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Phrases learned early in your linguistic journey are so powerful even if they may be awkward or incorrect. My significant other, born in Toyohashi, learned early the phrase, "Blows up." Consequently when she heard the phrase "that blows my mind," and she tried to mimic it, her version would be "that blows up my mind." I would just smile and say, "Really?"
I’m just learning, and I’m still wading through the nuances and different meanings of sou da ne, sou desu ne, I desu ne, I desu, so desu, sou desu ka, nai desu, sou desu yo. 😢
Yes, I remember when I just started learning English, I used to say "be careful" as a casual goodbye because in my native language we say something like "take care" like "I hope you arrive at your destination safely". And one day I watched a movie and realized native english speakers usually say "be careful" in a dangerous situation. 😂😂😂
I used to be really confused about whether 話せますか or 喋りますか was the more natural. I asked a Japanese lady that worked at a restaurant I often went to and she discussed it with the other Japanese worker. I was pretty surprised when she said that both were natural and sounded fine! Lmao
I watch a Japanese variety show called Nogizaka Under Construction (乃木坂工事中). The official UA-cam channel uploads new episode every Sunday, and I copy lot of what they say. Unfortunately they don't have English subtitles, but there are websites that do.
I really love the new approach to teaching languages using real conversational / situational sentences (I used to teach ESL here in Brazil), but I can also understand why some language course books have tons of unnatural sentences. They need to teach the standard structures first! Well, almost all beginners are not into word order and nuances each language has. IMO, sometimes - but just sometimes - it's nice to have some grammatically correct sentences that sounds like a book, so the students may understand the standard word order / structures of the language, especially in FORMAL conTEXT. The more used to the language patterns the student gets, the better (and faster) they understand the informal structures and slangs, with cultural details added altogether. That's probably one of the way some teachers and language course producers think on "how to learn a second language". What I'd love to see in every course book though is a disclaimer that warns students that most sentences used in the beginner levels / lessons are not exactly spoken in real life and they're only used to help understand the formal structures. It'd be also interesting to have some review lessons with same beginner content, but with colloquial situations exercises. It's like relearning stuff using (close to) real life examples without making students get confused at first glance, which is good for everybody, especially intermediate - advanced learners.
The problem is that textbooks don't necessarily teach you "standard" ways of saying something. They just teach you uncommon or weird phrases when there are more common and natural alternatives that are perfectly standard and grammatically correct. But a lot of non-native speakers fail to see this because textbook phrases sound perfectly fine to them as I mentioned in this video. I've also noticed a tendency for many non-native speakers to think that natural Japanese is somewhat lesser, to the point where some of them start to criticise native Japanese phrases for not being grammatically correct. But we don't have a lot of prescriptive grammar for spoken Japanese and textbooks for non-native speakers most definitely don't get to decide what's correct for native speakers.
@@ThatJapaneseManYutathat’s quite a problem especially as textbooks are *usually* written by japanese teachers/people. Although it’s my first time seeing that non natives have ego issues being corrected by natives and seeing textbook language as superior.
My Japanese girlfriend often does the "translate directly from your language" thing. We were at Disneyland and she was saying "trash box" instead of "trash can". I understood her, of course, but it definitely didn't sound natural.
This is why I like Tae Kim's Guide, he always warns when an example sentence isn't very natural and includes a "reality check" section explaining casual forms for that piece of grammar
Yes! I learned from textbook, and one day i complained to my penpal that i was tired of ending so many sentences with "-desu, -desu, -desu" but i never learned how to avoid this. It was frustrating, so i'm all about natural Japanese.
You're channel is excellent! I'm learning a lot in preparation for my visit to Japan at the end of the year. I don't want to go and just be silent for two months 😅 I want to try and communicate with people whilst I'm there. I can't lie, I'm kind of anxious about it. But, I'm going to try my best. Your videos have been helping me a lot! 😁
This is a great video not only for learning Japanese, but other languages as well (the how to sound natural part). That concept makes for better learning!
I've been using Duolingo for learning the basics for quite a while now, and I gotta say the amount of times I've felt like "Why the hell are they teaching that like this, nobody ever uses that sentence" is honestly way too high. The fact that I'm using English as the language the lessons are based on, even though English itself is only a second language to me, cause there was no German Japanese course on the app, doesn't really make that less confusing xD But at least I'd never make the mistake with using plain form for asking wether somebody speaks a language. German also uses potential form for that after all.
@@JohnM... That isn't the point of that particular thing...the intended learning point is not to learn a set phrase for 'rice and water'...it is to demonstrate connecting nouns with the と particle in the way that English does with 'and' . That is the teaching point the learner is supposed to be picking up from that. The actual nouns are irrelevant since it is the same i.e. 猫と犬と羊 (neko to inu to hitsuji...cat and dog and sheep). It just so happens that rice and water are two of a bunch of similar simple nouns they are introducing in those early stages that are broadly similar i.e. water, green tea, meat, fish, fruit etc. So it's teaching you how to connect nouns with 'and' and introducing some basic vocab. The main issue people have with Duolingo is overthinking things whilst not really having much experience of teaching and learning techniques. Sometimes things seem a bit odd but usually there's a reason for them. Also, it's like the old classic on Duo...'I am an apple' which, over the years, has got people all bent out of shape and spawned countless forum posts. The issue there is missing context since it's printed words on a webpage and not enough insight from the learner since they encountered that on Duo with neither enough knowledge or context...have a search on the googs though for the following article...it's pretty interesting and the same deal with the I'm an apple thing. i-am-not-an-eel-the-mysteries-of-invisible-japanese-pronouns-and-the-real-meaing-of-the-wa-particle
My advice: Stop using Duolingo immediately. Just about any other approach will serve you way better. Get away from the "gaming" approach. I wasted years on Duo and it held me back so much. As someone else said: Duolingo is for the perpetual beginner. There's nothing of value there.
@@vallejomach6721 You can perfectly "demonstrate connecting nouns with the と particle" with natural examples. For example, ラーメンと餃子お願いします。Japanese people often order ramen and gyoza together. Given that you can teach the same grammar with natural or unnatural phrases, I'd say using natural phrases is more beneficial for learners. "Gohan to mizu" is sometimes used in the context of making congee (cooked rice + water), though (but pretty sure Duolingo doesn't explain the context witch is pretty specific).
I think that learning textbook Japanese is still important for rules and such, but if the book could go a step further and teach coloquial speech as well, it'd be a lot better.
@@danielantony1882 The problem with this "learn real Japanese" is that it neglects the basics. I agree that text book languages don't teach exactly the same language that is spoken on a daily basis, but you need to know the basics of grammar to be able to speak a more fluent and correct Japanese (or English, or Spanish, etc). I knew some people from Thailand that spoke "real Spanish" with a lot of expressions and informal words, but their grammar sucked. I prefer a more unnatural but correct language. The nuances of a language will come after you immerse yourself in the culture.
You can perfectly learn all the basic grammar and correct ways of saying things with real-life Japanese. It's interesting that some people think native Japanese speakers write and speak somewhat "incorrect" Japanese. We don't. "Natural and correct" is better than "unnatural and correct" for most people in my opinion. So I teach natural AND correct Japanese with appropriate levels of politeness. > I knew some people from Thailand that spoke "real Spanish" with a lot of expressions and informal words, but their grammar sucked. The problem isn't that they learned "natural" Spanish. Maybe the problem is they simply didn't learn a lot of Spanish grammar and solely focused on informal words? I also learned a lot of "natural" Spanish by talking to Spanish speakers but I also learned important grammar points like conjugation and gender rules.
@@ThatJapaneseManYuta I don't think that at all! I mean, of course I'm sure there are cases - my English speaking style is even "unnatural" and grammatically incorrect often (tenses, double negatives, etc) As a Japanese learner since childhood, for me personally, the textbook examples were still important as a foundation, just as English class/textbooks were. Once I knew the linguistic logic, I could understand HOW natural speaking was formed. I do totally understand what you mean too, and just think it's a little bit different for everyone.
@@katkaat It's quite absurd how people are so adamant about how you can't effectively learn "foundations" and "linguistic logic" using natural Japanese. (Maybe a sunk-cost fallacy?) You totally can and it's more straightforward than going through unnatural Japanese which people may or may not "unlearn" (which is a hassle for most people) in the future. I mean, if you had textbooks that give you natural examples or unnatural examples to teach you the same concepts, why would you pick the one that gives you unnatural examples?
