Why You Can’t Learn Japanese From a Textbook
Textbooks and classes won’t make you fluent in Japanese. Here’s what will.
We’ve all seen it ourselves: students who’ve taken Japanese, Spanish, or other foreign language classes for years, and still can’t even hold the most basic of conversations. Indeed, many of us have been there ourselves. Maybe this is where you are right now. So many people, even those who are genuinely motivated and make an effort to learn, fail to acquire any significant language ability via traditional schooling methods and materials. Why is this?
Scope and Experience
Languages are vast. And, I mean really vast. Languages must be large enough, and complex enough, to encompass and communicate all of human experience. And thus, they require immersion to truly learn. The narrow confines of a textbook, and the tiny amount of time spent practicing the language in class is simply insufficient to make any significant dent in the monumental task of re-experiencing, and re-learning to communicate every facet of life in a new language.
If this sounds intimidating, don’t despair, because the solution is actually simple, and even quite fun: go do everything that you enjoy doing, but instead of doing it all in English, do it all in Japanese. Make friends who only…
