I'm a native English speaker (in my 30s), however, until I was 10 years of age I used to speak Japanese as my first language. I hardly spoke English at all back then. However, I moved to the UK and lost all of my Japanese since I didn't get to use it anymore and I was busy trying to master English instead. I was wandering if anybody had experience re-learning a language lost at that age? I don't understand almost anything being said on Japanese films, although it sounds familiar. I want to re-learn Japanese but would like to know if I could learn it more easily then a person who hasn't learnt it before? Also note I'm referring more to the spoken language, since I wasn't old enough to properly have learnt Kanji (Chinese Characters used in Japanese).
If there is any website you can refer me to with information or studies on this, it would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks
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Annerose MB Local time: 03:48 English to French + ...
Yes, you can :-)
Nov 7, 2010
I like Japanesepod101 Japanese learning podcasts that you can get through itunes. They are free, although the archive may be limited.
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Tokyo_Moscow Japan Local time: 10:48 Partial member (2008) Japanese to Russian + ...
Learning Japanese
Nov 8, 2010
I guess restoring spoken skills one already had in the childhood could be easier than learning the new language from zero. That depends on individual abilities and is difficult to estimate, but even if you don't have much things that you remember, it is quite challenging to start from the beginning. Also there is a possibility that you would remember something you learned before.
I started to study Japanese and kanji at the university and that was not easy at all, but even before I first came to Japan I could master the language myself by talking to Japanese people who lived in my country and watching videos of Japanese TV programs my friends sent to me. I know a person whose parents are Japanese but as they lived abroad they never used the language and it was lost. But the person later came to Japan and studied Japanese from katakana at the language school and mastered it to a certain level.
Nowadays there are so many videos and pages in the net, that it is very easy to find something to watch in the language everyday, something that you enjoy and could be useful for remembering phrases, words etc.
Also, did you speak Japanese at home after you left Japan? Do you feel like getting closer to your roots or want to use the language for some practical reason?
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JaneD Sweden Local time: 03:48 Member (2009) Swedish to English + ...
Should be considerably quicker
Nov 8, 2010
You ought to find that you are considerably quicker than complete beginners at learning the language, because you *had* learned it before.
Up to about six or seven years of age is when we find it easiest to set the grammatical "switches" required to be able to fit together the building blocks of a language, and you already had those switches set.
So you should find that the vocabulary goes together more easily than for someone who is totally new to Japanese, and that it comes back relatively quickly.
It'd be interesting to know how you get on - do remember to let us know!
Jane
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xxxPT Translati United States Local time: 18:48 Japanese to English
Agree with everyone else
Nov 9, 2010
You'd be amazed how much is stored way back there in your brain.
My first two languages were Italian and Japanese until age 7. When I moved to the US, my parents picked one language to keep, Japanese (thank you mom and dad); but I lost my Italian.
I spent a couple months in Italy in my 20's and conversational came back quickly while I was there. Unfortunately, I had no time to keep up with it because all my work duties have since used ENG/JPN.
Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that it's in there. Esp if you spoke it until 10 yrs old. Just a matter of how much you want to retrieve, which will take effort on your part.
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Andrea Piu Italy Local time: 03:48 Member (2010) English to Italian + ...
AJATT
Nov 9, 2010
I think you might find useful the following link: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/
The guy there, says he has learnt Japanese fluently in 18 months. The method is focused in a lot of input such as listening as much as you can, building flashcards, changing your environment, etc. etc.
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