How Did You Become Fluent In Japanese?

Go! Go! Nihon (Live and Study in Japan): gogo.study/TakashiiFromJapan Go! Go! Nihon Japanese Crash Course: japaneseonline.gogonihon.com/courses/online-japane… Akamonkai 12-week Japanese Beginner Course: japaneseonline.gogonihon.com/courses/akamonkai-jap… Akamonkai 12-week Japanese Pre-Intermediate Course: japaneseonline.gogonihon.com/courses/akamonkai-jap… Akamonkai Beginner & Pre-Intermediate Bundle: japaneseonline.gogonihon.com/bundles/akamonkai-beg…

The moment you realize Takashii doesn't magically find these people randomly hanging out in the street, but he actually schedules the interviews and records them outdoors 😂

The "you're never going to be ready" is totally accurate. You can spend years getting ready to start.

the first guy, Nick, really gets it, I can tell when someone is linguistically intelligent and he is, he understands the learning process of a language hence the level he has achieved.

Great interviews, especially the first guy who said 5-8 years to become fluent. I think the people who make the "fluent in three months" videos might not realize how much they're hurting people who reach the three month mark and give up because they're nowhere near fluent. I'd rather hear the hard truth, that's it's going to take a lot of time and effort, than have someone lie to me and tell me it's easy.

That first guy really nailed it. You learn the foundation and then you practice. I learned grammar, conjugation (both polite and casual), and enough words and kanji to read up to N4 in about 8 months. It'll easily take many many years of practice to become fluent.

“Is there anything you did that you didn’t need to do” is such an amazing question and maybe the best one of this entire video. Takashi-San is so good a interviewing and asking interesting and poignant questions.

I haven't even begun to start learning yet, but I'll say that the real breaking point that makes Japanese, or really any language seem more approachable and less intimidating is when you can hear a conversation and it doesn't sound like random noises anymore. It sounds like an actual language. Maybe you don't know what most of the words mean, but you can identify them as words.

As a teacher I'm so glad more and more people are starting to realize that learning from textbooks isn't the way to go. You simply need tons of input, repetition and opportunities to use the language and make as much mistakes as you can, that's the most fun part of it :D

I came to live in Tokyo with ZERO knowledge of the language! That being said, I was lucky that the company provided me with a language tutor. Also my roommates were all very supportive in teaching me the language too. I was also joining the local community activities to further my language ability and to make a network. Oh, daily reading of Japanese newspapers and magazines and watching local news also highly suggested !

7:16 The most crucial bit of knowledge from this video for sure. You can't stay in the comfort zone of textbooks and flashcards forever. The more you start to interact with native material, the more you'll start to enjoy learning along with making much faster progress.

I'm from Serbia and I started learning English by watching youtube. I only knew a few keywords like colors, numbers, and some others that I learned through playing Minecraft. It took me about 2 years of listening to understand about 70-80% of the content I was watching but to learn how to speak the language you need to talk with others. In my case, I switched to playing multiplayer games with voice chat and now I'm almost fluent (I'm lacking in vocabulary and often get in situations where I can't describe something because I can't remember the correct word)

Feels really weird seeing Matt IN Japan for some reason but he looks pretty happy compared to probably any video he’s posted on YouTube. It seems like he goes out more

I always find it fascinating how speaking a different language changes so much more about a person then just the spoken word, mannerisms, attitude and the way they think about stuff, there's even studies that show that your brain functions differently depending on the language you choose speak. Amazing.

I love your videos! It's so nice to hear many different people's perspectives on one topic. I'm renting a room in Seattle, Washington, from a lovely older Japanese woman and completely agree that having a friend to help critique your progress is very helpful. COVID cancelled my previous plans to visit Japan, but I hope to arrange a trip within the next six months. For a casual tourist I would also suggest using Google translate's camera feature to help with realtime written text translation, especially with signs, instructions, menus, or product packaging. I use it often in grocery stores here in the USA. Apps can't replace thousands of hours of studying, but can help you navigate as a tourist, or pick a tasty snack. 😋 I would definitely recommend visiting a country as a tourist, even with limited language skills, before investing years of studies, and not having your first visit be your relocation.

The Japanese subtitles really work well for me. As someone who's an absolute beginner, I first watch Tokyo Revengers, and Japanese dramas with English subs first, and then I rewatch it with Japanese subs. Little by little, I learned to be familiar with more phrases and sentences. It's not an easy process, but as long as you are willing and disciplined, you can learn anything. A very amazing video, Takashi san! 素晴らしい！！！👏👏👏

These longer type of interviews were great Takashi. Would love to see more of these in the future.

The first guy is REALLY smart and knows what he talks about!! As someone that learned English I can attest to what he says that what you learn in school or a course is just a foundation and after that you have to immerse yourself within the language by reading or listening in it DAILY. Luckily for me it was easy as I loved watching TV, browse the internet etc. so comprehension of English came easily. But now I'm trying to learn Italian for over a year and I keep struggling but that's because I'm not watching and reading in Italian....as he said the first year or so is THE HARDEST and is the reason why people give up.

the first two guys perfectly summed up my experience learning english. but somehow i haven’t been able to replicate it for japanese. it’s also worth noting that i’ve been hesitant to immerse myself in japanese by fear of losing my english.

This video is the most significant video I’ve ever encountered when it comes to learning Japanese. It is crazy how listening to the first two guys for just few seconds did it for me!