Watching anime has always been a magnificent escape for me. I loved being able to dive into these awesome fantasy worlds . It all started with Inuyasha. I was 14 and going through a bit of a tough time and the show really helped me cope. After that it just took off. I watched all the popular shows from Naruto, Bleach, Ranma ½ to the more uncommon like Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, and Scrapped Princess. After about a year, I noticed myself picking up some Japanese, mostly small words like “kuso” and “nani” but I was definitely getting it. I found myself wanting to dive deeper into my fantasy worlds; I wanted to understand what my favorite characters were saying without the help of subtitles. So I decided to learn Japanese.
I started like most people, with a few websites and America’s “favorite” language program, Rosetta Stone. However, the websites couldn’t teach me to pronounce the words, let alone capture my attention. And Rosetta stone only frustrated me to no end, trying to figure out what words the pictures were referring to.
From there I jumped to Pimsluers and a little known 1980’s TV show called “Let’s Learn Japanese”. Pimsleur’s gave me the pronunciation I needed and “Let’s Learn Japanese” was actually interesting enough to capture my attention. So armed with my 4 resources I pushed on.
However for some reason, as I learned all this Japanese my actual comprehension of unsubtitled anime only slightly increased, even after I finished Pimsluers, Lets Learn JP, half of Rosetta stone and a number of websites.
I wondered why, but I soon knew the answer. I’d heard it before from all my online studies, that Japanese was a very different language. So different in the fact that it actually has two different versions: a formal and an informal (or casual language). Nearly all of the programs and learning methods teach strictly formal, because casual is understood to be rude if spoken to a non friend or family member.
Well the issue is that most anime almost always uses casual speech! Not only that but the programs I was using taught me words like, book, pen and economics major (?). Words almost never used in anime.
So from there I decided to take matters a bit more into my own hands. I had the basics of the language so I began to teach myself Japanese. I used actual words and sentences from the shows I was watching, developed a way to use the English subtitles as a teaching method, and researched casual Japanese.
After that a miracle happened, learning the hard and difficult Japanese language became fun! I started to do it whenever I had free time, staying up late and waking up early before school just to study Japanese. And my comprehension immediately quadrupled! I loved to learn Japanese from my favorite anime characters.
Within one year I had nearly completely mastered anime Japanese. Raw anime became a reality.
I can’t tell you how much more of an experience watching anime in its original language is. You learn so much more about the characters from just the way they speak. Japanese actually has over 6 ways to say the word “You” each one revealing the unique personality of the character that used it.
I don’t want to drag on but it’s for all these reasons and more that I want to share what I’ve learned! That in fact you can learn Japanese and it’s actually very easy and fun once you get the right method.
Enough about me though, what's your story? I'd love to hear about it, leave me a comment below!
That’s all for this video, and I’ll see you next time!
Enough about me though, what's your story? I'd love to hear about it, leave me a comment below!
Video Transcript
This video is gonna be a little different from my normal ones because as I was going through the survey results and I noticed a lot of people asked about how I learned japanese, or how I learned it so fast ect. And at first I didn’t want to do a vid like that since I don’t really want to put the spotlight on me or anything like that, but now I feel that maybe by hearing my story and where a was it might reflect a little bit on where some of you are now.
So sorry for you guys who just want to see me dress up like a hideous girl with pigtails.
Ok so it all started with a crazy passion for anime. I first saw dbz on toonami all those years ago, back when I was like 12 and loved it like most boys my age. But it wasn’t until I saw this show called inuysha on adult swim, cartoon network again. and I was like hey, I wonder if I watch this show online instead of waiting a whole day for a new episode. Now im not promoting pirating or anything like that, but in my defense I was a really bad kid. And well most of the things I did back then should never be repeated. Hah
But I found it online however it was in this crazy language with English subtitles. I didn’t quite know what I was going back then and it was a little weird at first but I just decided to watch it. And I got hooked! Watching in Japanese was soo much more awesome than the english. I really felt like I could just escape into this anime fantasy And god once I did it was like a whole new world opened up to me. I finished the show and moved on the hundreds of other titles, which all just pulled me into the stories just as much.
And to be honest it was what I needed at the time.
