7. Which is the most useful word in Japanese?

Have you already seen any Japanese moive like “Shall We Dance?” I wrote earlier. You know Japanese. I mean how difficult it seems to be for for foreigners. But when you need to talk to Japanese, it is better to say something in Japanese.

Even in Japan, you can start with “HELLO”, or “EXCUSE ME.” They understand the meaning of the words, but it is a little bit hard for them to catch those words with native pronunciation. In the most cases, they react like “What should I do? This foreinger looks like talking to me. I hope he/she will just leave now” Then, they will say, “I’m sorry” or nothing and leave before you get into a subject.

The problem here is that your native pronunciation makes them nervous. Most Japanese people aren’t accustomed to face foreigners in the real world. Even they watch a lot of American movies, bu they change their attitude when they are in situation with real Americans.

So, what should YOU do? Use any Japanese for getting a confortable start with them. But don’t pick wrong words like “Samurai”, “Geisha”, “Fujiyama” or they immediately recognize you as a stupid alian. There is a word having useful plural meanings. It is “Doh-mo.” This word means “Hello (Hi)” “Thank you” “Sorry” and “Good bye.” It expresses a sort of emotion; appreciation, appology, sympathy, and blessing. For the presie of the use you should put something before or after DOH-MO. However it is too much for you anyway at the begining. Just try to use them when you want to talk to Japanese. They will show their smile to you.

5. How to learn Japanese

If you want to learn Japanese and be a practical Japanese speaker, there are many steps to go. The reason is that the Asian language has a totally different grammar structure compared to European languages. Even Chinese has a similar structure to English. Therefore, you can’t think of learning Japanese like leaning Spanish as a second language. However, you don’t feel hopeless before trying anything, because you can start communicating somehow with Japanese people with basic expression. Relax and start leaning Japanese with having some fun.

The serious move for mastering any language is taking classes in a school. Any community collages in big cities have a Japanese class for public. They guide you to a sense of the language quickly. You can also try books, but you go wrong way easily with just understanding composition, because the pronunciation of Japanese is very hard. Without checking with right pronunciation, nobody will understand what you are talking. If you don’t have a chance to hear real pronunciation in classes, you must try other ways. The practical materials are Japanese movies like original “Shall We Dance?” for example. In this case, pick only modern story pieces. As you can guess, samurai period movies talk in old Japanese which makes your Japanese weird in daily use. When you see the movies, pay attention on Japanese accent and sound along side with reading English subtitles. After seeing a couple of movie, you start picking up the rhythm and tempo of Japanese. (To be continued)