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I think he spoke a little too slowly. It feels as though he was asked to speak more slowly so that foreigners on RU-vid who are learning Japanese would be able to understand him.
@@deathlazorv2playz590 It's certainly true that children tend to use simpler words, primarily due to their limited vocabulary compared to adults. One thing worth noticing is that, in this video, none of the children omit the subject when responding to the question posed by their parents. Both the question and answer sounds like it comes from a textbook, with all subjects and particles clearly pronounced. This is a primary example of the "Japanese taught in textbooks" that Yuta mentions in every video. Both the adults and children speak slower than usual, although this is more noticeable when the adults ask the question. This is not a bad thing by any means. As I mentioned (and sorry for repeating), the parents likely know that this Q/A will be seen by foreigners, and (my guess is that) they are speaking more slowly so that it's easier for foreigners to understand.
So true, used to ace listening comprehension for jlpt prep but when I finally went on a Japan tour I find myself unable to understand most of the native Japanese, they only tend to speak clearly and slower for strangers who might be foreign.
as japanese. i can confirm that i only remember kanji like 20% or less from elementary school and TINY bit from middle and high and my name in kanji i mostly forgot lmao
I believe this was a Monogatari reference. "I don't know everything. I only know what I know" - Tsubasa Hanekawa. The color card immediately afterwards is a strong clue as well.
As a side note, in Japan you might encounter some seemingly local people who are suspiciously good at Kanji but speaking with slightly off pronunciation and unconjugated verbs with problematic honorifics. That's right. They're not Japanese, but mainland Chinese/Hongkonger/Taiwanese.
Thats a brute force way to do it. It works, but it isn't fun. When something isn't fun, you lose interest in it, making learning it much much much more difficult than it has to be.
Frankly that is the bext way to do it but many people just won't have the dedication and I am not surprised by that fact. I really hate myself for not doing more kanji in 2016 when I had a lot of time to learn last few hundred properly and my vocabulary now suffers for it.
Kind of how I studied chinese. Everytime the teacher taught us new hanzi (chinese character) we'll have to write the same hanzi enough to fill a line perfectly, and then write it again stroke by stroke.
Your Japanese teacher should've realized that it's possible to work smarter, having fun while applying meaningful memory systems and a holistic, creative approach. Learning through rote "memorization" is vastly inefficient and allows for mistakes to easily slip through; using smart, daily repetition makes kanji (and anything else) solidified in your mind.
As an American, the only complex writing style I had to learn as a kid was cursive. So seeing the work these kids have to put into learning Kanji really impresses me.
It reminds me of my spelling tests and learning long words and a large list of them at once. The teaching method is the same. Difficulty is harder though.
You mentioning cursive reminds me of how Japanese adults don’t remember how to write Kanji but can read it. XD way too similar. cursive writing is the American version of Kanji writing. You can read it but can’t write it to save your life. I believe they don’t teach cursive anymore though. They took it out the curriculum I believe.
I wanted to share the strategy I've been using for learning kanji as it has been working perfectly for me and it can for you too: 1. See the kanji and look up the 4 "best" (most common) readings for it, 2 for kunyomi and 2 for onyomi. 2.a. Write a whole line of that kanji while repeating it's readings on your head (if you actually vocalize it even better) 2.b. If you can, try to tie the kanji writing with something you already know (another kanji, an image or story) and try to do the same with the reading. 3. Once you write about 7 kanji, which is my daily goal, review them all including the previous 30 or so you learnt before (doesn't take long being only 30) and then, if you don't study at night, review them again right before going to bed. A lot of the learning process takes place while sleeping so having it fresh helps. 4. Next day you will probably not remember much repeat the same and the following day you will definitely remember them. Bonus: I write the kanji on the foggy glass curtain while showering and it helps me not only with recognizing and being able to read and write the kanji, but also with being able to spontaneously pop them out.
