Is it possible to be self-taught in Japanese?
 

I'm self-taught in German, and could easily teach myself Spanish or French or any other European language by starting out with children books and working myself up.

But with Japanese it's a whole different story. Books with furigana to all kanji are few and far between. So looking up a word with kanji that you don't know how to pronounce is practically impossible. I could see myself being able to read children's books, but there's no way I'd be able to become proficient in this language.

What do you guys think? Is it possible?

I think it's possible. I don't know how fluent you will become though. It's not impossible to look up kanji - you can always search kanji by their radicals, or invest in a Nintendo DS game that allows you to write kanji with a stylus, and it will search for the reading.

Of course it is possible.
You can become fluent through self study if you don't get bored and quit.

I don't think so. It's very difficult to pick up on culture-based expressions without some amount of tutoring. Of course you can learn words and writings, but it's just not the same. Also German is FAR from the same as Japanese. You may know the language well, but 'self-teaching' never leads to "fluent". That's just my experience - and opinion..

I have been wondering the same thing myself, I have started using the genki japan videos and songs and have learned a few words, the months, and numbers but I wonder if I will ever be able to learn the language on my own

read, write? sure..speak? never. and how did you learn to speak german? how can you learn the sounds and pronounceion of a language if there is noone to tell you ? movies? well..how are you going to know what are they saying? subtitles - nothing to count on... maybe with same sound there are 2 different meanings....
well...music ...if you look up follow sounds with lyrics...but to actually learn a language just by that? yea....
so...dont give us the BS that you or anyone can learn any other language (all aspects) soly by self training.

Ummm... If this is true then I must have learned to pronounce and speak Japanese as if by magic.
(In case you haven't guessed yet I am self-taught so far, and I never plan to take any classes)

You can learn Japanese through self study only if you want to.

It just depends on if you are the kind of learner that likes to do things yourself or if you are the kind who likes to have a bit of guidance etc.

I'm mainly self-taught in German, but there are so many things I would NEVER have learned, if it hadn't been for German classes in school. I'm sure you can learn a lot by yourself - reading and so on. But SO many things go lost for those, who are cocky enough to believe that they can learn a language solely by watching anime and reading books.

you never visited japan? never talked to other japanese?
simply by siting in your room you thought yourself language? you are fluent in all aspects?

P.S as i said...yea there is stuff you can learn by yourself...but i do not belive that by having no help what so ever you or anyone will be able to learn a language on a respectable level.

You said it yourself, you're self-taught in German; you already know the answer.

Whatever your native tongue is, chances are you started that process yourself. Like most people, you learned to speak before you could properly read and write, and that's mostly due to natural immersion and adaption.
Of course, there are many important factors that come into play now that you're older: willpower, resources, attitude, capacity, etc. but it is definitely possible. It's mainly a matter of finding the method that suits you naturally.

And if you can't quite find that right method yourself, there is always the usual/orthodox methods of learning it... which can sometimes be faster than being self-taught, depending on the individual.


In short: If a Japanese child can learn to speak it and understand it up until formal literacy... you can too. Succeed in that, and it all builds up from there, which I'm sure you already understand.

In any case, you have nothing to lose but time -- but people waste time all the time; this would be an investment.


Just my opinion.

I understand German perfectly fine. I watch tv-shows dubbed in German evbery single day and I understand everything. I taught myself vocab by translating articles and books. And the pronunciation I learned by watching tv shows.

I see what you are saying but, it does depend on what you watch and what you read etc.

If you stick to only watching Pokemon and reading Naruto of course you will miss out on a lot.

If however you actually broaden your reading/watching/listening materials and even go out of your way to speak with natives in the target language, then of course you can pick up everything that you would learn in a class anyway.

That's not my point. I'm saying that you miss out on a lot of things by thinking, that it only takes a few TV shows and some basic reading to learn the language. There is a reason why some people study this for many years.. AND.. if you talk to natives of the language, it's not actually self-teaching ; D Also, natives don't think about how they speak their language - they just speak it. So your theory doesn't really hold water in my opinion..

