rekindle the love of learning that all kids have.
I started learning Japanese when I was 15. I was decent in
Spanish back in high school, but I don't come from a bilingual
family or anything. I've worked hard to learn Japanese for about 4
years, and I've almost reached my long-term goal of
understanding Japanese. When I first started, I was totally on my
own; I didn't know how to teach myself a language. I made a lot
of mistakes. Sometimes I picked random words out of a
dictionary to learn, etc. I probably wasted a lot of time.
I've concluded it's possible to become proficient at Japanese,
even if you don't start when you're 3. However, you really need to
"beat it" into your head. You have to use it OFTEN, even if only
for a couple minutes. A day shouldn't pass where you don't study
Japanese for at least 5 minutes. Some days you need to spend
more than that.
Tip 4 - It's All in your Mind
The concepts of "hard" and "easy" are all in your mind. For
example, just look at the home PC. Modern computers are pretty
easy to learn how to use nowadays. However, many older people
believe they're "hard". If they could somehow convince
themselves that computers are no big deal, they could learn them
with no problem. Sure enough, the older folks you see on PCs
have overcome that mental block. I know people as young as 45
that are afraid of PCs! The interesting thing is, it's the same PC
that 8 year olds use with ease. It has nothing to do with age
though - it has to do with frame of mind. Little kids no reason to
fear a PC. No one told them computers were "hard" before they
first used one.
Some of you may have heard of a famous music teacher from
Japan by the name of Suzuki. He has groups of 5 and 6 year
olds playing Mozart and other "difficult" works on the violin. Here
is how he does it: While giving the mother violin lessons, he
places a small violin in the child's playpen. The child watches his
mom play her violin, and as soon as he's able, he tries to play his
as well. He develops an ear for music, and before long he's able
to play music without using a sheet (playing by ear). The lessons
only last about an hour, but over a period of years the child
develops quite a skill in playing the violin. The idea is to teach a
child something before they can learn the conventional "wisdom"
that certain things are hard to do.
The -te form
Right now, I am going to teach you a very simple verb form called
the -te form. It's sort of like the gerund in English (the -ing form),
but it's very often quite different. The easiest way to form the -te
form is to remove the final a from the past tense of a verb and
replace it with an e. Eventually, you should get so used to
forming the -te form that you can forget about the past tense as
