Staying motivated while learning Japanese

[TheWind]

recently, I decided to pursue studying Japanese along with my continuing education in Chinese. 

 

as you'd expectI'm having some difficulties with the new language. more so than I originally thought, considering I have a pretty strong grasp on Chinese. 

 

In Japanese there's not only 3 different ways to write the language, but I guess there's also 2 different ways to speak the language (onyumi & Kunyumi) too. 

 

because of this, not only does it feel like my Chinese knowledge is useless (in regards to helping me learn Japanese ), but also it seems quite overwhelming. 

 

Anyone else on here speak Japanese and go through similar problems? 

[Moki]

If you have a solid foundation in Mandarin, then learning Japanese at the same time is possible, but it is going to be difficult both to learn the language and keep them both straight in your head. I started learning Japanese after I had reached a fairly advanced level of Mandarin (if you want to hear me speaking Japanese just listen to the recording I just posted in the interpreting audio thread). There was a period of time at the beginning where I assumed that because I was now "fluent in Mandarin" that I didn't need to really work on it and it would just stay like that, and I started putting all my time into Japanese. I was wrong and I regretted it afterwards. My sentences stopped coming out correctly for a while in Mandarin and I kept wanting to add Japanese words to the end of sentences. After a bit of time warming my Chinese back up it was fine, but it really has taken a long time at least for me to keep them separate in my head. 

 

About whether or not Chinese helps to learn Japanese, I think it definitely helps. When I first started learning I was always surprised when I saw Chinese characters used for the same meaning in the same way or even in a similar way. I thought wow there are a decent number of Chinese words actually used in Japanese. Over time I kept discovering more and more and now I think its almost fair to just assume almost all words do exist in Japanese, even many literary ones like 澎湃、彷彿、徘徊、咆哮、彷徨、躊躇,　抑揚（＝ 抑扬顿挫）、and countless others. Most of them are actually used in everyday life sometimes even very common. Many 成语 are also exactly the same.  I'm no longer surprised when I find even obscure Chinese words in Japanese, but its still cool to see. The more you study the more Chinese you will come across, and depending on your level you may already know all of it and you will quickly catch on to the pattern for pronunciation which makes it very easy. For those words.

 

However like you said, there are words that also read differently and it takes much longer to build a sense for which ones do and when. There are also patterns like 文字通り　with the toori part not reading with a t but with a d (mojidoori), 割り箸　with the hashi part reading bashi not hashi, 青空　with the sora reading zora etc. With the many forms of polite and casual speech, along with the confusing way that many Japanese speakers phrase things when thinking and talking at the same time, the many different forms of verbs, names and locations reading completely different than anything else, and fairly complicated and diverse grammar patterns Japanese was very tough for me to learn even having reached an advanced level of Chinese first. After I had spent years working on Japanese and reached an advanced level with it too, I felt that it had been way harder than I ever expected and I probably would have given up had it not been for my background in Chinese. Personally I never found it to be quite as fun, interesting or beautiful of a language as Chinese and on top of that I felt it was more difficult, or at least just as hard as Chinese even with the Chinese background. 

 

So yes it is extremely overwhelming and it will likely get more overwhelming before it gets better. I felt like there was no end to the new grammar, words, and other things for a very long time. But it is possible. I know quite a few people who have done it with varying amounts of success, but they all seem pretty comfortable with Chinese to begin with. 

[TheWind]

very insightful and helpful

 

On 3/3/2020 at 9:32 AM, Moki said:

yes it is extremely overwhelming and it will likely get more overwhelming before it gets better.

 

I think your right about this, I've probably underestimated its actually difficulty much like I did before starting Chinese

 

Because of this I'm trying to keep my focus on Chinese and practice Japanese and Spanish in my free time. 

