My fencing coach used to always say, "Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes PERMANENT". If you practice wrong, you make the wrong thing permanent x'D.

“Remember that I’m trying to sell you a phonetics based program” : Such rare honesty from a content creator!

"Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect." High density of value x truth.

"When I started martial arts tricking..." No way. Are you THAT Dogen? Haha I assumed the name must be a coincidence.

When I learned English in college, the very first course was Phonetics. I fell in love with it. Native English speakers often tell me that I have a very good pronunciation. Makes me happy and appreciative of the time I spent repeating words until I got the correct intonations! Also, thanks to my Professor Joe, who taught Phonetics at my University at the time!

So you went to english to teach japan?

"Vapid" that's a word I never heard. Came to learn Japanese, ended up learning some English, what do you know, huh.

I feel like you're the first native English speaker I've heard to have used the word moreover. Non native speakers seem to love that word, but it's so rarely used by native speakers.

I'm from Seattle, too. When I was in H.S. the Ford Foundation funded a program for teaching "exotic" languages. Because of this, I was able to take Japanese in my junior and senior years. Dr. Tamako Niwa oversaw the Japanese program. At UW I took two years of Japanese from her, using her Romaji textbook the first year. It had a way of notating "pitch level", but it wasn't really emphasized.

I think it's good to start out with kana, from the start and kanji as soon as possible ...but (and this should be true of any language course/class) making sure that you get pronunciation right (not "good enough". Right!), at each and every step of the way and killing off errors, long before they have any hope of becoming habits.

I wish my actual japanese teachers had taught us more about this. i spent 2 years splitting my attention between vocabs, grammar and kanji and my 3rd year right now is wonderfully splittet between kanji, grammar and vocab, conversation, presentation and writing reports but none of it is about pronounciation. though i have been told my accent is pretty good at times there are more times where it's not and if i had known earlier i could've been better now. it's a shame that japanese learning programs don't talk about it, even mine which makes every student go abroad for a year. tbh, it just sucks. 😢 gonna devote all my time to pitch accent now though, thank you dogen for literally enlightening me on this topic!

Just wondering if you will be covering how to self assess your accent, or where to get feedback on it. Also currently taking a class and one of the students is far more advanced than I am but his accent is so horrendous and painful to listen to that I am more determined than ever to sound closer to native, so this series is perfectly timed.

Perfect practice makes perfect!! いいな〜

wow. thank you. you are inspiring! you made me think about my studies (also Japanese) and re-think about what i need to work on the most and what i need to do in life.

This was really eye opening.

i can see this becoming one of the more popular series out there for all of us japanese lovers. :) great job sir, keep it up! honestly this video made me realize thats im slacking and need to pick up the pace with my japanese studies, especially if i want to succeed in my goal of finishing all 5 JLPTs.

That really makes sense! I am just 19 so I think that is really the time to follow your example

自分も苦労して英語を勉強しました。Dogenさん素晴らしいです。

While I understand your approach, I cannot quite agree that it is the only correct one. My major at the university was English, the minor being French. English studies were a continuation of a full 10-year school course while French was from scratch (although I'd studied it for 6 years at school). This means that I had already known tons of English vocabulary and grammar while my pronunciation was of average school grade. During the first 1.5 years at the university, we had a course of phonetics (parallel to grammar, conversation, text analysis, and other courses) which literally corrected all of the bad intonation I'd had up to that time. By the end of my fifth and final year, I was able to sound almost like a native speaker. Sadly, I haven't practiced spoken English (let alone French) for more than 10 years already. Anyway, my idea is that fixing your intonation when you are already proficient in a foreign language is not always a bad thing, especially if you are really willing to do it. By the way, I am currently learning Japanese at a language school but close to giving up because of a lack of enthusiasm (failed N3 JLPT last December after 5 years of studies). P.S. I've recently discovered your channel and find your videos quite helpful and entertaining. Greetings from Russia, Dogen-san!

