Learning Japanese is easy when you know this one fundamental rule. You must learn in the opposite way that most people try to study Japanese. Most Japanese learners choose the difficult path and then give up because they are not progressing quickly. In this article I will show you how easy learning Japanese can be.
Let’s first consider how a child learns a language. A child learns through simple naming of objects. They learn to communicate fast, just learning the names of things. Putting those words into a sentence comes later.
When we become older we try to learn languages the other way around. By learning rules and structures of a language first, we hope we’ll be able to string some sentences together. The trouble with this method is learning is extremely slow.
So, what is the fastest way for learning Japanese? The method that will make you fluent fast? The fastest method is to learn as many Japanese words as possible in the shortest amount of time. Doing this will allow you to become communicative. The faster you become communicative the faster you will become fluent.
Here’s a method you can use to learn Japanese words quickly. Take a Japanese word you want to memorize and pick something that sounds similar in English. Next, use that similar sounding word and link in to the English word.
For example, imagine you want to learn the Japanese word for “tea”. The Japanese word for tea is koucha (pronounced koh – chah). koucha sounds a lot like the English word courtyard. So, our link is: drinking tea outside in a courtyard.
All you have to do is close your eyes and imagine drinking tea outside in a courtyard for 10 seconds. As you are imagining that, repeat the word koucha to yourself.
That’s it! That’s all you need to do. Now you’ll always remember the Japanese for tea is koucha.