Thinking in Japanese, a Critical Skill to Fluency in Japanese
Speaking requires thinking. Before you can say something in Japanese you need to know what you want to say. That requires being able to formulate sentences in your mind. This is a very important part of learning Japanese. I think most people would agree that thinking in Japanese is important. But I have not seen many explanations on how you can learn to do it. So, here I will do my best to explain how you can improve this critical skill.
INDEX
What is Thinking in Japanese?
This sounds like an obvious question but it is important to understand what we are talking about when we say thinking. Also, it is important to know what thinking is not in order to be able to learn to do it correctly.
https://japaneseuniverse.com/2024/02/18/pac-man-in-japaneseconcepts-behind-development-to-global-icon/Thinking is not the same as Speaking
Thinking is not exactly the same as speaking in your head. At least for me, I don’t verbalize every single word in my head when I am thinking about something. Sometimes I may be thinking about something and not use any language. Or, I may be thinking about a concept or feeling without a strong connection to a specific word. Or, I may be thinking of a concept where a word does exist without saying that word. For convenience sake though, in this post when I say thinking in Japanese I only mean speaking to yourself in Japanese in your head.
Knowledge vs. Skill of Thinking in Japanese
Japanese classes, textbooks, courses, and so on focus on helping you to understand and memorize Japanese concepts, words, phrases, etc. This is not the same as speaking in Japanese. Learning to think in Japanese is a skill. You can have knowledge about Japanese but that does not mean that you have the skill to use that knowledge. Yes, knowledge does lead to these skills but that alone is not enough.
Textbooks or classes will test your knowledge by giving you questions to answer. This helps you to see if you remember things but it does not help you to generate thoughts on your own. Testing helps by giving you a trigger to see if you remember something. Flashcards are an example of this. They help you to memorize vocabulary and to see if you remember words. But they don’t help you to use those words. So, when I say thinking in Japanese, this means to express your spontaneous thoughts in Japanese.
Creating Phrases: Step One for Thinking in Japanese
The first step to think in Japanese is to learn to create phrases.
Start Simple
I have two huge complaints about example sentences used in learning material. First, most books pack in example sentence after sentence all having unique words which show up once in the book and never again. Second, most of the books will also use sentences about politics, economics, people’s conversations, or topics that I don’t know anything about. These are things that are hard if not impossible to visualize.
When you are trying to learn something it is best to simplify everything else unimportant for that situation. So, for example, if you are learning about the various forms of Japanese adjectives keep it simple. The more complex, abstract, or unknown the words or topic is the less focus you can give on actually learning about the adjectives.
Since thinking in Japanse is a skill, your focus should be on using what you know. Not on acquiring more knowledge. Take a few words that you know and create phrases with them.
Play with Words and Phrases
This technique works by choosing a few familiar words and making several different phrases with them. For example, 鳥 means bird and 飛ぶ means to fly. Pretend these are the only two words you know. Since you can’t make grammatical sentences though without particles you need to add some.
- 鳥が飛ぶ – birds fly / the bird flys
- 鳥も飛ぶ – birds also fly/ the bird also flys
- 飛ぶ鳥 – The bird/birds that fly/ the flying bird
These are two very simple statements and don’t mean anything out of context. That is ok for now. When you are learning to think in Japanese it is important to limit the number of words you use. In your mind use the simple words you know and can visualize easily like the two above. Picking a few words and then trying to play with them to make different phrases allows you to get used to creating phrases in Japanese. If you are worried about what words to use in your sentences it will become harder to think of phrases. But, once you get used to saying certain sentence structures in your head you can add in more vocabulary.
So, let’s say you spent 10 minutes talking about birds flying and are getting bored of it. Now try adding more words, 猫 meaning cat and 寝る meaning to sleep.
- 猫が寝る – the cat sleeps / cats sleep
- 猫も寝る – the cat also sleeps / cats also sleep
This is where you actually start using the thinking skill. Now that you know a few words and how to create a few sentences you can swap words with each other.
- 鳥が寝る
- 猫が飛ぶ
The sentences you use don’t need to be possible or even logical at this point. What you are trying to do is stimulate your mind to spontaneously create sentences. As you start this exercise along with the simple words you choose to create sentences with, other words will start to spontaneously pop up. If you know the word for dog, 犬 then you may spontaneously think of the sentence
- 犬が飛ぶ
Again, it does not need to make sense. While you do this exercise and you think of one word, your brain will trigger other words you may know. The word for tail which is しっぽ may pop into your head. You may not know how to use the word at that moment. But, as you learn more you will be able to use these words in a sentence easier.
Learning to think is more about how you use the words than which words you use. So, in order to get good at this skill try focusing on integrating new words, word forms or knowledge about Japanese with what you already know slowly.
Other Techniques to Thinking in Japanese
After you get used to creating sentences in your mind you will have jumped over a huge language learning hurdle. Being able to create sentences in your mind spontaneously will help you to know better how much Japanese you know. By being able to create sentences you can observe what words pop up in your mind which will give you a better idea of what you know. Also, when trying to think of sentences in your head if you are unable to say something then you know what to work on.
After you feel comfortable with creating phrases though, the next step is to become more fluent at it.
Pretend you are talking to Someone
Now that you are able to create sentences, try adding a second person. Think of having a conversation in your head. Try to speak both parts of yourself and the participant. What this does is allows you to create a mental environment where you can stimulate your own mind to come up with your own thoughts. In real life when you talk to someone ideas pop up from your own thoughts and from what the other person has said. Having a conversation in your head makes it easier to spontaneously come up with things to say.
Write As you Think
Like I stated earlier, thinking is not the same as speaking. Sometimes when you think about something in your head you don’t necessarily say everything. When you write something down you are forcing yourself to generate words and you can visually see what you actually are thinking. This gives you another level of control to see how well you are actually thinking in Japanese.
