SPOKEN JAPANESE FOR BEGINNERS HOW TO

To speak and listen you are going to want your brain in Japanese mode. The stronger the link, the harder it is to connect with and actually think in Japanese. You are hindering the growth of your “Japanese brain”īy using romaji, you keep the English link inside your brain strong. How would you pronounce the following sounds:ĭepending on the system, these are actually pronounced: Some romaji systems are counter-intuitive If you want your spoken Japanese to sound good, you need to learn the Japanese sounds through kana. While romaji tries its best to get the sounds correctly, it just doesn’t always do the best job. Don’t waste all that beginner time when you could start yourself off right with learning the kana. Most people that start off studying Japanese have a small set of narrow goals. You may start off thinking you only want to speak.

It’s a minimal time commitment for a great return. Kana makes up the basis for the entire language. If you give it several days to a few weeks of moderate study, you can learn them all.

The kana (hiragana and katakana) are easy to learn Get yourself a guidebook that uses romaji, or some online app, and you’ll be good to go.Īssuming this isn’t you (which if you’re here, shouldn’t be), here’s why you should not learn romaji even if you only want to learn to speak Japanese. In this scenario, it’s probably not worth the trouble to learn the basic characters of Japanese for such minimal use. You have a one time trip to Japan for a short period of time (up to a few weeks), and you will never use that Japanese or step foot in Japan again. Romaji presents the appearance of a shortcut for the “speaker only.” But there are so many reasons why romaji is a bad idea, even if you think you never want to touch the written word.īut first… the one reason I find completely acceptable to use romaji for those who only want to speak Japanese… I’ve seen beginners tread down this path. If you only need to speak (and by extension, listen) to Japanese, then why spend all that additional time going through the complicated writing system? Save the time with romaji, and focus on what really matters to you. Maybe they love anime and only care about understanding it. Maybe they will be traveling in Japan and want to be able to mingle with the locals. Maybe they have some Japanese friends they want to talk to.

SPOKEN JAPANESE FOR BEGINNERS HOW TO

There are some people out there that get the idea in their heads that they only want to learn how to speak Japanese, and nothing else.

Spoken japanese for beginners