@@el-in0014 onyomi is the Chinese way of reading a kanji character while kunyomi is the Japanese reading. For example, the character 山 (mountain) can be read as yama (kunyomi) or san (onyomi) depending on how they're used in a sentence.
someone said in the comments they are only polite in the presence of adults and they being told to talk proper for the video and that in normal days with their friends they are like all other kids
@helixxia yeah like you said, they have respect language, so they talk more politely to adults and with friends you can drop honorifics and polite language
Same methods in China, from what I remember in elementary school before I moved to Canada. We'd do weekly spelling tests, dictation, writing vocab out over and over until we didn't make mistakes. However, in Chinese, 2000 hanzi is the lower limit for what you need to read something like a newspaper. The average Chinese person knows about 6500 hanzi, and educated individuals know about 8000.
Let’s be real here, the Chinese government just wants to inflate its literacy numbers. 2000 characters is nowhere near enough to read a newspaper. Like, not even close.
@@uamdbro I think it's referring to the statistic that 2000 of the most common hanzi make up 60% or so of any Chinese text. I myself have stopped using Chinese full-time for years, but I think I can still follow a newspaper if I really sat down and paid attention. I wouldn't say I'm fluent in the language either, as I was 8 when I emigrated.
@@theletterwynn I think you are really underestimating just how little 60% is. That means that you cannot read at least 40% of the words in a text. This article has an example of 80% comprehension, and it’s already almost complete gibberish: www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2016/08/25/what-80-comprehension-feels-like
@@uamdbro I think you have no idea how Chinese works. many if not most Chinese characters can be combined with other characters to form different meanings. You don't NEED to know that many unique characters to form even complex meanings, even new words. For example, the following sentence, 我一把把车把把住了. (I grabbed the bicycle's handle in one grab). The are 9 characters in that sentence and there are only 6 unique characters. for someone with 60% comprehensive rate it's more than enough to understand this 9 characters sentence because the character "把" was used as adverb, noun, verb, conjunction, and possible preposition. This is just an example and there are many other instants. That's why you don't need a college degree to read a newspaper about daily everyday life. Take for example, 电, meaning electricity, 电灯,(electric light such as light bulb),电视(television), 电器 (electronics). notice that all those powered by the electricity all have the same character in front? so as new words get invented, you don't need to learn a new character to know them, just the new combos, kinda like the idea behind smart phone, smart watch, smart tv, etc. you know what they are when they have "smart" in front of it and you don't need to go back to English class to know they do you?
Man i remember doing these writing drills in primary school. In chinese its basically the same, they just have you write that shit over and over again.
I studied Japanese at university, we had kanji tests each week. I'm pretty sure I remember one of our lecturers saying that they had kanji tests each week at school and now it was our turn to feel the pain. This actually made me laugh The thing that made me feel bad was that I always got around 49/50 but the person next to me always got 100% and I could never beat him. It's a shame I forgot half the kanji I learnt lol Also in line with what Yuta said, I think the time I was the best at Kanji was when I lived in Japan and didn't actively learn kanji, however, I did look at/try to read signs on the street or subway or whenever I saw kanji. Because I just saw kanji all the time, by the end of my year abroad my kanji had improved so much in comparison to how much time I had spent 'learning' kanji.
Yeah that's the thing, I learned English from anime and videogames, and that IS how English people speak, so why aren't subbed anime how actual Japanese speak? Is it just because actual Japanese people aren't as loud and expressive as in anime?
@@PikaLink91 Yuta covered this topic a lot, they use the way characters in anime speak to show more of their character, just like they can use different shapes(more rectangular, spiky, etc. etc.) to do the same
@@PikaLink91 In short, yes - you can learn Japanese via anime. However, the Japanese you see in anime is drastically different from what's actually used in real life. As Memento Mori mentioned, the way anime characters speak are a lot more exaggerated/unrealistic and they speak in a way that would come off as rude or disrespectful when spoken in real life. I wouldn't recommend using anime to learn Japanese, but it is a good way to gauge your current learning level and to learn a few new words. As a half-Japanese with no formal Japanese education, I picked up a few words from watching anime, but I would never speak to my mom the way anime characters do.