For me, Duolingo is ‘meh’. I’ve started using Pimsleur, but there’s so much to take in that I’m stuck on lesson 7 when I should be on about lesson 12! ☹️. I need to learn like a baby, or an idiot…
I have a lot of experience both teaching and learning languages and I believe the message of this video is really important. Use textbooks for learners to get a grounding in the structures and to gain a basic vocabulary but move onto 'authentic' materials as soon as you can i.e. materials by and for native speakers. Any texts and dialogues written down in books will contain a lot of sentences that are just frankly weird because often the people writing them are trying to come up with something to practise a specific grammar point or item(s) of vocabulary. Writing dialogues that sound natural is something that even professional script writers often fail to do well.
The beginning basics and gramatical structures are important. Especially in a language like Japanese where formality is so important. I think a lower level foreigner would sound better in most situations speaking a bookish polite structurally sound Japanese, than one speaking more colloquially, like this video suggests. Unless of course you are 15 years old speaking to other 15 year olds.
So youre saying that directly translating English into Japanese, then rearranging it according to a bunch of grammer rules my textbook had me memorise isnt a good idea 😮
It's not good to translate NL (native language) to TL (target langauge). It should always be TL to NL when translating anything. Try Refold, you will learn more about this.
I learned koto ga dekimasu first which was odd to me because conditional form was shorter and i thought immediately “i feel like people would tend to use the shorter quicker version in actual conversation”
I think it's called the potential form, but I agree with you. It's easier and quicker to say or write/type too. ○○ことができます is good to know but I'd say it's more formal and literary. Even 食べられません is easier than 食べることができません lol
On the mention of "Can vs Do". There's an age old grammatical dad joke to play on people, who if they ever ask you to do something with can (Which is usually but not always grammatically incorrect) you reply "I don't know, is that even possible?" or some other such snarky remark. For example: "Can you turn on the lights?" "I don't know. CAN I turn on the lights? It's pretty far away." or "Can I have that cup?" "I don't know, can you? Are you sure you can hold it?" The grammatically correct request for the former is "Would you turn on the lights?" as you're requesting an action be performed, the latter is "May I have that cup?." As you are requesting permission to possess something that someone else already has or is considered to own.
You are absolutely correct. It is also, however, important to point out - for the more fastidious amongst us that care about those details - because, those sentences can have different meanings, even if conversationally we don't acknowledge that: "Can/Do you speak X language?" *Can* can insinuate "do you have the ability to do 'x'." *Do* can insinuate "do you engage in the usage of language 'x'."
@@fairshareofdrownedsouls I þink ðe question of "Do you speak English" is redundant cuz it's obvious ðat no Japanese speaks English on a regular basis. Exceptions do not count, since 98% of japs don't know dogwash about English.
Can you make a video of unnatural English phrases you had to unlearn? I'm a native English speaker and am having a hard time what people mean by "unnatural language" and I think I would benefit from hearing examples of unnatural English you were repeating from textbooks.
Its like how a textbook would write a sentence saying "I got candy today, did you get candy today?" vs irl you would say "I got candy today what about you?" It's just some things that normally would be omitted in day-to-day speech aren't in textbook sentences- making it unnatural. Hope that helps
I'd love a video about this too. If you live in Japan for awhile, you'll encounter all kinds of hilarious things. For example, in English, we rarely say, "Let us (verb)" unless we're in church, lol. Just saying, "Let's (do something)" is not especially common. But I guess in Japanese you can make a sentence that translates as "let's (noun)!" and even "let's (adjective) (noun)!" So you can literally say something like, "Let's McDonald's!" of "Let's happy beer!" The other thing that comes to mind is expressions from...when? Gangster movies from the 40's? that are included in Japanese study books, like "That cuts no ice with me," or the 1940s "Remember me to your mother," or "I misremember her name." Oh, a third example is the absolute avoidance of phrasal verbs, which results in some very unnatural, overly formal English. So instead of "get off the plane," people will say "deboard the plane," which IS correct, but native speakers just don't say that. Okay, here's another--when textbooks try to teach a grammar point, the point itself is valid, but the examples that are given are crappy. My teacher friends and I used to complain about sentences like "She is loved by everyone." We say, "Everyone loves her," right? Or "I received this sweater from my grandmother" instead of "My grandmother gave me this sweater." The stuff I am talking about I encountered almost 20 years ago, so I hope h.s. and jr high textbooks are better now. At my current job we use a textbook written by native English speakers.
I see your point, but to be fair, the "can you ride a bycicle" phrase in Minna no Nihongo is said in the context of explaining that exact grammar, not the potential form of the verb. And probably the others are the same. That said, when you explain the second (or more) way to say something, is when textbooks or teachers should clarify which is better used or "more native". But that doesn't take away the useful part of learning all of them.
I find the bicycle example particularly interesting. The 乗れますか construction is much simpler and easier to understand. Are the textbooks avoiding potential forms, or just really intent on teaching できる? The textbook version of the question seems like it more literally translates as "is riding a bicycle possible for you?" which is understandable but very strange.
0:38 「ですから」問題ってありますね。丁寧語を「ですから」みたいな形で文中で使うと微妙に不自然になることが多い。文法的には何も間違ってない上に、ネイティブでも「ですから」という形自体は限られたコンテクストでは用いるので余計にややこしい。 0:59 「朝ご飯」を略して「食べてません」でもいいですね。 あるいは「食べてないです」と言うこともあります。「ないです」が不自然だとする人もいます(特に高齢者)が、それはフォーマルな書き言葉ではそうかもしれませんが、話し言葉やくだけた書き言葉では「ないです」と言うことも多いです。 「忙しかったんで」は「忙しかったので」でもいいです。どちらかと言えば「忙しかったんで」のほうがくだけた言い方です。 「英語を話しますか？」は不自然なだけじゃなく曖昧な言い方で、意味が正確に伝わらない可能性があります。次の英文を見てください。 1. Do you speak English?→英語喋れますか？ 2. Do you usually speak English?→普段英語を話しますか？ 3. Are you going to speak English?→英語で話すつもりですか？ 文脈なしに「英語を話しますか？」と言うとこれらのどの意味にもとれます。笑い。 あと、「英語喋れますか？」は「英語話せますか？」と言っても良いです。「喋る」は「話す」よりくだけた言い方です。2つの文で「英語」のあとに省略されてるのは「を」ではなく「は」です。「英語を喋れますか？」はやや不自然で、「英語は喋れますか？」が普通です。要するに、可能を表す「話せる」「喋れる」を使うことと、「を」を使わないことがポイントですね。
The same rules apply to native speech, too. My K-6 school years were spent around the USA and Europe. And I read a lot of books. But my High School years were in one city. After 9th grade my friends started to complain about my formal English and suggested I start using contractions. It was good advice.
There is a similar issue with learning Spanish in the US. I see phrases and expressions in these text books and classes that I’ve never heard in Mexico or from other Spanish speakers. When I pointed them out people would stubbornly defend these oddities claiming they existed. Prime example is this expression, así así. It’s supposed to be a way of saying I’m ok as a response to how are you but I’ve spoken to people from all over Latin America and Spain and have never heard anyone ever used that phrase, yet, it’s on certified Spanish language learning books in schools.
