>>17388922My guide to start learning Japanese the fun and easy way
You can definitely start learning Japanese by watching JP streams. You can get a lot farther than you think with very little actual study. And it's fun!
Starting out is actually really easy. Just three easy steps!
1) Memorize the kana: hiragana and katakana in that order.
These are the basic Japanese alphabets. They're comprised of 46 symbols each, but they share the same 46 sounds which are very easy to learn because you can arrange them in a 10x5 grid + "n" (five spots are either obsolete or aren't used). Hiragana is used for Japanese words, while katakana is used for foreign words. The two alphabets basically looks like this:
A, I, U, E, O
Ka, Ki, Ku, Ke, Ko
Sa, Shi, Su, Se, So
Ta, Chi, Tsu, Te, To
Na, Ni, Nu, Ne, No
Ha, Hi, Fu, He, Ho
Ma, Mi, Mu, Me, Mo
Ya,Yu, Yo
Wa,Wo
Ra, Ri, Ru, Re, Ro
n
The vowel sounds are A - "ah" as in car, I - "ee" as in bee, U - "oo" as in too, E - "eh" as in met, and O - "oh" as in row.
The kana ん/ン (n) is only found at the end of words.
One of the nice things about Japanese is everything is read how it's written with exactly one kana per syllable. There are three exceptions which involve grammar particles:
は (ha) is pronounced "wa" when used as a particle, を (wo) is pronounced "o" when used as a particle, and へ (he) is pronounced "e" when used as a particle. It's easy to tell when to read them this way because they'll appear by themselves after a word or kanji.
You can use the respective Wikipedia page for each alphabet to study.
Here's a decent matching game you can play in your browser to learn hiragana and katakana:
https://ohelo.github.io/usagi-chan/hiragana/https://ohelo.github.io/usagi-chan/katakana/I also recommend writing them multiple times in a notebook (with the correct stroke order) while you're learning, but it's up to you.
Animations of the stroke orders can be found here:
https://yosida.com/en/hiragana.htmlhttps://yosida.com/en/katakana.html2) Learn the dakuten, handakuten, sokuon, and choonpu marks and the digraphs(yōon),
I know that sounds intimidating but this is even easier than the first step because you don't have to memorize any new symbols.
These things are basically just ways to modify some of the above 46 sounds.
The dakuten is basically just a little ゛ mark that's added to hiragana and katakana that start with K, S, T, or H to change their sound to a voiced consonant.
All it does is change the sound from K to G, S to Z, T to D, and H to B. The exception is shi to ji, chi to ji, and tsu to dzu.
For example, ka to ga: か -> が. That's it.
The handakuten is similar. It's a little ゜ mark that's added to hiragana and katakana that start with H to change the sound from H to P.
For example, ha to pa: は -> ぱ. That's it.
The sokuon mark is just a small tsu character (っ or ッ) that's silent and makes the next consonant sound doubled. This can be a bit difficult to write out so search for sukuon on google to hear how it's used.
https://www.learn-japanese-adventure.com/what-are-sokuon-and-long-vowels.htmlFor example, かこ (kako, two syllables) becomes かっこ (kakko, three syllables).
The chōonpu mark is just a line (ー) that indicates you double the previous vowel sound. In hiragana, you just add another vowel to indicate the vowel sound is doubled, but with katakana, you use the chōonpu mark.
For example, "haa" in hiragana is はあ, but in katakana it's ハー.
The Yōon is also easy and intuitive. They're basically just a combination of ki, shi, chi, ni, hi, mi or ri with a small version of ya, yu, or yo. The purpose of this is to make the combined sound one syllable instead of two.
For example, りゆ (riyu) would normally be two syllables, but りゅ (ryu) is only one.
Finally, you can combine the dakuten or handakuten mark with yōon that start with ki, shi, chi, or hi to make the associated versions of that sound.
So for example, きゅ (kyu) becomes ぎゅ (gyu). Or ひゃ (hya) becomes ぴゃ (pya).
With this you will now be able to read any Japanese without kanji.
3) Install a Chrome or Firefox extension like rikaikun
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/rikaikun/jipdnfibhldikgcjhfnomkfpcebammhp?hl=enThis will let you hover over kanji and it will show a pop up with the reading in Hiragana and the definition in English. I use this to learn new words when they get spammed in chat by Japanese users. JPniki often repeat the streamer by typing what they say in chat. If you hover over chat often enough, you'll begin to learn a lot of new vocab in a short amount of time in a way that doesn't feel like studying.
And that's it!
Keep in mind, you won't really learn grammar this way, but Japanese grammar isn't that difficult and can be learned later.
You will begin to quickly and easily increase your vocab, which is arguably the hardest and most boring part of learning a new language.
