掲示板 Forums - How accurate is this person's account on learning Japanese? (Trigger Warning?)

It’s just clickbait. Ignore it.

The fact is that most people who study Japanese give up on their own. They don’t need any encouragement to quit. Many of them probably started with unrealistic expectations. Realistically, learning Japanese does take more time and effort than most beginners realize, and there’s no big payoff in terms of employment prospects. Some people become frustrated and embittered when the rewards don’t come as easily as they dreamed.

But you are your own person. Do what you want to do. Don’t let some influencer dictate your life choices.

Honestly, this comes across more like projection than actual advice. Just ignore it.

I don't think learning Japanese "costs a lot of money". It can, but it doesn't have to. Everything you need is available for free. It's all about staying consistent and putting in the effort.

Also, I found the content creator in question, and they are not what I imagined... no deeper meaning, I just didn't expect a political commentator XD

P.S. Why would you get banned for posting this? It's very appropriate for this forum.

This creator sounds like they are going through a lot of burnout and anger, but instead of healing they are just lashing out and spreading negativity. Don't listen to this, everyone's journey with Japanese is different and everyone goes at their own pace.

Learning a language is about celebrating those little goals, enjoying the journey and connecting with people. I love learning more about the culture, getting to know new expressions and being able to think in ways I didn't expect I was able to.

As for the money bit, there are so many amazing, free resources out there. There's so much learner's content on youtube, there's websites featuring publicly available novels, free apps like anki, renshuu and more.

There are two specific things I'll comment about with this, though definitely it's pretty terrible to just tell people to give up like that.

First of all, I highly disagree with how it says that learning good Japanese is expensive. I've mainly stuck to free tools and now I'm at a point I even communicate online with people in Japanese, and well, watch anime in Japanese. And that leads to my next point.

Secondly, it says that most anime have basic dialogue. I disagree. Sure, children's anime and slice of life do. But as someone who mainly either watches fantasy or mecha, there's such a mix of basic terms and more advanced ones it's definitely not entirely simple. Especially when you watch real robot mecha without subtitles, which I now am able to do, even with the technical terms and political arguments. Anime Japanese isn't so basic.

In the end, I think what it says is just pretty terrible. Don't give up on learning Japanese for free, after enough effort and time you'll be pretty good at the language. Although recently I am starting to do 2 hours or so a day... But up until recently it was more 30 minutes to an hour, and doing that for 4 years was enough to watch anime, so that proves what it says wrong, I guess.

why do they keep mentioning money? there are a ridiculous number of free resources online, and depending on where you live, you can often get more through your local library! self teaching is hard, yes (i did it), but it has its benefits too. you can go as fast or slow as you like, and focus on specific things. early on i was really determined to understand song lyrics, so after all these years (and all the frustration back then), i can now translate lyrics JP->EN better than most people.

see, it really doesn't matter why you're learning as long as you're passionate about it. that's what will carry you through the hard parts and hits to your motivation.

i think many people who have japanese as a second language kind of put it on this pedestal? it's a meaning-dense contextual language, yes. but the only reason it's perceived as super difficult is because it's vastly different from english. it isn't some kind of lunatic difficulty thing by default, and many things people treat as "super deep"... aren't? it's almost like they mystify it.

in the end it's like any other skill, tbh. learning to draw is super hard! it's frustrating and takes a very long time to get decent at it. but that's what makes it meaningful, and as human beings we're all a work in progress. you'll always have further to go, more to learn, etc. isn't that the fun part?

Best advise you heard so far probably! Not because you should listen to it but at least now, you're aware of how desesperate people can become while learning japanese. To the point of making a post on twitter telling other to give up to thousand of people. Keep that though close to you! It's probably more important than all the advises that you will get at your level. After all, you will mostly only hear the nice tale of the "winner" that somehow managed to learn japanese or not give up so far. And maybe there will be some amongst them who will suddently give up and blame something like money (which is not wrong). But you won't hear about nor why they failed or gave up. They will just disapear silently from the community. That's like 80% of the people who try to learn japanese, probably? And because of that, you will also never be aware all the pitfalls or even, I want to say, all the "methods" that will make you give up on japanese. Because there are a lot of "good" methods to do that hidden amongst all the advise that you will recieve. Do that mean they are "bad" advises? No but they will make you give up on japanese. Even just recieving too much advises when you start can make you give up. I unfortunatly made a few people gave up on japanese because of that. Try to give them a few advises that worked for other at the wrong time when they are demotivated and done! Another one who gave up. Easily one of the top method to make beginners gave up on japanese. Shower them with advises, they get overwhelm by trying to apply all of them right now and... they disapear. I still don't have a perfect method to avoid that. So apologize in advance if I end up doing that to you in the future but just ignore me at that time. It's better to just focus on yourself and take a break than to ask for advise at those time. Sometimes.


Anyway, don't hate that youtuber for what he said. Also don't think it's dick move to say that. Just think of it as someone who got so frustrated by its language journey that he just explode one day and wanted to scream it somewhere. The only difference with the other 80% is that they never said their thought outloud. Hum... "said their thought" is bit wrong tho. "express their frustration" is better. Because it's just that in the end. And, if you're not "lucky enough" or aware of that, you may end up like him. If you're aware enough, the luck part will have less impact tho.

