Silence is sometimes considered golden. In Japan, silence is communication. Speech is often considered unnecessary and sometimes even seems to obstruct harmonious interpersonal relationships. Accepting silence as an alternative to saying what you want to express can be a frustrating ordeal for non-Japanese living in Japan wanting to speak Japanese. As it is considered illogical not to express yourself with words it can takes years getting accustomed to the Japanese way of silent communication.

The Japanese are very cautious not to hurt the feelings of others, nor do they wish to cause trouble for others. They tend to surmise other people’s possible reactions before giving opinions or taking some sort of action. This can result in Japanese doing things they don’t want to do. For example, not leaving a job they are unhappy with because they don’t want to cause trouble for their co-workers. Japanese like to achieve mutual understanding by nonverbal cues rather than by blunt or outright questions or heated discussions. It is all about avoiding confrontation and conflict.

To the Japanese, silence in conversation ( if there is such a thing) can often convey a far more profound meaning than just…let’s say…eloquence. Western society would see this non-verbal communication as more of a social problem of the Japanese in general. Japanese traditionalists see this silent communication as a highly prized skill. The Japanese language has many proverbial expressions concerning the effectiveness and wisdom of nonverbal communication. “Ishin-denshin” can be taken to mean “Using cultural telepathy” or “mind to heart communication”. “Haragei” is other meaning “art of the belly”. By the unique technique of “haragei” a person makes the other party understand his real intentions without verbal interaction. This ability is regarded as indispensable to influential figures, particularly in political circles.

Unlike most other nations, Japan is a highly homogeneous society, where nonverbal forms of communication can be easily developed and conveniently used in various situations. As Japanese have traditionally depended on “ishin denshin” for much of their communication they are generally turned off by people who, by their standards, talk excessively. In contrast to the Japanese, Westerners, particularly Americans, are noted for being big talkers, with the result that these two widely differing modes of behavior often clash. And believe me they do clash.

In this internationalized world, more and more Japanese think it urgently necessary to change their tendency to implicitness and silence which can cause misunderstanding in inter-cultural communication. Likewise, it does pay for foreign businessmen and politicians to make a point of letting their Japanese counterparts know that they are aware of the “ishin deshin” method of communicating, and that they want to have a mind-to-heart understanding with them.

In order to speak like a Japanese native you have to learn, at times, not to speak at all. This requires a certain amount of patience and faith. “Ishin Denshin” is something you can really only experience by living with Japanese in Japan. When I lived with my wife’s family there was very little conversation between family members. I found it quite challenging to sit through meals and not talk. It took a long time to feel comfortable in a shared state of silence. So, if you want to speak like a Japanese keep in mind that less said will often resonate more than blurting out what you think or feel.

My pet hate Japanese word is juice, in katakana. In Japanese “juice” basically means soft drink. It can even mean canned coffee. How could they get this word so wrong. So if a Japanese offers you “juice” in Japan don’t be surprised if you are given a glass of coke.

Snack is an other word Japanese give new meaning to. Instead of relating to eating food the word is all about drinking. In Japanese “snack” means bar. But not just any bar. Snack bars are small drinking places usually for the older generation where Japanese can drown their sorrows with whisky or beer and belt out some enka. These places are very popular with men as they are sort of a hostess bar where you are charged quite a lot to drink with female company. Enka is traditional Japanese music – usually songs about lost love. These places are probably the most depressing places you could ever visit in Japan.

Viking is one of my favorite’s. It is pronounced “Bye -king”. Japanese most likely wouldn’t know who the Vikings were. Yet, at least one Japanese picked up on their eating habits and coined the phrase to mean buffet. Viking means “all-you-can- eat”. It can also mean “all-you-can-drink”.

Ice comes close. It means ice cream. This is an example of how Japanese will take English words and shorten them or abbreviate them. Japanese generally like to communicate with the least amount of words. They will take a foreign word shorten it, give it a new meaning, and eventually it slips into main stream vocabulary.

When you first learn or discover these words you will feel dumbfounded. You will either feel amused or annoyed. It is quite hard to believe that the words I just taught you are meaningful and common words in the Japanese language. It certainly took me a while to accept and use them. One of the most frustrating things is many Japanese believe that they are speaking English when using these loan words. Good reason enough not to even consider teaching English in Japan.

If you would like to learn real Japanese words then take a look at Japanese Japanese Fast

Do you have the ability to hold short conversations, but know if you were to go to Japan you wouldn’t be able to survive?