My parents were divorced since I was a kid and my dad my it kind of a habit to every year or so move in with a new girlfriend, most times in a new city, so you know the old girlfriend wouldn’t find him. So once he did I had to change schools, and at that time I had probably been to about 7 different schools, not kidding. Which as you might guess made me kind of socially awkward, didn’t have a lot of friends really. And also being super poor, my family couldn’t afford to buy me like normal clothes like most of the other kids, so it was kinda common for me to get teased because my pants were too high, high waters cause I grew to fast. And not being a stellar student in fact one year I got straights F’s and one D, that was an accomplishment, not easy to do mind you. And so incidentally my sort of hated me, so the home life kinda sucked too.
It got so bad I actually developed anxiety disorder, called social phobia. Yeah it exists. Which basically means your scared to go outside and stuff. But right around that time, I found anime and wow, it was like a present from Jesus. Haha. I loved it, I could totally forget about all my problems at home and school and just dive in.
Now after watching for about a year, I started to get frustrated with the subtitles. It was always in the way of the show and it was really annoying to “read” my anime. Not only that but I started to become obsessed with Japan, and everything Japanese. Jpop, japense video games, j –doramsa, Japanese music, culture all of it. It felt like I was Japanese in a past life or something. So wanted to go there, and really bad, and live there even.
Of course all of this requires knowing Japanese. So I set out to tackle this thing. I started with rosetta stone. And while it was a very nice looking program and all, and in the begging in was cool, matching the pictures with words. And the program started to get into sentences not just one word stuff. I found myself frustrated to no end trying to guess what exactly in the pictures they show you the words are referring to.
So gave up with that one, about a quarter way in.
Fortunately I found a copy of Pimsluer’s Japanese at the local library. And it too was pretty cool in the beginning but as I progressed I found that it was like I was being constructed sentences, with no regard for grammar so I could ever form my own sentences.After I finished the first 15 lessons. (half of program again) I decided it was time to move on.
So I did some research and found out about a old tv show called, lets learn Japanese basic. And it was great, despite its oldness and corniness. Compared to the last two things I tried anyway. However, after finishing up their first program I noticed my Japanese wasn’t really improving. What I mean is, I would learn these sentences and words and grammar points and I would go back to anime or Japanese tv and manga, and I couldnt understand a thing.
So basically I got fed up, I decided to take things into my own hands. I found out that Japanese actually has two different types of talking, formal and casual. And what most programs teach is formal and anime and 3what people use in everyday conversation is casual. Also the vocabulary they teach are things like book and pen and economics major? Now of course they do this because they want adult gaijin (foreigners) who come to japan to be able to speak politely. And when your learning in a school they want you to know school related stuff.
However! I knew there had to be a better way. I decided to teach myself casual japanese, and anime/casual related words. So at the time I was watching naruto, and I wanted to know, what were the most common words used in naruto from the top down, so I could teach myself Japanese with the show. So I actually spent 2 months search for manga transcripts of the show, from there I would take them and run word frequency analysis n them and chart the words in order of appearance. What I came up with were the 300 most common words in naruto. So instead of learning arbitrary words choosen in who knows what manner, I went down the list with a dictionary and google search as my friend, and focused my learning that way.
Another thing I did was was read a little book called “remembering the kanji” its an amazing book that will teach you all 2 thousand kanji in a matter of months. If you want to know more about it you can read about it on my blog in the review section. But in the book it used heavily the concept of mnemonic devices, crazy stories in order for you to remember the characters better, and its truly amazing.
But I thought hey, why not use that with words instead of just characters. So I applied that to every single new word I learned of my list of 300.In addition to this I came up with 2 dozon little techniques that helped me learn Japanese by myself
Now after this, absolutely miraculous things started to happen. I went from spending hours a day with pimsluer’s and rosetta and LLJB, to with an hour a day literately within a month starting to understand anime, and within one year, fully mastering all of the basics of the language. I can say that with confindence, because at the end of that year I went to Japan and it was every bit as much bliss as I though it would be. Not only that but I had native speaker constantly completely astounded at how good my Japanese . And after they asked how long id been studying for, and I told them a year they would pretty pee themselves. It was great.
I would also say to you that learning a language like that, especially your dream language and mastering it has emnese affects on your confidence. You might be oh yeah sure. But when I came back from japan, I was able to overcome my social phobia and not only that but become a midly popular guy. Which of course made me happy and my grades went up. I even got into UCLA one of the top universities in California.
this whole thing is of course why I started this youtube channel. To help people like you and me master Japanese, knock out those nasty subtitles and go to japan to have the time of your life.However on my newsletter over at my website I’ve been getting tons of people who want me to make something a little more. So after much correction and motivation by , mostly because I really don’t consider myself a good teacher, somewhat reluctantly I’ve decided to give it a shot.
