Probably, many modern people are now worried about the question of how to learn Japanese on their own. The reason for this need, in principle, is explained quite simply. Who will refuse to be the first to know about new products in the world of the most advanced technologies? That's right, a few. But they are most often produced in the Land of the Rising Sun, which means that instructions and operating manuals are primarily published not in Russian or English, but in the local system of the most complex hieroglyphs.
Why do so many people want to learn Japanese on their own? Wouldn't it be easier to sign up for some courses or find a professional tutor? At first glance, of course, it’s easier, but this is only if you are lucky to live or study in a large city, for example, in Moscow, Kyiv, St. Petersburg or Minsk. But in more modest settlements, it is almost impossible to find such a specialist. Either he doesn’t exist at all, or he asks for cosmic sums of money for his services.
This article will tell you in detail how to quickly learn Japanese on your own. The reader will receive step-by-step instructions that will surely come to the rescue in the implementation of this difficult, but quite feasible dream.
Can I learn Japanese on my own?
Konishua, or Japanese, is a rather interesting and very unusual dialect that you should definitely learn if only to be able to read Japanese manga books without translation or communicate with Japanese friends who are carriers of a unique culture.
Many people are interested in the question of how to learn Japanese on your own at home or is it even possible? The answer will be unambiguously positive. However, those who decide to succeed will have to show considerable perseverance in this difficult, albeit very exciting task.
Let's not hide it, learning Japanese may not go as smoothly as we would like. Why? The thing is that it has nothing to do with the Western languages of the world. The rules and alphabet of this dialect are complex, but the basic phrases, pronunciation and grammar are easy enough to remember even for a beginner, so mastering them will not be a huge task.
For those interested in learning Japanese on their own, experts recommend starting with useful and common phrases, and then gradually move on to more difficult tasks, such as learning the alphabet and Japanese sounds.
Local alphabet
In this dialectthere is not one alphabet, but as many as four, and each of them has its own graphemes. This fact may already scare away those who wondered how to learn Japanese on their own.
Indeed, studying it is not an easy task. As a consolation, we can note that in any Japanese alphabet there are basic sounds, of which there are only 46. By the way, each alphabet has its own scope, so you probably won’t have to confuse them.
- Hiragana is used purely for writing. In syllabic writing, each character of this alphabet represents a whole syllable, including both vowels and consonants.
- Katakana is also a syllabary, but it is used exclusively for recording onomatopoeic and foreign words.
- Kanji, the third alphabet, is made up of characters that Japanese borrowed from China.
By the way, hiragana and katakana are phonetic letters for sounds. Kanzdi is considered an ideographic way of writing, and each character has its own meaning. It contains several thousand characters, of which only two thousand are widely used. In addition, it should be noted that the sounds of katakana and hiragana are widely used in kanji.
The role of the Latin language in the development of Japanese
The fourth Japanese alphabet is Latin, which in Japan is called "Romaji". This fact cannot but surprise those who wondered how to learn Japanese on their own from scratch. It seemedWell, well, what relation can the Latin alphabet familiar to us have to the complex hieroglyphs of the Land of the Rising Sun?
However, in the modern eastern state, it is widely used to record acronyms, the names of various brands, trademarks, companies, and so on.
Note that people who have started learning Japanese in order to quickly get used to the pronunciation of local characters often use romaji, although the locals in Japan itself do not do this. Why? The thing is that, among other things, the Japanese language consists of many characters that are difficult to pronounce and cannot be written in Latin, so it's best to immediately go to the study of hieroglyphs. This approach is considered more literate from a linguistic point of view.
How to learn Japanese on your own. Practicing correct pronunciation
As we noted above, there are 46 basic sounds in Japanese, which are represented by either one of the five vowels or a combination of a vowel and a consonant. The only exception is a single sound, which consists only of a consonant.
From a phonetic point of view, before learning Japanese on your own, you should pay attention to the fact that vowels here are not inflexible and are not pronounced differently.
You can start pronunciation of sounds by reading and studying the characters of katakana and hiragana. However, first you need to focus on the intonations of the pronunciation of various sounds.