I lived in Japan for 10 years and know what is like to be stuck at a medioca level.  It took me a few years but I made progress and broke through the “basic speaker” barrier. Unfortunately most students don’t, never reaching a proficient speaking level of Japanese.

And I can understand way. It takes most students many months or several years just to learn the basics. For most people, progressing to an intermediate level seems either to time consuming or near impossible. Maybe, this is where you are at the moment. And you know what more study isn’t always the best answer. What I have discovered is that to actually engage in a conversation with a native speaker you need to experience the language. Normally, this would require you to live in Japan for some time.

However, I realize that most of you are not in the position to jump on a plane and spend the next year living in Japan. Maybe you are living in Japan, but suffer from the Eikaiwa syndrome, where you are teaching English, living with English native speakers and have little money or time to afford lessons. My wife and I have come up with a solution. An Intermediate Japanese language learning program founded on real life experience. A course that would let you learn the Japanese language as if you were actually in Japan.

Most of my feedback has shown me that students didn’t want to focus on grammar or text books and just the basics of the language. Students wanted to be taught real Japanese that would help them with life in Japan. You won’t have to go through the basics again with our course. We dive straight into real Japanese and explain the culture of the Japanese language.

In short our program Speak Japanese Fluently:

• Teaches functional Japanese that is real and alive in Japan
• Gives You the confidence to speak Japanese to native speakers
• Saves money and time, and limits frustration and confusion
• Explains confusing and greatly misunderstood cultural aspects of the language
• Helps students to actually practice effectively
• And cuts out and avoids all the unnecessary text book study garbage

If you are serious about moving ahead with your Japanese – and really want to hold conversation with native speakers then Speak Japanese Fluently is what you need.

Try our program and if honestly believe the program isn’t for you just send me an email and your money will be returned.

The particle も can be used to indicate similarity as in the words ‘too’ or ‘also’. This particle replaces が or は, when used:

A: 私がえいがすきです。
B: 私もえいががすきです。
A: I like movies
B: I also like movies

This is a reasonably simple use of も, which can also be used in a double patternsuch as in the following sentence:

A: えいががすきですか、おんがくがすきですか。
B: えいがもおんがくもすきです。
A: Do [you] like movies, or do [you] like music?
B: [I] like both movies and music.

Remember that because も marks a similarity to something previously mentioned, you cannot use も out of the blue. It requires a prompt either by someone else, or by something you yourself just said.

A second use of も is after the て form of verbs and verbal adjectives. In this use, も acts as an emphatic contrasting particle, meaning something like the English “even [by/if] …”. The phrase below

“Even [by] leaving now, [you] probably won’t make it.” translates to いま　いっても　まにあわない　でしょう。

There are two special things that concern this particle. One, a special case of this use of も is in combination with the copula です, which becomes でも. We will look at this in a later post.

The second is this particle can be used with question pronouns. Have a look at the examples below:

なに　means “what”, なにも means “anything” when followed by positive verb or “nothing”, when followed by a negative verb.

どこ means “where”, どこも means “anywhere” when followed by a postive verb or “nowhere”, when followed by a negative verb.

だれ　means “who”, だれも means “anyone” when followed by a postive verb or “no one”, when followed by a negative verb.

This rule continues for words like どんな (what kind of?), どっち (which way?), いつ (when?), どうして (why?) and so forth and so forth.

As you can see the simple use of particles can greatly change the context and meaning of the Japanese language. If you have ever taken the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT) before you will know one whole section of the grammar test is devoted to particles. Particles are important. So we will continue our study of them. Look forward to the next post on the particle の.

In this video lesson you will learn about “housework”. Don’t forget to write a comment.

家事　－　かじ

Key phrases:

せんたくを　しました              -　I did the washing.

そうじきを　かけました       – I vacuumed the floors

せんたくものを　ほしました   – I hung out the washing

トイレを　そうじしました          – I cleaned the toilet
Learning Japanese online is cheapest and most effective way to learn Japanese. I think it is even better than taking private Japanese lessons. There is lots of free quality content, including Japanese podcast lessons, video lessons and lots of blogs and sites teaching Hiragana and Katakana. Start learning Japanese today.

You will find learning and using particles quite challenging. As the Japanese language  divides the perception of processes and states in a drastically different way to western languages, particles are very different. Some particles do correspond to western prepositions and postpositions. However,  there are particles which don’t just have one translation, but translate to many different things in western language. Learning these particles and all their applications can chew up your study time.