I'd say it would only work if you ACTUALLY got your hands on grammar books, how-to Kanji/hiragana/katakana etc. Japanese (and any eastern Asian language) is not something you 'just' decide to learn, because you think you have the flair for any European language. Heck, if I wanted to, I'd probably be able to teach myself any European language - because they're easy for me, as I'm European myself. But the ground base for European languages (Latin, old Germanian languages etc.) are not to be compared to Japanese, Chinese, Korean or anything like it.

And no one ever corrected your translations?
I find that very hard to believe.. And dude, I understand pretty much ANYTHING in German said or written to me - but I still have a hard time figuring out the grammar. Translating articles and books doesn't do much unless you have a book or a programme that teaches you the grammar from end to other. There are SO many grammatical issues with the German language. What language is your mother tongue?

Yes - Like I have been self studying for almost 2 years (Well... 2 years with a bit of a break in the middle)
And of course it doesn't only take a few TV shows and books; I would have thought that would be obvious to anyone.

So, as soon as you try to practice speaking with someone in their language you are automatically not self studying?
Strange way of looking at it...

Also, you seem to be referring to some kind of theory to do with natives thinking about what they are saying (Or something like that) which I never actually mentioned in any posts...

At what point did I say that you can't use grammar books and stuff?
I use them to speed up the learning process, but it doesn't change the fact I am learning by myself.

Edit:
We are obviously talking about 2 different things here.
I think maybe you think I am talking about picking up all of the grammar all by yourself with no grammar books or anything.
When I am really talking about using resources by yourself without going to a class or seeing a tutor of some kind.

The whole point of "learning" a language to me is to become being able to use it in real life situations, so even if your German is fraught with errors, you are done with "learning" once you have a good enough command of the language to function as an adult, i.e. work, in an all German environment, imo. After that, you just have to use it as much as possible, and do what native speakers do, like taking a writing class and/or a speech class.

Both in learning German and learning Japanese, I'm sure classes help to a certain extent. But German seems close enough to English that you can understand most of what a material for adults, for example a TV news show or an article from a paper, is saying by just replacing all the words with English ones. With Japanese though, you'll have no idea if you do the same. You can probably get around it by reading grammar books and doing text books on your own too, but getting to the level where you can somewhat understand basic Japanese materials would take hundreds of hours of study, so it seems to me you kind have to be really passionate or/and dogged. I feel like I can learn German or Spanish all on my own, but if I were to learn a language like Arabic, I'd take some classes. I can probably self-teach Arabic too, but it seems like too much work.

Whatever you do, expect to spend 4 times more time on Japanese than German to get to a certain skill level. It'll probably take 1000 hours to acquire basic skills like asking directions and talking about the weather, 3000 to 4000 for business level skills, over 10,000 to be native like. How you go about it probably does't matter that much at the end of the day.

Almost all of you said, it's impossible to learn Japanese pronunciation...
I think this is depends on what's your own language...

I'm Hungarian, and Japanese pronunciation for us is far the easiest of any language, because theirs sounds...their letters pronunciation is almost the same like in my language.
Their grammar is a bit similar to ours, so...

For me is English pronunciation is hard not the Japanese...

So I think it's depends on the people.

Many people said in world's language my own language is one of the most difficult language, like Japanese, but I have a Japanese friend who started to learn Hungarian on his own. And he is quite good in it.

So I think if you can learn Japanese if you try hard and don't give up. :D

I'm going to go ahead and say that if anything, reading and writing would require instruction while speaking and pronunciation does not. Have you guys ever seen kids born in another country come to your own and learn how to speak English like a native before or during kindergarten?

I think of pronunciation as being like rote learning or music... and reading could obviously be equated to reading music. Rote learning is something that those steel drum groups traditionally do. I'm pretty sure a lot of drumming groups work that way. It's a matter of learning each phrase and getting all the nuances down. As far as I know this kind of stuff is done without much speaking being involved, and there usually aren't any questions.

