YouTube Channels That Guided Me In Learning Japanese
In this article, I’m not going to be talking about Japanese tutoring channels that teach grammar points and vocabulary. Rather, I’ll be sharing the channels that taught me how to learn Japanese on my own, using the resources they introduced me to.
Abroad in Japan
Today known for his high production value travel videos that he creates with a full-fledged team, Chris Broad’s channel initially started out with showcasing the everyday cultural differences he came across during his life in Japan as an English teacher. During that time he also made videos about how he rapidly learnt Japanese over the span of just a few months. Despite being a few years old, the information and strategies presented are still just as relevant.
Great Tips and Resources
The strategies and tools Chris outlines became the foundational blocks from which I started learning Japanese. He introduced me to Heisig’s method of learning Kanji rapidly, Tae Kim’s free grammar guide and, most importantly, Anki for memorizing vocabulary rapidly. Basically, he did the same thing that I’m trying to do with this blog but in a much more entertaining way.
One of the main ways that I didn’t follow him was in that I didn’t use the Genki textbook because it was too expensive. Instead, his video on 5 Free Tools and Resources to learn Japanese was tremendously helpful.
Incredibly Entertaining
Not only are his videos full of useful and actionable advice, but they’re also incredibly funny and entertaining. I watched them all back when I had zero intention of learning Japanese. In fact, his video on learning kanji inspired me to take it up as a fun challenge years later, which is how my journey of learning Japanese started.
Conclusion
Abroad in Japan’s playlist on learning Japanese is the best place to start if you want to learn Japanese but don’t know how. (Then come to my blog, once you’re inspired and entertained, to learn more tips and techniques to learn Japanese). Besides being informative, the videos are so fun that they’ll inspire you to try out his methods for yourself.
Matt vs. Japan
Once I achieved basic fluency in Japanese, it was to time take my skill to the next level. I needed new strategies and approaches that were more suited to intermediate level learners like me. Towards that end, no channel has been more helpful than Matt vs. Japan.
Great Ideas and Approaches
Matt is a co-founder of the Mass Immersion Approach (MIA) which upholds the importance and necessity of consuming Japanese media in a large quantity to learn Japanese effectively. There are more than a handful of videos that discuss how and why this is important. Not only does it aid in learning vocabulary and grammar, but it also introduces you to different aspects of Japanese culture that play a huge role in communication. For example, the prevalence of hierarchy and the importance of being non-confrontational.
He also proposes other interesting ideas such as the efficiency of learning only a single language at a time and tips such as watching Netflix with audio descriptions to learn more.
Fantastic Tools and Techniques
Matt introduces the tools and techniques he uses to optimize learning Japanese following MIA. Since using some of these can be complicated and daunting, he has detailed walkthroughs and tutorials that explain everything step-by-step.
One of his most useful videos for me was the one where he shows you how to obtain and read Japanese books on Kindle devices. I’ve read two full-length novels after using the techniques he shows.
The MIA Japanese Addon for Anki created by his partner has also been extremely useful. The add-on has several useful features such as automatic furigana creation, native speaker audio generation for words, features for learning pitch accent, etc.
This is just scratching the surface. He also has several other guides such as how to train your listening skills using the anime you’ve seen.
Complicated and Advanced
We’ve seen this pattern repeat over and over: the more powerful and customizable a tool is, the more complicated it is to use. Despite his best efforts to make them accessible and easy to understand, many of the tools and strategies that Matt shares will require a fair deal of effort to use and execute on your part. His channel isn’t for Duolingo users. Don’t get me wrong, the investment in setting up is well worth the return you’ll get in results. However, the length of his videos and the number of unfamiliar concepts introduced will intimidate some people.
Other than that though, he also has many shorter videos where he quick shares tips you can use immediately (such as the previously mentioned audio description trick).
Disagreeing on the Importance of Pitch Accent
A fundamental area of disagreement for me is regarding the importance of pitch accent. For those unfamiliar with the term, all Japanese words have a certain intonation with which they are spoken. The key thing to note is the use of the term accent. In other words, it’s not something that is essential to your ability to speak Japanese. Instead, it’s better thought of as something you need to perfectly sound like a native.
It’s also been argued that being familiar with pitch accent may help with listening comprehension skills but I can’t relate to the efficacy of that claim. Of course, if you’re able to
On the other hand, being aware of the existence of variations in pitch is important for developing your listening skills. I can recommend learning about the different pitch accent types, but I don’t believe putting in extra effort to explicitly memorize the pitch accent types of individual words is worth the trouble. That to me is effort better spent in improving vocabulary or grammar that increase your ability to express yourself. Rather, I’d just say keep an ear out for it while practising listening normally. For example, I use the MIA add-on to have the pitch accents of words at face while revising sentences in Anki.
You can read more about my complete thoughts regarding pitch accent here.
Conclusion
Matt’s channel is great if you feel that you’ve stagnated at an intermediate level and don’t know the best way to advance further. His in-depth tutorials and walkthroughs present a number of incredibly useful tools that make your time spent learning Japanese more productive.
Even beginners will find many of his shorter videos showcasing simple immediate tips helpful. Furthermore, his ideas and holistic approaches regarding learning Japanese and language learning in general are worth listening to regardless of what stage of progress you’re at.