And have since started working on a full length beginner video course. Using my list of 300 words from back then and over 2 dozen other secret techniques I discovered that shoot my Japanese learning through the roof. So If you wanna stay more updated on that you can join my newsletter over at my website.
But in any event , I would say if you have any hesitations in learning the language, don’t. It is without a doubt every bit as awesome as you think it will be. And if someone like me can learn Japanese, anyone can. Don’t give up and keep moving forward. Learning Japanese is possible.
This is very interesting.
I too had the sort of situation. I was 13 though and going through some very tough times, I was learning Japanese as a subject when i decided to look up these 'comics'(manga) my teacher spoke of. I fell in love with the series bleach, then naruto and so many more. Then i found out more about anime and fell in love with that too.
I want to achieve what you have - i want to live a life without subtitles!
=D
I promise you i will.
Wow that's really cool! Interesting to know I'm not the only one that this happened too.
Hahah, yes, down with the evil subtitles!
P.S. I love the fire in your eyes when you said that (or, fire.. in your.. uh.. text.. well, you know what I mean)
hey i was hoping you could go into a bit more detail on how you did this
"I used actual words and sentences from the shows I was watching, developed a way to use the English subtitles as a teaching method, and researched casual Japanese."
i'm currently learning through pimsleurs but i feel there is not enough vocabulary to be learnt from it so would like to try your anime method
thanks
hello im british and i started learning japanese about 2 days ago im 13 and im looking for a camp in britain but they all seem to be 18+ right know im using ur vids and japanese 101 to learn. could you give me a BOOST because the words jus arent ''clicking'' BTW im trying to learn formal
Me too! I want to live life without subtitles! You're always at the whim of the translator, no more shall I be! HEHE ^_^ Anyways, anime had a profound effect on my life as well. I was 13 and Ranma 1/2 inspired me to take martial arts and become just like my anime idols. The style I ended-up focusing on was "Wushu". I convinced my sister to join me too. A long story short, my sister and I were casted as a Wushu Prince & Princess, leads of Cirque du Soleil's "KA" show at the MGM Grand Casino in Las Vegas. Anime has always had a positive influence in my life, and now I use it (amongst other sources) to have fun studying Japanese. ^_^
Damm same here lol
Hey ya ! ^^
Before I start telling you about my story about japanese n anime and stuff I really wanna thank you for starting that page!
You know I tried to find something like classes and stuff to learn japanese for years and couldnt find anything that seemed fun. Then I accidently found a book in London (on a classtrip ^.^) which doesnt tell anything about writing in japanese few days ago. So I came up to see if I find something on youtube and found one of your videos. It was really kinda FINALLY!!!!!-effect as I noticed that you teach with anime AND put the writing in the videos!
I hate it to read the subtitles as well so I startet just watch them without. Kinda self-experiment^^ It ended up with somehow understand it without any idea about gramma and so on. But I still couldnt talk that way. Since it helped me a lot to sing english songs to learn I went on with japanese ones. (just to explaine the english thing = I'm from Germany) Really also a great way to learn even if one can't sing at all XD I donno if I'm a good singer. XDDD
Anyway your idea really is a great thing and I perfectly undertstand what your talking. You aren't making a complcated thing outta it and really cheeres me up ^^
GREAT JOB !
Tanny
First of all, Inuyasha was my first anime I ever watched too and from the beginning I have been head over heals for the anime. Second, anime was also like an escape for me. A way for me to de-stress from daily life. So it makes me feel better knowing that im not the only one. Your videos have helped me improve so much and I just want to thank you so much. The way you teach is amazing. I have learned more form you than any other program i have tried. I will for sure show my best friend your website. Hehe we are both crazy japanese freaks XD. So again thank you and keep up the great work. :3
i find this site very cool!
i just found it, and i'm finding it very helpful!!
and i think i used all my usage on your videos, the loading is getting slower and slower, which is bad but.....thank you for your time...really! :)
you really made me believe that i can learn jap through anime
like one hundred percent convinced!