I want to learn Japanese but the Kanji has been very daunting; however, after seeing these kids learn Kanji pretty much the same way I learned to write and spell in English (vocab. list and weekly vocab. spelling tests) I feel like I might be able to do it now :)
I'm Chinese, and I remember doing mostly the same things as a kid. In the first two or so years of elementary school, our textbooks would have pages of hanzi (kanji) with diagrams accompanying them (so for example, 手 would be put under a picture of a hand). In the later years however, we learn by reading passages. I forget the exact frequency, but we read about 2 passages a week. With each new passage that we read, we would learn new vocabulary words IN CONTEXT (this is very important, because a lot of people learn with just flash cards and that's not enough). In addition, we also had a 练习册 (basically workbook) that corresponded to the textbook, and it's basically reading comprehension practice. In doing so, we internalize the newly learned vocabulary.
I love the 漢字! Because it's such an incredible way to learn vocabulary. I can guess the meanings of words, and also the sounds, and then it's easier to remember the sounds, because I remember how the word was constructed, and it's all clues to how it sounds.
Chinese: Thanks god today I only need to spend 1 hour learning Kanji Japanese: Nani, 1 hour!? I only study it 10 minutes a day Koreans: Boya? you guys learn Kanji!?
@@boycottnok1466 It probably also has to do simply with the fact that it makes the language a lot easier. I mean you can say what you want about Chinese and Japanese, but they're needlessly complex, which is alright. A language has the right to be complicated and non-sensical, but I mean the Chinese simplified their own language, so...that's saying something. Koreans probably thought it was a good time to simplify their own language.
@@boycottnok1466 nah before moon jae ang era we used to study it at the elementary now we are learning it at middle school and high school but still useless bc nobody uses it
I'm studying Mandarin and absolutely relate, this online quarantine year, yeah, I can recognize many characters, but ohmygod if you ever ask me to write one of them hehehe, yet I'm blessed with simplified writing at least..... people studying Chinese languages of traditional writing or Japanese or the Japanese studying kanji...you're all heroes
Nah bro traditional ain't that hard maybe it's cause im chinese but I only learned simplified. After you write hanzi for many years you'll realise that they are all made out of the same bunch of characters/strokes so yeah gl
Very true about the differences between learning a language from a textbook and how people actually use a language. I have two examples: I took 2 semesters of Japanese (so not much in the first place), but when I went to Japan, I didn't immediately recognize that people were asking me even basic things that I had learned. The primary example of this was that I couldn't understand when people were asking me where I was from, because what they were saying was different from the rote "ご出身はどちらですか?" that I had learned in class. I can't recall what they were asking instead, but in my head I think of the differences as if you were asking in English "where are you from?" compared to something like "where do you originate from?" The first is common in more colloquial speech. The second is correct, but isn't how people commonly use the language. My second, and more embarrasing example: My university had some visiting Japanese students. They got to visit because they had passed a certain level of English fluency/comprehension. I wanted to respect their achievement and tell them well done, but I wanted to try to give them a little bit of the respect they showed us, and try to say it in their native language. I said what I often heard in my basic Japanese class: ”よくできました!” I wanted to congratulate them and say "well done!!" because to me, the phrase "well done" sounds more meaningful and sincere than something like "wow!" or "amazing!" They all laughed, a little awkwardly, and suggested I say something like "いい、ね!” which confused me. It wasn't until I saw a video by Misa (Japanese ammo with Misa), that I learned I had accidentally kind of condescended to them, and that I should have said something more like "すごいです!” or "さすがです!" (or, of course, something like what the students suggested - "いい、ね!"). /_- oops...
Seriously people if you are watching this video learning some tricks and not liking then it is a crime. You are a very good teacher Yuta. Please keep helping us.
To me writing kanji is very helpful in memorizing them It's the way I learned the kana, I filled whole notebook pages with each of them and learned them very quickly Then I would try and write random anime names and Japanese words with them, and even write in a "katakanized" version of my native language using katakana, all in order to use them in "practice" Only then did I move on to actually studying Japanese
@@andreaurru4990 Yeah, it's much more feasible to learn them all in one go and you only have to memorize a single pronunciation and no meaning whatsoever sldfkjsg Still I think this writing repetition can be helpful, if not as efficient as one could hope
Handwrite kanji may be difficult, but is very cool that we can recognize its meaning because of the strokes. About it, a friend of mine said to me that his capability of handwiritng kanji made it easer for him to find a job in Japan
@@babygorl9541 if I had to guess, maybe human printer (but seriously, it’s really impressive he can read AND write all the kanji lolol.. I should probably put more effort into writing then)
I’m finally starting to study the actual script and writing/reading. I only know the kanji for fire, water, and earth from a book about Taoism I had, plus you see those on tattoos and stuff.
