How the time flies. It’s been almost 4 years since my original “journey” thread. I was very happy to receive a lot of positivity from not only this community but from other communities where my video ended up getting shared. Thanks to everyone who watched and I’m happy if my rambling helped in any way.
About half a year ago I recorded an update to cover listening and speaking, but I was somewhat unhappy with the result. I developed a newfound appreciation for good interviewers who could ask good questions and guide discussions well to say the least. I tended to ramble a bit, felt like my situation was a bit too niche, and didn’t have much specific advice. Upon relistening to it the other day, however, I thought it actually wasn’t as bad as I remember. I also suppose people can directly ask me any questions or clarifications they want.
As if 2 hours wasn’t long enough, this one managed to break 3 hours! As with the last video, there are no important visuals so you can listen to it like a podcast if you wish.
For anyone brave enough to watch an internet rando ramble for that long, please let me know if you have any questions and I’ll be happy to answer and clarify things.
Well the first hour was very interesting. It’s always good to have the perspective of a more advanced learner that is uninterested in selling you something ! I’ll finish it after work.
Well that certainly was a listen !
Thank you again for taking the time to make this and share it with us.
The first video was instrumental in how I approach reading and this one too has given me many many ideas to practice once I’m more comfortable with reading (particularly to start listening to the available audiobooks of the novels once I’ll have read them and know that I’ve already ingested the vocab… I’ll start earlier than the 6k hours mark hopefully though ).
I find really interesting how your existing foundation was helping you adjust extremely quick due to already having the tools at your disposal and maybe your approach was highly efficient over time.
I won’t react to all the points of the video but there were tons of interesting stuff and cool shared high level language learning experiences (though for me it was French to English for the brain mode switch)
Particularly liked the last third, I especially match with the “learn to find comfort in being uncomfortable” mindset.
This is the most valuable trait that have served me well into adult life and I’ve found that the most efficient way to progress (for me) is to put yourself in the sweet spot where you have the right level of uncomfortable.
Focus on the funny “What works for you” because I’ve always thought about it as being the “way that makes you put more work / effort into it !”
Great points all around, I wish I could have seen this 10 years ago definitely wise for a 25 years old.
I believe I covered it in a bit more of detail in my first video, but essentially I wanted to read light and visual novels. After moving to Japan I had a need to learn to listen and speak so I switched focus to those.
And thanks for your time and kind words! Glad you liked the video.
Im not sure if what I did ended up being efficient in the long run, but leveraging my reading ability definitely helped get me through it. I had very little inherent interest in listening and speaking (hence why I didn’t do it for 4 years), but being able to progress so fast made it bearable.
Okay… Phew, done watching!
I did enjoy the video (as I did the first one too, a year or so ago), but man… it’s depressing!
I had 6k hours of reading, then I tried watching something without subs and it sucked big time.
Hmmm hmmm hmmm … checks own notes … 350 hours of novel “reading” so far (calling it “reading” is a strech, but we’ll overlook that for now) … let’s make some calculations … okay, so in ~7-8 years I’ll reach 6k hours too yay! (not) And theeeen I’ll still not be able to watch something without subs and gonna need another 4k hours / 5 years?!? Awesome!
On a more serious, if silly, note:
I was hoping that learning more vocab and repeated exposure to grammar patterns through reading would magically lead to understanding spoken language (in film and news) with minimal dedicated targeted practice.
Funny to hear about the problem you had at first with listening - the lack of an… “association” between the sounds and the written words. I’m in a similar position but I use English subs, being too slow at reading Japanese subs without pausing. With the English translation available it’s (relatively) easy to “hear” the Japanese that is being spoken and recognize the words and the grammar that make up the sentences. But take away the subs and even though I might know all the words (doesn’t happen often, but some times it does), everything suddenly becomes just noise
Good to hear that this can be solved (and you’ve certainly given good advice/suggestions in the video), but also it’s worrying to hear that output plays a major part in improving the listening ability - at least for someone who is not aiming for output…
Oh, and one question:
What did you mean by not being careful with vowel length for a time?
しょう vs しょ or something else?
Hi Vanilla! I had been looking forward to this video though a bit disappointed that you didn’t record it in Japanese
Super interesting for me, as I’m in the stage of reading everything and getting good at it, but barely ever tried to output, just enough to know that I suck at it.