It is such a relief to hear your story. I too started self studying as a teen and now decided to start formally studying Japanese as a college Sophomore. I have moments where I panic and wonder if I started too late, but seeing how far you've come is inspiring to me. I took a linguistics class before, but now I really want to see if I can find one for the Japanese language!

ありがとうございます . I have been studying japanese for half of an year now so I am a true beginner😅 but You motivates me a lot! I also got opportunity to text with two japanese - one is adult and one is at my age (teenager) so I think that is gonna help me a lot in learning grammar, different polite forms etc. But I will definitely focus on my accent now, thanks to You 💪🏻.

This was intriguing. (And sorta jarring to hear you speaking English after watching you in Japanese only, haha.) I took a few Japanese classes that put emphasis on writing and basic grammar, but I struggled and do think it would personally help me learn Japanese better if I focused on speaking first. Not like native speakers learn the writing system first, after all.

After learning Kana i tried following a 101 japanese program with native speakers. Soon found out it was way easier for me to study on my own than to follow it and dropped it after 7-8 months. I decided to put my focus first on learning the meaning of Kanjis (not its pronunciation, using Heisig's books) cause i wanted to be able to understand them as soon as posible. I then started introducing grammar to my study hours and was just about to combine them with vocabulary learning when i stumbled with your videos. I will give this phonetics program an opportunity and pospone the vocabulary. I hope to be able to reach a high level someday little by little!

I had 3 Japanese teachers in Canada and all 3 specifically said that Japanese was flat, there was no pitch whatsoever. I have also bought many books and have never heard of it until about 6 month ago after living in Japan for 15 years. This is refreshing. BTW, I kept expecting Yanattan to jump in to explain.

I’m so glad that putting the majority of the grammar and vocabulary learning, etc. on hold until I’m at least fairly confident in the phonetics of a language is what already feels natural to me.. 😌 I didn’t know if this was a bad thing or what but I feel like it helps me tremendously and I feel like I’m better respecting the native speakers by spending the time on the subtleties of the language.. thanks for this series! I’m focusing on Spanish right now but because I’m at a point where progress is slowed, I figured I could get some more into Japanese phonetics for when I continue learning it. You’re amazing! 😊

wow, you went to the university of washington?? i'm currently a senior in high school and i think the UW is my top choice for colleges as of right now. i never knew you were a husky, it's so weird to think you lived in my beloved city of seattle! anyways, very interesting and well-written video, dogen; i never thought about how important phonetics are since the vast majority of japanese-learning resources out there focus on grammar, vocabulary, and kanji. you brought up a lot of good points.

Man, I've been in Japan over 20 years - I guess I've formed too many bad habits to sound like a true native! Still, love watching your videos and listening to your Japanese!

Very good video! And thank you for your honesty. One thing I realized long ago is that English is the foreign language I'll always speak with the worse pronunciation. My teachers where all Spanish and I wasn't exposed to real English until I started purchasing DVDs at university. When I watched Pride and Prejudice at about 20 years old, I thought they there mimicking Regency speech, I had no idea that was actually British English. Nowadays kids start studying English at four, watch videos, etc., and there are some native teachers or assistant teachers, so I guess things improved (and let's not forget about youtube, increased interest in subtitles over dubbing and so on), but there is still a long way to go.

It is harder to unlearn something than to learn something new. That is so true.

Your story is impressive and inspiring Dogen. Just a question, are their any specific bad habits that Japanese learners make that we should look out for? Thanks in advance man

Respect! I'm currently in Japan hoping to learn as much Japanese as possible in less than a year! Not sure if I can reach N1 level by then, but we'll see!

me after a full year of basic japanese classes at uni, one year abroad in Japan as an exchange student having classes in japanese about japanese everyday, (a couple years off after coming back home) and then now being on my second year of the JET program, I just got back to N3 (had passed it before but wanted to re-level and make sure I hadn't forgotten) and can't get my ass around to N2 at all, and I'm not even looking at intonation. I feel at a step that got me stuck where I can't go further, I get lost in synonyms and looking up words which I forget the next day when I learn new ones. Can't believe you stepped up to native intonation and N1 that fast, so discouraging lol :''')

