Well, from your translating activities and asks answering I knew that you speak English, Korean, Japanese, and Spanish and I was just curious if there's more because man that's quite a lot! I was surprised on how you learn Japanese just by consuming LL contents! Actually I was thinking about learning Japanese because of the LL fandom, as it would be much convenient to be able to understand niconamas and anything Aqours seiyuu related. Btw, do you have any tips on that? Thanks!
Again, the only languages I can actually speak decently are English and Korean, so it’s really not that impressive;;
And let me make this clear - my meager knowledge of Japanese isn’t entirely from LL either. I had to teach myself how to read hiragana and katakana for QCing purposes while on a scanlation team, and I only managed to memorize them fully after a combination of constantly reading them in the manga I worked on and flashcard practice in my spare time. I listened to seiyuu radio shows with translated scripts before LL, which helped me slowly pick up some key phrases. The total JP knowledge that I have now is from a decade of exposure to anime, manga, radio shows, games, and more. I mentioned LL in my previous ask because it’s had the most impact on my listening comprehension, not because it’s the sole source of what I know now.
TBH, Japanese fluency is something that literally everyone in the non-JP side of the LL fandom wants. You have no idea how many headaches I’ve seen ONIBE translators go through when they encounter a slang term or pop culture reference...
As for tips on learning the language, I’m going to quote what I said before when I was asked for advice on learning Korean:
Everyone has different ways of learning, so there’s no one method that’ll guarantee the best results (as much as online programs love to tell you otherwise). It also depends on your goals, but for me, the rules of thumb are (1) practice the language super-often, and (2) find a material to immerse yourself in to familiarize yourself with the language. You’re not gonna make any progress on the language if you only practice it one hour per week - that’s why most college language courses hold class 4 times a week compared to the usual 2-3 for a course [...]
If you want to learn how to speak the language, find a community that’ll help you practice speaking the language. You could probably look around on Google […] If you want to pick up on some cultural cues and get a feel for the natural flow of dialogue, you could also watch [TV shows or movies with subtitles]. This is where rule #2 comes into play […] it’s always easier to learn when you have something to keep you interested and motivate you (i.e. “I wanna be able to understand this idol’s songs / read this artist’s comics!”).
If you want to learn how to read and write, there are plenty of free online resources that’ll give you workbook pages, if you’re into that sort of learning method.
It’s great that you have something to motivate you - that’s the first step to learning a language. However, it’s important to remember that learning Japanese isn’t as simple as going “oh hey ‘seiyuu’ means ‘voice actor’ and the kanji for ‘live broadcast’ is 生放送”. Picking up a language is a lot easier said than done, so make sure you set yourself some goals beforehand. Maybe you just want to learn enough hiragana/katakana/kanji to be able to understand some LL tweets, or perhaps you’d like to be able to say a couple of sentences to your favorite seiyuu if you happen to be blessed by the lottery gods and manage to score a VIP meet-and-greet session with Aqours. You’ll be a lot less overwhelmed if you have a clear objective in mind.
And finally, if you’re serious about learning Japanese - just take a course. Really. If that’s not an option, do your best to recreate it on your own. Make flashcards, practice speaking, write often, the whole works. There are so many weeaboos people out there who want to learn Japanese that there are plenty of online resources to guide you. As for textbooks, the Genki series is usually the popular choice.
Side note - don’t use Duolingo (mobile app). It’s bad. So bad. Just trust me on this.
Whatever the case may be, try to be realistic about what your needs are and what you need to do to meet them. Best of luck to you! ( ̄^ ̄)ゞ












