Japanese is one of the popular East Asian languages spoken by more than 128 million people across the globe. Even though Japanese is Japan’s national language – people in different corners of the world speak Japanese. The language is spoken in significant parts of Korea, Brazil, and the United States – mainly by the immigrant groups.
And it’s about time you grasp the language too. Whether it’s for a visit or relocation to Japan, it’s important that you learn their native language to have a simple and trouble-free life while you’re over there.
In this guide, we’ll show you three effortless and entertaining ways to learn this language. Let’s begin!
1. Learn the alphabets first
Naturally, you will want to master this language as soon as possible. But that doesn’t mean you can skip the important part.
If you want the learning journey to be a smooth-sailing one – you have to start from the basics. And that means starting with the alphabet. Basically, the Japanese language involves three crucial writing systems:
Hiragana: Hiragana comprises a total of 46 Japanese characters and 51 phonetic characters. The language is important for beginners who want to understand how the Japanese words are pronounced and sound when spoken. For those who want to be able to understand the native accent of Japanese – learning Higarana is your first step.
Katakana: Katakana does not involve native Japanese words. In fact, this part is composed of scientific and technical terms. As compared to Higarana, Katakana can be difficult since these words are not used frequently.
Kanji: As much as Kanji is difficult to learn for beginners, it is imperative to learn the Japanese language completely! You need to get familiar with Kanji to be able to speak, write, and understand Japanese words.
2. Practice grammar regularly
First things first, English grammar and Japanese grammar differ significantly. You can never rely on English translations to understand Japanese or improve your Japanese vocabulary. The best part about Japanese is that it has only two forms of tenses: present and future. So, it doesn’t involve complications.
Once you are done learning its alphabets, it is time to move to the challenging part – grammar. You can start the grammar practice with easy and regular phrases such as “hello”, “how are you”, “what is your name”, “how do you do”, “where are you from”, and so on.
3. Speak the language every day
Practice makes perfect – and that applies when you are learning Japanese as well! Try to converse with someone else and squeeze in some time for writing practices. Even adding a couple of new habits like watching Japanese movies and reading books are extremely helpful to speed up the learning process.
Not to mention, you can find hundreds of Japanese shows and movies on online streaming service such as Netflix.
On the other hand, if you’re someone who prefers someone to guide you along the way as you’re learning something new – a teacher may be able to assist you. There are plenty of Japanese courses that’ll cover all of the above and make sure you’re doing everything right too! There will be assignments, homework, and a couple of tests here and there – but it’ll definitely help you learn the language much quicker.
You may be new at Japanese, but it truly doesn’t matter – everyone has to start from somewhere! Follow these tips closely, and you will get the hang of the language in no time.