Thank you for this review, Mr. Dogen. I will do your phonetics series and the other offerings as well. Talk about urgency…I am 76! Blessings

I really wish someone had told me these things when I first moved to Japan (also on JET way back in 2003). I gave up trying to 'study' Japanese after only a few months, and just slowly absorbed the language (over what turned into 8 years of living there) mainly by mimicking my friends and co-workers, with only a Japanese-English romaji dictionary in the beginning as I couldn't cope with kanji on top of that! After about a year I would say I was confident in everyday conversation, with (what I thought was) a better accent than most of the other ALTs in my situation who had chosen trad studying. When I realised my reading/writing ability was so far behind my speaking, I signed up to mixi (old school!) and made an effort to write my diary on there everyday. I guess my goal was to have a working knowledge of Japanese to get me through daily life. However, the last few years - I've looked back on this and thought that maybe this wasn't the best use of time for a Japanese learner? Finding your videos now, I think that perhaps that experience wasn't completely pointless! Also, totally realise that actually studying Japanese phonetically (rather than just mimicking) is really important - even for me as a confident (conversational) speaker to get that accent spot on. Reading, writing, kanji - I still have a LONG way to go. Basically I'm lazy... my own problem! But I really appreciate these videos! Just what I needed to ignite that hunger to start learning again. Thank you, thanks, and many more thanks! Will be sure to share far and wide and take a look at patreon too.

That's like the opposite of what we were doing at the uni. As a result after 4 years of studying I had a lot of random knowledge about Japanese in my head but no ability to speak or understand spoken language. Many years later I'm still angry about that.

Omg thank you so much for making this series. I’ve been studying Japanese since high school and it’s at an ok level but recently I’ve been wanting to work more in my accent, which people always compliment me on but I can hear my own american accent and I don’t like it at all lol so I’m definitely going to use this program to improve and I’m going to work only on pronunciation from now on. The closest thing I do to studying pronunciation right now is shadowing some people I like while I walk my dogs lol but that’s about it

Awesome that you shared this! Great stuff

As a self-proclaimed linguist that also studied japanese in middle/high school, and is now coming back more seriously, I can't help but know that you're so right in needing to focus on phonetics before mass building lexicon or grammar. Japanese really can't be approached like most other widely spoken languages. Romance languages are so much more phonetically simple to english ears than this. I guess the IPA can only take me so far before pitch accent nags me in the rear. I'll be a Patreon supporter for sure for that phonetics series when my next paycheck comes around.

Just wanted to say that I get where you're coming from. :) I started with the intention of singing as well as my favorite Japanese artists. I also wanted to join in on the conversations my Japanese friends had. So the beginning of my learning journey wasn't focused on writing or reading, but rather, on picking up necessary vocabulary, grammar, listening, and most importantly, speaking. Of course, that includes near native pronunciation. Started playing catch up with writing and reading last year when I had to move to Japan for family reasons. I only recently obtained N2 this August (far cry from the N4 of last year), but unlike most of the other students in my class, my conversational ability (including listening) actually matches my Japanese literacy. The reason for that is probably, as you said, because I avoided picking up bad speaking habits from other learners (only had Japanese people to talk to in Japanese!) and I mostly focused on one particular aspect of the language. Still not perfect and it took a gosh darn amount of time to get here, but I'm pretty happy with the results. I personally won't be subscribing to your phonetics series, but I think you know your stuff and I wish you the best in making it a success!

There was a huge period of time most people in the world were illiterate but they were definitely not bad at using 'language'. Even now there are a lot of languages that have no writing system, yet its speakers are definitely on a more sophisticated level when you look at their oral traditions of songs, poetry, stories, etc. Language first and foremost is an oral skill and we tend to get sidetracked from that. The overall pattern across the 'developed world' is that speaking ability even in our native language has gone down (politicians speaking and writing on 8th grade level, for example), yet we can all write on a (mediocre) level. We mastered no language because of our scattered attention. Most education systems are designed that writing skills are taught pretty early on. Looking at this overall pattern I definitely agree with your approach to start with knowing how to speak first before digging into the writing system.

