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miming (Offline)
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anyone help? - 06-17-2011, 07:54 AM

I've been reading quite a lot about japanese words/ gramma/ sentence construction and I think i did all i can. So I tried watching japanese cartoons to see if i can understand. and ola! not a single thinng.. oh maybe just the greetings and the most common one but not the conversations. i still have 2 months before I go to japan to work. what can i do? how can i understand japanese.. they talk so fast... my mind is so slow.... is it really hard..? or im just dumb.. btw, i already spent 2 months... help....
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yuriyuri (Offline)
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06-17-2011, 08:15 AM

You just need to listen more.
It's as simple as that.

People may sound like they are speaking quickly, but that is only because you aren't used to listening to Japanese yet.
Keep on practising, and really really try to hear what people are saying.
If you are using youtube or something you can listen to specific parts of the video as much as you like until you pick out what words they are saying.

If you have an mp3 player of some kind, try putting Japanese music or sound clips on there and listen to them on repeat for a little while.

Try to find lyrics of songs, or try to find subtitles of dramas and films (For example there are transcripts of Japanese dramas on http://www.dramanote.com/)
Basically if you can read what the person is saying as you listen to it, then definately do it.

Listening practice can be difficult to start with, and it's easy to feel like you aren't making any progress for a while, but keep on listening and eventually you will start hearing more and more.
Also keep in mind that when watching anime you are quite likely to encounter a lot of words which aren't even in your vocabulary yet, so naturally you won't be able to hear what they are saying properly.
So having said that perhaps you should look for a language exchange partner to speak with on skype, since daily conversation is a lot easier to practise to start with than listening to anime or dramas etc.

Last edited by yuriyuri : 06-17-2011 at 08:29 AM.
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KyleGoetz (Offline)
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06-17-2011, 02:02 PM

Quote:
Originally Posted by miming View Post
I've been reading quite a lot about japanese words/ gramma/ sentence construction and I think i did all i can. So I tried watching japanese cartoons to see if i can understand. and ola! not a single thinng.. oh maybe just the greetings and the most common one but not the conversations. i still have 2 months before I go to japan to work. what can i do? how can i understand japanese.. they talk so fast... my mind is so slow.... is it really hard..? or im just dumb.. btw, i already spent 2 months... help....
Your problem is that you've only been studying two months. It's going to be years before you can speak it well.
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