When you get teachers teaching pronunciation of a (second) language, they usually butcher it even if they're natives. Speaking slowly in English often produces pronunciation that is different from the real deal. All languages are probably like that... I know Japanese is too. Pronunciation shouldn't be learned from a book, it should be absorbed through listening. After you have that sound pallet in your head you are able to better approximate the sounds you are making with your mouth. Even if you can't make the sounds yet, you can train your muscles to get closer and closer. It's like knowing your pitch is off while singing and being able to make adjustments to correct it.

I have helen gilhooly course with cd's on myipod. I also have a berlitz and a michel thomas system.

it still takes regualr listening and practice and the need to talk out loud

I expect the best way is total immersion by living with japanese people and not being allowed to speak ones own language.

The answer to the question is yes you can be self-taught Japanese as I am albeit well and truly out of practice a number of years now. However, what matters is just how far you want to advance your studies; fine learning the basics from a text book which of course you will need as you will the hiragana and katakana script. As for fluency then that is a different ball-game, the problem being people don't talk like text-books. I notice when listening that Japanese not infrequently miss out verbs and of course use a few colloquialisms and expressions with which a foreigner may or not be familiar - no big surprise there.

For example the verb iru after the -te form of the word and the suru verb often gets missed out giving the impression, as far as I can deduce that a sentence has been left hanging in mid-air (people please correct me if I am wrong).

In addition the whole way of saying some things are so different that a foreigner would never ever think of saying it, here's and example from the Japanese drama 'One Liter of Tears;' Aya, the central character at one point says: 'when I put my hand to my heart I can hear it beating' (mune ni otte miru doki doki oto ga suru. The literal translation of what she says is; 'chest at it place hand when put thump-thump sound does' (well something like that) :eek:

How would you know that? The simple answer you wouldn't so you would have to do hell of a lot of listening but it's not impossible as I had a friend who spoke reasonably fluent Japanese without ever having lived in Japan which he achieved by mixing with Japanese people.. Just how 'fluent' he was I don't know - sorry to say I fell out with him rather badly so I guess I will never know.

Items of use: Microsoft word has a scratch pad on the language bar when typing in Japanese where you can draw a character select it to print and then you can copy paste it into an on-line dictionary (I use tangorin) where you can also build up a vocabulary list.

The comedy 'Attention Please' is available with subtitles in Japanese script and have used Word the way described above in conjunction - real hard work but for some maybe the only way. Beware the DVD series is horrendously expensive as so many materials you may use for more advanced and worthwhile Japanese learning are!

Do build up your vocabulary, although mine is only around 1500 words at present I find can recognize a good many words. The book I found most useful for vocabulary is 'Japanese but not so much for grammar is 'Japanese for Today' although it is only available second having priced itself off the market.

Much will depend on just how determined you are or if you can logically find the time as there is no doubt the demand of learning are greater than European languages where resources are more abundant and cheaper (I am assuming you live in Europe). Good luck and I hope you find my post of use.

Ps: To the OP: you may already realize good deal of what I have said since you have learned German and will no doubt know people don't speak like textbooks but in Japanese the difference is more profound, in addition I am considering those new to learning Japanese who may not have done any foreign language learning.

I never said that.. But as soon as you get help from others - to me, though - it's not really 'self-taught' anymore. Obviously therefore you can never be a good self-taught in ANY language in my opinion. You will always require some certain amount of help - unless you have crazy flair. Talking to natives of the language you wanna learn, gives you FEEDBACK and thereby boosts your learning.

I was pointing out that most natives wouldn't actually be able to give you a legit reason for why a verb changes in what direction depending on tense etc., while a teacher will be able to show you and explain to you EXACTLY why a word is used the way it is.

I never said that. lol. At what point did I say that I'd only comment on what you'd written?