1 - Any anime here? 2 - Is this an old video uploaded just now? I notice you're back to kyubey 3 - Anyhoo yuta you've got a great series of how anime characters speak Japanese. Please do Itsuki Nakano from the quintessential quintuplets or any or all the 7 main characters in TQQ. How they speak Japanese I believe is very important to understanding the plot eg the honorifics, the lost in translation stuff (eg when they say things like zurui, hatsukoi, uso, tachi, fukuzatsu Vs taihen, mote etc that are removed from the dub). I compiled a lot of the lost in translation stuff in r/gotoubun Something to consider about Itsuki: The Quintessential Quintuplets' character types are: Ichika - Onee-san / ara ara, Nino - tsundere, miku - kuudere / dandere, Yotsuba - genki Itsuki - ?? - Tsundere like Nino? - Eat-suki? - Imouto? - Someone who speaks keigo to their siblings, to Fuutarou and to Raiha and to everyone basically? Actually, the main thing I learned from Yuta's videos that keigo is basically just desu, masu & their variations. I swear when I learned elementary Japanese in bachelor's (foreign language classes are required in universities in the Philippines) we were never even taught the word keigo. All this time I had no idea Itsuki was the only quint and actually only main character who was talking keigo to EVERYONE. Anyway, I have a theory as to what Itsuki's type is, but you're not gonna like it... For more japanese stuff re TQQ, see r/gotoubun r/itsuesugi r/raitsuki etc Also: ubmu3x ubmu3x ubmu3x ubmu3x ubmu3x ubmu3x
Holy crap, I'm glad I haven't touched that Genki book and just listen to natural Japanese through podcasts... Is harder, since I got no translation but is absolutely the safer way to learn.
This is one of the biggest barriers to learning japanese, and almost nobody talks about it other than saying it exists and giving a few examples. What we need is a bunch of books pointing out these differences. And don't even get me started on koto and morau.
When Yuta says learn Japanese from Authentic materials, don't take it to mean only authentic materials because he doesn't say that. Another point neglected was, he fails to mention that learning Japanese from Authentic materials only can lead to bad habits just like learning Japanese from textbooks. Many people these days opt to self study for a number of reasons, such as finances and when they prepare to study they do research through vlogs and blogs, while I'm not against reading other people's experiences. They tend to be bias in nature and there are a lot of holes in information. Japan is an exception when it comes to language learning and teaching amongst other countries such as China and Korea. However, typically in a language classroom, lessons will be tailored to factor in problems such as unnatural language usage, etc with possible solutions. You'll learn how to create perfect grammatical structures then learn how to create more natural, native sounding ones, teachers will use materials such as movies, TV shows, newspapers, etc to introduce authentic materials. This will produce more balanced learners over time, and usually result in Non-Native speakers having a deeper understanding and utilisation of their second language than many first-language speakers. This also means the Non-Native English Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) are better at teaching English than Native speakers. In Japan, the language education system is really messy but they are trying to fix it as cheaply as possible.... For a long time, even today, many schools take the Grammar-Translation approach. This approach sees a foreign language taught in the learners first language rather than the target language, neglecting critical productive and receptive skills (speaking and listening). This approach was popular during World War 2, Soldier's would use it in order to translate enemy messages. Many Eikaiwa in Japan, will hire Native-speakers (mostly without qualifications or an understanding of English Language Teaching and Learning), provide them with inadequate training from other instructors then have them design materials in house with little to no proof-reading. This means that many grammatical and Native mistakes can be found throughout the material. They then tend to utilise an Audiolingual approach, Language is taught and learnt through repetition and habit. But they tell learners it's communicative (it doesn't become communicative until they reach a high enough level). Due to a lack of understanding and trainin, many Native-speaking teachers will not correct pronunciation effectively or won't listen attentively enough for grammatical mistakes because they feel that they understood the student. Why did I mention all that? Simply, because if you want to learn a language then you have utilise different approaches and methodology. This is also true for material, while sounding more natural and native-like is the biggest goal. Don't make it your only priority, understanding the grammar and linguistics is still very much important to reaching a Native-level, you need to balance the information you learn as you're studying. Don't use one book like genki thinking it's some kind of bible! 🤣 You should use 3/4 books for learning Japanese grammar because they all differ and overlap, for reading and listening comprehension, utilise more authentic materials like Yuta said. Then, most importantly, practice speaking with Native-speakers, ask for feedback, listen to what how they speak and try to model your speech around theirs. Personally, I use the "Nihongo Fun and Easy" designed by Coto Academy because the focus is on speaking and listening, they use more natural set phrases as they designed the book for conversational Japanese rather than JLPT. Other than this, I use Nihongo So-Matome, and Weekly J. Just for books, I attend a man to man language class once a week. Granted, I live in Japan so I speak with my coworkers trying. Additionally, I use HelloTalk to interact with more Native-speakers.... I, also, bought a few JLPT courses on Udemy from Attain Japanese. I listen to a lot of Japanese music, from Creepy Nuts to Daoko. I'm only just entering the Intermediate level from September and I plan on taking the BJT and JLPT. Most people will focus on taking the JLPT, thinking that it's similar to the CEFR: you can map parts of it on to the latter, but the JLPT takes a grammar-translation approach. It measures your reading, writing and listening but it's mostly grammar-perfect. There's no speaking section, and the writing section is mostly multiple choice and gapfills which isn't an effective way to measure writing ability. Sorry for the long message, it is bias at the end and subjective to myself but I hope it helps others on their journey to acquiring Japanese!
Something really helpful when trying to speak Japanese naturally would be some kind of Japanese "study buddy" to submit your own phrases to and to give you feedback on how to say things more naturally. However, this may be difficult to find.
Other ways to make Japanese more natural is to omit pronouns. Like: 1) he/she: 彼/彼女("kare/kanojo", he/she) is usually used in formal conversations because informally it means boyfriend and girlfriend, respectively, unless certain context is given like ここは姉。彼女はやさしい。(This is my sister. She is nice.) 2) you: saying あなた("anata", you) isn't just unnatural, but it can sometimes be rude, usually in conversations. There's also other alternatives like お前(omae), 君(kimi), 貴様(kisama), てめえ(temee), etc. Saying you isn't rude if it's written like a poem, song, book, etc. 3) I/me: 私("watashi"["watakushi" if more polite], I). It's usually used if someone doesn't understand the context, it's usually ommited like instead of saying 私は学生です(watashi wa gakusei desu), you can just say 学生です(gakusei desu) which both means "I'm a student." 私 is also formal, but there's also other ways to say "I" like: あたし(atashi) used casually by young women, あたくし(atakushi) same but polite, うち(uchi) used usually by little girls, 僕(boku) used semi-formally usually by boys, 俺(ore) used casually by boys, 自分(jibun) used by anyone in any context, but also means "myself", etc. And lastly anyone can use names to replace pronouns which is OK to use.
@1:43 when I lived in Japan awhile ago, I heard the locals use “shaberu” and I did try to adapt to saying it but it was more of a tongue twister to say than はなせますか 😅😅
From my perspective this is not only a question about sounding natural or not, but also about written language vs. spoken language. I wouldn‘t quite agree, that textbook japanese is unnatural, textbooks frequenty teach written language. This doesn‘t necessarily mean, that it is unnatural. It just serves another purpose. I guess, that not all of your used phrases would fit a formal letter for example. One textbook you showed was Tobira, which focusses heavily on written language und writing proficiency. You really shouldn‘t expect spoken japanese or slang here. Also Genki is one of the best textbooks out there. I wouldn‘t recommend throwing it out and just learning by following everyday conversation.
How about George Trombley's From Zero courses? I hear him in his videos mentioning what sounds more natural and what native speakers say. I'm getting a lot of "textbook Japanese" from Duolingo which is kind of annoying considering how long I've spent with it.
I wonder if there are any "natural" Japanese textbooks that have normal-sounding example sentences instead of the classic textbook Japanese sentences. That would be amazing.
I assume it's a regional thing but if I was asking if someone is able to speak a language I would definitely use can and not do since I'm asking about a capability and not a habit
I hated something that textbooks really grind on the use of は for everything and it made me think it was a crucial word for communication. When in reality, particles can be dropped altogether, let alone use another "phrase template" to express one's thoughts.
I've seen people ask like 英語出来るか as well, which technically would translate to "Can you do English?" or "Are you good at English?", but never really seen a native use 話せますか
いやいやいいえいいえ i can learn textbook japanese or goofy anime japanese and take the words/meanings and keep it as simple information, not to be used for speaking native Japanese… i can then learn from the natives and take what i do know and use it, and forget what isn’t spoken… quite simple really… it’s easy because it can be easily forgotten especially when no one uses such phrases or wording… 👍
But JLPT requires textbook Japanese, I have to pass and deal with JLPT first and then once that's dealt with I can start learning phrases that are used by natives to sound natural. 😭
In college a professor made us email a hotel in Germany asking basic questions about its amenities in German, and I am sure we all came across like complete lunatics with our textbook German. 😅
Dear Yuta-san I'm actually a huge fan of Gaki no Tsukai. Would you say watching them can help with my listening, since they speak with the Osaka dialect?