Can't wait for the episode 3 ! I can not say that this is a "bad" thing, because this is how it is :I learned Japanese without focusing on the intonation, because my first aim was to dig into Japanese culture rather than sounding as close as possible a native speaker. I went to Sendai to study for one year and I learned Japanese there. I worked part-time in a restaurant. Before I flight back to my home country, my boss invited me to his parents' place, we spent most of the nights drinking talking, the boss filming us with my phone. After some days, back to my home country, I watched the videos, and realized how much gaijin I sound. I was like "dude, even if you spent 11 months and 18 days there we can tell you are a gaijin just by hearing your voice from 100m away". So it became my new challenge. I know some japanese (mostly thanks to the part-time job, I couldn't have a conversation before), but I have no idea about how does the japanese intonation works. I hope your videos would help me to get through it ! Waiting for episode 3 :)

I do agree partially with what you say. But I seem to focus on my conversation skills and complex grammar simultaneously and less so on reading and writing. My justification is that without complex grammar I could only have a very simple conversation and what I could say would be limited But that being said, I do find it extremely easy to memorize Kanji so I often find myself procrastinating with that

Well, I have a knack for unlearning mistakes in foreign languages so I think I'll be alright in the long run. But for now, having realised only recently how important pitch accent is, there's a lot of work to be done

very excited for this series! planning on becoming a patron very soon

You're hired, Sir!

感動しました。

I've found you within the ongoing week and after every video I get the phonetics/real lessons on patreon, and thinking hmmm that's definitely not for me. I'm self taught for only a year and in the years prior have shown on and off interest in learning Japanese, recently I try to immerse myself in as much Japanese as possible through songs tv shows and changing my KZfaq country setting to Japanese among other things like apps such as Hello talk. Also at an extremely slow pace I study the Genki book and other Japanese textbooks practicing new vocabulary and trying to learn as much Kanji as I can, but watching your videos and listening to you speak your Japanese and seeing you getting the responses from other people in the comments I felt like I am way too behind and that I need to continue what I have going now and maybe return to you later. Honestly this video has explained that I should be needing you now more than I think, and to rethink and reshape my idea of how I'd like to learn this language. You got a new student. Ps it's great to hear someone like me going into Japanese 101 that late in college.

Inspirational! I'm interested to learn how studying pitch accent is done, and how I'll need to re-schedule my studies...

I don't need to speak like natives, as I just learn Japanese for tourism purpose. But I do agree that some phonetics basics is important when you start learning a language

This is great! Yes, it is extremely difficult to change old habits. I learned Parisian French and come to find out my ancestors were from Missouri. Totally different accent. I tried to change my accent but just gave up because it was like learning the language over again. I can communicate in French just fine with my accent. I have been trying to learn my Japanese correctly so I don't develop a bad habit. For me, it's probably good I speak Parisian French and not Missouri French, but I want my Japanese to be as best as it can be. I've decided to improve my Japanese during this lockdown. My husband and his family are all Japanese. So, I have it all around me. :)

In school I was the best in my english class but my pronunciation was (and still is) horrible. I started reading english comics and watching tv shows in english very early so my understanding, vocabulary, writing and listening skills are good. I never talked to anyone and I really regret not doing that (or at least trying to mimic native speakers). This time I want to start with the speaking so that I don't repeat my mistake. It is the first time I see a youtuber prioritizing the pronunciation and speaking skills over Kanji and grammar. Somehow that made me even more motivated.

You said the brain's ability to mimic language naturally deteriorates greatly over time. I'm in my mid-twenties and am only just now starting to take Japanese language learning seriously. Do you think I'm at a disadvantage at my age, or do I still have the time to develop something approximating a native-like intonation?

Keep up the fine work, sir!