Without knowing a certain number of prepositions it is reasonably safe to say that you cannot use Japanese to any real extent. Simply put you have got to know how to use particles correctly.   If you don’t you won’t be able to hold anything that comes even close to a consistent short and simple conversation. We are going to take a look at 10 all important particles. Almost all Japanese particles have several meanings.  You must know at least the first meaning of each of these particles.

Let’s have a look at  が – the subject marker.

This particle denotes the subject of an operative word (regardless of whether the operative is actually explicitly used in the sentence). Simple sentences that illustrate this use are:

だれが来ましたか。　－　Who came [here]?
コーヒーが好きです。－　[I] like coffee.

In these sentences が links the subjects, respectively [who] and [coffee], to their
operatives [come] and [like]. An important general rule to remember is whenever something not-yet-talked-about is being mentioned in a conversation, が is used. Also, when asking questions in relation to something unknown, が is used because this too
is something new.

A second use of が is as a weak “but”:

すみませんが、今何時ですか。Excuse me but, what time is?

In contrast, but acts more like a gentle in-sentence conjugation particle, gluing the two pieces together with only a moderate level of contrast at best.

My Japanese uncle in-law even gave a speech about his idea of American lifestyle how it related to my wife and I on an important family occasion.  He thought he was doing me a great favor with his speech. I was somewhat frustrated and wanted to tell him how ignorant he was. Even though he knew my nationality, Australian, he just amsumed we shared the same culture. I certainly don’t have anything against Americans. I have many good friends who are American. I just got sick are being asked if I were American by almost every Japanese I met for ten years.

Japanese will also speak to you s if you are new to the country. This can be a little annoying, too, if you are a long term resident.  You end up having the same conversations all the time. I would occassionally avoid conversations with the locals just to have a break from the top ten questions you will hopefully memorize.

We have just been through the worst heatwave in Melbourne and Victoria. Two weeks ago, we had three days of 43 degrees in a row. Then, last Saturday we reached 47  degrees. You may have heard about the terrible bush fires in Victoria. Devastating stuff – probably over 200 dead, 750 homes destroyed and whole communities lost. And to think some of the fires were lit on purpose. How could someone go out and intentionally light a  fire knowing the possible destruction it could cause. So please spare a thought or two for the many people who lost family, friends and just about everything else.

In  this post we have a short video lesson on “commenting on the weather”.

When living in Japan I met hundreds of English teachers who could speak Japanese, but never at a fluent level. They were taking classes, studying for the Japanese Language ProficiencyTest, and investing quite a lot of money on text books and audio programs. They studied hard but just couldn’t get to a fluent level. Then occasionally I would met someone from Turkey or India. They would speak the language like a native. Yet, they had taken no classes or purchased little in the way of study material. These speakers of Japanese wouldn’t learn or study the language in the traditional sense. They wouldn’t spend time learning hiragana or katakana. They certainly wouldn’t learn kanji or study grammar. In fact they would no nothing about the language except they could speak fluently. They would just soak up and use the language from their environment. They learnt the language from example and experience. The fastest and most effective way to study anything, especially a language.

In order to speak Japanese fluently you need to surround yourself with Japanese speakers and also not speak your native language. If you put yourself in a situation where you are forced to speak the language daily your Japanese will improve in leaps and bounds. If you spend too much time on rules about the language you will become knowledgeable about the structure of language and whatnot, but your speak ability will progress very slowly.

To develop the ability to speak you must observe how Japanese interact and then basically model what you see over and over. You have to become a bit of a actor and become Japanese. Japanese has to become a part or most of your life. Now, the problem is not many of us can just drop what we are doing and  fly of to Japan. So how can you learn to speak Japanese without studying the language?

Surround yourself with as much Japanese as possible. Immerse yourself in real language as much as possible. This means making Japanese friends, getting a Japanese girlfriend or boy friend, watching Japanese television and listening to Japanese radio. You need to listen to Japanese speaking the real thing. Don’t listen to podcasts that are designed to teach you Japanese. There is too much in the way of explanation and unrealistic examples. Most of what is taught is too formalized anyway. Focus your life on mimicking Japanese. Speak to yourself in Japanese. So now you know what you need to do if you want to speak Japanese fluently. If you follow my advice you end up saving yourself a whole lot of time and money.