If you don't know Wanikani yet I'd recommend you give it a try. Even if you don't use it in the end the community is great and there are bookclubs and stuff that can really help you on your language learning journey.
I introduced this video to one of my students a few days ago! He asked me "How do Japanese kids learn kanji?" (exactly same line as this video title!) Of course I told my experience, but I didn't think it's enough and I rememberd you made this great video! (以前から拝見してますが、コメントは初めてです…ドキドキ。一教師ではどうしても学習者さんたちに共有することが難しい、リアルな子どもたちの学習方法を楽しい動画にしてくださりありがとうございます!)
7:25 *Brute force repetition is certainly not how memory works* Memory works by making associations or connections from other things. By having stories or something that can make a connection to what you are trying to remember, you can easily remember something even if you've only ever heard it a single time (There was a time I played a game of memorising 100 items within 30 seconds, then waiting an hour before everyone wrote down what they could remember. I was able to write all 100 items and in the exact order they were presented because I turn all these items into a story only after seeing each item once. Even now, after 6 years, I can still remember them all even though it's the first time since 6 years ago I've thought about it). There are discrepancies though, like how you remember something, say 40 years ago a special car that was green but then being told it was actually blue. Simply because your brain tried to restore that bit of memory but got the wrong connections (maybe it was a green shirt or some other unrelated car that was green). Also, writing is the best way to remember things too. You could spend 10 years remembering the kanji just by reading them and letting your phone or PC auto type the kanji but when you are asked to actually write it... you'll likely not know how to nor what it looks like (until you see it then... oh yeah, that's the one). That's the same to hearing a lecture, only to forget about 75% of what was said and slowly forgetting another 20% after a few days but writing it down remeins in memory much longer and you remember more of it easier. A lot of learners will have learnt and become comfortable reading Hiragana very easily. They can read just fine but when they are asked to write a sentence in Hiragana without using a phone or PC, just normal paper and pen, they may be able to write many of the characters but get stuck a lot on many others and having to refer back to some guide, some other prinited text or use their phone.
I think it also helps to conceptualize the word or kanji in real life because then you have a visual/abstract aspect that may be easier to remember than just memorizing a bunch of lines. For example, putting the kanji for 'neko' beside your cat's bed or writing it in a sentence, or saying a sentence out loud about a cat and drawing it in the air. You can also remember that neko kanji looks like it has ears
Ok ok, I think that you made a Bakemonogatari rererence around 6:00 because one character in that show always says that she only knows what she knows and then there’s that suspiciously similar looking green panel with text for a brief period which is also reminiscent of Bakemonogatari
Hanekawa don't know everything but Only know what she knows. Gaen knows everything and there's nothing that she don't know while oshino ougi doesn't know anything but relying on araragi knowledge
This is by far one of the most interesting video I have seen about learning Japanese and Kanji. I have been studying Japanese during the last couple of years (mainly JLPT 5) and all what you said it makes a lot of sense.
Hello Mr. Yuta , I'm CHRIS. The one who didn't purchase your premium because I didn't have the funds. I just thought that maybe I should let you know that I still watch your vids even tho I didn't purchase your premium. Thank you so much for giving your time and effort on sending those small clips. They were so informative and I learned a lot from them. Thanks again.
this was cool, i'd love to hear from the teachers to see how they teach kanji if it's just a strict class learning thing or if they try and squeeze new kanji into learning structures to make it more passive learning instead of study learning
1:38 In the west (or at least the part of it I'm from), our school worksheets were only ever printed in black and white. And our comic books were almost always in colour. Japan seems to have done it the other way around.
