Anyone learning Japanese or another language?

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Oops forgot I posted this thread lol, thanks for the responses everyone!

It is hard to get momentum going, not sure how I kept going in the beginning honestly because I'm not a studious type of person at all. I tried to do programming/web development a few years ago and gave up on that but then I didn't have anything to really work toward in life so I got depressed. But something struck me that I wanted to learn a language because it's the kind of skill that if you have it, you have it and it's something you can prove to someone within a short conversation even if you don't have a degree. And it's kind of like programming, learning syntax and putting the pieces together to get something to function the way you want. But it doesn't go obsolete like programming often can.

And yeah I've learnt everyone all on my own so far. I was kind of doubtful of how far I could get on my own but then I heard about AJATT and Stephen Krashen's theories on language immersion and and I'm under the impression that the most efficient way to learn a language is through comprehensible input, and in some ways mimicking what happened when you were a baby. So I started watching a ton of Japanese media with no subtitles or just Japanese subtitles from the beginning, and I learned to enjoy it even if I hardly understand it. That has been a struggling but now it's getting really satisfying because I can play video games and watch stuff, and understanding isn't really a mental strain anymore. There's still a ton I don't understand but I can watch/read young to mid-teenage level stuff and understand almost all of it.

I agree that producing is a lot harder, but more and more I'm becoming able to have text chats with people and express what I want to say without having to think too hard. But finding people who want to chat with me is hard, like I said I only chat with randoms on Omegle and Chatpad, sometimes Japanese chatrooms. So I don't have have friends but that's probably more of my own issue because I don't have any English friends either. I want to go to Japan in a couple years or something when I'm fully fluent, and maybe stay in a guest house/communal living space, and try to get a job or something over there. Seems like it would be fun, I don't have any obligations and I don't plan on taking on any so I could probably go over there any time I want, but I'm too scared.

But anyway you were really close lol. I don't know if that first part was exactly a natural thing to say but I said something like "How is it going up until now?" And then I said "Anyway, if anyone else is studying Japanese, please contact me!"

ナイス！１年生だってすごいよ。俺も日本語勉強は楽しいだと思う、なんかそろそろ上手になるはいい感じ。頑張ってね

makr君、こんにちは。僕は北欧出身の日本に住んでいる外国人だ。
makr君の日本語はもうすごくうまい。羨ましいなー。
僕は東京に2015年からずっと住んでいたけど、あまり進歩出来なかった。
一つの理由はたぶん時間。始めてから仕事がずっとフルタイムだったから、家に帰る時には毎日ぐったりした。
海外に住みながらそこから日本の文化を楽しむのがいいんだけど、実際に日本に住んだりや働いたりのがかなり大変だよ。
それでも、面白い物や美しい物が一杯あるから、日本に引越し後悔がない。
今、みんなコロナ時代にど真ん中に過ごすから、国は鎖国みたいな状態だ。
でも、数年後に観光のためにmakr君が日本に行けるはずだ。
その間に、しっかり勉強してね。

とにかく、よろしく。

I have been trying to learn Japanese for a few months (I don't always keep up on it, though lol). I honestly want to learn it because I'd like to play some games that haven't been translated into English, and I just really like Japanese as a language. So far I've found that learning it is a lot more fun than learning Norwegian.

Watching and listening to things in Japanese and Norwegian has also been very helpful to me for learning those languages.

返事はありがとう！東京の生活が少し大変そうね、でもめっちゃいい経験はずも。外国に引っ越すな人はすごい度胸を持っていると思う、そっちの方もっと羨ましい。いつか日本にきっと行ける、コロナ時代の後かも。ただ見物旅はあまり行きたくない、そしていけるの理由が見つかるつもり。仕事とかね、だっと行くことはあまり怖くない。でも数月間な旅もいいかも、貯金を使うで。でもとにかく日本語勉強はやっぱりすごい楽しい、日本語の番組と映画とゲームは分かれるだけが十分な理由。文法の間違いならごめんｗ。敬語を使えなくてもごめん、まだなれないの。よろしく！

敬語はまだまだ心配しなくてもいいよ。
もちろん、失礼な言葉を使うと、周りの人が迷惑するけど、今までのmakr君の書いた分は全然その問題を見つかれなかった。でも、敬語は事務所でよく使う人が多いのは実です。

日本に住んでいる一般的な外国人の中で、英語先生たちが多い。
もし本当の日本事務所に働きたいなら、ＪＬＰＴＮ２又はＮ１が必要そうだね。
僕はそういうテストを受ける経験がないで、makr君と同じように状で自習した。
でも、どうやっていい仕事を見つけるかのは一番重要な問題だね。
妻が手伝ってくれたから、自分で求職をすれば、まったくうまく出来なさそう。（妻が日本人だから）

仕事以外な話をしたら、日本生活が中々楽しいよ。
特に、日本料理が興味深い。
自閉症を持つ人にとって、新しい味を試すのは時々難しいけど、僕ほそのような問題を持ってないだ。
だから、日本に引越しした後にだんだんた体重が増えてしまった。ただ普通なおじさんになってしまった（笑）。

I don't think I'd have the patience to do it that way... I could maybe try it with studying Swedish, but I want to actually understand the anime I watch so studying Japanese like that is a no go for me. Or maybe watching shows meant for really small kids would work for me.

Listening to a bunch of stuff you can't understand seems very unproductive. I thought comprehensible input meant that you could actually comprehend most of the input.

Currently, no. However, I took Mandarin Chinese during my freshman and sophomore years of high school to earn my language credit required for graduation. I never really became fluent in Mandarin, but I was able to form basic sentences. However, after doing it for two years I chose not to continue, both because I had earned my credit and because the third year curriculum sounded too hard for something I didn’t need to do. Specifically, in Mandarin III I would need to learn how to write the characters from memory and that sounded like too much work.

It's definitely true that the way I started out wasn't super efficient, but the idea is to first get your brain used to the sounds of the language. There's a lot of processing going on subconsciously when it comes to language, like parsing out the sounds and actually being able to recognize them. Like if you hear a word 200 times and then look up the meaning, it's going to stick much better than if you hear a word for the first time ever and look it up. You'll probably already have feelings about what the word probably means, like when you encounter words in your native language. I think it's also about training your brain to tolerate paying attention to stuff you can't understand. Overall comprehensible input is more efficient, but as you learn and memorize more via active study you'll naturally find comprehensible content in almost anything. And as an adult, I was unwilling to sit and watch little Japanese kid shows aimed at 5 year olds, that's just awful.

One other thing I did (and still do) is watch American shows that I've seen a lot dubbed in Japanese. Shows like South Park and Friends are on Netflix JP with pretty good Japanese dubs, and I know what happens in all of the episodes. So once you have a good understanding of the language, it's easy to pick up words that way. And it's fun comparing how they translated the English into Japanese, changed jokes that wouldn't work in Japanese, etc.

just a beginner in japanese and mandarin through book studies, while dabbling in a little cantonese. the main appeal is recognition that language is rail for train of thought, and very different ones from one’s first language are rather enlightening in a way, though there’s also interest in working in japan someday, along with potential travels to hong kong and taiwan.

Well I'm constantly picking up things to improve my English but I'm not actively learning another language, though I'd like to.

Irish always seemed really cool to me. I'd love to learn it, but it seems like an awful lot of work. I think chinese might be my second choice.

Which resources have you considered to help you improve your understanding of these languages?

Until I buy a new phone for myself, I will not be using Duolingo until then.