日本語を話せると人生観が変わるよ 全ての音を言語化できるようになるからね。それは例外がなく、頭に風景を思い出させるように。 強く吹く風、燃え盛る炎、何かを伝える振動音etc..... ありとあらゆる音を言葉で表現出来る

Thanks for your share of how you learned Japanese! It's inspiring and illuminating.:D

Hey Dogen, first of all, I am so excited for these series... However, my main concern is that, specially when it comes to Japanese, I find most of the words to sound a bit the same although they have completely different meanings, so not understanding much grammar or not having a wide range of vocabulary compromises the speaking/comprehension of the language. That's what I'm struggling with, as a non-kanji native language speaker and also a Japanese student in Japan. You have my support tho! Great job as always.

Wonderful work.

It was interesting to see how your Japanese language journey was! However, I don't agree with the notion that the ability to mimic sounds greatly deteriorates with age.

2:44 I don't know if this was intentional, but I found it pretty funny that this is the English pronunciation

Wow this was so informative. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. As much as I want to drop all textbook work and focus on phonetics, I just registered for the JLPT and so I have to study for it. But I will continue to put time aside everyday to focus on pitch and accent.

Dogen agonizes over Japanese pronunciation and pitch, attempting to perfect a near-native accent. "Ecksetera"

You can use Rosetta and turn the voice recognition all the way up and set it to hirigana katakana to begin with.. I think learning all things together is the best as thats how you learn natively ie you listen and read before you speak ..

I was a linguistics major and for writing our senior thesis we needed to chose an advisor from the linguistics department, so I asked the Japanese linguistics professor because I really wanted to do Japanese phonetics. She was close to retiring and famously stubborn, so she told me she would only let me do morphology or socio-linguistics because she didn't want to deal with anything else. My thesis ended up being a combination of both, but I'm not really happy with it because I wasn't passionate about the subject. :/

This is so deep

UW represent!

I lived in Okinawa a while back. I wasn't learning Japanese then, but I did pick up some basics. However, I noticed after a while that I began to mimic the "cadence" that I heard. At least that's how I describe it. The same thing happened when I lived in Hawaii. I'm interested to see more about this topic from someone who has put so much effort into it. I've observed it but not to the same level you have.

AAAHHHH!!! So *THAT'S* where that saying comes from! I've always subscribed to "practice does not make perfect" ever since I first heard my music teacher say it =) He always told us "Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes PERMANENT. So if you're practicing wrong, your mistakes become permanent. Make your mistakes now, but fix them while you can. Only perfect practice makes perfect."

Ok, I'm in, I will put my faith on you and become a supporter! Just keep doing it amazingly as always. I hope I can meet you in person one day to thank you for the content! Now it's time to start a diet! xD

I am a native Spanish speaker and I have had few issues with pronunciation since the vowel sounds are pretty similar. That being said, I'm pretty sure I don't sound like a native, but Japanese people I have met at language practice events tell me that I sound natural, but I think it is because Japanese people are super nice. Outside from enrolling to an actual course, do you have tips on how to get assessment in pronunciation, rhythm and general flow of the language? Your videos are awesome man.

Hi Dogen! I'm starting out my Japanese and your videos are quite the interesting watch! At this point I can read hiragana (slowly) and a relatively small amount of expressions, so I really am still fresh. My main goal and interest isn't really being able to speak like a native, but being able to read and translate Japanese into English. Basically I'm interested in localization of texts and view oral comprehension and capability as more of a bonus. With that being the case, would you say that phonetics is important to focus on first or would it just be more productive to stick to the vocabulary, grammar, and alphabets? Or am I missing some greater picture entirely and am way off base?

