Learn That Language Now

Kanji is a seemingly impossible barrier for beginners of Japanese (or Chinese) to overcome. Since I’ve studied Japanese, I will look at kanji but what I write here is applicable to Chinese characters (hanzhi), as well. While many Japanese beginners lament the fact that there are over 2,000 kanji to learn to be able to read a newspaper, I will show you why kanji isn’t nearly as bad as you think and I’ll point out a few tips to help you in your kanji studies.

If you’re still in your beginning phases of learning Japanese, you’ve probably looked over a real Japanese newspaper or peeked inside a real Japanese book to see if you could understand anything with your Japanese 101 knowledge. What you found probably horrified you. Thousands upon thousands of characters that looked alien to you and most of which you had probably never seen nor knew existed before! “How could I possibly learn all of these?” you ask yourself, “English has 26 characters, why does Japanese have to be so difficult and use over 2,000 characters within three writing systems? I’ll never be able to learn all of these!”

I’ve seen a lot of Japanese beginners get so downtrodden at the prospect of learning so many characters that they seemingly give up trying to learn how to read and write properly. Truthfully, it does not have to be this way!

There are a few things to keep in mind when first starting to learn characters. For one, as a beginner, you are not used to seeing any of the characters and your brain hasn’t had enough input to begin to subconsciously make sense of them. You’ll find that as you learn more and more characters, your brain will be able to learn new kanji quicker than before. This is because the kanji are made up of many different radicals and when you build up your repertoire of kanji, it makes it easy for your brain to relate new kanji to the kanji you already know. There is already a “hook” for the new kanji to be attached to.

For this reason, although even the easiest of kanji may seem impossibly difficult to remember now, in the future, you’ll be learning new difficult kanji effortlessly since your brain will easily be able to connect the different parts of the kanji to kanji you already know.

Secondly, don’t worry so much about being able to write every kanji. In today’s world, it is much more important to be able to read the kanji than to be able to write the kanji. Most of your Japanese professors will probably stress that you be able to write all of the kanji that you learn. The truth is, this is somewhat of a waste of time. The reason is because today, everybody uses computers to type. For this reason, you only need to be able to recognize the correct character once you input the pronunciation into the computer in order to write proper Japanese.

Additionally, if there is ever a time where you do not have a computer at hand or you are forced to write something without the help of a computer, you can always use your cell phone to look up the right character and see what it looks like. In fact, many native Japanese speakers in Japan do this very trick because even they cannot remember how to write all of the kanji.

Thirdly, the 1,945 joyo kanji may seem like a huge amount but let’s break it down. There are 365 days in a year. That means if you study just 5 kanji everyday, you will reach 1825 kanji by the end of the year and that number basically covers the 98% most common kanji. That means by studying 5 kanji per day, you can become fluent in the joyo kanji by the end of the year. 5 kanji a day doesn’t seem too bad at all, does it?

Furthermore, if you’ve studied Japanese for two years, that means you could have been studying 2 or 3 new kanji everyday for these past two years and could have been fluent in kanji by now. 2 or 3 new kanji everyday seems like nothing, doesn’t it? The point is, instead of being overwhelmed at the number of new kanji, just break it down to manageable pieces and then stick to a habit of studying a couple of them everyday. If you stay with the habit you will find that you will have mastered those “impossible” kanji faster than you thought possible.

If you enjoyed this article and want to learn more tips, tricks, techniques and a method that will insure you will become fluent then I recommend checking out my new book Learn That Language Now. Thanks!

This article is a continuation of “How to Become Fluent Through a Boyfriend or Girlfriend (Part 1 of 2). In the second part, we’re going to talk about some of the pitfalls and tactics to avoid them.

Pitfalls
Now that we’ve agreed that having a girlfriend who speaks the language you are trying to learn helps, let’s look at some of the problems.

Perhaps the only pitfall to this situation is if you run into a girl who is desperately trying to learn English or who speaks English better than you can speak her language. If this happens, she may want to speak English with you at least 50% of the time you are with her. There are some tactics for trying to get around this problem which I’ll talk about in just a bit. I know some of you are going to stop right there and say “What? Tactics!? This sounds underhanded” but please, it’s not as bad as it sounds.

In any case, you’ll notice that “desperately trying to learn English” and “speaks English better than you can speak her language” will apply to a lot of girls who are in your native country. To have the best chances of finding a girl who can only speak the language you are learning or who doesn’t care about English, I recommend going to the country of the language you are learning and finding a girlfriend there if you’re willing to invest that sort of time, energy and effort.

Another problem with meeting someone in your own country is that the context in which you are introduced will most likely be English. This is bad since it starts off your relationship as an English-based one. Of course, it is possible to change this but if you have mutual friends that introduced you, then every time you meet with those mutual friends, you will be forced to speak English to each other, further enforcing English as the language of use within the relationship.

Tactics
How can you change the language of the relationship to the one you want or deal with a significant other who is persistent in trying to learn English? The answer is quite simple, really.

All you have to do is continually speak or respond to your significant other in the language you are studying, even if he or she speaks to you in English. This situation is most likely to occur at the beginning of your relationship since the language of conduct will most likely be cemented as you get to know each other more.

You don’t need to say anything about the fact that you are going to respond or speak to her in the language you want since the important thing is to just do it. Just stay calm and act as if speaking to her in that language is the most natural option. If you’re in the country where that language is spoken, then it is the most natural option and you really shouldn’t be speaking English, anyway.

Let’s say you are in a foreign country and you ask a girl out. If you meet a girl for a date and she greets you in English, you will probably want to respond in the language you are studying. If she then switches to the language you are studying, your mission is accomplished and you can now enjoy both a date and some “study” time.

