One of the strangest situations that you face when you start a Japanese conversation is greeting someone with one word to then be showered with the praise of jouzu (you’re so skilled)! Surprise, confusion, and frustration are common feelings. In the past, I provided various clever ways to respond (here, here and here) in order to calm your inner rant before it starts. However, I … Continue reading →
You speak Japanese. You have a child. Wouldn’t it be great if your child spoke Japanese too? With all the amazing life benefits that come to a bilingual child, it’s less of a “should I” and more of a “how do I?” And you don’t need to be a native, or married to a native in order to do it. You just need to find … Continue reading →
When you are learning Japanese, the number one source you should be able to trust is a native Japanese speaker. Not a textbook. Not a fluent foreigner. But a native. It’s their language, after all. They’ve used it their whole life. If they don’t know what’s right and wrong, who does? This thought causes a lot of problems for Japanese learners. Natives become the go … Continue reading →
For the past 2 years on Jalup, my talk of shadowing has continued to grow. Due to my own personal experience of making it a major daily habit, I saw its raw power. Now I tell everyone to start shadowing. I’ve recognized the personal limits you’ll need to find and set. But I haven’t mentioned the biggest problem: how do you shadow when you can’t shadow? You’ve … Continue reading →
Talk of “Pitch Accent” has been growing these days. There wasn’t much discussion about it up until a few years ago, but now you can’t escape hearing about it and why you need to study it. New courses like the Waseda Japanese Pronunciation Course EdX continue to pop up, and the ridiculous popularity of Dogen’s Pitch Accent & Pronunciation course clearly show that people are interested. Should … Continue reading →
Shadowing is the best. It’s the ultimate combination of listening, speaking, and pronunciation practice. It took me a long time before I ever started doing it because it always seemed like something troublesome and boring. Once I started it (way too many years after I should have), I was hooked. I saw ridiculous progress despite my already fluent level. Then I decided to turn it … Continue reading →
Learn the language. Go to the country. Mingle with the people. You’ve probably heard something like “if you really want to connect with the people of a country, you need to learn the language, and show them you actually respect and care about their culture.” So you study your ass off to get to a significant level. You then face a strange phenomenon. People liked … Continue reading →
You are deep in a conversation with a Japanese person. You are told something you don’t understand. Enter language-panic-mode. Why didn’t you understand it? Did you not know the word? Was it too fast? Were you not able to process it? Was his speaking style different than what you were used to? While trying to figure out what went wrong, and how you can fix … Continue reading →
