This idea will make learning Japanese easier

Hey KoreKara Squad, 

I talked about this book in a video but if you haven’t read Steven Pinker’s ‘The Language Instinct’, one of the first ideas it presents is that language is essentially a birthright. You, as a human being, deserve any language you so choose, including Japanese. This is because, according to Pinker, language is an innate instinct. Let me explain why this idea will make learning Japanese easier.

💡 Tip of the week

He bolsters his arguments that language is innate by providing several examples. I won’t get into all of them but it’s worth a read if you’re interested. What I do want to talk about here is this idea of “poverty of the stimulus” and how it relates to us as Japanese learners.

The poverty of the stimulus refers to the idea that there is no scenario in which an infant could get adequate input to be able to output correctly. This blows apart the whole language is a behavior argument because infants are relatively creative with language. They create sentences they couldn’t possibly have heard.

One example of “weak” input is ‘Motherese.’ Motherese is a simplified language that parents use with their kids in hopes that it will make their messages easier to understand. Well, apparently all of that is unnecessary because there are cultures in which parents don’t even speak to their infants and babies.

This isn’t to say that input is not required because it absolutely is. What all of this means is despite being given weak, or poor-quality input, infants can distill real and new language from it.

Language is our birthright. We all have the innate ability to acquire language, no matter the language. All we need is a little bit of input. We don’t need to be able to hear every sentence imaginable to be able to speak it ourselves. Given the input our brains will decipher the underlying patterns. Just listen and acquire. Language is our superpower.

Once you internalize this idea, you know that it’s not a question of whether or not you will ever be fluent, it’s a matter of when. As long as you keep immersing, speaking, and putting in the reps, you will get there. Language acquisition is an innate ability hidden in all of us.

📺 Immersion of the week 

I don’t know how many times I’m going to talk and/or write about the benefits of bilingual conversations but here I go again… I just found this YouTube channel called Lazy Fluency and they’ve got over a hundred bilingual podcast videos. I would highly recommend checking them out if you ever start to glaze over in your immersion when listening to incomprehensible Japanese. The English mixed in here is nice to pull you back into the conversation and ground you in some context for the next bit of Japanese. Check them out.

✍️ Kanji of the week

This kanji compound is made up of 生 meaning life or birth. 得 meaning gain, earn, advantage, benefit. 権 means authority, power, or rights. Together they refer to the idea of a birthright. Just like language – any language, is our birthright.

🗣️ Q&A 

Just uploaded the first of many Q&A videos for the community. Stop in, ask your questions, get my answers, and get motivated to learn Japanese. We do weekly accountability posts and monthly meetings to keep each other going and share our experiences. See you there.

See you next week, またね!

Eric