I find your advice works for me. I practice kanji in rotation. I recognize many more kanji than I can write. I also make up stories to help me. For example, I just learned the kanji for 'discussion' which combines parts I know. I like the double fire. It makes me think how discussions can be dangerous when they are concerning sensitive topics. This helps me remember. One of my favorite parts of learning Japanese is kanji. I find it very beautiful and clever. The hardest part for me is remembering the multiple pronunciations each kanji can have since I am not a native speaker and do not have the vocabulary! I am very surprised how much I can understand of the children talking in your video!!! Learning a language is so fun. I love how my brain can now make out the words in Japanese and it is no longer a long string of fast sounds!
I feel you, Yuta san. We went through the same pain when learning hanzi. Wrote again and again and yet again. My teachers never taught us mnemonics (though we derived it ourselves eventually) and we certainly don't know what Spaced Repetition was.
The way you described the efficient way to learn kanji is exactly how i learn new skateboard tricks. No one even told me how to do it, i just figured out on my own that i seemed to retain the memory of foot placement and all the subtle motions better when i did it this way. I’ll try it a few times, then do something else for a while, and i noticed when I’d come back to the same trick, it would feel more natural, compared to just doing only that one trick over and over until i was exhausted, which i would notice that every attempt would be worse than the last.
I do kanji every day 5 times for 10-15 minutes.... and while the "easy ones" like river, mountain, or tree were easy to learn, the more abstract ones I do not know words for are really hard to remember... And there are so many levels to learning kanjis, learn the components, learn the meaning, learn the associated words, learn the readings (some will surprise me still), and the hardcore part, learn the stroke order.
I always give up studying Japanese and always return doing it again... I love this language but it's too hard learn kanji... I think I'm gonna try writing a diary in order to memorize them... Nice video Yuta-san, brought to me a little light to emerge from my ashes!
This video helps so much Yuta. I am currently self studying for the first time Japanese since leaving University and this video shows me how much time I should dedicate per week. :)
I have learned all Jouyou Kanji with this story technique and the Book "Remembering the Kanji" by James Heisig and i worked really well. I managed it to lean 2200 Kanji in 6 months and now know all of them a least passively so if I lean a new word I just need to look the Kanji up once and I am instand able to read and wirte the word. Advantage, because as soon as you know many kanji actively you will be able to learn new words more easier and even guess the meaning.
But you learn only the meanings that you don‘t need anymore if you reached a good level. I would recommend a method that teaches the most common pronunciation with the meanings. If you reach 2000 words the onyomi become very important while the meanings often make no real sense. I learned the 2200 kanji meanings with Heisig too but I wouldn‘t say that you "know" kanji then because the pronunciation part is missing. And it is MUCH bigger than the meaning part. And much more important.
@Mateusz I thought exactly the same in the beginning. If you‘re past around 4000 words you are confronted with tons of from Chinese imported words where the onyomi are usually always the same and the pronunciation becomes MUCH more important than the meanings. The meanings in these imported words often make no sense because the Japanese kanji meanings are not all identical to the Chinese hànzì meanings. Also if you‘re reading skill is good enough to read Japanese text in a decent speed the meanings are useless because you‘re brain will recognize the words by pattern and you associate a sound to it. You don‘t have time to think about the meanings if you read a text fluently. That would slow you down massively. If you reach intermediate level (around late N3, early N2 level) the meanings get more and more irrelevant. Just wait and see. :-)
@@michaelmuller1433 I totally unterstand what you mean. If I read something in Japanese I dont think about the meaning of the kanji while reading, in the same way you explained. But because I know the meaning I can recognize the pronunciation immediately. But yes as you mentioned learning types are differed and just for my type it worked well. An impotent point I want to mentioned is that kanji chinese characters in general dont have a pronunciation. There is just the meaning. With this meaning comes the pronunciation, because this script is based on meaning while the latin alphabet is based on pronunciation. In the same way as the pronunciation of letters are different in different language so is the meaning of chinese characters in different in different languages.
I wish I had Yuta and utube in my early years as a student! Then I wouldnt have carried all thoses book around!! Much easier now days! Great videos! Keep up the good work.
Other way for foreigners to learn kanji could also be that just try to read manga in Japanese if you know the kana cause most of the times there's a hiragana characters right next to kanji.
I found a good video a while back where a guy put the camera all the way up to the paper, and one by one drew the 80 or so kanji that 1st and 2nd graders were expected to remember. I watched it over a couple times, and like Yuta suggests, made small stories to each of them, and voila, after a few repetitions they stuck. I don't recall the name of the actual video, but you're resourceful, you'll find it.