I talk too much (again) but I just want to give you a single image to conclude. Imagine if someone told you "Still not able to speak japanese?" one day. Now, imagine if that person tell you the same thing everyday. After that, that person will start to tell you the same things every hours every days. You may come with some explanation at first. And later, you may also start to ignore him later. But that will not stop him. Days after days, months after months and years after years. You may be able to ignore him for some time but you won't be able to prevent that though to creep up in your mind no matter what you do. You can only ward it for some time. But if you forget it for some time that "still not able to speak" will become suddently a "I'm unable to speak japanese".

That's pretty much what learning a language is about. Because the end goal of learning it to speak that language!
...But you won't able to be close that goal for a long time. Instead, you will repeat that pattern with that guy harrasing you for a few years (or more). And no matter what you do, he will still be there and not go away.

Anyway, I don't know if that image can help you to imagine how frustrating learning a language can be but it's about the same as being harass by someone for years. That someone being you. And you can't prevent that or stop that completly. The only things you can do is push it away from time to time.

As for that youtuber, again, don't need to hate him for that. I don't disagree with the "feeling" at least personally. The form and the conclusion? Not really. Most people give up by themselves because they can't managed motivation and frustration. It's more important the method or anything else. They can't managed their motivation and frustration because they can't imagine what years of putting effort toward a goal without attaining it really is. It's not something you can't imagine anyway, you can just cope with it.

TLDR: almost the same as ポールおじちゃん but I talk too much. Learning Japanese IS frustrating and a lot of people will give up. Doesn't that you can't learn it but be aware of how you can easily give up if you don't want to end up like them.

PS: I only learn by myself so far without paying for any lesson. There also a tons of japaneses that will glady talk with you for free on the internet. So no, you don't need money.

Once you get far enough, learning Japanese is all about having a few Google Chrome extensions, some anime with Japanese subtitles, and access to 小説家になろう and Bookwalker.

Outside of grammar study, I mostly passed the N2 by reading a bunch of things, including light novels, anime subtitles, and a Doraemon book about different medical fields. I also disagree that anime only uses basic Japanese; Jojo's Bizarre Adventure and My Hero Academia may use different Japanese, but it's harder to understand explanations on Jiro's Quirk than some non-political articles and YouTube comments I've found online. It also depends on what fields you're into and read a lot about, such as how my Japanese teacher can't understand some of the internet slang I've picked up online (such as ラノベ) because of what I read online.

I agree that at least early on, you absolutely need to dedicate more time to learning the language, and you need to find a way to maintain that so that your Japanese doesn't get worse. However, depending on how good you want to get, you might not even need to go super far in your studies. Tourists definitely don't need to pass N1 unless they're doing business stuff there. And people who want to understand anime without English subtitles don't need to get good at talking with other Japanese speakers.

The "you need Japanese + another skill" thing is accurate if you want to use Japanese professionally, though. But I think for anyone else, telling people to quit a hobby "because they'll never be good" assumes that knowing anything below every single Japanese word and grammar point a native speaker knows is pointless. And I don't think that's true; you start to see the benefits before that point.

Same for me. The only reason I know "curtains" in english is because I learn カーテン one year or two years ago. And the only reason that I remember curtains now is because I often use it as an example of how common words can be useless for some people. I managed to spent more than 10 years without that word. 20 if you count school (I started at 10). Main reason is that I don't have curtains in my house. I have some "rideaux" because I don't live in a english country. I don't particularly like small talk or slice of life where I could encounter that word. Also, I only studied scientific english at university. And after that, I only maintain (and slightly improve) my english by watching youtube, reading a few the internet and talking to some friends. But all of that doesn't help for tons of common words. And I don't want to relearn all those words just for the sake of being at a "native" level. Things that doesn't exist btw since native don't share that much common words. And I'm fine with that :3. My english speaker friends too even with my english that become completely broken sometimes and full of mistakes.

The same thing happened with japanese. And that also why I don't learn with JLPT ressources. Full of common that should be useful, sure, but in practice, right now, I don't need most of them and I'm only learning slang or specialised words. I keep forgetting common words from JLPT list and keep learning obscure word or grammar. Not because I want to or try to do that but simply because I need those words every day while watching youtube or speaking with some friends. While I don't need the other, since I'm not a native and not going to live like a native. That's my main source of interaction with japanese and also main source of motivation that prevent to become like that youtuber. So that's another way to give up if you're not aware of those kind of things and if you can't prevent yourself to have too much expectation.

Doesn't mean that you should not learn with JLPT ressources (even if I want to say that it is a bad idea for a lot of people) but... There are a few N1 holders that struggle with basic japanese conversation. And after 5 years of effort (because that what it takes for N1 roughly), I can't understand how they're still learning japanese.

On the other hand, and I'm playing the devil's advocate here, I can relate more to that Youtuber feeling than those N1 holders.
For me that's another pitfall that can make people really frustrated. And also make them say things like that. Is it a good thing to say? No. But it's a good thing to learn that those people do exist along with their frustration. It show more concrete example of why they gave up.

Damn... I didn't expect so many great advices from this post. Thanks for everyone who took the time of their day to reply!! ❤️