cause like i'm doing it in school, and my exam next week T_T
once you start learning it in school, the pressure is on, it is no longer you loving it and wanting to learn it, its more of 'having' to do it, or your spending lunch with the teacher.
i booked marked this page, so you'll be seeing me spamming your page often!
chane senpai!
ken we are almost same in 2second grade i got every e- and two f- and my parents divorced when i was 9 years old. i love naruto its my favorite manga
When i was starting middle school i didn't talk much and didn't have many friends mostly because i'm originally 2 years younger then them, i was what people would think as a weird kid I was really goofy so i decided to keep it to my self. My first official anime was Naruto......I believe i got obsessed with it especially after they took it off Toonami. about a couple months later i heard that was a New season of naruto and i decided to look it up online. That was probably when i figured out i can watch anime online in dubbed...(since i didn't want to read all the time).......later on the anime i wasnt able to watch naruto or Naruto shippuden in duEnglish dubbed. so i started watching it in subtiles. when i went back to dubbed i ened up hating it because thee english voices irritated me. like somthing was off. so i stuck to watching anime in sub and refused to watch it in dubbed. After awhile I thought i would start to give the anime series Blue Dragon another try..( i didn't like the one they showed on CN because it seemed boring) when i watched episode by episode in subbed i LOVED it....when that season was over i wanted more. I found out there was a season 2 " Blue Dragon Tenkai no Shicji Ryuu" the first couple of episodes i could find in subbed but the rest were either in spanish subbed or no subtitles at all..I really wanted to watch them so much that i tried converting the Spanish into English with translators which didnt help much. So my other solution was to Learn Japanese..I've always wanted to lean Japanese but never really had a reason. Just by watching anime i did more research into Japanese culture and there language. I'm also a Technology Geek...so I really wanted and still want to visit Japan. I have a Japanese friend but he doesn't know how to speek it since he moved to america at age 2. Either way so far i've been learning Japanese for around a year now from Websites, programs, and books. But out of all your blog and youtube videos has helped me the most in understanding then what i was learning the past few months. But those site, programs ,and books did help me get a basic and simple understanding of what you are talking about in your lessons so they all weren't a complete waste of time. But Watching anime helped me become more open to gain new friends and join after school activities. I Just started high school (age 12) and i have more friends then all my middle school years combined. I have an extracurricular about everyday of the week and i dont like to really go home much. because i know i'll be bored unless i find another anime i will get hooked on. Thanx Ken for your help, Your teaching methods are great!!
............and sorry for the really long Post
..hey im grace a filipina..im also addicted to anime so im desperate to know how to speak and understand japanese..but i have no money for it...
when i watch your vids on youtube all i can say is arigatou... i love all your vids...funny and great...aim high..more power...
hey im craig and as well as the one of the last comments i to have gone through a tough time and actually am still going through it.although i dont know much at all, trying to learn japanese has helped me by kinda getting my mind off things..i enjoy learning it and the feeling of learning new things to say.i like how theres so many ways of saying things and i just wanna be able to finally master it and become an anime character.haha
hiyaz, i was also 14 wen my bro first introduced me to anime, it all started off wid K-on and fairy tail. i love dem both and we explored to naruto, bleach, cowboy bebop and others. i always found a weird fascination for anime and manga alike. eventually, i decided it was kind of kwl wen u replied to sum1's call wid a 'nani' or 'un' and i used to swear my english-speaking-anime-hating-friends weneverr dey dissed anime en twked bout hw lame it was etc. i had a dream of me speaking japanese fluently, bt lo en behold... i cant speak japanese bt i can sing a japanese song... weird i knw but its only becoz u hav 2 knw da lyrics, bt anyways, i wanted 2 know hw 2 say 'i love u' en googled it wen i saw dey had videos on youtube, i went 4 it en urs came up, thought u did a great job btw en wished i could actually speak da lang en decided 2 c ur site, pretty kwl i mus say... keep it up Ken!!
:p - 0:)
safiyya kahan....
