Watch this before learning Japanese | The common mistakes beginners do when learning Japanese)

Please don't do these mistakes if you're a beginner learning Japanese.

Hi guys, it's me Dy. If you're new to this channel, I'm half Japanese and you know I grew up talking Japanese, and Japanese is my mother tongue. Today, we're going to talk about the most common mistakes that I repeatedly see beginners doing. I'm going to explain how to fix those problems.

Okay, so the first mistake that I've seen so many times and surprises me is learning Japanese only using romaji. If you don't know, romaji is basically the Latin alphabet. You might think, "How am I supposed to learn Japanese without using Latin alphabets?" The thing is, if you're a complete beginner and if you're like, you know, just started to learn Japanese, of course, if you don't know hiragana, katakana, and kanji, the only way for you to read Japanese is using romaji, so the Latin alphabet. That's totally fine.

But the issue that I've seen is that when you only use romaji for learning Japanese, because Japanese is not romaji-based, so Latin-alphabet-based. The pronunciation is different. So how you would pronounce a word using hiragana and katakana versus romaji, of course, will be different. If you keep using romaji to learn Japanese over time, you will see that your pronunciation is really different than what Japanese should sound like. So my advice will be, first, of course, in the beginning, rely on romaji; that is fine, but as soon as possible, learn hiragana and katakana please, so that you will learn how to pronounce Japanese words in a correct way.

Okay, so the second tip or second mistake is not learning kanji. This is like a bit of a tricky problem, to be honest, because it really depends on your goal. If you're learning Japanese only to understand and watch anime, then that's totally fine; like, you don't need to learn kanji. That is completely okay. But if you're going to use Japanese in Japan, or maybe for your work or any other thing than only understanding anime, or Japanese dramas and music and stuff, you need kanji. I'm sorry to tell you, but kanji is a huge part of our life in Japan as a Japanese person, you know, because it's one of the three main alphabets that we have.

Nobody likes kanji except some weirdos. I'm sorry if you like kanji, but I don't like it anyway. A lot of people try to avoid kanji when learning Japanese, but kanji can be really useful, you know, in day-to-day life in Japan or understanding Japanese text or understanding Japanese generally. You can't skip a whole alphabet. I'm sorry. But when learning kanji, the most common question that I always, always repeatedly get is, "How can I learn kanji in a fun way or effective way?"

But I already made a video about it, which you can watch here—a detailed video about learning Japanese. I always recommend finding a fun way to learn a language because if you're learning a language just for the sake of learning it, it kind of feels like work, you know? But if you have fun while learning it, it will become much easier for you because it doesn't feel like work anymore.

So making the process fun is always, always, always crucial when learning a language, and for that, I recommend today's sponsor, the Muchi Muchi app. We collaborated before, as I said in the previous video that I made, and people really love this, so we are collaborating once again because you guys really liked it.

On Muchi Muchi app, you can learn kanji and also vocabulary using flashcards. Flashcards are really handy when it comes to learning something. When you have a flashcard, you think about, "How can I read this kanji or what is the meaning of this vocabulary?" You know, you're trying to actively read, and this process is scientifically proven that it's one of the best ways to study.

When learning these kanji and vocabulary, another great, scientifically proven way to study is spaced repetition. So you basically repeat the things that you learned in intervals, but sometimes the spaced repetition can be tricky because you might think, like, "When do I need to revise the things that I learned? Like, do I need to wait a day, three days, a week, whatever?" You need to plan when you're going to revise, right?

But on the Muchi Muchi app, it's pretty easy because it tells you the golden hour, so the best time for you to revise and it reminds you, "It's time to revise." You know, it's your golden time—don't miss it, type of a thing. Not only it reminds you, but it also has a really cute interface. I think this is one of the things that people really like about Muchi Muchi, is that the interface is so cute.

You might think this is a really small detail, but as I said, learning a language is a whole, whole, whole journey. It's really long, so when the interface is cute, and if you're using it even 1% more because of the cute interface, it's a win for us.

When revising things and when learning things, there are five stages of memorization. Just because you revised a kanji or vocabulary just once, it doesn't mean that it's in your long-term memory, right? So the Muchi Muchi app will categorize you into which stage you are so that you will understand, oh, I revised this thing two times, but it's still not in, like, stage five or stage, I don't know, four or something—maybe I need to revise again.

So it gives you a clear understanding of how much you memorized of that thing, and it will also remind you when to revise. So it's a pretty good thing. You can use this app as a complete guide, and also there is a course list, so there are different levels of Japanese. You can find your level, click there, and find the lessons from there. Another really handy function is you can listen to pronunciation.

So when learning a new vocabulary or a new kanji, if you don't know how to pronounce it, you might pronounce it in a wrong way, but you can listen to it and check whether your pronunciation is right. I really recommend using the Muchi Muchi app; everything will be linked down in the description below so that you can download Muchi Muchi and give it a try. It's free, so if you want to learn kanji or generally like in Japanese, I would highly recommend using Muchi Muchi because it makes the process much fun and easier for you guys. So I would recommend.