I disagree; being self-taught does not mean you will not have to ask somebody something at some point. This forum is an excellent example since there is always something in the world that books don't answer and you educate by yourself asking others.

You have said it yourself; Talking to natives of the language you wanna learn, gives you FEEDBACK and thereby boosts your learning. . Should you mean fluency then that is a different story.

Actually, you said "if you talk to natives of the language, it's not actually self-teaching", which is why I thought you were saying that as soon as you want to practise, it's no longer self study.
So just out of interest, in your opinion, if someone wanted to be self-taught, how would they practise having conversations?

Unless we mis-understood each other yet again...
I was talking about just regular conversations with natives of the target language; Not actually asking them for explanations on particular grammar points etc in their language.

Also, in your post you quoted me, hence my assumption you would be making relative comments on what I had written... :rolleyes:

yuriyri...well if you practice with natives then whats the damn difference if you practice with your teacher? none. so...if there isnt a difference then you really cant say - im self thought, now cant you?

Sorry but I find this a bit of strange statement. Nobody was talking about practising with a teacher. Irrespective of whether you attend classes or pratice with a teacher you are a lot of the time learning alone in which case a lot of learning is self-taught be it a language or any other subject.

However, it seems that this thread has become a debate trying to define what self-study is which is not the OP asked, which was would he be able to learn without the aid of a teacher.

If you are just practising and not being taught anything then how can you not say you are self-taught? ;)

practising and being thought is the same thing..only difference is that on one instance it is teacher and on the other a friend/native/McDonalds employee or someone else...
lets say you do not attend clasees. you read at home (tho if you do attend you also read - everyone (hopefully) does) and you have a friend with whom you practice, lets say, 1 hr a week. at that point he becomes your sensei and there goes your "im totally and only self-thought" !!!

you can say that you are self thought if you get lost in the jungle and survive for 6 month until you are found - then you can say that you are self-thought survival expert, because you had noone else but yourself to learn from.

It sounds odd that one become non self-taught the moment he/she actually uses the language. I don't think there is anybody who are self-taught according to that definition. Being self-taught generally means not taking classes or having a tutor, at least in English. Now, having a language partner is a gray area. But usually these partners don't have any knowledge in "teaching" their native language, so I say it still doesn't tarnish the purity of self-teaching most of the time.

Rosetta Stone....done and done......

rosetta stone isn't all that great. It's enough to pick up a bunch of the basics. but it won't get you anywhere near fluent.

...also, whats with the giant picture that has nothing to do with anything?

You obviously haven't seen the latest edition of Rosetta Stone.

It's 3 Editions long, takes about 4 years to complete AND has a hot sexy voice lady that helps you learn. 4 years of hot sexy voice is enough for anybody to pick up Japanese.

The picture is me trying to fit in my signature but because I'm a total noob to JF it won't let me permanently add it to the signature section of every post so I have to do it manually.

I use teach yourself books and cd's plus berlitz etc.

I could not learn on my own if I did not have books and cd's to hear correct pronuncuation.

It does take a lot of self discipline plus of course studying the hiragana and Kana to start with.

One needs to speak out loud-- but it is better to have a Japanese person to share with and practice.

I don't get enough practice with my japanese friend.

I am most interested in the written language and calligraphy-- but that also takes determination and regular study.

Make the picture smaller, it's stretching the page. Then go to "User CP" at the top left. Go to Edit Signature, on the left. And Enter this into the box:

"[CENTERR] [IMG] http://kbcs-sc.com/VithVicious1b.JPG [/IMG] [/CENTERR]"

(without the spaces and quotations, and spell center properly, with only one R)

anyways. I'm sure the new rosetta stone is pretty good. but I don't think it'll get you fluent. And as far as I know, what they teach you in RS is pretty formal stuff. Which won't sound natural most of the time. That's just from my experience with the program though, I may be wrong.

hope u get your sig worked out.

Thankx to you and NanteNa I know what to do.

Once I get home I'll be able to fix it. .)