Omg, you're speaking from my soul. My english isn't the best, but I want to learn japanese lol. It's my dream! Later I want to go to Japan.. Right now I'm 16 years and I started to watch anime when I was 13.. Sailor moon was my first, haha. :D I loved it. But I watched it in german (My mainlanguage). Later I've seen more unpopular animes.. Like Tokyo Mew Mew, Zero no tsukaima, Clannad, and so on.. I watched it with german subtitles.. Now I'm doing this for 3 years and I think it's annoying.. But I can never reach my dream to learn full japanese I think.. I need a teacher who can help me.. Thats what I think. ._.' But it would be cool, if there would come a wonder.. <3 *-*
sayonara~
I got hooked on naruto when i wuz about 12 and from there i fell in love with all things japanese. My favorite movies music actors singers etc. are all japanese. I luv anime cuz like u once were im like badly socially inept and anime has help me make a couple of freinds. I am also sick alot and i got put in a realy private school which like controls my life (its a religious school) so im like costantly depressed cuz im at church everyday and always getting yelled at cuz i dont believe like they do and im not holy like them plus there is no one my age and so i like 2 unwind everyday w/ mind numbing anime and when im sick i like watch it all day while in bed. I wanted 2 learn japanese so i could move 2 japan when i get older (if i live that long) and also so i can watch anime and japanese dramas w/o subs but like all the programs they have out their dont realy work for me. Ur teaching methods are like addicting and amazing but also your personality is like really helpfull and i already watch tons of different anime so 2 b able 2 learn while doing that, wow. I hope u have big success w/ your program. Ja ne ken sensei.
Negativity, a word that suits me best, along with, Procrastination. I am the type of person to love to force myself into negative situations and comments. Even though I hate what they say, I am a sucker for negativity.
For example; My friends from Japan say that manga = books and anime= drama.
Now, lets say that some idiot from the west comes along and says the like manga c*m*c. That'll annoy the shit out of me because I know he's a moron and I know my friends would too.
Lets also add, that I will be questioning what they say for what some idiot on the internet said. Which slowly I will think this idiot might be right.
Which he isn't. I think, being away from all this negativity and ignorance from people WHO DON'T LIVE IN JAPAN. Could help, and it has.
I am now trying to learn Japanese again, I am loving your program. I want to become a novelist (mangaka) in Japan, and publish my own book. I want to have my own series and finally open my mouth and let people hear what I have to say.
Moving to Japan and writing a Japanese novel (manga) is a dream for me. I am planning on buying rosetta stone and a few other programs. I also might be able to have my friend from Japan help too...
Good story, inspiring
don't buy Rosetta stone extortionate prices
torrent it
Well all I can say is that I am really inspired. I also want to learn japanese I just don't really know where to start. I watch anime and pick up as much as I can along the way but it's kinda hard. do you think you could hook me up. show me a website or something I can go to so I may start the journey to mastering japanese. I want to be able to understand what they are saying without subtitles. I am not really a fast reader so that would come in handy :D
thank you for your videos, it's really helpfull
Thanks for your insightful video, Ken.
If anyone knows where I could find Anime/Manga Japanese transcripts it would be much appreciated!
Thanks all.
hey i was wondering if you could email that word list to my email and also say what you did with the list because by the time i get it ill forget about the video and i really want to learn japanese. Thx :)
Thank you for the video!
And yes, is there anyway for us to access the list and the content of your beginner's course, Ken?
ありがとう！
two thumbs fucking up man
hahahah they way you say how you wanted to learn Japanese is the exact way i want to hahah iv started to pick up on some Japanese when i was watching it lol and iv started to want to learn how to learn Japanese to...iv got the same phobia as you lol i don't go out side anymore i haven't for 5 years lol...and i don't talk hahaha im so weird that i have no friends and no one likes me that's how my phobia all started....it really sucks for me.
I wanna learn japanese!! :0 thanks for your videos. It inspired me to continue on learning the special language :) arigatou! :)
konnichiwa!
i found your lesson "how to say i love u in japanese" in yutube , i liked your presentation and took a look on your website , i like the way u involve animes in it, and iam a mangua fun too wich drove me to start learning japanese language
iam a beginner "mochiron desu" and hope to reach your level , your pronunciation is fabulous
arigato gozaimasu
I want to learn Japanese too. It would be so much easier to watch anime. I love anime. And I love your videos. They teach and are really funny too. My favorite was the one with swear words. It was awesome. You're great! hehe =D
Greetings from Korea. I don't watch animes lot but I love reading Manga instead. Korean and Japanese language share syntactic similarities and Kanji. It helped me learn Japanese with more ease than westerners. howsever there are still many westerners with great fluency in Japanese.