 

We are the compounded results of what we do everyday.  So at first I think it be best to start slow and get a strong grasp on the basics before investing heavy time in these new languages

[Takeshi]

Moki explained the advantage of knowing Chinese in terms of understanding Literary Japanese very well. If you are diving straight into Japanese it is much much harder to get to know these sorts of words.

 

Regarding Japanese writing (kana), I'd say this is a non-issue. You should be able to learn these perfectly after days/weeks/months/years (ymmv; took me months though lol) of practice. Regarding readings, I think the best way to learn is to expose yourself to lots of content that is multimodal (written and spoken). I guess for actual Japanese people, they get this input in their 義務教育 years, but for foreign learners, playing videogames or visual novels with voice-overed text is helpful.

[PerpetualChange]

I started flirting with Japanese this year. I've been all over the place with it, honestly. At the onset of the year I decided that I would not go overboard with the hobby and let it consume me like I have others, and determined I would only study for 30 minutes per day. For the first part of the year I got through Pimsleur I but I really didn't like the program much so I cancelled my subscription by Pimsleur II. Then I spent a month sucking it up and learning the kana. I did this buy just picking one or two rows each day, and focusing only on writing them again and again. By March, I decided to hire an italki tutor. We started on Minna no Nihongo and got through 5 textbook lessons (I guess we did around 10 appointments) over the first 2 months. Then, I had a baby and stopped totally for the better part of two months. Around August I started again, just reviewing those first 5 lessons mainly by reading them and copying them all down in a notebook. I'm now on lesson 6, by myself. I may choose to hire a tutor again because I feel that things aren't really sinking in (especially the basic vocabulary nouns, like how to say "train" or "classroom" of "cafeteria" etc.) I just don't grind vocab the way I used to with Chinese and it shows. But I don't want to study more than the half hour or so I do anyway. And that's OK. For me this is more about general appreciation of the Japanese culture, and I am already a big appreciator of lots of Japanese-language entertainment - films, music, even anime. 

 

Not sure how much longer I'll go after this year, though. Getting to the level with Japanese that I am with Chinese seems like a monumental task for someone who only has 30 minutes per day. Maybe next year I'll humble myself, and start on a language actually close to English. 

[NinjaTurtle]

2 hours ago, PerpetualChange said:

I spent a month sucking it up and learning the kana.

 

One month is not nearly long enough to master the reading and writing of hiragana and katakana.

 

How fast can you write "Oosaka Kokusai Kuukou" (Osaka International Airport) in hiragana? Or how about "Gambatte kudasai" in hiragana?

 

How fast can you write "Steve Smith" in katakana?

 

Stop all other study of Japanese until you have mastered the reading and writing of hiragana and katakana.

 

[PerpetualChange]

10 minutes ago, NinjaTurtle said:

One month is not nearly long enough to master the reading and writing of hiragana and katakana.

 

How fast can you write "Oosaka Kokusai Kuukou" (Osaka International Airport) in hiragana? Or how about "Gambatte kudasai" in hiragana?

 

How fast can you write "Steve Smith" in katakana?

 

Stop all other study of Japanese until you have mastered the reading and writing of hiragana and katakana.

Not sure what you're trying to prove with this post but I'd have no problem with that and wasn't asking you, Sensei. 

 

I also totally disagree with your suggestion to both myself and presumably all other Japanese learners. Hiragana and Katakana must be learnt to an acceptable level and will naturally be reinforced as one continues to study. Many credible methods don't even bother with written language until you've gotten fairly comfortable with the spoken language, also. These methods weren't for me but they're out there and have worked for many no matter what some guy from the forums says.  

[suMMit]

23 hours ago, NinjaTurtle said:

How fast can you write "Steve Smith" in katakana?

 

Stop all other study of Japanese until you have mastered the reading and writing of hiragana and katakana.

 

23 hours ago, PerpetualChange said:

wasn't asking you, Sensei. 

 

I have zero interest in Japanese, I don't know why I clicked on the link, but Hahahaha this exchange made me laugh so hard