Your philosophy is somewhat similar to the Refold philosophy, as far as focusing on spoken language and phonetics first and foremost. Where they differ is that while yours prioritizes "spoken language" (listening and speaking) before "written language" (reading and writing), theirs prioritizes "input" (listening and reading) before "output" (speaking and writing). They thus avoid the issue of "learning a new word without learning the pitch accent, and developing a bad phonetic habit" by completely divorcing "learning a new word" from "pronouncing a word". Via listening, learning vocabulary, and reading, they expect you to develop a near-fluent listening ability before you ever try to speak. The idea is that if you "output early", you won't be able to hear your mistakes and you'll cement them; whereas if you wait until your listening ability is nearly fluent, you will be able to hear all the phonetic nuances naturally, without having to assiduously study the rules; thus when you start speaking, you'll be able to hear your mistakes and self-correct by imitating native speech. Of course, this method is only going to work for people who don't need to speak any time soon - and is also agonizing for anyone who's eager to speak 😅 (And of course, you've demonstrated that it isn't the only way to acquire a native-like accent.)

I wish I started this sooner 😭

this video has been one of the most eye opening things I've seen and.. is it possible that they named Falco Lombardi after Vince Lombardi?

Very interesting.

Man, I'm really in a tight spot. Computer Science, JLPT N1 and phonetics all at the same time so I can study a minor at Kyoto University in about 2 years... I wonder if it's possible.

So basically the younger you are, the easier it is for one to more accurately mimic and thus learn an accent? I've had some interesting experiences with this actually. I grew up in an English speaking family with Japanese spoken around me in childhood, then in high school when I took Japanese I picked up on it pretty well and even non-natives thought I sounded native (I don't sound native). Meanwhile my boyfriend also took Japanese but didn't pick up on it in the same way, but when he took Spanish which was the language he heard in his early childhood, bam same thing, he absorbed it like a sponge. Now I'm learning Spanish as well, and yeah, it's not clicking for me in the same way. I'm actually wondering too if learning Spanish is going to make my Japanese worse because right now I'm actually having a hard time switching from Spanish to Japanese pronunciation. I feel like when I'm speaking or studying Spanish too long, my Japanese isn't as good afterward and vice versa. Anyone else go through this or have any tips?

Man that was the main reason I was so bummed that I got turned down by UDub. I wanted a minor in Japanese. But I joined the Marine Corps out of high school, and EAS’ed right before I started college. I just got back from Iraq and was in no shape to retake the SAT. Sometimes timing just isn’t right in life. Color me green with envy for Dogen

It's very interesting to know how you achieved such an amazing Japanese pronunciation, when you were studying phonetics in college what material did you use? cds? Great series, keep up the good work!

But, but, but I'm studying for N2. :( Anyway I'll probably pick up phonetics after December. I admit my pronunciation is not the best but I've religiously done jpod101's vocab section many times to nail it down to a pretty ok level. I'm really excited for the rest of the series Dogen-sensei!

Hello Dogen! I agree with such approach. Because it is in human nature to listen and talk. And no one yet learned a writing in advance of hearing and talking. I mean native language :) Every child have no other options than just absorb a speaking language. I have start study japanese recently. Thus want to ask you, can you recommend some videos with nursery rhymes, songs and short foolery games and other staff for kids performed by native japanese. Probably cartoons. I believe it is a most efficient way for a beginner to boost his language. Absorb most common patterns of grammar, intonation and pitch too due too rhythm and rhyme. Beside, it should be super fun ^_^ In a contrast with tedious cramming

Shit man I don't know if i wanna spend the hours learning pitch accent. I don't know if I'll ever even get to go to Japan, let alone live and work there. If I learn it then I could go study in Japan if I wanted to, but I don't know if I want to do that or not. I've been studying for almost two years on and off and I can read easy-medium manga with furigana, although I only really need the furigana for the harder kanji. I've never tried speaking apart from sounding out words to myself and knowing how all the sounds sound (and I can't even write/produce sentences anyways). If I don't study this properly I'm gonna end up sounding like a foreigner anime character, but I don't know if anyone will ever listen to my spoken Japanese at all.

This is really interesting. I never focused on studying Japanese phonetics, but native speakers tell me my pronunciation is quite good. (Unfortunately my grammar is severely lacking.) I did take a class in German phonetics, so I wonder if that could have given me a certain phonetic awareness that I transferred to Japanese. Any linguistics know if that's possible?