Some reactions, only listened to around 40 minutes so far. (you could have made a Vanilla-podcast and break the video down to release it in several episodes xD)
Totally have the same with relying too much on kanji for reading. I tried briefly to play Pokemon with kana only, and it’s a shock to see how hard it becomes suddenly. Didn’t continue down that road though, went back to my Novel / VN/ manga reading.
Interesting with the audiobook strategy, and going back a bit to give yourself time to come up with the word, I’ll have to remember that.
About foreigners using too difficult words. I remember that I had the same issue with English when I moved out of my native country (non-English speaking) to another European country (also non-English speaking). The common language with other foreigners was English, and mine came from watching TV series but also from reading a lot of books, and I quickly realized that if I used too “flowery” words, I wasn’t being understood, so I really had to dumb it down. I’m a bit sad about that because I think I forgot a lot of words I used to know, but yeah that’s what works, just use the basic wordings that everyone knows.
my hearing and the sound quality is not a good enough of a match for me to do this TuT
x1.25 is 限界 for me
reminds me my hearing aid ran out of power today at work, my coworkers sounded so much further way than usual, haha
I think the stronger influence is the other way around, at least. Listening for me felt very significant for helping my spoken Japanese (maybe less so typed Japanese, but still significant I think).
Output did help listening too, but I’m not sure if its necessary. I think adequate quality of knowledge for vocab when it comes to listening is between the passive level required for reading but below the active level needed to use it naturally when speaking. Being able to use it while speaking is an easy way to ensure you’re familiar enough with the word, but id hesitate to say it’s necessary.
Yeah there’s probably a handful of things I coulda done to improve the watchability. Unfortunately my Japanese level and video making level are inversely proportional to eachother it seems
Haha can’t be skilled at everything
But I watched (listened) until the end and enjoyed it
I liked the method you came up with to look up if certain words or expressions where common or not. I don’t have the same method but I do the same thing, I accumulate a database of things I’ve read and wrote a program to search it. I use it often, especially when I encounter new things, to know if it’s an odd saying or worth remembering.
I recognized myself in you for several things, especially the part with wanting to learn and using all your hours on that, even with having a full time job. (I did not recognize myself in the part where you get a Japanese girlfriend, but I take notes, that could be useful for the future.)
Anyways, kuddos for sharing all that, it’s nice of you to share how you’ve made it this far! I hope it will inspire or help many!
If you give me a timestamp I can look back at the video but I’m not sure I said I was not careful with vowel length for a period of time. I remember saying that vowel length is one example of many of things that some people with less experience in the language underestimate the importance of.
Ufff I didn’t note the timestamp, it was somewhere in the second “act” (the 1h-to-2h third). Something along the lines of “a thing that wasn’t important at first when reading and needed attention for speaking and listening”. That’s why it stood out, because it sounded so out of character for you
Searching vowels what comes up in the transcript is
1:47:35
Another big one that like people sometimes mistake the importance of at the beginning is like vowel length. Vowel length is very important. Please
1:47:42
learn the correct vowel lengths. Um but like I don’t know
1:47:48
like I went the first four years of learning Japanese without ever speaking or
1:47:54
listening. Right? Obviously, those are important skills, but I still didn’t do that for
1:48:00
the first 6,000 hours of my study, right?
Maybe you are misinterpreting the final statement? I’m saying that speaking and listening are very important skills in general and I still didn’t do anything for them. The point was on pitch and how something can still be a significant aspect of the language without being a priority for certain individuals depending on their goals.
EDIT 2: For clarity im saying correct vowel lengths is something everyone should learn regardless of goals.
Vowel length is very important. […] but I still didn’t do that for the first 6,000 hours of my study, right?
So, yeah… I took that as you not concentrating on vowel length at first while you were reading, and only once you started listening and speaking. As you can imagine, that was surprising. Surprising to the point that I thought you were referring to something else, hence my question.
But relistening to a few minutes around the timestamps now… hmm, maybe what you actually meant was that while reading you didn’t care about pitch, and only pitch?
(that is, of course you cared about vowel length from the very beginning)
! I’ll finish it after work.
).
though a bit disappointed that you didn’t record it in Japanese
.