As a beginner should I study tongue placement and imitate native speakers, or should I just listen?

It's a good idea to study tongue placement, but it's not a top priority for beginners. Speaking practice usually comes after you've developed a solid understanding of the language and after your speaking ability has emerged naturally.

Unfortunately, I don't know of any great resources for learning tongue placement. Such content is pretty scarce. However, you can try searching for specific sounds online when you're unsure how to pronounce them. For example, search "how to pronounce the Japanese R sound" on Invidious.

Some Japanese sounds do require special attention, like らりるれろ and し, while others are easy to pick up without much practice.

Imitating native speakers is also a good idea, but not for beginners. It's a practice that works best after you've immersed for a while and your speaking skills have emerged naturally — usually after around a year of studying.

Imitating native speakers and speaking in general can lead to more harm than good if you don't have a solid foundation in listening. The sounds you're trying to pronounce do not exist in your native language, and if you can't hear them clearly yet, you're setting yourself up for mistakes.

When you do start imitating native speakers, try to find someone with the same gender and similar age to yours. There are sizable gender differences in Japanese. Men and women speak and act differently, use different expressions, pronouns and sentence endings. People's speech patterns also change as they age. A 75-year-old man doesn't sound the same as a 15-year-old girl, and that's true for many languages.

Imitation involves listening to native recordings and mimicking them. By comparing your voice to the recording, you train your brain to notice and copy even the subtlest patterns of native speakers. As you do this, your brain starts to internalize the native sound system on a subconscious level.

Just listen a lot. It's the best thing you can do until you reach a more advanced phase when you're ready to start practicing speaking.

Tags: faq