To continue in the vein from yesterday’s post this series of articles is about how I am learning Japanese and about the Japanese culture in general. In general each of these posts will explore the specific methods that I am employing as well as my thoughts and experiences in learning Japanese. In time it is my hope that these posts will prove to be a good record of my efforts and show support for the end results.
In my last post I focused primarily on my thoughts and analysis between traditional methods of study and self-study for learning a new language. I also indicated that the results of my analysis was to proceed with self-study and specifically to employ the method directed by Khatzu at “All Japanese All the Time.” Khatzu discusses immersion into the language and culture of the language to be learned and I started to go over this at the end of the last post, but primarily I kept to the fun aspect.
This post focuses more on the immersion that Khatzu talks about and what it has really meant to my life. I’ll get to the more specific methods that I am employing in future posts so please bear with me as these early ones are primarily my own thoughts and feelings before I even got started.
As stated yesterday Khatzu advocates immersion of yourself into the target language. By this he literally means exposing yourself to the language, and the culture as much as possible. 24 hours a day every day throughout the year should be devoted to learning the new language and culture. Seriously, if you want to learn the language, and to know all that you can know in the shortest most efficient time this is what you need to do. But that really isn’t feasible for all of us is it?
No, total immersion in this manner is not something that many of us can seriously employ in our lives. Unless we are one of the lucky ones that have the chance to go overseas right in the moment that we decide we want to learn a new language or experience a new culture, we have to adjust to our current circumstances and take the steps that are available for us to learn the new language we have chosen.
In my life moving to Japan tomorrow is not a possibility; although, I will admit that if the financial resources were available I’d be on a plane as early as possible in order to setup a new home over there. (I still have not yet decided where I’d most like to live and likely will need to visit Japan sometime in the near future to help me decide on that, but hopefully I can make that kind of trip soon). But it is possible that I can incorporate at least some part of the Japanese culture into my life. I may not be following his advice completely, but even Khatzu admits that it simply isn’t possible to completely be immersed in the culture at all times since we all need to live and work as necessary to support and enjoy our existence in this world.
Since it is not a real possibility to either move to Japan or be exposed solely to Japanese things all day long every day I have done the best I can to incorporate certain things into my life every day. Primarily this involves listening to Japanese music (I recently purchased several albums and even as I type this I am listening to a mix of L’Arc-en-Ciel, Mucc and Gackt), listening to anime and reading Manga. Eventually I will also subscribe to the Japanese channel which is a station out of Tokyo that is broadcast in North America which Comcast does offer. I will also be buying various magazines, novels and even movies as time goes by. And of course all of these are the un-translated versions.
Why would I spend time looking/listening to the Japanese versions of items when I can’t understand Japanese yet? Why spend valuable time doing something that seems to be a complete waste of that time? That is a question I started to ask myself when this all began since really in none of my previous language courses was this suggested as a way to learn the language.
The answer can be found in young children. Kids learn language fairly easily and all they have to do is to listen. First they listen to their parents, and then to other adults that they are exposed to. They listen to TV and music and everything else that they are experienced to over the first years of their life and as time passes they learn individual words and gain an understanding of the language they hear.
If a child can listen to a language and learn it why cant everyone else? I can and that is the point. By listening to the music, watching the shows and reading the magazines, manga and books I expose my mind to the language and will eventually gain an understanding of the language.
Each moment I expose my mind to the language opens a little piece of my brain to the possibilities of that language and eventually I will hear patterns in the language and in combination with the rest of my studies and the methods that I employ those patterns will gain meaning. As the child learns language by listening to its parent’s speech so too will I learn language by listening to music, movies and tv and reading manga, magazines and novels.
This will help to make the other methods I employ more efficient and effective in helping me to acquire fluency. If the sparks are there already thanks to the materials I have looked at then the links may be somewhat easier to form.
Does this really work? I cant say that it will. All I can say is that in the past heavy listening and reading in the target language was not suggested and I never gained a great understanding of either Spanish or German. And right now I remember so little of those languages that it feels as though I wasted my time in trying to learn them at all.
To gain true fluency in Japanese I will use every method I have at my disposal. And since Khatzu and others have indicated that exposing oneself to the language proves to be an asset then I will make use of every media I can find to help me and I will expose as much of my life to Japanese as possible.
If it does pan out that spending time listening and reading even without understanding helps me to achieve fluency in a quicker and more effective manner than at the end of this process I will definitely be an advocate of exposing as much of your life to the target language as possible.
For now, I will remain quiet and watch what happens as I progress down this path.
So just as a quick recap in order to learn the language you need to keep things fun. Do whatever it takes to make learning the new language a pleasurable experience. We also need to expose our lives to the target language and culture and immerse ourselves as deeply as we can into the target so that it permeates our minds and helps to form the connections that we need in order to make the entire process more effective and efficient.
Tomorrow, I will start on the specific methods that I am employing.
Until then my friends, be well.
~Dae
