Start of My (New) Adventure | 新しい冒険が始めます！

A brief introduction ． 

Last year I went to Japan for 3 weeks. I think it’s even safe to say it was easily the best 3 weeks of my life! I stayed with a Japanese family for the duration of my stay, thanks to a lovely offer from my Japanese teacher Yoko.

During this stay however, I learned that my Japanese was still like that of a child even after 2 years of study. I sometimes wouldn’t be able to recall Kanji I should have known. I would look at her husband with a blank stare after being asked something simple like ”今日はどこに行く？” or even ”昨日は楽しかった？”… phrases so simple I kicked myself for not being able to understand them.

While in Japan I was only able to pick up on a small amount of vocabulary. When people spoke to me it seemed to go in one ear and out the other — no matter how much I concentrated. After it was translated to me by my teacher, I would be able to repeat what they had asked word for word… I knew every single word and how to phrase the question; I just couldn’t hear what was being said to me!

When I returned from Japan, I had lost a lot of my motivation to continue my studies. I couldn’t bring myself to quit completely but I didn’t feel motivated to continue my studies. After two years I was still less educated than a young child.

でも日本語で話さないと，ペラペラならないよ．But if you do not speak (Japanese Language), you will not become fluent. The concept is so simple it shouldn’t need to be pointed out. However that thought creeped into my mind and I got mad at myself for not continuing my studies.

“How can I expect to learn to speak Japanese if I’m no longer trying to learn how to speak Japanese?”

I can’t! It’s that simple. It would never happen. You can’t learn a language by not learning the language, it simply can not be done.

So last month I decided I would kick my studies up again. For the past year or so, I’ve only been “maintaining” my level by reviewing vocabulary and making sure I don’t forget the absolute basics of grammar. Of course, maintaining and improving aren’t the same thing. If I want to improve, then I need to be learning new things and reinforcing the old to become second nature.

To that degree I’ve decided to force myself to listen and speak more and get out of the grammar books. I’ve hit up a website called Shared Talk to speak with more natives, I’ve purchased the FLR course from my language hero Moses McCormick. If you haven’t heard of Moses, I suggest checking out his youtube channel.

I recently purchased his FLR courses for Japanese. Not because I was interested in the courses themselves, I was already familiar with his method and the content I would likely see inside the courses, but because if I bought both courses I get twelve 30 minute study sessions with Moses himself. Who would pass up on an opportunity to speak with their hero?

I also feel that speaking with him will give me even more motivation to improve. Taking advice from Lauren, Ben “the Irish Polygot”’s girlfriend, I think having someone hold me responsible will help a lot! Over the past 3 years I’ve managed to have enough self-motivation to stick with it and I’ve improved a lot since I first started! I feel like I’m missing that last little push to really step up on my studies. Making what I learn more relevant by giving it a real meaning behind learning.

Although I feel my pronunciation itself is pretty good, I still get tongue tied over certain combinations of sounds, especially when they are said in quick succession! Therefore I am also following advice from another polygot, Idahosa. I’ve picked out a few Japanese songs with somewhat fast lyrics and will be slowing them down in Audicity and practicing them. I will then upload my (terrible) singing to Soundcloud and have natives from Shared Talk (and my Japanese teacher) review them and critique my pronunciation so I can improve.

For grammar I will be using Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese and for vocabulary building I will be using Memrise. I have been using these for nearly the entire duration of my Japanese studies. Tae Kim’s guide is easily the best grammar guide for Japanese ever written and without Memrise my vocabulary would not be anywhere near as large as it is now. Sure, I have trouble recalling those words “on the battlefield” so to speak, but hopefully that will improve as I use the words more in conversation and in this blog.

The backstory is all here — the path is set. Now it’s time to begin my journey!