Japanese in 18 Months? No way!!!
Posted: Sun Sep 06, 2009 2:00 pm
Yes its true, if you really wanted to challenge yourself, you yourself can learn Japanese in 18 months. Now everyone, DO NOT GIVE ME CREDIT FOR THIS, because this isnt even my work, all credit goes to the guy who made this site, a Multilingual African(Or so he says) who can now speak English(Swahili seems to be native for him), Cantonese(Mandarin failed due to him not following his own course), and the All famous Japanese Language. Now enough with the intros, lets go on to the Method itself.
Do you like Anime?
Do you like Manga
Do you like Light Novels?(IF YOU DONT LIKE LIGHT NOVELS WHY ARE YOU HERE? )
Well If you literally did just that, watching anime, reading manga and Light novels for 18 months without stopping, the creator theorizes that you could become a NATIVE level speaker.(Thats better than LVL 1 JLPT) But there are some rules as well, even though his method is more about you having fun than actually, deliberately learning. His main rule, and the name of the method....
All Japanese All the Time or AJAT for short.
Your life is now a Japanese child's life, you have given up your English lifestyle for a Japanese one. If your friends laugh and make fun of you, then go get new Japanese friends, . Music: Japanese, theres enough bands to replace the english in your life. Movies: Japanese(DUBBED NOT SUBBED!) TV: Japanese(There are japanese TV programs on the internet.). Your FLOOR MUST BLEED JAPANESE!(Note you need 10k hours of japanese listening, non-consecutively due to real life happenings that are unforseeable)
2nd Rule: F.U.N. If it isnt fun then it isnt good for you. If you have even the slightest feeling of boredom in your show or music, THEN SWITCH.
3rd Rule: Never stop, Never ever stop. This language will kick your but if you take too long off.
Those are what I believe are his main rules. And that's what i follow also.
As we move on, delving deeper into his method you're probably thinking,"What about those 2046 general Kanji I still gotta learn?!" Well, you are going to tackle that first. With a book(or file he has on his site) to help you memorize all the general kanji you will pass by them like a breeze. That book is called Remembering the Kanji Vol. 1. That book has all the kanji you need to memorize, and in a way that makes it easy also. There are 3 volumes by the author: James Heisig but you only need 1. If you wanted to you can also get Vol. 3 but its not required. To memorize all this in a way that wont waste your time, but maximize your memorization, you must get an SRS. SRS is spaced Repetition system, in which the computer spaces out review times so it can train your long range memory, and help you memorize the monstrosity of kanji in a small amount of time.
Now you are probably thinking, "What about Katakana and Hiragana?" Well, those come next. With another Heisig book, Remembering the Kana. Just like the kanji, you lather rinse and repeat.
After you learn both you still have the monstrous end goal of this method. 10,000 Sentences. Also, you must understand sentences, NOT TRANSLATE. Once you have put all those into the SRS(10k sentences?! Big deck eh?)you can understand how the sentences work and you will have both learned grammar(the most annoying part) plus words that you can now mix and match in japanese sentences.
At the end of all this craziness, I can positively say you are now a Native level speaker.
For more info go here: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about
Do you like Anime?
Do you like Manga
Do you like Light Novels?(IF YOU DONT LIKE LIGHT NOVELS WHY ARE YOU HERE? )
Well If you literally did just that, watching anime, reading manga and Light novels for 18 months without stopping, the creator theorizes that you could become a NATIVE level speaker.(Thats better than LVL 1 JLPT) But there are some rules as well, even though his method is more about you having fun than actually, deliberately learning. His main rule, and the name of the method....
All Japanese All the Time or AJAT for short.
Your life is now a Japanese child's life, you have given up your English lifestyle for a Japanese one. If your friends laugh and make fun of you, then go get new Japanese friends, . Music: Japanese, theres enough bands to replace the english in your life. Movies: Japanese(DUBBED NOT SUBBED!) TV: Japanese(There are japanese TV programs on the internet.). Your FLOOR MUST BLEED JAPANESE!(Note you need 10k hours of japanese listening, non-consecutively due to real life happenings that are unforseeable)
2nd Rule: F.U.N. If it isnt fun then it isnt good for you. If you have even the slightest feeling of boredom in your show or music, THEN SWITCH.
3rd Rule: Never stop, Never ever stop. This language will kick your but if you take too long off.
Those are what I believe are his main rules. And that's what i follow also.
As we move on, delving deeper into his method you're probably thinking,"What about those 2046 general Kanji I still gotta learn?!" Well, you are going to tackle that first. With a book(or file he has on his site) to help you memorize all the general kanji you will pass by them like a breeze. That book is called Remembering the Kanji Vol. 1. That book has all the kanji you need to memorize, and in a way that makes it easy also. There are 3 volumes by the author: James Heisig but you only need 1. If you wanted to you can also get Vol. 3 but its not required. To memorize all this in a way that wont waste your time, but maximize your memorization, you must get an SRS. SRS is spaced Repetition system, in which the computer spaces out review times so it can train your long range memory, and help you memorize the monstrosity of kanji in a small amount of time.
Now you are probably thinking, "What about Katakana and Hiragana?" Well, those come next. With another Heisig book, Remembering the Kana. Just like the kanji, you lather rinse and repeat.
After you learn both you still have the monstrous end goal of this method. 10,000 Sentences. Also, you must understand sentences, NOT TRANSLATE. Once you have put all those into the SRS(10k sentences?! Big deck eh?)you can understand how the sentences work and you will have both learned grammar(the most annoying part) plus words that you can now mix and match in japanese sentences.
At the end of all this craziness, I can positively say you are now a Native level speaker.
For more info go here: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/about