You may need to learn the Japanese language because you are traveling to Japan and want to become familiar with popular Japanese words and phrases. Or you might have taken a class to learn Japanese years before and are now looking for a refresher course. Perhaps you have a great interest in learning to speak Japanese simply because you love the Japanese language.

Whatever the reasons you desire to learn to speak Japanese, you will want to be sure to keep the following advice in mind.

There are many aspects of the Japanese language that you might be considering learning. If you are interested in learning essential Japanese words and phrases to get through a few conversations with those who speak Japanese fluently, then beginning with the basics is the best place to start.

Learn popular words and phrases such as “hello”, “how are you?” and “thank you” first. Then practice using them in your daily conversations with those who speak Japanese. If you do not know anyone who speaks Japanese, keep practicing and speaking your words and phrases daily anyway – practice makes perfect.

If you want to learn Japanese so that you can better understand Japanese etiquette and culture, it is probably best to immerse yourself in conversational Japanese language studies. learning japanese this way can be beneficial because you will understand the body language, intonation and communication styles of those who speak Japanese fluently.

Listen to conversational audio, observe fluent speakers interacting with each other, and even try to watch and comprehend Japanese news or other real-life Japanese shows on TV. When listening to others speak Japanese, you still want to try to pick up on basic Japanese words and phrases. However, in learning conversational Japanese, it would be to your advantage to focus on situational phrases and even Japanese slang or expressions as well.

Understanding and using these types of colloquialisms is what helps you to become fluent in the Japanese language. Instead of focusing on basic phrases like “hello” and “good morning”, you will want to focus on how to begin interactions by asking questions like “what is your name?” or “what do you do for a living?”. Japanese etiquette plays a role in conversation, so take notice of the phrases and intonations that younger people use when speaking to their elders or that employees use to speak to their superiors.

It can be very difficult learning a new language. You want to try your best to stay motivated. When learning the Japanese language, you are not only learning to speak new words, you are also learning to read and interpret a different type of writing. Languages such as French and Spanish contain the same letters as the English language, but used in slightly different ways. The Japanese language will be a totally new way of reading and writing for you.

Do not be afraid of making mistakes with reading, writing or speaking Japanese, instead try to learn from your mistakes. Record yourself while you practice speaking Japanese so that you are aware of your mistakes in pronunciation and intonation. Being able to identify your weaknesses as you learn Japanese is the best way to improve.

Blank
http://www.articlesbase.com/education-articles/some-advice-when-learning-to-speak-japanese-59670.html

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Japanese is anything but an easy language to learn, regardless of one’s mother tongue. Still, it is one of the most popular foreign language choices in America and Europe, for two main reasons: the economical importance of Japan and the numerous businesses contracted between Japan and these areas and the fascination for Japanese culture that mainly formed up through modern Western media. Regardless of which reason you want to learn it for, the Japanese language cannot be learnt easily unless you know how it works.

Japanese is spoken by over 130 million people all over the world, obviously most of them being in Japan’s mainland. The Japanese language’s grammar is usually very complex to foreigners because it uses a specific speaker-listener status vocabulary that is unlike anything English or other western languages can offer. Another showstopper when learning japanese is its writing style, which uses a combination of three alphabets: Chinese characters (also known as Kanji) and two syllabic scripts known as Katakana and Hiragana. In addition, modern Japan uses the Latin alphabet for more and more purposes, which makes it slightly easier for English speakers to grasp this new language than say, a hundred years ago.

Many Japanese learning courses and books start off slowly, in a gradually increasing order of steps. Although this is the correct way to go with any language learning process, it takes a lot of time and you might simply not have that available time to invest in it. For this reason, there are a series of accelerated learning techniques that skip through some of the basics and try to accumulate these fundamentals over more advanced chapters, naturally. Take note that although this is definitely a faster way to learn Japanese, there’s a good chance that someone that takes the “stepwise”, slower technique will almost always speak and write better and more correctly.

One of the most common Japanese language accelerated learning techniques is to plunge you head first into some easier texts, as soon as you know the basic alphabet, then provide a translation in English (or your mother tongue) of the same text. This obviously skips a lot of steps such as basic grammatical structure, pronunciation of words, punctuation and so forth. However, this accelerated learning technique has the advantage of building up your vocabulary quickly. Doing several of these translated reading exercises per day, you will soon get some of the grammar and spelling foundations that you’ve skipped in the first place, up and running.

The next step in most Japanese language accelerated learning techniques is to play a tape followed by a translated text. After you’ve built on your Japanese reading and understanding skills, the audio technique is the logical step forward. This will correct any pronunciation problems and will also have a positive effect on your vocabulary gain. There are several sources offering Japanese language accelerated learning techniques, including books and courses. You can find some very useful sources online, on sites dealing with Japanese language learning, Japanese language translations and tests.

Michael Gabrikow
http://www.articlesbase.com/education-articles/japanese-language-accelerated-learning-techniques-70805.html

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The answer to this question is “Yes”, Japanese is one of the most difficult languages to learn and to master. Regardless of what you’ve heard, regardless of what you’ve read and regardless of how many “Learn Japanese in 10 days” book titles you’ve seen at the library, the Japanese language is extremely hard to handle for most of the Western world using Anglo-Saxon or Latin lexicons. The Japanese alphabet (which is a combination of 4 different alphabets and scripts), the Japanese grammar, high pitched Japanese pronunciation of words and the distinct speaker – listener status that is specific to the Japanese language are all factors that can guarantee you’ll have a harder time learning this language than say, German, French, Spanish or any other language that at least shares some common attributes with English.

But then again, if you’ve set off to learn Japanese, you’re either very ambitious, or you’re forced to learn it because you’re moving to Japan, visiting Japan, your business needs to handle contracts with Japanese firms or any other similar reason, so you can’t let the detail of the language being “hard” to stop you. After all, you’re part of a select group of foreigners learning japanese. Why I’m calling you “select” is that studies show that only around 2.5 million people learn Japanese in institutions (1.5 million being South Korean and Chinese, with only 300,000 Australians, 150,000 Americans and 200,000 Europeans) and another million studying it on their own. Although we’re talking about millions of people, the numbers are still low compared to other languages such as English, French, Spanish or German, which are being studied by hundreds of millions at a time.

Depending on your language learning skills, on the quality of your teachers, courses, books and the amount of time you spend on learning Japanese, it could take you between 2 and 4 years to say that you’ve mastered it. Visiting Japan or staying there for a longer period of times obviously helps a lot and makes your task easier, as is with most languages. Also, if you’re studying Japanese for a business purpose, you’ll have to handle specific terms which most general Japanese courses don’t cover. For these, you either need specialized courses or you need to fill in the gaps by reading on the subject.

Whenever you think you’re ready, you can try taking the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) or JETRO (Japanese External Trade Organization), offered by the Japanese government. These tests are paid and they are quite hard for even an intermediate Japanese student, so they’re not worth wasting your time unless you’re 100% confident on your Japanese language skills. If compared, you can say that the JLPT is similar to any other high level language certificate such as the English CAE (Cambridge Advanced English) and TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language), the French DALF (Diplome Approfondi de Langue Francaise) and DL (Diplome de Langue) or the German GDS (Groses Deutsches Sprachdiplom).

Michael Gabrikow
http://www.articlesbase.com/education-articles/is-learning-japanese-really-that-difficult-68630.html