If you want to get mangas just fresh out of oven, try "Perfect Dark"(kind of a japanese torrent)
i know you advocate watching anime as a form of learning, and i would love to, my only problem though is that my anime viewing list is fairly small, and I need some good anime series to help me understand relavant japanese. In your experience, what anime would you recomend?
Well, It all be accident really. I found a Youtube Video titled "Naruto 4 tails" (or something along those lines) this got me interested in Naruto and anime as a whole so after around one, watching lots of anime, finding out I could have saved time by not watching things called filler arcs and discovering manga. I picked up a few words and had a new "awesome" view point of Japan when previously I had none, the time spent watching anime and reading manga changed me as a person and taught me about the "cool" land where everyone should go, Japan, so from what you can see me and Ken-San had very similar experiences through anime. Which brings us to present day where I'm attending a Japanese (£120, for the year) class every Tuesday night, even during examination period here in the (U.K. ,England), I still attend, yes I could probably lern for free on the internet or teach myself but then i would miss out on the oppatunity to make new friends and laugh at each others mistakes + we get feed back from a teacher, Put it this way at the end of my fist term everyone frome the class got together to eat at a Japanese restarunt I perviously never knew existed in my home town. But yeah anyway I've been slacking reccently lol so I need to get some practice done. This may seem like a bio but ah, well It's all ready posted lol.
- Greg
If you need some hiragana practice check this out:
http://t.co/SpQoX9tC
I've always wanted to learn Japanese just like you and your reason of he love of anime! But something just didn't hit home. A good learning program that could extend my 3 word vocab of Japanese. Of courese i learned a few words there and here on my non stop anime marathon, but that just wasn't enough. Lately i just finished an anime Eureka Seven and it really struck me down. In a way it made me depressed, but then questioning about the world. SO then that related to a series of events. Eureka Seven was a japanese anime->that anime made me depressed but questioning->I wanted to learn japanese->I got depressed and questiony about the country of Japan and their culture. my problem lies there. After seeing a girl by the Youtube name of Ciela i found a new confidence that i have never found before. Showing all these sites of japan and seeing how a wonderful place it would be. Adding Japanese culture to my future bucket list when i go older is a must do.
hey Ken i just started learning how to speak japanese. I wanted to speak japanese because of anime shows. when i turn away from the screen for a few seconds and I missed what they say its kind of hard to follow along. my first anime show that i watched was naruto. I first started watching with my big brother. but since it was like a while ago i cant really follow along so I started watching other shows. well since i got back to my old school and i havnt seen my friends for like 2 years it was hard to find anyone that likes anime as much as I do. Then I met this girl Anika she really liked anime and she could draw like me. She bings a whole lot of ohtoku usa magz she also lets me have some its pretty cool then i found out my friend Scott loved anime too the one he loves is Angel Beats ,I also love that show. well thats all I have to say and IM REALLY SORRRY FOR THE LONG POST oh almost forgot the subtitle tutor is a nice method THANKS :D
Thank you for your awesome vids! I'm stationed in Japan just for the reason of anime and my fave Japanese band, and I've been struggling for a while to learn better. I've picked up most of what I know from various anime, and from listening to the Japanese themselves. Your videos are awesome and I am about to watch more of them, in hopes that I can actually understand L'Arc~en~Ciel in their concerts...if ever I end up going there! Lol. Thank you!
Hi I'm Miri
I learned English the same way
Unfortunately its more difficult to learn Japanese that way
But
There's a will, There is a way
The coolest,
It's me and you haveing almost the same story Life
I have anxiety to leave the house
And I'm glad you got over the problem.
I wish you much success in the future
hey i'm Jacqueline
i'm from angola but currently living/studying in the Unite Kingdom and I've bought some dictionaries from Oxford which include a CD and a mini travel dictionary, do you reckon it's a good way to learn japanese as well? would love to have your feedback on that dictionary :) ^^
Cheers
Ore wa shinobi da! Hahaha thanks again Ken, that free lesson 1 was amazing, I feel like this is gonna be a lot easier than I was thinking. Great job!
i just found your videos on youtube and LOVE how you explain things! so clear and simple. i recently started listening to kpop and jpop and it too is very informal language and im picking it up using this techinique! thanks so much for this help! i have the same problem with rosetta stone that you did - you have NO IDEA what they are talking about and informal is mostly spoken. i tried to use a bit of the formal with a friend and she said the exact same thing. thanks again