When you hear only the sounds of your own language then the brain will simply prune the circuitry needed for hearing other sounds. This happens in late childhood. Tests have shown that babies can hear/detect every sound in every language, but this ability goes away at a later stage. Which is why children (and I have lots of personal experience with this) can easily both hear and pronounce words from another language, whatever sounds are used, while as they get older it gets harder. You can usually train yourself to hear those other sounds, but it can be hard. My significant other (Japanese) still can't hear the difference between V/B, and R/L, sometimes M/N, and some other sounds, after all these years. The only way is to watch my lips. And likewise, English native speakers learning my native language have huge problems hearing the difference between certain vowels in my language, a difference which to me is like night and day. And I myself couldn't hear how I pronounced the vowel "A" was different from how Italians pronounced it - took me quite a while to get my ears used to it (or rather, my brain had to grow some connections or something). Edit: Typo (older, not younger!)
I wonder why, if these phrases are polite, grammatically correct Japanese, why do textbooks teach phrases that are unnatural instead? It's interesting to see that the phenomenon is not unique to textbooks teaching Japanese. Though it does make me wonder, since the 2 Japanese teachers I had from learning Japanese in university were both native speakers from Japan, why did they just teach from the textbook even though they know it's wrong.
I suspect that they focused more on grammatical forms, like getting the particles, and verb and helper verbs etc. right, never mind the actual sentence - kind of like how an Italian course kept using examples of elephants standing on a table and such, sentences you would never actually use.
I wish I could tell all the English learners “NO ONE SAYS SO-SO!” Like NO ONE. I have never ONCE heard it in real life from a native English speaker. The ONLY time I heard it spoken by a native English speaker was in the show Brooklyn 99 but that show is a comedy, and it was said by a very comically up-tight and old-fashioned police captain.
From my experience, I wouldn’t recommend learning “natural Japanese” first because what many language learners want to do is certify their proficiency level and not only communicate. In my classes in the academy, we use minna no ni hongo series and I could certify my level in N3 when I took the Noken last year. It is also helpful that your sensei be native speaker as is mine, but “formal” Japanese is better than “natural” one, at least in my opinion.
There are (at least) two different issues here. One is polite vs colloquial, yes you may choose to focus only on polite forms (です/ます), but the other issue, which was the focus of the video was about *unnatural* Japanese in the sense that yes, it's grammatically correct, but that's not how you actually say it (like the "trash box" vs "trash can" example used by another commenter, though for English). So to me it sounds like you want to focus on keigo, and that's fine, but that's not what the video was arguing against as far as I can tell.
@@tohaason my point is that most people learn a foreign language to certify their proficiency level not just to communicate with native speakers because of educative or professional reasons. So the use of particles in japanese is absolutely necessary if you aim to take the JLPT; therefore, 自転車に乗ることができますか would be more accurate than 自転車乗れますか even if they mean pretty much the same thing or the last one is more "natural" (P. D. you also see the potential form of verbs in japanese in the minna no nihongo series)
@@hontouhahitorikiri I have not argued against learning correct use of particles. I simply pointed out that textbooks suffer from presenting sentences that are not natural, even if formal. As for learning polite forms first - you will be prevented from seeing the whole grammatical picture then, Cure Dolly explains about that in some of her videos on verbs, well worth visiting. Lastly, I don't at all agree that most people learn a foreign language to certify their proficiency level - far from it! The only ones who regularly do that are people in immigration programs who need it in order to get recidency and certain jobs, plus people applying to certain jobs in other countries. The rest, i.e. the vast majority, simply want to learn the language. I've never considered getting my proficiency level certified for English, nor any other language I speak or understand (to various suboptimal levels). I know and have met many people who have learned and are clearly proficient in Japanese, but as far as I know only two are "certified", as in taking JLPL as part of studying in Japanese universities. It's not something most people care about. Nor should they, unless it's a requirement for something they plan to do.
@@tohaason the point of Yuta’s video is that first you have to learn the “natural” way and I said that from my experience it is not like that. First you have to learn the “formal” way because most people learn a foreign language not as a hobby, but for a deeper reason. At least it is like that in the academy where I study Japanese (that is why I said “from my experience” from the beginning), the only ones who do it as a hobby are teenagers and they are the ones who drop out because Japanese is not an easy language to learn. I only want to point out how good of a material the minna no nihongo series is even if it is outdated or there is better material, it helped to be N3 when I took the JLPT, you should take it to see how proficient you are.
The question is then why testbooks keep on teaching unnatural Japanese? Yuta's course must be awesome but,from what I've seen, insanely expensive IMHO😢
![[Eng Sub] A Walk with a Dog | Japanese Listening Practice](/img/n.gif)
Learn Japanese with Yuta: bit.ly/3OY3G5c
Sorry, whare I can get anime with sub japan like in your video?
Phrases learned early in your linguistic journey are so powerful even if they may be awkward or incorrect. My significant other, born in Toyohashi, learned early the phrase, "Blows up." Consequently when she heard the phrase "that blows my mind," and she tried to mimic it, her version would be "that blows up my mind." I would just smile and say, "Really?"
That's actually adorable what 😭
I’m just learning, and I’m still wading through the nuances and different meanings of sou da ne, sou desu ne, I desu ne, I desu, so desu, sou desu ka, nai desu, sou desu yo. 😢
it be like that, huh?
Or should I say, そうだね?
Yes, I remember when I just started learning English, I used to say "be careful" as a casual goodbye because in my native language we say something like "take care" like "I hope you arrive at your destination safely". And one day I watched a movie and realized native english speakers usually say "be careful" in a dangerous situation. 😂😂😂
I used to be really confused about whether 話せますか or 喋りますか was the more natural. I asked a Japanese lady that worked at a restaurant I often went to and she discussed it with the other Japanese worker. I was pretty surprised when she said that both were natural and sounded fine! Lmao
話せますか？ and 喋れますか？ (more frequent) are both natural but 喋りますか？ is much less natural (most native speakers never phrase it this way).
@@ale895let's talk in Japanese is 英語で話そう or英語で話しましょう。
@@ale895 英語喋れますか？英語話せますか？英語出来ますか？ are all natural in Standard Japanese and used by different age groups.
can i say 日本語ができますか@@ThatJapaneseManYuta
@@user-rf3rf4fk9bsounds like "can you english?" 😂
I watch a Japanese variety show called Nogizaka Under Construction (乃木坂工事中). The official UA-cam channel uploads new episode every Sunday, and I copy lot of what they say. Unfortunately they don't have English subtitles, but there are websites that do.
I really love the new approach to teaching languages using real conversational / situational sentences (I used to teach ESL here in Brazil), but I can also understand why some language course books have tons of unnatural sentences. They need to teach the standard structures first!
Well, almost all beginners are not into word order and nuances each language has. IMO, sometimes - but just sometimes - it's nice to have some grammatically correct sentences that sounds like a book, so the students may understand the standard word order / structures of the language, especially in FORMAL conTEXT. The more used to the language patterns the student gets, the better (and faster) they understand the informal structures and slangs, with cultural details added altogether.
That's probably one of the way some teachers and language course producers think on "how to learn a second language".
What I'd love to see in every course book though is a disclaimer that warns students that most sentences used in the beginner levels / lessons are not exactly spoken in real life and they're only used to help understand the formal structures.
It'd be also interesting to have some review lessons with same beginner content, but with colloquial situations exercises. It's like relearning stuff using (close to) real life examples without making students get confused at first glance, which is good for everybody, especially intermediate - advanced learners.
The problem is that textbooks don't necessarily teach you "standard" ways of saying something. They just teach you uncommon or weird phrases when there are more common and natural alternatives that are perfectly standard and grammatically correct. But a lot of non-native speakers fail to see this because textbook phrases sound perfectly fine to them as I mentioned in this video.
I've also noticed a tendency for many non-native speakers to think that natural Japanese is somewhat lesser, to the point where some of them start to criticise native Japanese phrases for not being grammatically correct. But we don't have a lot of prescriptive grammar for spoken Japanese and textbooks for non-native speakers most definitely don't get to decide what's correct for native speakers.