Some girls will greet you in English because they may be unsure of how much you know of their language and they are just trying to be polite. By speaking in her language, you show her that you are okay with speaking in that language for the rest of the time.

If, however, she responds back again in English, you will want to continue responding in the language you are studying. It will probably seem awkward to you but just continue. It will seem awkward for her, too, and for this reason she will eventually switch to the language you want.

The point is, you need to be persistent or else you will get stuck in the trap of her speaking to you in English every time you meet. Not that there’s anything wrong with that but it’s worth it to see if she’s willing to speak to you in her language and thus give you the extra bonus of some language study.

If you try this tactic and she still continues to respond to you in English without remarking on the fact that it seems odd that you are both speaking in different languages then you may be out of luck. You may also want to reconsider the reason she’s seeing you. Is she seeing you because she’s interested in you or does she just want a free language lesson? Especially if you’re in a foreign country, you will want to watch out for girls who are interested solely in foreigners for their ability to teach them English for free.

Having a significant other who speaks the language you are studying can help you a lot but you shouldn’t let that language time go to waste. You need a method to insure that you will remember every word he or she uses without fear of ever forgetting. You’ll want an overall strategy so that this input from your significant other will help your language studies even more than you thought! And, hey, even if you don’t have a significant other yet, don’t worry about it, I will still show you the fastest, easiest, most efficient way to learn a foreign language. Begin your empowered studies now by reading about Learn That Language Now.

Recently, someone was asking whether or not having a significant other who speaks the language you are trying to study will help you in your studies. I think most people, even those who have never studied a language before, would say “of course!” So, the purpose here is not to convince you that a foreign lover will help you on your path to fluency but rather, to show you how he or she can help and also the problems that might occur with such a situation.

In my personal experience, yes, having a girlfriend who speaks the language you are studying helps a lot. “Why?” you might ask.

The reason for this is that you are able to slip in a lot more studying time without it feeling that way. Because this person is your significant other, you’re probably going to want to spend a good deal of time with him or her and you will probably end up speaking to him or her quite a bit.

Just to make things easy, let’s say you speak an average of one hour per day with your significant other. Over a week, that’s seven extra hours of practicing the language. And, of course, over a year that’s 365 hours. If you have read my ebook, you already know that 365 hours is a good chunk of time towards reaching your goal (and if you haven’t already read my ebook, go take a look now!)

Not only does having a Japanese girlfriend or a Swedish boyfriend (for examples) help you speak the language more naturally, but the chances that you will run across a word you don’t know and then have it taught to you by your significant other are also higher.

Additionally, just by hearing that amount of language everyday, you will have a ton of repetition and you will grow accustomed to the language and its patterns. Because this is your significant other speaking to you, you’ll probably be interested in what he or she is saying and you’ll be more likely to go out of your way to figure out new vocabulary or grammar patterns that he or she is using.

Person A and Person B
To show you the difference again, let’s look at Person A who has no foreign girlfriend and person B who does. I’m going to do this from a male’s perspective since it’s annoying to write “he or she” and “boyfriend or girlfriend” in every sentence but obviously, this situation can be turned around just as easily to come from a female’s perspective. This example will show you how the “study” patterns differ between having a foreign lover or not and will also show the types of activities that will aid you in your “studies”. Let’s start with Person A.

Person A studies an average of half an hour per day. Sometimes he’ll study 2 hours in one day but some days, he won’t study at all. His studies mostly include trying to read newspaper articles online or trying to complete grammar exercises in his grammar textbook. He often gets distracted by incoming e-mail or by surfing the internet during his studies.

Person B, on the other hand, goes out to dinner with his girlfriend regularly as well as to other fun activities. Of course, all of this is conducted in the language Person B is trying to learn. Person B’s girlfriend introduces him to several movies and books in the language that he enjoys very much. Person B’s girlfriend introduces him to her friends who also speak the language he is studying. Person B often speaks to his girlfriend over the phone or online because he’s interested in her and speaking to her doesn’t feel like a chore. Occasionally, Person B’s girlfriend will use a word or grammar point he doesn’t understand. Because Person B wants to know the meaning, he immediately looks it up in an online dictionary and remembers it well because his girlfriend used it.

As you can see, the amount of time that Person B spends with his girlfriend (and thus receiving/producing his studied language) will be much higher than someone simply studying. Also, Person B’s “studies” are much more fun than Person A’s studies and one could argue that the language Person B is learning is more natural than the language Person A finds in his textbook.

You’ve probably noticed that you tend to remember things that you are interested in better than things that you are not interested in. I don’t know about you but talking to my girlfriend is fun so I’m better able to remember the context and usage of words than if I had learned them in some dry, written textbook context.

We’ll talk about the pitfalls, tactics and other problems of a “sleeping dictionary” tomorrow, so stay tuned.

This is the first post in a blog where I hope to share as much information as I can possibly can on the topic of language learning. I intend to write posts for language learners of all kinds. From those who have never learned a foreign language to those who have already studied quite a few.

This blog, of course, is connected to my ebook Learn That Language Now where I have already written about the easiest, fastest, most efficient and most enjoyable method to learn a foreign language. This ebook already contains tips, tricks, techniques and more to get you to fluency faster than you ever thought possible. If you haven’t already bought the ebook, what are you waiting for?!

In this blog, I intend to show the new material I’ve written and also talk about topics that may have been too specialized to include in my ebook so if you  haven’t already bought my ebook, go take a look at it and then come back and enjoy the free material here. Feel free to leave me comments and any questions that you may have!