 |
| Why I decided to learn Japanese |
Like most of you, the main reason I decided to learn Japanese was anime. 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, and 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.
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 Pimsleur's, 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. If you want to get my secrets for learning Japanese subscribe to my newsletter for exclusive weekly content.
Ken Cannon
That’s all for this video, and I’ll see you next time for more videos on how to learn Japanese.
Ken Cannon
Ken Cannon
Video Transcript
Hey this is Ken Cannon, and this video is gonna be a little different from my normal ones because as I was going through the survey results I noticed a lot of people asked about how I learned Japanese, or how I learned it so fast etc. And at first I didn’t want to do a video 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 I was 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 Inuyasha on Adult Swim, Cartoon Network again, and I was like hey, I wonder if I could watch this show online instead of waiting a whole day for a new episode. Now I'm 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
I found it online; however, it was in this crazy language with English subtitles. I didn’t quite know what I was getting into 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 so 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 to hundreds of other titles, which all pulled me into the stories just as much.
I found it online; however, it was in this crazy language with English subtitles. I didn’t quite know what I was getting into 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 so 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 to hundreds of other titles, which all 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 made it kind of a habit to move in with a new girlfriend every year or so, 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, I didn’t really have a lot of friends. And also being super poor, my family couldn’t afford to buy me normal clothes like most of the other kids, so it was kinda common for me to get teased because my pants, high waters, were too high, cause I grew too fast. And I was not 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 parents sort of hated me, so the home life kinda sucked too.
It got so bad I actually developed an anxiety disorder, called social phobia. Yeah it exists. Which basically means you're 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 –drama, Japanese music, culture, all of it. It felt like I was Japanese in a past life or something. So I wanted to go there, really badly, 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 beginning in was cool, matching the pictures with words, 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 I gave up with that one, about a quarter way in.
Fortunately I found a copy of Pimsleur’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, Let's 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 couldn't understand a thing.
So basically I got fed up, and 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 what 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 on 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.” It's an amazing book that will teach you all two thousand Kanji in a matter of months. If you want to know more about it I review "Remembering the Kanji" on my blog. But in the book, it heavily used the concept of mnemonic devices, crazy stories in order for you to remember the characters better, and it's 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 dozen 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 Pimsleur’s and Rosetta and LLJB, to with an hour a day literally 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 thought it would be. Not only that but I had native speakers constantly completely astounded at how good my Japanese was. And after they asked how long I'd been studying for, and I told them a year they would pretty much 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 immense effects 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 you guys, mostly because I really don’t consider myself a good teacher, somewhat reluctantly I’ve decided to give it a shot.
And I 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.
Ken Cannon
