What can I do to learn Japanese?
Japanese is an isolated language spoken by 121 million people in the Japanese archipelago. Small Japanese communities can be found in American Samoa, Hawaii, North and South America, Europe, and Australia. Japanese genetic ancestry is being questioned. Because Japanese cannot be easily proven to be a member of any language family, most scholars regard it as a language isolate. The only languages to which Japanese is related are those spoken on the Ryukyu Islands, which are located south-southwest of Japan, but the linguistic affiliation of the Ryukyuan languages is also unknown. According to some sources, the Japanese–Ryukyuan language family consists of Japanese and the Ryukyuan languages (Ethnologue, Vance 2001). It has been proposed that Japanese and Koreans are genetically related, but this has not been proven.
Here's a list of a few things you can try to learn Japanese
Bear in mind your Physical factors, and approach language learning to support you:
Physical factors range from anything with respect to you being well and available, to age and strength. They could also reflect your surroundings or point to your support system.
Command all Mental factors:
The strength of your mind, conviction and decision plays a key role in shaping up your ability to pursue language learning. Another important factor that affects your language learning with certainty would be your broad-mindedness, your awareness or your ability to approach language learning with an open mind, in order to receive and accept new cultures and experiences. Retrain your mind to start accepting new things and focus on the important aspects.
Manage Emotional and Social factors:
If you have responsibilities that keep glaring at you, from your workplace or your home, you wouldn’t be able to keep up with your learning pace or study diligently. Therefore, you would need to maintain a fine balance with support from your family members which would prove really worthy at this point.
Ignore all myths about the age
While studies have shown that as younger students we tend to acquire the correct accent and language skills in their best format. And older students find that it’s more difficult to fully acquire a foreign language, but this isn’t true of everyone. So while this should not hold you back, I suggest you be prepared to put in double the effort to learn a language.
Develop your Personality to learn like a pro
More introverted students have been shown to take longer to acquire a language because they’re more hesitant to make mistakes. Extroverted students, on the other hand, are more likely to go all out and try out their newly learned vocabulary. To learn Japanese, you need to understand that mistakes are part of the learning process and it’s more important to speak than to be perfect.
Search for convenient and calm surroundings that offer you peace of mind and comfort to learn.
Whether it be your country of residence or your home do ensure that you have the convenience and peace of mind to be able to continue your studies. While as a child you are more likely to receive family support for studies, as an adult you would need significant support from your family members to be able to concentrate on your learning, for a few reasons. The first and the foremost of the reasons is that you have been out of touch with studies and so, you would need to invest significant time and concentration to be able to get back to the rhythm of studying.
Have a favourable Environmental factor by your side:
If you are located in a country, which supports the learning of your target language, you would have lot of resources available, lot of options with respect to classes to enroll in and lot of online support to seek help from; however if you are in a country that does not support your target language you would have to face numerous challenges while learning the language, that would eventually delay your learning process.
Be creative and involved when learning a language.
Japanese is definitely not an easy language for English speakers to learn, but a little guidance definitely would do wonders. Here are my top tips to learn Japanese, so you can master this beautiful language in no time. Label items in your home with their respective names. Such as la table written on a sticky note stuck on the table!
Activate Your Passive Memory
Using passive memory can help you sail past bothersome spelling, tripping over wrong usage. If you happen to be a visual learner reading a captivating article or a book in Japanese could help you reinforce your language concepts. All you need to do is avoid focussing too much on understanding everything and pick a book for your level. By simply translating the most repeated words you will soon be able to integrate them into your vocabulary, with the context to back you up!
Focus more on intonation and accent
The same can be said about auditory learners for watching J Dramas, JPOP, TV series, films or YouTube videos in Japanese. Not only will it help auditory learners to get the grammar right, but they will also pick up on the right intonation and accent. Once again, it’s advisable to watch suitable videos for your level, with English subtitles to begin with until you are comfortable with Japanese.
Master your grammar rules:
Keep practising your grammar, and the knowledge will take you places. Travel to Japan may not always be the available option; however, one can always practice the newly learnt food vocabulary in a local Japanese restaurant or bakery, order food and give your compliments to the chef in Japanese
Finally,
Japanese studies have revealed that it contains both Altaic and Austronesian elements: the phonological system is more similar to that of Austronesian languages (Alpatov 1998), but the archaic lexicon appears to have more Altaic elements (ibid.). This led to the hypothesis that Japanese (or, more precisely, the ancestor of Japanese) arose from the blending of two languages: Japan’s substratum language, which was possibly Austronesian, and the language of relatively recent newcomers, which was possibly Altaic (Shibatani 1992, Vance 2001). According to this theory, Japanese is an ancient creole language.
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