どんどん上達してますよね！ Pretty impressive man! She was a very good practice partner as well, she kept things really simple and jumped in right away when you struggled. Keep up the good work. I think the 1 year video is going to be really impressive.
You're doing so well man! It's very clear to see how much work you're putting in to be at the level you are in just 7 months. I've only been studying seriously for just over 1 month but I could understand almost half of what you both were talking about and a good amount more to context and facial expressions (learned several phrases too while listening to this conversation!) 頑張って!
Hey Shawn, Great work! Having been exactly in your position not too long ago, I'd like to give you some advice on things to study (That I wish somebody gave me) I've watched a couple of your videos and it seems that you're really interested in improving your conversational ability so I recommend: - Become really comfortable with the ～”て” form verbs. This makes it extremely easy to string together natural sentences and sound more confident! For example: 私は、お兄さんがうちに帰ってきて喜んだ- I was pleased that my brother came home! 帰る - to return home くる（きて）to come 喜ぶ（よろこぶ）- Pleased (I realise that くる can seem redundant in many situations, I also hate it - bad example lol) - An easy one. Master using "けど・”だけど” this will help you string your sentences together even further. Speakers use this so often its ridiculous -Learn some slang! It can trip you up when your conversational partner uses a word you haven't heard before いろんな for example! (From いろいろ）meaning 'various'. Even if you don't plan on using them, it's helpful to improving your conversational fluency. -Lastly, a bit complicated, but understanding ～たら (conditional, If / when) can be really useful for your conversational ability! It's very complicated so don't research it too deeply because there are different types of conditional (～えば , なら) just stick to ～たら 質問があったら、聞いてください - If you have a question, please ask! It's a bit weird because Japanese don't distinguish between "If" and "when" in the same respect as English. I'm really passionate about Japanese, shoot me a message if you ever want to talk about language! :) Best of luck in your studies!
it can feel annoying when people lump all of Europe together and say I went to Europe or a eat European food. Europe is so diverse, the difference between say Italy France and UK is immense. There is no pan Europeean culture. Just say I went to Italy not Europe. Well done with your progress with Japanese, it is amazing to watch really inspiring.
thanks for replying, Just a bit annoying when Americans say I went to Europe, when that doesn't mean much because Europe is so diverse. You are far to cultured to make that mistake anyway :) Also I was thinking of starting to learn Japanese. As you have been learning Japanese for 7 months and used different methods, would you still recommend starting the same, with the fluent forever pronouncement training and their 625 basic words? What would you have done differently knowing what you know now (might be a good video topic?)? What is the best approach for your first 6 months of study, now you have walked that road? Thanks for the video there really inspiring and I look forward to them every week.
Thanks! Glad the videos have been helpful. That would be a great video topic. :) I'll get around to it sooner or later before the year's up. I'll try to summarize a few things here just so you don't have to wait... will be missing a lot of detail and I'll have to over-generalize to keep it short. But here goes... - I would do most things the same way still. In general, the original method stands and hasn't really changed. - If I could, I would start using sentences earlier (instead of waiting to get through most of the 625 first). The point of the 625 is to build a base to get you to sentences ASAP. Not to learn them just because. So, once you get that base, you can move on to frequency lists if you like, since most of those words will come up again there anyway. All that said, I found sentences really overwhelming for a long time in Japanese, so it's easy to say this in retrospect without remembering what it feels like as a beginner. If you need to take time to get used to the language, that's OK, and normal. (PS - For early sentence resources, I would make them with a tutor, or use the Core--or similar--deck ASAP. For instance you could import all the cards/media in Anki--as in Vlog 10--and search Anki for example sentences using the 625 words). - For kanji, see Vlog #20 and #18 (How to Learn Kanji and 'How important is kanji production'). The exact best approach for you might vary, but I'd encourage you to experiment with those ideas. That approach has been working for me very nicely ever since. - Japanese requires more vocabulary than other languages I've learned to reach a similar level. The equivalent of 2000 words in French is more likely between 4000-6000 words in Japanese. Just something to be aware of. - To give another reference point, in this video I'm still hovering between 1400-1500 words. And of course, there are many, many, other factors other than the number of words that come into play. But it's a useful metric nonetheless. That's it for now. I'm sure I'll continue to learn more, and I'll of course keep everyone updated. :)
Is it only me or she's laughing every time he say いいえまだまだです？ I'm not insulting or anything but I just realized that いいえまだまだです is a textbook thing like I'm fine thank you what about you? I'm not a native English speaker so I'm not sure if someone uses it but i watched a video once about things native English speaker doesn't say and that was included. By the way, is she from ITalki?
Sakura to Asami haha. It's a standard phrase that everyone uses as a reply when someone tells you you're good at something, since Japanese people don't like to accept compliments. :) Cheesy, from the textbook, but it works.