So what I gathered from this video is that this guy is the Phonetics final boss

Hi Dogen, I was wondering what textbook you used to study Japanese grammar and vocabulary? I have used みんあの日本語, and stopped now after 2 years because the textbook is so awful. I have studied four other languages before that and never encountered anything even remotely as bad, regarding the choice of vocabulary that is taught and how grammar is explained. If you ever go crazy and want to write a full textbook, let me know. I was told I'm very good at explaning :-)

As a guy learning Japanese in his 30s, who has not focused on speaking at all (because I have no one to talk to in Japanese): man this video is rough

Hi Dogen. I’ve looked into P.M. Suski’s book after watching your video but there are a few different editions. Is the one in the link in the description the same edition you used? If you don’t remember do you know the differences between the editions? Also can I use this with pretty much zero Japanese background?

Thank you for this video! I'm 31 and interested in learning Japanese again (after 10 years since my first Japanese 101 class lol). Silly question but since I'm teaching myself would you suggest to forgo using Genki I and Genki II and start with romani and phonetics? Or start with Genki I and hone in on the proper phonetics as you progress through each chapter?

Say Dogen, I'm currently reading Mangajin to help me learn more Japanese (which is a really, really great help), and on the section about feminine Japanese, the editors mentioned how a guy speaking feminine Japanese can be regarded as someone who only picks up the language from a girlfriend, and thus not a "serious student". I confess I haven't been here long enough to know all the various gaijin subcultures here, and I don't know how much this assessment is a product of the times in which it was made, but I was wondering if that's an actual thing, and if so, if that's something you'd be interested in making a video on. Gaijin-male-Japanese-female relationships are certainly a topic of interest, with the Charisma Man and everything, but as this is a uniquely linguistic aspect of that phenomenon, I thought it might be up your street. Oh! Also! On the subject of 80's, could you make a video about City Pop! I want to see you with a totally 80's wig on in place of your usual hat! Pleasepleaseplease!

Has there been research on the relation to phonetic study and listening ability? I feel like my ignorance to Japanese phonetics made my acquisition of the ability to hear and interpret Japanese very slow. I might understand all of the words and grammar in a sentence, but I was used to hearing many words "wrong" when I practiced, so it was incredibly challenging to hear other people say them.

new album in stores now AVEX TRAX

The link to "P.M. Suski's Phonetics of Japanese Language" doesn't work anymore.

My goal is not SOUNDING native, it's having NATIVE PROFICIENCY

Hi dogen, what kind of schedule do you have planned for the phonetics patreon course? weekly vids? am interested in signing up. p/s love your comedy skits.

waiting for the 3rd

hey dogen, how old were you when you started studying japanese phonetics?

So I will still search for a study plan.

2:21 Okay, I need some time to let think sink in... XD

What do you think about a beginner following the AJATT method? It focus solely on input at first, and wants you to be always listening to Japanese audio (from native speakers). It has a similar reasoning to yours.

Though I've never stuck with a languages long because they never seemed very relevant to anything I wanted to do, I always find myself wincing when people clearly fuck up or "americanize" a word when the actual pronunciation seems so obviously different. As a topical example, "carry okee" greatly pains me every time I hear it, but more often it's just people here saying spanish words or something. Now that I'm learning japanese, I have a very overwhelming need to make sure I don't sound weird, even though I don't particularly have a strong desire to move there in the future. I was kind of surprised to hear that this is something that gets worse with age, though. I always just figured people just don't pay attention to begin with, and that once you do it's relatively easy. So I suppose my question to you is: do you think it's important to spend a lot of time studying this for somebody who doesn't find mimicking sounds difficult? I'm just starting out, but I personally assumed that the best method would be learning the vocabulary and such and that learning the pitch and pronunciation along with them would be fine. Would that be alright, or would you say it's more difficult than that and I'm just overconfident? I am probably going to jump on your patreon when possible in the future, anyway, but want to make sure I'm going about things the right way asap.

Just a question, you sound native in 標準語 mainly isn't it? I mean, what about 関西弁 for instance? Are the phonetics super different or is it just for some words?