@PikaLink91 I believe the channel you mentioned is called Learning Kanji. Unfortunately, the creator of these videos stopped making them for some reason 2 years ago.
Wow, that Japanese kid surprised me! I thought he’d speak really basic and easy to understand Japanese but I had to pause several times to fully grasp what he was saying!
Super similar to how we do spelling tests in the US. We always had a weekly list of words to memorize the spelling and meaning of. And back when I was in elementary we had to do all of our spelling in cursive.
1 per week? 2200 weeks is a long time pal. I'd suggest 20 per day with remembering the kanji and Anki flashcards, you'll be done in 5 months, also if 20/day is too much try 10/day after you've surpassed the 500 or 600 mark.
@@juandiegoargandona4160 RTK is useless past the first 300 kanji or so. After that just learn vocab words like yuta said and start reading raw Japanese.
@@babygorl9541 The first 300 kanji in RTK aren't even all that common. There are new components added all the way until almost the very end. You can do the whole set of 2200 in three or four months, so might as well just do them all and have them with you for the rest of your life. I did about 30-40 new characters a day, and towards the end bumped up to about sixty.
You can learn 2200 kanjis in 3 months with Anki. I studied 25 kanjis everyday creating short stories and reviewing old ones so I don't forget. Search for "Nihongo shark anki deck", it's really useful.
i bet you interviewed lots of kids but just picked the most adorable one and the most intelligent one for our entertainment. that second kid was so bright, and used sophisticated language - i was really impressed!
at the 04:26 what the boy explained is an important method of being able to memorize new Kanji at every level. By learning Kanji in small amounts each week the students will have an easier ability to remember them. This would be an effective way of learning and memorizing the larger sets of 200 Kanji that are taught after the 80 easier Kanji at the Grade 1 level. This is a very helpful tip and I don't know why many articles and videos that explain how to memorize Kanji don't mention this. Until I saw that part of the video I always wondered how school students in Japan were able to remember all the Kanji that they had to learn at every Grade.
Finally, 1st like! Thank you for the useful info it would help, kanni are the scariest part of Japanese so far 😁 So it's repetition until you see them in your sleep right?
Wow, that was so helpful. Thank you so much Yuta. I'll try out some of these methodes. Because I'm struggeling somehow. After repeating the kanjis I know several times, I can finally recognize them and I can read them too. But writing is a totally different story. Some kanjis are getting very fast into my head and I don't forget the stroke lines either. But some of them I can repeat over and over again, but it just doesn't work out. So, I'll try out your methodes. Maybe I'll finally be successful then 🤗
wooooow, what a great method!!! That's why Japanese people are so clever. I'm studying japanese in these months on my own and now I'm facing to Kanji. I will follow this kid's method about Kanji. Even in my mother language (Italian) we don't remember how to write some words ahahhaha
The ironic thing about writing kanji though is that one of the few times you do have to write on demand is your address, and place names often use obscure kanji that you'll never see anywhere else. I had to learn 潟 first thing when I moved there.
Writing is great for tactile learners which most people aren’t(at least regarding kanji). Find out if you’re more of an auditory or visual learner with kanji and then focus your time accordingly between the 2 with writing being at the bottom of the list unless you’re going to be a Japanese writer of sorts, do Shodo, or...idk
Bear in mind the 2000 jouyou kanji aren't nearly enough if you intend to read books. You'll need between 3000 and 4000 for a comfortable reading experience. And by comfortable I mean you will still check the dictionary every 30 seconds because even if you know all kanji there will be unexpected readings or words in kana that look harmless but you've never seen then before. And it never ends! Have fun, everyone. I do.
Same as in chinese, but I think it's even worse. Just knowing the characters alone won't get you anywhere since the meaning of compound words often times has completely different meanings than the literal meaning of each individual character. So you also have to memorise compound words, idiomatic phrases.
@@niubi3923 Japanese imported a lot of those from Chinese too, although probably not as many. One advantage Chinese has is a way more consistent reading for each symbol, which can be a complete lottery in Japanese sometimes. >_>