How I Learned to Let Go of My Fear and Speak Japanese
Tips and tricks for the ambitious language learner
I remember when I was first starting to learn Japanese, I had this one friend who was so good at speaking, even though we had been studying for about the same amount of time.
He was pretty extroverted and loved to start conversations in any language. He had a clear advantage when it came to speaking, and I was always struggling to keep up.
But I learned to get over my hesitations, and I may not be the best speaker, but I’m as comfortable speaking in Japanese as I am speaking in general.
I got more used to listening then understanding
Learning a language is an uphill battle and it will take years to become ‘good.’ But you’re not the one making up the language. In fact, most of what we say isn’t really original, linguistic structures, canned phrases, greetings, et cetera — those are all said numerous times in different ways and learning a language requires understanding the different circumstances and sentiment connected to those words.
Without first seeing the context in which words are used, learning them is a bit more difficult and using them just becomes risky.
One of the most difficult phrases for me to learn was 一応 (ichiou). If you look at the kanji, it can be directly translated as one application, but there are so many different situations where it’s used.
一応聞いてみた。(ichiou kiite mita) I asked just in case.
一応あのレストランがいいと思います。(ichiou ano resutoran ga ii to omoimasu) I think that restaurant might be okay.
一応デートどうだった？(ichiou de-to dou datta?) So anyway, how was your date?
In a lot of situations, it’s used just as a sentence softener, it adds a sort of casual element and leaves open other possibilities for the listener. In my experience though, it’s one of those phrases that can only be used once you learn it in the right situations.
I accepted that my Japanese isn’t perfect and that it takes time to learn a language
Learning any new language is hard, and even if your target language is something more closely related to your native language you have to deal with a lot of nuance and false cognates.
As language learners, we have to be able to refrain from thinking with the rules of our native tongues and accept that what we are learning is essentially a new way of looking at and describing the world, its people, places, things, actions, and situations.
The way we learn to think about and go about our lives is different from people to people, from culture to culture.
Often times what we are saying might be grammatically correct and might accurately convey our thoughts but might feel culturally wrong.
There’s a show that’s pretty famous among people who are into Japanese television and reality shows called Terrace House (and normal people too, I guess).
One of the reasons why it’s so well-liked as a study tool is that after each segment featuring the housemates there is a group of commenters that discuss the subtleties of the housemates’ behavior.
It shows more plainly how Japanese people get into and resolve conflicts, and in what way they show their emotions. Having a greater understanding of not only language, but culture is crucial to adapting to a new language.
I went out drinking
Okay, this doesn’t mean actually go out drinking, although if you’re of legal age and have a safe environment to drink it does surprisingly help quite a bit to have a few drinks and speak Japanese.
I was admittedly a bit shocked at how integral to Japanese culture drinking was, but it’s one of the main ways I learned to make friends.
What I mean is: have fun with the language.
It’s important to be able to cut back and let loose all of your built-up language skills, and get used to speaking in situations where you might not necessarily think about your response.
It’s important to become so preoccupied with a task that you forget that you’re using Japanese.
I thought in Japanese
From the very first month, I started studying, one of the resources I used was a book called “I’m Learning Japanese!: A Language Adventure for Young People” by Christian Galan.
One of the earliest exercises the book has you do is to get used to particles. You switch the order that you structure your sentence and add particles.
For example, you might want to say “I eat cake” but you might not know exactly those words. In this exercise, you’ll use “Iは(wa)cakeを(wo)eat.” Later you might learn that 食べる(taberu) means “to eat” so you’ll try to switch the sentence to “Iは(ha)cakeを(wo)食べる.”
This sort of plugin as you go exercise really helped to give me more confidence and just get my brain used to the structure and scenery of the Japanese language, even when my vocabulary wasn’t that big.
I learned how to start using my newly acquired vocabulary rather than trying to fit it in later. It’s an exercise that you can do at any point, playing games, washing the dishes, and gets easier as you do it.
If you can think in Japanese, then you’ll have an easier time when you start moving towards speaking.
Read and watch Japanese Media
What got you really interested in Japanese in the first place? Did you want to finally be able to make your time reading the latest chapter of One Piece a little bit more productive like me? Try finally taking a stab at it? While you might have gotten a good amount slower, it’s awesome to finally get all the puns.
Did you want to finally be able to turn off the subtitles? Or read Haruki Murakami? Maybe you’re like me and you’re into ancient Japanese culture and want more insight.
Maybe you’re into more ecchi stuff — that’s not a big deal for me.
Whatever motivates you to study, use it to keep yourself interested. Find the subreddits and the online tools to keep you studying!
If your goal is to learn a language, it’s important that it doesn’t feel like an alien completely distant from you.
Once you become more comfortable then you can make the transition from learning a language to using a language.
Try to find more interesting things to watch, things like Terrace House or your favorites dramas and anime can become very useful study tools provided your willing to turn off the English subtitles and turn on some Japanese ones. Going through a news story in Japanese once a day can lead to you becoming the first of your friends to know about the latest games coming out in Japan.
Following your favorite Japanese content creators on Twitter and Instagram can lead to you becoming able to ask them direct questions and understanding their answers.
The goal when learning a language isn’t to memorize a bunch of words and grammar points, it’s to actually become able to use that language.
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