Thank you, Muchi Muchi, for sponsoring this video. The third reason is not having a specific reason. Actually, this is crucial. Like, if you're learning Japanese or any other language, actually think about it: why are you learning this language? Because depending on your reason, depending on your goal, the way or the method that you use will change. If you're learning Japanese only for anime, then you can maybe skip kanji; you can focus more on the conversations rather than grammatics and maybe, like, more complicated parts of learning Japanese.

But if you're going to use it for business or maybe for school, then you might want to focus more on grammar. Or if you want to use it for daily conversation, then maybe you should focus more on daily conversational Japanese. So if you don't know clearly what your goal when learning Japanese is, please stop this video and think about it: why are you learning Japanese? And create a path, create a learning path according to your goal.

So another mistake is not doing enough practice with native speakers. Not doing enough practice with native speakers can be really tricky because I realize a lot of people only learn Japanese through animes or maybe media. But the thing is, the daily conversation Japanese and anime Japanese or any type of media or content can be really different from each other because it's made for entertainment purposes. In daily life, we use Japanese to communicate and understand each other, so they have different goals. Therefore, if you're only learning Japanese from anime, your Japanese can sound a bit weird.

I can recognize immediately if that person learned Japanese from anime because it sounds weird. If you want to sound natural and if you want to talk like a native speaker, you need to practice with native speakers. For that, you don't need to do an exchange in Japan or something, you know. This is the internet era, so you can use services, apps, or I don't know, sites to find native speakers in Japanese, and you can chat with them, talk with them, you can, you know, make friends, and you can even use, like, Instagram to find people. So it shouldn't be that hard. You don't need to spend a bunch of money to find a Japanese native speaker; there are so many services out there, so you can check them out.

When talking about sounding natural, I think this is also crucial: only using textbooks. So I understand learning grammar and vocabulary using textbooks can be really handy, but if you're only using textbooks when learning a language—not only Japanese, to be honest—it can be problematic. Because most of the time, textbooks are outdated. Language is something that lives, as I said twice. Language is something that lives. So since these textbooks are outdated, it might not sound natural, you know, in current Japan.

So I would always recommend you to use other sources, like Muchi Muchi, talking to native speakers, consuming media, and also using textbooks to improve your Japanese skills and to sound more natural. I feel like this one is not talked about enough: it's not learning the culture. I feel like not a lot of people are talking about it when giving language tips. Language and culture are truly tied together, you know? You cannot separate them from each other because in order to understand the language, you need to understand the culture as well, especially if you're coming from a very different culture from Japan.

Sometimes when learning a foreign language, the rules or the way they say it might not make sense at all because you have a different reality than Japanese people. But by understanding the culture and by understanding Japanese mentality or the way they think, you can actually understand the language even better because from the language, you can see the cultural bits of Japanese people, Japanese history, and Japanese values. So I would always, always recommend learning Japanese culture if you want to have a deeper understanding of Japanese.

I feel like learning the culture is the most fun part of learning a language. It's just my personal opinion, but I really love learning other cultures. When I was learning German, learning the German culture really allows you to understand the German language and how they phrase things. So I would recommend to learn Japanese. I would highly recommend you to learn Japanese culture. It's unique, like every other culture out there, so just learn it, you know?

It really broadens up your vision and gives you new values because there is no right or wrong in this world; there are just different values according to different cultures and different ways of understanding.

I recommend, so the last one, especially if you're watching this video, is looking for the perfect method, to look for the fastest way to learn Japanese. You know, I understand learning a language is a very long journey, so sometimes we want to use shortcuts and we want to find a perfect way so that we can make sure that we're learning at the fastest pace, you know? But the important thing is enjoying the journey. Of course, you need to try new methods because everybody learns in a different way. The method that works for me might not work for you. So yes, I'm giving like these tips, but you can try out and find out what works for you.

In order to find out the best method that works for you, you need to give the method a bit of time, you know? You need to trust the process because just because you tried the method for a week and you didn't learn that much, it doesn't mean that it doesn't work for you. You know, you need to give it a bit of time—maybe I don't know, two to three months—and then give yourself an honest feedback: Is this method working for me? Is this an efficient way to learn the language? With the feedback, think about it: What can I improve about this method? Or maybe this is not the way that I want to learn a language. I don't enjoy it. Even though it's effective, it might not be really fun, so think about it.

How can I make it more fun, more enjoyable? It's a long journey, so you need to have patience, but also give yourself honest feedback each time: Is this working for me? So, yeah, that was it for today's video. If you have any questions, drop them down below, and don't forget to check the Muchi Muchi app. It's free; you can use it from today on Android, iPhone. You know, don't say, "I don't have time." If you're waiting for a bus, just do a couple of exercises, you know? Thank you, Muchi Muchi, for sponsoring this video, and see you next time. Bye for now!