How to Speak Japanese Naturally

[landesnorm]

Phrases learned early in your linguistic journey are so powerful even if they may be awkward or incorrect. My significant other, born in Toyohashi, learned early the phrase, "Blows up." Consequently when she heard the phrase "that blows my mind, " and she tried to mimic it, her version would be "that blows up my mind." I would just smile and say, "Really?"

[sunkuu]

I used to be really confused about whether 話せますか or 喋りますか was the more natural. I asked a Japanese lady that worked at a restaurant I often went to and she discussed it with the other Japanese worker. I was pretty surprised when she said that both were natural and sounded fine! Lmao

[origineo]

I really love the new approach to teaching languages using real conversational / situational sentences (I used to teach ESL here in Brazil), but I can also understand why some language course books have tons of unnatural sentences. They need to teach the standard structures first!

Well, almost all beginners are not into word order and nuances each language has. IMO, sometimes - but just sometimes - it's nice to have some grammatically correct sentences that sounds like a book, so the students may understand the standard word order / structures of the language, especially in FORMAL conTEXT. The more used to the language patterns the student gets, the better (and faster) they understand the informal structures and slangs, with cultural details added altogether.
That's probably one of the way some teachers and language course producers think on "how to learn a second language".

What I'd love to see in every course book though is a disclaimer that warns students that most sentences used in the beginner levels / lessons are not exactly spoken in real life and they're only used to help understand the formal structures.
It'd be also interesting to have some review lessons with same beginner content, but with colloquial situations exercises. It's like relearning stuff using (close to) real life examples without making students get confused at first glance, which is good for everybody, especially intermediate - advanced learners.

[mortadasaleh]

I watch a Japanese variety show called Nogizaka Under Construction (乃木坂工事中). The official YouTube channel uploads new episode every Sunday, and I copy lot of what they say. Unfortunately they don't have English subtitles, but there are websites that do.

[copo_dagua]

This is why I like Tae Kim's Guide, he always warns when an example sentence isn't very natural and includes a "reality check" section explaining casual forms for that piece of grammar

[thrillhouse]

Ahh it’s like if I said “What path should I take to find the room of bathing may I ask?” Instead of “excuse me, where’s the bathroom?”

[barrysteven]

I have a lot of experience both teaching and learning languages and I believe the message of this video is really important. Use textbooks for learners to get a grounding in the structures and to gain a basic vocabulary but move onto 'authentic' materials as soon as you can i.e. materials by and for native speakers. Any texts and dialogues written down in books will contain a lot of sentences that are just frankly weird because often the people writing them are trying to come up with something to practise a specific grammar point or item(s) of vocabulary. Writing dialogues that sound natural is something that even professional script writers often fail to do well.

[chillbro]

Yes! I learned from textbook, and one day i complained to my penpal that i was tired of ending so many sentences with "-desu, -desu, -desu" but i never learned how to avoid this. It was frustrating, so i'm all about natural Japanese.

[tommyfletcher]

My Japanese girlfriend often does the "translate directly from your language" thing. We were at Disneyland and she was saying "trash box" instead of "trash can". I understood her, of course, but it definitely didn't sound natural.

[tensaichigo]

You're channel is excellent! I'm learning a lot in preparation for my visit to Japan at the end of the year. I don't want to go and just be silent for two months 😅 I want to try and communicate with people whilst I'm there. I can't lie, I'm kind of anxious about it. But, I'm going to try my best. Your videos have been helping me a lot! 😁

[katkaat]

I think that learning textbook Japanese is still important for rules and such, but if the book could go a step further and teach coloquial speech as well, it'd be a lot better.

[WWEdeadman]

I've been using Duolingo for learning the basics for quite a while now, and I gotta say the amount of times I've felt like "Why the hell are they teaching that like this, nobody ever uses that sentence" is honestly way too high. The fact that I'm using English as the language the lessons are based on, even though English itself is only a second language to me, cause there was no German Japanese course on the app, doesn't really make that less confusing xD

But at least I'd never make the mistake with using plain form for asking wether somebody speaks a language. German also uses potential form for that after all.

[xaemyl]

This is a great video not only for learning Japanese, but other languages as well (the how to sound natural part). That concept makes for better learning!

[Bowie_E]

Got this notification in the middle of my Duolingo lesson and I feel very attacked 😂 ❤

[blunderingfool]

On the mention of "Can vs Do". There's an age old grammatical dad joke to play on people, who if they ever ask you to do something with can (Which is usually but not always grammatically incorrect) you reply "I don't know, is that even possible?" or some other such snarky remark. For example:
"Can you turn on the lights?"
"I don't know. CAN I turn on the lights? It's pretty far away."

or

"Can I have that cup?"
"I don't know, can you? Are you sure you can hold it?"

The grammatically correct request for the former is "Would you turn on the lights?" as you're requesting an action be performed, the latter is "May I have that cup?." As you are requesting permission to possess something that someone else already has or is considered to own.

[pymgore]

The Twitter & Google method is such a good idea - thank you for sharing! :)

[nanakadog]

0:38

0:59 「朝ご飯」を略して「食べてません」でもいいですね。




1. Do you speak English?→英語喋れますか？
2. Do you usually speak English?→普段英語を話しますか？
3. Are you going to speak English?→英語で話すつもりですか？

[sakuta-kun]

Great video and straight to the point! And you're also handsome Yuta. Wish you more views in the future

[matsudaaa]

I see your point, but to be fair, the "can you ride a bycicle" phrase in Minna no Nihongo is said in the context of explaining that exact grammar, not the potential form of the verb. And probably the others are the same. That said, when you explain the second (or more) way to say something, is when textbooks or teachers should clarify which is better used or "more native". But that doesn't take away the useful part of learning all of them.

[iandrsaurri]

Can you make a video of unnatural English phrases you had to unlearn? I'm a native English speaker and am having a hard time what people mean by "unnatural language" and I think I would benefit from hearing examples of unnatural English you were repeating from textbooks.