Let us begin with my background to find out why I decided to learn Japanese in the first place.
During the 80s and 90s, due to the bubble economy in Japan, Australian schools started providing Japanese language classes. We were taught greetings, very basic vocabulary, some hiragana, as well as information about Japan and Japanese culture. I remember we would watch an episode of a Japanese language programme which featured a character called Chibi and two ninja teachers. I loved seeing all the footage of Japan, from Mt. Fuji to the shinkansen. I remember my teacher explaining how Tokyo was due for a massive earthquake. From that moment on, I told myself that no matter how much I wanted to visit Japan, I would never travel there just in case the earthquake occurred while I was there. Fortunately, I was very lucky the two times I travelled to Japan.
After my time at primary school, and several years of very scratchy Japanese language and culture classes, I moved on to high school. We were given a choice to learn either Japanese, Italian and French. As my mother had some knowledge of French, I decided that was the best language to learn. It was only compulsory to learn a foreign language in our first year of high school, so I stopped learning French. It was only in the last two years of high school that I discovered a strong passion for languages and applied to learn French via a correspondence course.
After my final high school exam, I joined my friends for a drink and they suggested we spend the night watching anime. I had only ever seen Pokemon on television, and I doubt I even knew that Pokemon was anime. I also hated animation. That night we watched Laputa and I remember wishing the film would end. We drank on, passed out and the next morning, someone suggested we watch Spirited Away. The film started and I fell in love with it, and I remember thinking quietly to myself how it might be pretty cool to know some Japanese. Two of my high school friends who had studied Japanese for the Higher School Certificate were there, so I asked them if it was a hard language to learn. They said it was really difficult, but when I enrolled at university, I nevertheless decided to start studying Japanese seriously. I had no idea what a ride I was in for!
During my first year, I thought Japanese was an easy language. It all seemed so logical and well structured. Even after learning the first 20 kanji, I thought I’d be fluent in a year or two. Gradually I realised that in actual fact, it required rewiring ones brain completely in order to form a coherent sentence. I focused on kanji knowledge and neglected reading, speaking and listening practice. I was really good at remembering how to write kanji, and it was my strongest point. Sadly, however, I was falling behind in other areas and became so overwhelmed by the language by my third year that I chose not to continue learning Japanese at university.
I remember seeing my fellow students speaking Japanese so well in class. They were good at speeches and colloquial Japanese, while I was stuck struggling with formal Japanese. Thinking back, they were all into anime much more than I was, and had therefore learned a lot from watching it. It was very upsetting and frustrating for me, especially after having such a drive to learn the language in the beginning.
After a one year break from learning Japanese, I got back into it and decided to try and focus on my weak points. I made lists of verbs and grammar points, tried to watch more Japanese anime and dramas, and did my best to practice speaking Japanese. Once again, I felt as though it was an impossible task. I could barely say anything and when I did form a sentence, I was pretty sure it was wrong, even after spending a good few minutes trying to form it. Then there was the impossible task of learning the transitive/intransitive pairs. Not to mention the 250 kanji that I could no longer write.
Three years ago, I discovered Lang-8 and decided to try even harder than before to push my Japanese to a level that I would be happy with. I wrote myself a learning contract and agreed with myself to study hard and then sit for the Japanese Language Proficiency Test N3 when I felt I was ready. In those three years I studied hard, wrote a lot of articles on Lang-8 in Japanese, travelled to Japan on the JET Programme, and sat the JLPT N3 exam. As I have mentioned in my previous post, I passed and am incredibly proud.
So, to conclude, even though I have made progress, I am still disappointed at my level of Japanese. There have been so many obstacles along the way, and after having studied it for nine years, I am quite frustrated that I can only speak a little Japanese with confidence. I am constantly hesitating and trying to select appropriate vocabulary when I speak to people and instead of feeling inspired after having a conversation in Japanese with someone, I am left feeling quite saddened. I pushed myself a lot while I was in Japan, and I definitely made a lot of progress from having to speak and listen to Japanese every day. I am currently pondering whether I should write up a second learning contract and study as hard as I can for the JLPT N2 exam before I give up on Japanese completely. After this long journey, I would rather not lose everything I have learned.
In case you’re wondering, here is a list of the aspects of Japanese that I have found most difficult.
Vocabulary
I find it hard to determine which word is which when it comes to words that are alike. For example, words like kaishou kaijou shoukai etc.
Word Stress / Tone
This is a topic barely touched on in textbooks. While I was trying to speak to people in Japan, I was often given a perplexed look because a word I had said had a different stress / tone than the one I had used. (For example, hashi can mean bridge or chopsticks depending on which syllable is stressed. Of course, the context would be quite obvious for the word hashi, but I came across several other words which weren’t so clear.)
Transitive / Intransitive Pairs: This is something one needs to learn by rote. After eight years, I still have doubts that I use the right verb.
This has been my learning experience with Japanese. Many others I know have much more success and aspects that I find difficult are aspects that they find easy to grasp. If I had any advice for those having difficulty learning Japanese, I would focus on:
1) learning vocabulary
2) recognising kanji over knowing how to write it by hand
3) speaking with people in Japanese as much as possible
4) writing in Japanese (on Lang-8)
5) learning grammar formulae
