I spoke Japanese a fair bit as a child(started age 6,usa never been to japan), but was never taught how to read(early 90s it was not yet SOP to teach using kana first in the usa, like it is today.) By the age of 13, I was as far as I remember at least (somewhat?)fluent, and had semiregular conversations with many of the exchange students and college students where I lived.
Life flipped around(at13) and I wasn't around japanese anymore from that point on, and sadly lost it really quickly.
There is still stuff floating around in there, because I do regularly do use some minor japanese out of habit(hell I still bow to people, it's just ingrained), but I clearly don't know it anymore.
Realistically I don't know how far I actually ever got as a kid, and I know very well that almost every "日本語上手!” is a lie.(Don't get me wrong Everyone was very polite and encouraging.)
I can put on an anime(like Azumanga or yuru camp) without subs and… barely follow along.
So I have had to essentially learn as an adult how to read Japanese, and right now I can read(sound out) all of hiragana pretty easily now, katakana I have not really studied but it's kinda becoming more and more obvious as I've gotten more used to reading hiragana(a lot of symbols are similar).
I am starting to recognize kanji here and there, and I can use an Japanese input IME(for kana) pretty quickly.
I actually still have a copy of the book I was given as a child still to this day, it's Easy Japanese by Jack Seward, 1992. The audio tapes I was given were probably from the 80s. I was learning in the 90s, so 30~40 year difference? in what I was learning from to today.
I have for the most part been watching a lot of 大相撲 on Abema and the furigana has been immensely helpful for learning kana, and the whimsical idea of kanji(shikona apparently have really strange readings often apparently which is why abema puts furi on 大相撲 streams?) .
Now that I'm actually starting to be able to read kana and kanji, where should I go from here?
I have subbed to a bunch of japanese motorcyclists, and native teachers(and dogen), I bought tanaka-san's book(which has also been awesome).
What things might I not know that someone learning currentday japanese should probably know that hasnt realistically conversed japanese in 22+ years, but learned majority from native speakers visiting/in the USA at the time(90s).
My hope is that getting into the habit of learning to read and watching anime/shows with no subs and trying to listen might dig whatever was in there before up and I can keep learning from that point, but I'm pretty sure that's not how brains work.
Has anyone else had to relearn a language?
Learning Japanese has become a rather critical important thing I need to do now because a huge chunk of writing I am doing now involves sumo, shinto-ism, and fantasy of feudal japan and learning about old japanese stories like the heike monogatari. Not knowing Japanese is becoming a bit of a hinderance.
by LMGDiVa