@@ThatJapaneseManYutathat’s quite a problem especially as textbooks are *usually* written by japanese teachers/people.
Although it’s my first time seeing that non natives have ego issues being corrected by natives and seeing textbook language as superior.
My Japanese girlfriend often does the "translate directly from your language" thing. We were at Disneyland and she was saying "trash box" instead of "trash can". I understood her, of course, but it definitely didn't sound natural.
This is why I like Tae Kim's Guide, he always warns when an example sentence isn't very natural and includes a "reality check" section explaining casual forms for that piece of grammar
Yes! I learned from textbook, and one day i complained to my penpal that i was tired of ending so many sentences with "-desu, -desu, -desu" but i never learned how to avoid this. It was frustrating, so i'm all about natural Japanese.
Always great explanation and to the point! Awesome!
Super helpful! arigatou gozaimasu!
Ahh it’s like if I said “What path should I take to find the room of bathing may I ask?” Instead of “excuse me, where’s the bathroom?”
nah but like i sound like this sometimes 💀
You're channel is excellent! I'm learning a lot in preparation for my visit to Japan at the end of the year. I don't want to go and just be silent for two months 😅 I want to try and communicate with people whilst I'm there. I can't lie, I'm kind of anxious about it. But, I'm going to try my best. Your videos have been helping me a lot! 😁
The Twitter & Google method is such a good idea - thank you for sharing! :)
This is a great video not only for learning Japanese, but other languages as well (the how to sound natural part). That concept makes for better learning!
Great advice man thanks for this.
Very nice hints！
I've been using Duolingo for learning the basics for quite a while now, and I gotta say the amount of times I've felt like "Why the hell are they teaching that like this, nobody ever uses that sentence" is honestly way too high. The fact that I'm using English as the language the lessons are based on, even though English itself is only a second language to me, cause there was no German Japanese course on the app, doesn't really make that less confusing xD
But at least I'd never make the mistake with using plain form for asking wether somebody speaks a language. German also uses potential form for that after all.
Yep. Gohan to mizu…when am I going to use that?
@@JohnM... That isn't the point of that particular thing...the intended learning point is not to learn a set phrase for 'rice and water'...it is to demonstrate connecting nouns with the と particle in the way that English does with 'and' . That is the teaching point the learner is supposed to be picking up from that.
The actual nouns are irrelevant since it is the same i.e. 猫と犬と羊 (neko to inu to hitsuji...cat and dog and sheep). It just so happens that rice and water are two of a bunch of similar simple nouns they are introducing in those early stages that are broadly similar i.e. water, green tea, meat, fish, fruit etc. So it's teaching you how to connect nouns with 'and' and introducing some basic vocab.
The main issue people have with Duolingo is overthinking things whilst not really having much experience of teaching and learning techniques. Sometimes things seem a bit odd but usually there's a reason for them. Also, it's like the old classic on Duo...'I am an apple' which, over the years, has got people all bent out of shape and spawned countless forum posts.
The issue there is missing context since it's printed words on a webpage and not enough insight from the learner since they encountered that on Duo with neither enough knowledge or context...have a search on the googs though for the following article...it's pretty interesting and the same deal with the I'm an apple thing.
i-am-not-an-eel-the-mysteries-of-invisible-japanese-pronouns-and-the-real-meaing-of-the-wa-particle
Switch to Refold, it's so good.
My advice: Stop using Duolingo immediately. Just about any other approach will serve you way better. Get away from the "gaming" approach. I wasted years on Duo and it held me back so much.
As someone else said: Duolingo is for the perpetual beginner.
There's nothing of value there.
@@vallejomach6721 You can perfectly "demonstrate connecting nouns with the と particle" with natural examples. For example, ラーメンと餃子お願いします。Japanese people often order ramen and gyoza together. Given that you can teach the same grammar with natural or unnatural phrases, I'd say using natural phrases is more beneficial for learners. "Gohan to mizu" is sometimes used in the context of making congee (cooked rice + water), though (but pretty sure Duolingo doesn't explain the context witch is pretty specific).
Great video and straight to the point! And you're also handsome Yuta. Wish you more views in the future
I think that learning textbook Japanese is still important for rules and such, but if the book could go a step further and teach coloquial speech as well, it'd be a lot better.
I agree.
@@danielantony1882 The problem with this "learn real Japanese" is that it neglects the basics. I agree that text book languages don't teach exactly the same language that is spoken on a daily basis, but you need to know the basics of grammar to be able to speak a more fluent and correct Japanese (or English, or Spanish, etc). I knew some people from Thailand that spoke "real Spanish" with a lot of expressions and informal words, but their grammar sucked. I prefer a more unnatural but correct language. The nuances of a language will come after you immerse yourself in the culture.
You can perfectly learn all the basic grammar and correct ways of saying things with real-life Japanese. It's interesting that some people think native Japanese speakers write and speak somewhat "incorrect" Japanese. We don't. "Natural and correct" is better than "unnatural and correct" for most people in my opinion. So I teach natural AND correct Japanese with appropriate levels of politeness.
> I knew some people from Thailand that spoke "real Spanish" with a lot of expressions and informal words, but their grammar sucked.
The problem isn't that they learned "natural" Spanish. Maybe the problem is they simply didn't learn a lot of Spanish grammar and solely focused on informal words? I also learned a lot of "natural" Spanish by talking to Spanish speakers but I also learned important grammar points like conjugation and gender rules.
@@ThatJapaneseManYuta I don't think that at all!
I mean, of course I'm sure there are cases - my English speaking style is even "unnatural" and grammatically incorrect often (tenses, double negatives, etc)
As a Japanese learner since childhood, for me personally, the textbook examples were still important as a foundation, just as English class/textbooks were. Once I knew the linguistic logic, I could understand HOW natural speaking was formed.
I do totally understand what you mean too, and just think it's a little bit different for everyone.
@@katkaat It's quite absurd how people are so adamant about how you can't effectively learn "foundations" and "linguistic logic" using natural Japanese. (Maybe a sunk-cost fallacy?) You totally can and it's more straightforward than going through unnatural Japanese which people may or may not "unlearn" (which is a hassle for most people) in the future. I mean, if you had textbooks that give you natural examples or unnatural examples to teach you the same concepts, why would you pick the one that gives you unnatural examples?
Got this notification in the middle of my Duolingo lesson and I feel very attacked 😂 ❤
For me, Duolingo is ‘meh’. I’ve started using Pimsleur, but there’s so much to take in that I’m stuck on lesson 7 when I should be on about lesson 12! ☹️. I need to learn like a baby, or an idiot…
I have a lot of experience both teaching and learning languages and I believe the message of this video is really important. Use textbooks for learners to get a grounding in the structures and to gain a basic vocabulary but move onto 'authentic' materials as soon as you can i.e. materials by and for native speakers. Any texts and dialogues written down in books will contain a lot of sentences that are just frankly weird because often the people writing them are trying to come up with something to practise a specific grammar point or item(s) of vocabulary. Writing dialogues that sound natural is something that even professional script writers often fail to do well.
The beginning basics and gramatical structures are important. Especially in a language like Japanese where formality is so important. I think a lower level foreigner would sound better in most situations speaking a bookish polite structurally sound Japanese, than one speaking more colloquially, like this video suggests. Unless of course you are 15 years old speaking to other 15 year olds.
Excellent advices
So youre saying that directly translating English into Japanese, then rearranging it according to a bunch of grammer rules my textbook had me memorise isnt a good idea 😮
it's a start, but it isn't how you would achieve natural japanese speech
@paper2222 better than nothing of course!
It's not good to translate NL (native language) to TL (target langauge). It should always be TL to NL when translating anything. Try Refold, you will learn more about this.
@comet-japaneseimmersion yeah bro i was being sarcastic. Ive immersed since it was AJATT in like 2017
@@bobfranklin2572 I read your comment again and now I see the sarcasm. I guess my brain didn't work the first time.
Good points.
I learned koto ga dekimasu first which was odd to me because conditional form was shorter and i thought immediately “i feel like people would tend to use the shorter quicker version in actual conversation”
I think it's called the potential form, but I agree with you. It's easier and quicker to say or write/type too. ○○ことができます is good to know but I'd say it's more formal and literary. Even 食べられません is easier than 食べることができません lol
On the mention of "Can vs Do". There's an age old grammatical dad joke to play on people, who if they ever ask you to do something with can (Which is usually but not always grammatically incorrect) you reply "I don't know, is that even possible?" or some other such snarky remark. For example:
"Can you turn on the lights?"
