Quote:
Originally Posted by YoshimiTheEthereal
How much college Japanese will I need to take to be fluent enough? I don't mean to get off-topic, but it's really important. The best I can do here in boring Kentucky is get a certificate, so for the last few years I have been teaching myself from books and websites (I am a senior in high school right now). How much more will I need?
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To be completely honest with you - I have met to meet a single person who could really get by with
only university Japanese. Everyone who was a Japanese major in university had to come to Japan and take another language course here before they sounded like they were doing anything other than quoting a textbook. That`s not even to mention the incredibly poor listening comprehension.
Language is very very flexible. While studying is always a wonderful start, you`re never going to be any level of "fluent" through it. Because in real life, 95% of people don`t talk like they do in the textbooks - and even when they do chances are their accent is going to be different, they`ll be talking faster, etc.
I say to definitely spend a lot of time studying - just don`t count on fluency through it. It will help you a lot (unless the textbook is awful, the teacher is wrong, etc) when you are in a position to really achieve fluency - like actually being in Japan.