Time in studying japanese?

Question

I started studying japanese around December '06, every saturday for one hour. I'm wondering if I can master japanese in terms of speaking and at least a little bit of Kanji (Kana is easy to understand so I have no probs. with that) in 2 years because I'm planning to go to Japan for college.

But the flaw is, my teacher is not such a good teacher. He's japanese but he doesn't know how to speak or understand that much english so it turns out that he has to lecture me by speaking in his language. Although I don't understand some of what he's saying, I've manage to catch up just right. But with a little help of self-studying.

Also, I tend to forget what I've leanred after a few days. Like for example I forget some vocabularies that I leanred the last lecture. Stuffs like that, does anyone know how to fix this?

Pleas and thank you.

Answer 1

Once a week isn't good enough to become a master at Japanese. In fact, five times a week isn't good enough no matter what nationality your teacher is so long as you're not being immersed into the Japanese language and culture by actually going there. The only way you can say you've mastered a language completely is by living there and saying with full confidence you can read, listen, understand, and reply all perfectly.

To remember what you've learned you need to use it. Run through vocabulary of the objects you see in your daily life. If you can't remember a name or don't know it, learn it, and keep "relearning" it until it finally sticks and you associate car with くるま [kuruma].
The same needs to be done with grammar and sentence structure. You need to constantly practice at any point in time where you have the chance to do so. If you can't remember how to say. "It is raining," you better look it up as soon as you can and keep repeating it until it sticks, then remember to use it again at the next possible chance you have.

Answer 2

I saw a similar question a few weeks ago. I will answer as I did then.

I have spoken Japanese most of my life, tho I learned it explicitly as a second language when I was very young. I learned street or "nichi jo kotoba" as a young person in Japan, but some years later I took formal university courses. I was able to start in third year classes. My teacher was terrific, but he spoke broken English. But I didn't need him to teach me English, I needed his language and he was great with that.

If your teacher speaks to you in Japanese, that is precisely why he is priceless to you. You will find that understanding is harder than expressing yourself, and you will learn to understand best by hearing and trying to decode the language.

It's the agglutenative aspect that takes a little getting used to. Work at learning all those cases:
Ikitai, ikeba, ikanakarebe naranai, ikizu, ikinagara and all the other useful congegations of verbs. That seems to take the most focus. Then go on the web and find a school in Japan that is looking for English teachers. If you speak standard English, you are an English teacher anywhere in Asia. Get hooked up for a summer job somewhere where they speak Tokyoben. It will help you more than anything. And stay away from other Americans. You don't need to waste your time practicing your mother tongue.

Hey, good luck, kid. You'll love knowing that language more than any other you will ever learn.

Answer 3

I can speak from my experience of learning English (my mother tongue is Japanese) that. when you learn a foreign language, it is INEVITABLE to forget until you become pretty fluent. You learn, like, 10 words a day, you forget 8, you have masterd 2. You just need to re-learn those words you have forgotten along with new ones. Try not to get frustrated about it.

A teacher who is fluent in your language may help you better understand grammer, etc., but the bottom line is, once a week is nowhere near enough to master a language that's completely different from your own. You might want to consider studying the language in Japan for, say, 6 months before you start college there. When you 're in Japan you'll be studying Japanese 24/7 and you'll be using it to survive.. That makes a huge difference.

Answer 4

You need to put in time on your own,review what you have studied, memorize vocabulary,take notes and such. Maybe try to get a text book (try Minna no Nihongo) that you can follow along with your teacher being immersed in the language is what will force you to learn. Its a great oppertunity to have a native speaker as a teacher. As for colleges in Japan to my knowledge certain schools have classes in English and if you were to do college courses in Japanese you might want to move to Japan and take a Japanese language school course for at least 6months to 9months...the YMCA language schools in Japan are quite good but expensive.

Answer 5

the best thing to do is to try and find a teacher that better suits your learning style, and also find a friend who is fluent in Japeness and spend time with this person.

http://www.cs.ucl.ac.uk/staff/m.rowley/resources.html

maybe this could assist you in a good way

Answer 6

writng , reading,talking...oops this is very hard