"I don't know. CAN I turn on the lights? It's pretty far away."
or
"Can I have that cup?"
"I don't know, can you? Are you sure you can hold it?"
The grammatically correct request for the former is "Would you turn on the lights?" as you're requesting an action be performed, the latter is "May I have that cup?." As you are requesting permission to possess something that someone else already has or is considered to own.
My favorite interaction goes something like this:
Me: Can I go to the restroom?
Teacher: I don't know. Can you?
Me: I can if you give me permission.
@@MadDawg010 Nah, the better version is:
Me: Can I go to the restroom?
Teacher: I don't know. Can you?
Me: Yes. (and then go to the bathroom)
@@DavidCruickshank Funny thing is that asking was merely a formality (and an opportunity to be a smartass). I was going no matter what anyone says.
"Can you speak X language?" is just as good in English as "Do you...?". It's just probably slightly less common.
You are absolutely correct. It is also, however, important to point out - for the more fastidious amongst us that care about those details - because, those sentences can have different meanings, even if conversationally we don't acknowledge that:
"Can/Do you speak X language?"
*Can* can insinuate "do you have the ability to do 'x'."
*Do* can insinuate "do you engage in the usage of language 'x'."
Let's just say twitter
@@fairshareofdrownedsouls I þink ðe question of "Do you speak English" is redundant cuz it's obvious ðat no Japanese speaks English on a regular basis. Exceptions do not count, since 98% of japs don't know dogwash about English.
1:56 is actually something that Duolingo does right - they teach you to use 話せる first, e.g. 英語が話せます
Can you make a video of unnatural English phrases you had to unlearn? I'm a native English speaker and am having a hard time what people mean by "unnatural language" and I think I would benefit from hearing examples of unnatural English you were repeating from textbooks.
Its like how a textbook would write a sentence saying "I got candy today, did you get candy today?" vs irl you would say "I got candy today what about you?" It's just some things that normally would be omitted in day-to-day speech aren't in textbook sentences- making it unnatural. Hope that helps
I'd love a video about this too. If you live in Japan for awhile, you'll encounter all kinds of hilarious things. For example, in English, we rarely say, "Let us (verb)" unless we're in church, lol. Just saying, "Let's (do something)" is not especially common. But I guess in Japanese you can make a sentence that translates as "let's (noun)!" and even "let's (adjective) (noun)!" So you can literally say something like, "Let's McDonald's!" of "Let's happy beer!"
The other thing that comes to mind is expressions from...when? Gangster movies from the 40's? that are included in Japanese study books, like "That cuts no ice with me," or the 1940s "Remember me to your mother," or "I misremember her name."
Oh, a third example is the absolute avoidance of phrasal verbs, which results in some very unnatural, overly formal English. So instead of "get off the plane," people will say "deboard the plane," which IS correct, but native speakers just don't say that.
Okay, here's another--when textbooks try to teach a grammar point, the point itself is valid, but the examples that are given are crappy. My teacher friends and I used to complain about sentences like "She is loved by everyone." We say, "Everyone loves her," right? Or "I received this sweater from my grandmother" instead of "My grandmother gave me this sweater."
The stuff I am talking about I encountered almost 20 years ago, so I hope h.s. and jr high textbooks are better now. At my current job we use a textbook written by native English speakers.
Genki Two will replace a few of the basic grammar from Genki one that Yuta pulls up 忙しかったんで is a point in the Green Genki two book.
I see your point, but to be fair, the "can you ride a bycicle" phrase in Minna no Nihongo is said in the context of explaining that exact grammar, not the potential form of the verb. And probably the others are the same. That said, when you explain the second (or more) way to say something, is when textbooks or teachers should clarify which is better used or "more native". But that doesn't take away the useful part of learning all of them.
I find the bicycle example particularly interesting. The 乗れますか construction is much simpler and easier to understand. Are the textbooks avoiding potential forms, or just really intent on teaching できる? The textbook version of the question seems like it more literally translates as "is riding a bicycle possible for you?" which is understandable but very strange.
0:38 「ですから」問題ってありますね。丁寧語を「ですから」みたいな形で文中で使うと微妙に不自然になることが多い。文法的には何も間違ってない上に、ネイティブでも「ですから」という形自体は限られたコンテクストでは用いるので余計にややこしい。
0:59 「朝ご飯」を略して「食べてません」でもいいですね。
あるいは「食べてないです」と言うこともあります。「ないです」が不自然だとする人もいます(特に高齢者)が、それはフォーマルな書き言葉ではそうかもしれませんが、話し言葉やくだけた書き言葉では「ないです」と言うことも多いです。
「忙しかったんで」は「忙しかったので」でもいいです。どちらかと言えば「忙しかったんで」のほうがくだけた言い方です。
「英語を話しますか？」は不自然なだけじゃなく曖昧な言い方で、意味が正確に伝わらない可能性があります。次の英文を見てください。
1. Do you speak English?→英語喋れますか？
2. Do you usually speak English?→普段英語を話しますか？
3. Are you going to speak English?→英語で話すつもりですか？
文脈なしに「英語を話しますか？」と言うとこれらのどの意味にもとれます。笑い。
あと、「英語喋れますか？」は「英語話せますか？」と言っても良いです。「喋る」は「話す」よりくだけた言い方です。2つの文で「英語」のあとに省略されてるのは「を」ではなく「は」です。「英語を喋れますか？」はやや不自然で、「英語は喋れますか？」が普通です。要するに、可能を表す「話せる」「喋れる」を使うことと、「を」を使わないことがポイントですね。
> 英語は喋れますか？」が普通です。
ですよね。教科書で「ラーメンを食べますか？」「ラーメンが好きですか？」みたいな文を見るたびに、ここで助詞を使うなら「は」が普通じゃないか、と思ってます。
Super helpful info of Can you speak English/Do you speak English. Sort of like telling someone you CAN do something vs you MAY do something.
The same rules apply to native speech, too.
My K-6 school years were spent around the USA and Europe. And I read a lot of books. But my High School years were in one city. After 9th grade my friends started to complain about my formal English and suggested I start using contractions. It was good advice.
There is a similar issue with learning Spanish in the US. I see phrases and expressions in these text books and classes that I’ve never heard in Mexico or from other Spanish speakers. When I pointed them out people would stubbornly defend these oddities claiming they existed.
Prime example is this expression, así así. It’s supposed to be a way of saying I’m ok as a response to how are you but I’ve spoken to people from all over Latin America and Spain and have never heard anyone ever used that phrase, yet, it’s on certified Spanish language learning books in schools.
I gave my dad an unnatural textbook answer once and he snapped at me to speak normally.
Hahaha lol 😂
Can you please start doing live streams?
1 - Any anime here?
2 - Is this an old video uploaded just now? I notice you're back to kyubey
3 - Anyhoo yuta you've got a great series of how anime characters speak Japanese. Please do Itsuki Nakano from the quintessential quintuplets or any or all the 7 main characters in TQQ. How they speak Japanese I believe is very important to understanding the plot eg the honorifics, the lost in translation stuff (eg when they say things like zurui, hatsukoi, uso, tachi, fukuzatsu Vs taihen, mote etc that are removed from the dub). I compiled a lot of the lost in translation stuff in r/gotoubun
Something to consider about Itsuki:
The Quintessential Quintuplets' character types are:
Ichika - Onee-san / ara ara,
Nino - tsundere,
miku - kuudere / dandere,
Yotsuba - genki
Itsuki - ??
- Tsundere like Nino?
- Eat-suki?
- Imouto?
- Someone who speaks keigo to their siblings, to Fuutarou and to Raiha and to everyone basically?
Actually, the main thing I learned from Yuta's videos that keigo is basically just desu, masu & their variations.
I swear when I learned elementary Japanese in bachelor's (foreign language classes are required in universities in the Philippines) we were never even taught the word keigo.
All this time I had no idea Itsuki was the only quint and actually only main character who was talking keigo to EVERYONE.