By the way,Note that in Japanese, the meaning of a word can completely change if the stress is incorrectly placed. And the same word with only a long vowel often has a completely different meaning than with a short vowel.
Learn the simplest variations of Japanese sounds
Sometimes when writing to Japanese characters, small icons are added that indicate a different pronunciation of this sound and completely change the meaning of the word.
It is worth noting that there are some rules for pronouncing Japanese sounds: voiced consonants must be pronounced in intervocalic position with a hard attack, and long vowels, which are pronounced with a long drawl, indicate the difference in words.
Grammar: difficult but possible
Many people are wondering how to learn Japanese quickly without learning grammar. We answer: no way! The thing is, whether we like it or not, we still have to pay attention to the basic rules, because only knowing the very structure of this or that adverb will help to learn how to correctly compose sentences.
You don't want to talk like a robot, uttering separate, out-of-context phrases, do you? In general, the Japanese language is very flexible and simple, despite all its complexities, and it will not be difficult even for a beginner to put together whole sentences from words.
By the way, not everyone knows that a Japanese sentence may well not have a subject, because itnot at all necessary. But at the very end of the sentence there should always be a verb that acts as a predicate.
Nouns have no gender, and for most of them there is no plural category. As a consequence, Japanese verbs also have no gender or number.
An important feature is the fact that a word in a sentence should always be followed by particles that refer to this lexical unit and indicate an object, subject, etc.
Personal pronouns, unlike the Russian language, are used only when politeness or a certain formality requires it.
Mentor or language school. Advantages and disadvantages
How to learn Japanese from scratch? Where, in fact, to start? According to experts, first of all, you need to find recordings of Japanese audio lessons. There are actually a huge number of them, so each student will be able to pick up something to their own taste.
After the basics of the Japanese language are learned, you can move on to more difficult exercises. If the need to learn Japanese arose only for the sake of pleasure, learning the language can be limited to studying a specialized CD. It will provide an opportunity to learn the most common sounds, phrases.
The second way to learn Japanese is to enroll in courses at a language school or online lessons. It is suitable for those people who are going to live or work in Japan, because it will provide a unique opportunity to learnread and write. Under the guidance of a mentor, mastering even such a complex language will be faster and more correct.
The most important aspect in learning any language is the knowledge of the alphabet, so you should learn it as quickly as possible. Katakana and hiragana, if desired, can be mastered without problems in a couple of weeks. This is quite enough for writing, with their help you can write down almost everything.
Kanji characters can be studied for several years, but those who strive to learn the language perfectly will definitely not regret the time spent. Didactic cards will help you better master words and phrases. To study kanji, there are special cards that indicate the order of writing the hieroglyph and examples of compound words.
How to immerse yourself in a language environment at home
In order to recreate a small Japanese world at home, you need to find a group of like-minded people who are also studying the Japanese language. Participation in certain communities will help you get used to speech, after a certain time you will be able to distinguish individual Japanese words in a conversation without much difficulty, and this will generally improve your understanding of the Japanese language.
You also need to make friends from Japan with whom you can regularly study the language, call up and talk at least half an hour a day only in Japanese.
Professional linguists recommend daily reading Japanese newspapers, magazines, novels, watching movies and TV shows. In public sources of this material, as a rule, there is plenty. Newspapers will improve grammar, construction and actual words, while novels will introduce art style.
Tips for beginners
Any language, if not constantly practiced, is forgotten very quickly, so study should be given at least half an hour every day. It is a difficult language, so even the Japanese themselves, living outside of Japan for some time, begin to forget kanji.
By the way, you should also not, having arrived in Japan, pester others with conversations in an informal setting, since a poorly speaking foreigner may not be answered there. Such are the features of the local culture.
It is best to learn to speak from real people, because words from anime and manga are definitely not useful in everyday life.
When learning a language, it would be nice to observe how the Japanese behave in a given situation and of the same age category and gender as the person studying. It is necessary to learn to take into account the context and local color.
Dealing with the question of how to quickly learn Japanese on your own, you also do not need to place high hopes on gadgets and electronic dictionaries, since it makes no sense to buy them for a person who does not know at least 300-500 characters.
