How To Learn How To Learn Japanese (Or Any Other Language)

I forgot the 'b' in oblivious..... I'm not proficient in English don't trust me

***MY LINKS***

[gordonbgraham]

It took me 15 years to become fluent in Japanese...and I live in Japan. I slogged through textbooks and writing down notebooks full of kanji only to be able to recite my hobby and what I did last weekend after a year. Then someone suggested that I watch the same movie over and over at least 100 times...It's the same way you acquire your native tongue...repetition of the same phrases over and over, day after day. I tried it. It worked. Not only could I fully understand the movie "My Neighbour Totoro" I could pick up what people were saying in my daily life. "Totoro" is a fantasy, but it is full of daily life situations and their vocabulary. I highly recommend this method to anyone. Cheers!

[CuteAnimeGirl]

I learned immersion was best from my mom. She literally came to the US knowing no English at all. She completely immersed herself in English and bought a Bible in English with a dictionary and forced herself to read it so she could understand better when we went to church. She only spoke English and the town we lived in had no Spanish speakers. Plus she married an English speaker. 10 years later she is basically fluent and she never took classes for English. 20+ years later and her accent is mostly gone. It can be done. You don't need traditional classes to learn a language as an adult.

[JapaneseImmersionTube]

writing this so one day I’ll find it years later and either be in deep regret at my level in Japanese or have a complete nostalgia wave

[RaviSingh-yqsc]

I think this is the best and most relevant video you have made.

[angelosunn]

Yoo I just realized how much Matt hates JapanesePod101 and tbh, after switching to AJATT/MIA I can totally agree. Especially after realizing that I (more or less accidentally) acquired English the exact same way through hours and hours of immersion. I never used any textbooks etc and it worked wonders.

[essennagerry]

Oh gosh! I used to give some good advice, _I think_ for learning English but I found myself kind of forgetting what the process really felt like. Now English is starting to feel more as a native language to me in terms of my cluelessness about it. I have to think a bit on how the heck did I acquire all this vocabulary and then memories hit me and I go like "ohh I remember now... oh wow that's actually fascinating" lmao

[guns]

Matt, hi! Gustavo from Brazil here. Not gonna lie, these day have been tough for me (I think for most people in the world) but although this video is super old as u said u just opened my mind. There are a lot of things on the internet and I everything this days is about to subscripts and fees and whatever shit is out there, you wind up wasting a lot money and most importantly your TIME doing these things that will NEVER work. And I know they'll never work because I've seen some examples that made the begin to think some people claim to be what they're not and I got really sad because of that, DEPRESSED! your video just put the stamp down for me.

I really like to learn Japanese as well but right now I'm in a battle against the English language barrier and I'm gonna be honest with you I've been jumping from method to method and I still make a lot of mistakes when I open my mouth it seems I have to keep think every time and put a lot of effort like struggling not to stutter it's like your mind is begging for mercy or something...

I was beginning to feel really tired but recently I heard about Stephen Krashen and his work and also this website you mentioned on your video Antimoon. I guess I'm gonna have to trust them or maybe give up of my dreams

[nicholasmeinhart]

My mom pretty much did this with English. She moved to Canada, went to those introductory classes and used textbooks for a couple months to get some overview of the grammar, then just started to hang out with English speakers, consume English media and work in English. She was already able to speak at what was likely a high level a few years later, and by the time I was born (8 years after she moved), she was likely totally fluent. Nowadays her accent is minimized, she knows tones of colloquialism and expressions and can follow pretty much anything.

She was able to get a job in her country as a "native English speaker" because they thought she was Canadian, a friend of mine who's the same ethnicity as her thought she was a Canadian too.

[default]

Matt's earlier videos are more savage. I love it.

[Akira-olip]

I’m trying to learn Japanese so I can speak to my grandparents, their English isn’t great and they’re getting old. I want to be able to converse with them before they get too old haha!

[vrstep]

I learned English, by reading some mangas in English over and over again. And now I'm fluent in English. Gonna do the same trick with japanese

[kingchideau]

Excellent choice of BGM throughout. . . and excellent taste in anime if the desktop at 3:29 is to be believed.

[thepolymathuniverse]

JapanesePod101's transcripts are FULL of typos. The day I heard a native speaker of English say *INTERPRETATOR* on their show was the day I knew I couldn't rely on them or their resources, let alone expect them to help me truly learn Japanese.

Thank you, Matt-san.

[stubbie]

I come back to this video every few months... It always helps keeping me going.

[ailblentyn]

The K-ON background music convinced me.

[DrMario-]

I see that Kara No Kyoukai folder up there at 3:20. Truly a man of culture. I wish we could one day get a full, proper English translation, but I've already started learning Japanese, so I'll meet in the middle I guess.

[tarikcavalcanti]

Its cool to see someone smart like you, who understands the value of understanding "trust" and"science". I highly appreciate pll like you. Thanks for soreading this knlwledge through the world.

[FuzzyRiy]

Thanks for sharing, I originally got learning from AJATT but been trying to find other helping stuff to build up a good arsenal. I've only recently just tried stepping into "all out" mode with converting everything into Japanese and trying to get my hand on as many Japanese things as possible

[maximus]

I am a small child from the Netherlands
And i learned english in the exact same way i learned dutch

I listend, and i think that you should do so aswell

I learned dutch by listening to the people around me
I learn english by watching youtube videos

You dont need to be told the word order in a langauge to learn what it is

All you need is to listen and remember
When the word or sentence you heard comes back it will provide more context

Learn like you dont intend you
You can trust that it works by thinking of how you learned your first language

[TehPieLuver]

Starting the video roasting Japanese pod 101 right out the gate