Anyway, I have a theory as to what Itsuki's type is, but you're not gonna like it...
For more japanese stuff re TQQ, see r/gotoubun r/itsuesugi r/raitsuki etc
Also:
ubmu3x
ubmu3x
ubmu3x
ubmu3x
ubmu3x
ubmu3x
What university did you go to? I need a university to learn Japanese on.
@@matsu-so3ze
Ateneo de Manila University. Foreign language classes are required for bachelor's students in the Philippines.
Oh okay, thank you.
Arigatou
Holy crap, I'm glad I haven't touched that Genki book and just listen to natural Japanese through podcasts... Is harder, since I got no translation but is absolutely the safer way to learn.
This is one of the biggest barriers to learning japanese, and almost nobody talks about it other than saying it exists and giving a few examples. What we need is a bunch of books pointing out these differences. And don't even get me started on koto and morau.
They teach you those natural phrases with good reason though. It builds fundamental concepts of the language
When Yuta says learn Japanese from Authentic materials, don't take it to mean only authentic materials because he doesn't say that. Another point neglected was, he fails to mention that learning Japanese from Authentic materials only can lead to bad habits just like learning Japanese from textbooks. Many people these days opt to self study for a number of reasons, such as finances and when they prepare to study they do research through vlogs and blogs, while I'm not against reading other people's experiences. They tend to be bias in nature and there are a lot of holes in information. Japan is an exception when it comes to language learning and teaching amongst other countries such as China and Korea. However, typically in a language classroom, lessons will be tailored to factor in problems such as unnatural language usage, etc with possible solutions. You'll learn how to create perfect grammatical structures then learn how to create more natural, native sounding ones, teachers will use materials such as movies, TV shows, newspapers, etc to introduce authentic materials. This will produce more balanced learners over time, and usually result in Non-Native speakers having a deeper understanding and utilisation of their second language than many first-language speakers. This also means the Non-Native English Speaking Teachers (NNESTs) are better at teaching English than Native speakers.
In Japan, the language education system is really messy but they are trying to fix it as cheaply as possible.... For a long time, even today, many schools take the Grammar-Translation approach. This approach sees a foreign language taught in the learners first language rather than the target language, neglecting critical productive and receptive skills (speaking and listening). This approach was popular during World War 2, Soldier's would use it in order to translate enemy messages. Many Eikaiwa in Japan, will hire Native-speakers (mostly without qualifications or an understanding of English Language Teaching and Learning), provide them with inadequate training from other instructors then have them design materials in house with little to no proof-reading. This means that many grammatical and Native mistakes can be found throughout the material. They then tend to utilise an Audiolingual approach, Language is taught and learnt through repetition and habit. But they tell learners it's communicative (it doesn't become communicative until they reach a high enough level). Due to a lack of understanding and trainin, many Native-speaking teachers will not correct pronunciation effectively or won't listen attentively enough for grammatical mistakes because they feel that they understood the student.
Why did I mention all that? Simply, because if you want to learn a language then you have utilise different approaches and methodology. This is also true for material, while sounding more natural and native-like is the biggest goal. Don't make it your only priority, understanding the grammar and linguistics is still very much important to reaching a Native-level, you need to balance the information you learn as you're studying. Don't use one book like genki thinking it's some kind of bible! 🤣 You should use 3/4 books for learning Japanese grammar because they all differ and overlap, for reading and listening comprehension, utilise more authentic materials like Yuta said. Then, most importantly, practice speaking with Native-speakers, ask for feedback, listen to what how they speak and try to model your speech around theirs.
Personally, I use the "Nihongo Fun and Easy" designed by Coto Academy because the focus is on speaking and listening, they use more natural set phrases as they designed the book for conversational Japanese rather than JLPT. Other than this, I use Nihongo So-Matome, and Weekly J. Just for books, I attend a man to man language class once a week. Granted, I live in Japan so I speak with my coworkers trying. Additionally, I use HelloTalk to interact with more Native-speakers.... I, also, bought a few JLPT courses on Udemy from Attain Japanese. I listen to a lot of Japanese music, from Creepy Nuts to Daoko. I'm only just entering the Intermediate level from September and I plan on taking the BJT and JLPT. Most people will focus on taking the JLPT, thinking that it's similar to the CEFR: you can map parts of it on to the latter, but the JLPT takes a grammar-translation approach. It measures your reading, writing and listening but it's mostly grammar-perfect. There's no speaking section, and the writing section is mostly multiple choice and gapfills which isn't an effective way to measure writing ability. Sorry for the long message, it is bias at the end and subjective to myself but I hope it helps others on their journey to acquiring Japanese!
OMG. 4 paragraphs.
Something really helpful when trying to speak Japanese naturally would be some kind of Japanese "study buddy" to submit your own phrases to and to give you feedback on how to say things more naturally. However, this may be difficult to find.
確かに、話すときによく「を」を省いて可能形使うのは一般だね。"" の技を知らなかったから、これから使うわ。ありがとう
Other ways to make Japanese more natural is to omit pronouns. Like:
1) he/she: 彼/彼女("kare/kanojo", he/she) is usually used in formal conversations because informally it means boyfriend and girlfriend, respectively, unless certain context is given like ここは姉。彼女はやさしい。(This is my sister. She is nice.)
2) you: saying あなた("anata", you) isn't just unnatural, but it can sometimes be rude, usually in conversations. There's also other alternatives like お前(omae), 君(kimi), 貴様(kisama), てめえ(temee), etc. Saying you isn't rude if it's written like a poem, song, book, etc.
3) I/me: 私("watashi"["watakushi" if more polite], I). It's usually used if someone doesn't understand the context, it's usually ommited like instead of saying 私は学生です(watashi wa gakusei desu), you can just say 学生です(gakusei desu) which both means "I'm a student." 私 is also formal, but there's also other ways to say "I" like: あたし(atashi) used casually by young women, あたくし(atakushi) same but polite, うち(uchi) used usually by little girls, 僕(boku) used semi-formally usually by boys, 俺(ore) used casually by boys, 自分(jibun) used by anyone in any context, but also means "myself", etc.
And lastly anyone can use names to replace pronouns which is OK to use.
You should do a vid about the current financial events of Japan (that is also tied to the low birthrate). Been getting a bit of buzz in the west.
@1:43 when I lived in Japan awhile ago, I heard the locals use “shaberu” and I did try to adapt to saying it but it was more of a tongue twister to say than はなせますか 😅😅
From my perspective this is not only a question about sounding natural or not, but also about written language vs. spoken language. I wouldn‘t quite agree, that textbook japanese is unnatural, textbooks frequenty teach written language. This doesn‘t necessarily mean, that it is unnatural. It just serves another purpose. I guess, that not all of your used phrases would fit a formal letter for example.
One textbook you showed was Tobira, which focusses heavily on written language und writing proficiency. You really shouldn‘t expect spoken japanese or slang here. Also Genki is one of the best textbooks out there. I wouldn‘t recommend throwing it out and just learning by following everyday conversation.
"let's just say twitter" Based Yuta 😅
How about George Trombley's From Zero courses? I hear him in his videos mentioning what sounds more natural and what native speakers say. I'm getting a lot of "textbook Japanese" from Duolingo which is kind of annoying considering how long I've spent with it.
YES KEEP ON SAYING TWITTER THE BIRD WILL NEVER DIE!😂
Out of personal experience, the best way to speak Japanese naturally is to do so being drunk 🤭
😂😂😂
From " Ohayou gozaimasu!" to "ossssss!" Real quick.
ダブルクオート、全角でも効くのマジで知らなかった（半角じゃなきゃいけないと思ってたから試したこともなかった）のでめっちゃびっくりした
Your command of English is brilliant. Just signed up for your lessons. Thank you so much!
I wonder if there are any "natural" Japanese textbooks that have normal-sounding example sentences instead of the classic textbook Japanese sentences. That would be amazing.
I think that would just be a normal book
I assume it's a regional thing but if I was asking if someone is able to speak a language I would definitely use can and not do since I'm asking about a capability and not a habit
Loved this video, but I'm curious, did you all keep staring at his Kyubey plushie? It's so cute 😂
Which TV series would you advice for me to learn Nihongo?
How to google things naturally with that Japanese man Yuta.
