[Guide to learning japanaese]

6 hours ago, OriginalRen said:

I always find it intriguing that people post guides on how to learn a language. I understand that it is very useful, but as a teacher who has viewed hundreds of lectures on teaching pedagogy and methods, I always find user guides to be very focused on one style of learning. In this specific example, I'm referring to Japanese. While I understand that self-study is a great tool for some learners, a lot of the guides I have read don't seem to take into account the other styles (visual, aural, kinesthetic). These are great guides for adult learners who care about self-study, but I want to see more variety. Not only that, but all of the guides I read are for how to actually read the language. When it comes to actual language learning, the 4 core skills are extremely important and can really help in assisting in other parts when learning a new language.

I also find it interesting that Japanese learners really try to learn how to speak English, while Japanese learners who enjoy otaku related material only care to read it. It's a completely different style.

TLDR: Language is awesome, and being a teacher for the past 4 years has really made me appreciate the different styles of learning, not only based on background and culture, but also personality. I hope more people post guides on how to learn Japanese without, for example, Tae Kim and intense grammar study and memorization. I don't believe visual novels, manga, and anime should be the only tools people use to learn a language.

Most of the tools and advice in the guide will also work for reading things in that aren't those, there's also a part with methods that will help out will learning through listening (aural) as well.

I feel that once you've learnt to read well, simply practicing actually talking/chatting to people will let you get down the other 2 core skills (the tricky part is to find people to do this with )

If you're looking for materials to directly start speaking with, there's actually a lot of books that will teach you useful set phrases.

I'm kind of curious to how you could apply kinesthetic learning to learning a language, any examples?

6 hours ago, sanahtlig said:

This guide looks familiar.  Where have I seen this before?

you've probably seen it on the /vn subreddit before.

[Guide to learning japanaese]

Learning Japanese is something that might seem like a daunting task that will take forever, which probably scares off a lot of people.

However, it can actually be quite a fun experience depending on how you decide to tackle it, as it's possible learn it through reading visual novels and other media.

It's also quite likely that you will be able to get good enough at Japanese to finish a VN you've been hyped to play before it finishes, or even starts getting a translation, and once done, you'll still have plenty of other VNs  to read, that you might never be able to otherwise. 

For those interested in trying, I hope the guide here will help you with starting out and having a nice time.

 

(note: while it might tempting to do so after you've gotten some proficiency with reading, I'd advise against learning through translating, as it will be much slower than simply just reading more instead, as you'll now have to concentrate on both your japanese and english and the result will probably not be very good yet (translation is difficult).)