち.
Video 10 Transcript
My language tip for you is to make sure that you understand grammar. Vocabulary isn't a bad thing. Definitely study a lot of vocabulary too, but make sure that you have the grammar to match that because especially with Japanese, I feel like there's a lot of opportunity for misunderstanding to creep into a conversation just by ordering your sentence wrong. So if you understand grammar and have a good base with vocabulary, you'll be a lot better off than if you knew all the vocabulary in the world and not much grammar.
Video 11 Transcript
Learn the polite Japanese and use it. The more you speak, the more mistakes you're gonna make, which means the more you're gonna learn and you're gonna fix those mistakes. I've heard it said that you have to make about 10,000 mistakes in a language to become fluent.
Video 12 Transcript
Love the language. My favorite way it was described to me was that it's like a flavor. Now, the more you learn, the more like you explore, and it's a different flavor. It becomes something else, which is like really accurate. I don't know how else to describe it besides that language comes with practice, comes with time. Listen to people. It's called shadowing, where you say what they say in your head, and that was the most helpful thing for me. Good luck, but you got this.
Video 13 Transcript
Listen very carefully to what Japanese people say, and especially to how they say it, because the grammar they use is very, very different from English, so phrasing something the way an American would often does not come across in Japanese. You have to listen carefully to, yeah, I guess just the way they say it.
Video 14 Transcript
Make plans and goals and stick to it, that's important. Use flashcards. I hated flashcards before but they're really lifesavers. And go on English fasts. Don't speak any English. Speak as much Japanese as you possibly can and push yourself. It really changed the way that I was able to both speak and hear. Ask questions to everyone. Ask as many questions as you possibly can. Don't be that guy that thinks he's so good at the language that he can stop studying. Please, don't stress kanji too much.
Video 15 Transcript
I found when I first was learning new words, I would connect that word to the English translation in my mind so that I would hear the Japanese word, think of the English word, and then know what that meant because I had an image in my mind of the meaning of that English word. I found that the faster I was able to get rid of that English translation step and take the Japanese word and connect it to the image in my mind with the meaning and just take out that middle step, the faster I was able to learn the language. So right from the beginning, if you have the ability to do that, hear the Japanese word, connect it to the image in your mind with the meaning. It may be the same as the English word that you have, but then you don't have to take the time for translation while you're listening to native speakers or anybody. You hear the word and the image comes to mind just like it is in English for you.
Video 16 Transcript
Better than learning a bunch of words is learning how you learn the language. I think that would be the best help for going into Japan.
Video 17 Transcript
With the numbers, you're probably used to hearing 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Now, when you're counting other things like or other objects, people, animals, you're going to use different counters. The counter that I recommend learning is first get down your 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, right? Then after that, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Learn just the basic general counter that you could pretty much use for anything, any inanimate object. Not for a person, but any inanimate object. So just as a heads up, somewhere in your mental rolodex, keep that in mind. There's going to be different counters even for like days of the month. But if I learn 1, 2, 3, 4 and 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, I should be able to get through anything.
Video 18 Transcript
I feel like the biggest language tip that I could give is knowing how to read and write your hiragana, and then when you get to Japan, you can actually read some of the signs. There's a lot of kanji on things too, but there's a lot of things in hiragana, and so you can kind of pick it out as you go along and figure out the words. Another thing I would suggest language-wise is speaking it as much as possible, but also listening to how people say it. The Japanese people are so kind and they're so generous, but also keep in mind they're very blunt about the way that their language should be spoken, and so if you say something to them one way and they say it back to you essentially the way it should be said, so that they correct you, don't get offended, just roll with it and say it how they would say it. You can pick up on accents more quickly if you do that, and you can sound more Japanese, and you can speak more like a Japanese person if you listen and really take their advice.
Video 19 Transcript
Japanese is a pretty tough one, so what I would do is talk to natives a lot and have them correct your language or grammar or anything. So you can just talk to them, they'll correct whatever pronunciation issues you might have, and then whenever you're listening to someone, if you learn a new phrase, try and say it a couple of times and try and mimic what they say.
Video 20 Transcript
So you probably will figure out right away that they have a few different alphabets. Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji, Romaji. So right away, Hiragana is the phonetic alphabet for Japanese native words. What's most common and usually the first thing that you learn. Katakana is for foreign words or to express emphasis. And then Kanji, Kanji is for, it's the Chinese characters. So borrowed from China, adapted to Japan that is used. It's kind of like, you know, for compound words and such. It specifies what word we're talking about. Romaji is our romanized characters. So our ABC that they use in Japan to write things out, either for foreign words or for, you know, just anything like Tokyo, for example, would be spelled out like how we spell it.
Video 21 Transcript
One of the best pieces of advice I got for learning the language is when you're studying it, when you're speaking it, when you're trying to convey information in Japanese, to think in Japanese. Kind of change your entire mindset when you're speaking English, think in English, but when you're speaking Japanese, think in Japanese. That way it's easier for you to process the information and form a response, rather than hearing it, translating it into English, forming your response, translating that, and then saying it, and then repeating. If you're strictly in a Japanese mindset, it is an in and out process that makes the entire ordeal a lot smoother.
Video 22 Transcript
So I actually would try really hard to think in Japanese and I would take whatever I was thinking and figure out a way to say it in Japanese. There's this word in language called circumlocution, you find ways to talk around what you want to talk about if you don't have the specific word and so I was always like seeking different ways to say things and I think that that really benefited my Japanese because I can speak and think in Japanese even now it's still comfortable.
Video 23 Transcript
I really recommend you to maybe see the animation or like drama that from Japan and try to mimic them. You have to speak a lot in Japanese. Even you cannot say it, you have to try it out. It's really help you to understand when it will be gonna use it and when it will like not using it. And I think I saw that the video they're saying try to be polite. Yeah, it is really important.