I hated something that textbooks really grind on the use of は for everything and it made me think it was a crucial word for communication. When in reality, particles can be dropped altogether, let alone use another "phrase template" to express one's thoughts.
I also say 英語できる when asking someone if they speak japanese
Damn the can vs do is one more thing to think about 😂😅
Your use of "actually" is awesome! We actually do use "actually" a lot. 🤣
Are there any textbooks that teach natural Japanese (As opposed to “textbook Japanese”)?
do you recommend any Japanese movies or dramas?
I've seen people ask like 英語出来るか as well, which technically would translate to "Can you do English?" or "Are you good at English?", but never really seen a native use 話せますか
いやいやいいえいいえ i can learn textbook japanese or goofy anime japanese and take the words/meanings and keep it as simple information, not to be used for speaking native Japanese… i can then learn from the natives and take what i do know and use it, and forget what isn’t spoken… quite simple really… it’s easy because it can be easily forgotten especially when no one uses such phrases or wording… 👍
I want to know if the Rosetta Stone of Japanese is usable?
Are there any Americans here? Do you know the show called "Fresh Off the Boat"?
eh! Singapore would be wild then.
But JLPT requires textbook Japanese, I have to pass and deal with JLPT first and then once that's dealt with I can start learning phrases that are used by natives to sound natural. 😭
Higher level JLPT doesn't require textbook knowledge. N1 just uses native content.
それな😁😁😁
自然的に日本語を喋るなんで、いつまでも求めますが。もし日本人の話しの相手が身近にいると勉強やすくなってる気がします。
Diglossia question
「バタバタで食べる時間なかったもん」
「忙しくて、まだ食べてない」
「英語できる？」
…
Is it a good idea to learn Japanese words and phrases from Japanese songs?
Well, if you can manage to decipher natural pronunciation from music ðen sure.
But why 喋 is missing even in JLPT?
Can i use subs jp and en at the same time?
In college a professor made us email a hotel in Germany asking basic questions about its amenities in German, and I am sure we all came across like complete lunatics with our textbook German. 😅
But what about できる？
I always pick up words naturally the more I hear them. Reading is a different story.
Dear Yuta-san
I'm actually a huge fan of Gaki no Tsukai. Would you say watching them can help with my listening, since they speak with the Osaka dialect?
I guess better something than nothing... my goal is to able to communicate with a Japanese one day...
Yuta, do Japanese people often have trouble pronouncing English words? In English, two or more consonants often meet.
Well, ðey don't know ðe difference between L and R, V and B, and some oðer stuff, probably.
@@danielantony1882 Really?
@@name3583100% You can tell ðem "Presidential Erection" and ðey won't bat an eye cuz L and R are not discriminated and differentiated.
they use katakana to write english/loan words with the sounds they're familiar with, often changing the pronunciation noticeably
When you hear only the sounds of your own language then the brain will simply prune the circuitry needed for hearing other sounds. This happens in late childhood. Tests have shown that babies can hear/detect every sound in every language, but this ability goes away at a later stage. Which is why children (and I have lots of personal experience with this) can easily both hear and pronounce words from another language, whatever sounds are used, while as they get older it gets harder. You can usually train yourself to hear those other sounds, but it can be hard. My significant other (Japanese) still can't hear the difference between V/B, and R/L, sometimes M/N, and some other sounds, after all these years. The only way is to watch my lips.
And likewise, English native speakers learning my native language have huge problems hearing the difference between certain vowels in my language, a difference which to me is like night and day. And I myself couldn't hear how I pronounced the vowel "A" was different from how Italians pronounced it - took me quite a while to get my ears used to it (or rather, my brain had to grow some connections or something).
Edit: Typo (older, not younger!)
I wonder why, if these phrases are polite, grammatically correct Japanese, why do textbooks teach phrases that are unnatural instead? It's interesting to see that the phenomenon is not unique to textbooks teaching Japanese. Though it does make me wonder, since the 2 Japanese teachers I had from learning Japanese in university were both native speakers from Japan, why did they just teach from the textbook even though they know it's wrong.
they're not wrong tho. just unnatural
I suspect that they focused more on grammatical forms, like getting the particles, and verb and helper verbs etc. right, never mind the actual sentence - kind of like how an Italian course kept using examples of elephants standing on a table and such, sentences you would never actually use.
How nature, history and culture affect Japanese ?
Like people who live in cold regions have many words to talk about snow and cold.
I wish I could tell all the English learners “NO ONE SAYS SO-SO!” Like NO ONE. I have never ONCE heard it in real life from a native English speaker. The ONLY time I heard it spoken by a native English speaker was in the show Brooklyn 99 but that show is a comedy, and it was said by a very comically up-tight and old-fashioned police captain.
I really wish I can learn the Japanese with Yuta, but unfortunately I'm broke and can't afford anything : (
How do you say breakfast is it breykku asa
Like asa wo breykku wa tabete 😅 or wakarimasen asa wo tabete
Asa gohan.
Asa = morning
gohan = meal
Can I ban your ads? I never searched about learning japanese yet im bombarded by your ads evryday looking like a japanese manny pacquiao
From my experience, I wouldn’t recommend learning “natural Japanese” first because what many language learners want to do is certify their proficiency level and not only communicate. In my classes in the academy, we use minna no ni hongo series and I could certify my level in N3 when I took the Noken last year. It is also helpful that your sensei be native speaker as is mine, but “formal” Japanese is better than “natural” one, at least in my opinion.
There are (at least) two different issues here. One is polite vs colloquial, yes you may choose to focus only on polite forms (です/ます), but the other issue, which was the focus of the video was about *unnatural* Japanese in the sense that yes, it's grammatically correct, but that's not how you actually say it (like the "trash box" vs "trash can" example used by another commenter, though for English).
So to me it sounds like you want to focus on keigo, and that's fine, but that's not what the video was arguing against as far as I can tell.
@@tohaason my point is that most people learn a foreign language to certify their proficiency level not just to communicate with native speakers because of educative or professional reasons. So the use of particles in japanese is absolutely necessary if you aim to take the JLPT; therefore, 自転車に乗ることができますか would be more accurate than 自転車乗れますか even if they mean pretty much the same thing or the last one is more "natural" (P. D. you also see the potential form of verbs in japanese in the minna no nihongo series)
@@hontouhahitorikiri I have not argued against learning correct use of particles. I simply pointed out that textbooks suffer from presenting sentences that are not natural, even if formal. As for learning polite forms first - you will be prevented from seeing the whole grammatical picture then, Cure Dolly explains about that in some of her videos on verbs, well worth visiting.
Lastly, I don't at all agree that most people learn a foreign language to certify their proficiency level - far from it! The only ones who regularly do that are people in immigration programs who need it in order to get recidency and certain jobs, plus people applying to certain jobs in other countries. The rest, i.e. the vast majority, simply want to learn the language. I've never considered getting my proficiency level certified for English, nor any other language I speak or understand (to various suboptimal levels). I know and have met many people who have learned and are clearly proficient in Japanese, but as far as I know only two are "certified", as in taking JLPL as part of studying in Japanese universities. It's not something most people care about. Nor should they, unless it's a requirement for something they plan to do.
@@tohaason the point of Yuta’s video is that first you have to learn the “natural” way and I said that from my experience it is not like that. First you have to learn the “formal” way because most people learn a foreign language not as a hobby, but for a deeper reason. At least it is like that in the academy where I study Japanese (that is why I said “from my experience” from the beginning), the only ones who do it as a hobby are teenagers and they are the ones who drop out because Japanese is not an easy language to learn. I only want to point out how good of a material the minna no nihongo series is even if it is outdated or there is better material, it helped to be N3 when I took the JLPT, you should take it to see how proficient you are.
Would it also be pretty natural to say 忙しかったので食べませんでした ? That's what I would probably say.
忙しくて食べなかった would be more natural.
0:24 yes please include a terrible movies. I’m sorry.😭
とにかく、すごい毛量・・・
Yeah, the lookup strategy is really good for common phrasings
The question is then why testbooks keep on teaching unnatural Japanese? Yuta's course must be awesome but,from what I've seen, insanely expensive IMHO😢
Great now i feel like im wasting my time and being lied to 😂
でも文法は日本語能力試験にとって重要である