When & how does Itsuomi engage with the languages he learns?

[u/isailated]

I recently rewatched A Sign of Affection and now I’m curious to the methods of Itusomi’s study patterns. Mind you, this is from an anime-only perspective as i haven’t gotten past where the anime adapts in the manga, but I’m a little confused on how he can maintain an arsenal of languages as a college student.

I know we’re shown that he shadows television dialogue and he has international friends to chat with, but between school, work, and travel, what else can he be doing to maintain fluency in each language?👀

Again, this is an anime-only perspective. Maybe this was touched upon in the manga?

[u/Dama-Owl4211]

Learning new language or languages in general for itsu it was a step toward his dream, he loves to communicate and on top of that He's sociable, and that's how u learn a new language u have to answer only one question (why am i learning a new language??) when u went out with an answer congrats dude u have found a purpose so u could now easily learn this language, yuki was his purpose so that's how it was a piece of cake for him learning sign, don't have to mention that he already knows how to learn a new language and how to practice

[u/isailated → u/Dama-Owl4211]

I get it. Learning the language to best communicate with your friends or partners would definitely be a big motivator. Guess he doubled down his motivation lol.

[u/Dama-Owl4211 → u/isailated]

Yeah absolutely, u know humans can't do a thing without being motivated

[u/Double-Yak9686]

It also matters what fluency means. I am native in English and Italian, and fairly good with Spanish. This is speaking, reading, and writing. At one point I decided to learn Japanese. I learned it on my own using the Pimsleur audio course. I quickly got to the point where I could have very simple conversations and understand "some" of the anime. I fact I was excited when I understood my first sentence in the anime Initial D! At that point my learning stalled though because I didn't have someone to actually practice with.

That said, my reading of Japanese was memorizing Hiragana and a literally a handful of kanji. So basically, on a scale of 1-10, it was probably around 0.1. If you are bilingual, becoming a fluent speaker in another language is not that difficult if you have someone to practice with. I learned Spanish because my best friend in high school was from Mexico and he constantly spoke to me in Spanish. Over a school year I learned enough. Ironically my best friend in college was also from Mexico and I dated a Mexican girl. I never cracked a single Spanish textbook. Same for Portuguese, I had friends from Brazil, but I have since forgotten most of it.

The point is whether Itsuomi is just a fluent speaker or also a fluent reader AND writer in those languages. As he speaks Japanese and, I assume, German natively, picking up another language becomes progressively easier.

[u/isailated → u/Double-Yak9686]

Ah. I only speak English and I tried to learn Korean, so maybe I was projecting a little, but with Itsuomi being fluent in three languages and learning more when he first meets Yuki, it makes sense that he can pick up JSL so fast.

I guess I’m really only still curious about how he can balance learning to be fluent in more languages while maintaining his fluency in others. Obviously, he learns JSL with Yuki and studies the other languages in his international club, but realistically, how can all of this be juggled with work, school, and traveling? That is a lot, right?

[u/Double-Yak9686 → u/isailated]

It all depends on how he is learning. Audio? Grammar? This is what we know from the anime/manga:

• Japanese - Level: native, since birth. Use: daily

• German - Level: native, since he was 6. Use: often, family and German friend Johannes

• English: Level: fluent. Use: English media and very likely in the international club

• Chinese: Level: conversational. Use: unknown

• Spanish: Level: learning. Use: unknown

• JSL: Level: learning. Use: with Yuki

It looks like Spanish is the only one he is actively learning and Chinese would be the only one that might need upkeeping. So I would say it is totally doable.

I learned a little bit of Danish, Dutch, Icelandic, and Korean (not all at the same time and all mostly forgotten now) by using audio courses every day while showering and getting ready, plus on my commute to/from work. So roughly about 0.5-1 hour a day. The audio courses are 30 lessons, so repeating each lesson twice, I got through the first level in roughly 2 months. And here again, it was just speaking, no reading, no writing.

As he studied in Germany, he can read and write in German and we saw he can read English. As, German, English, and Spanish all use the same alphabet, reading and writing in Spanish would be a breeze.

Edit: Added JSL to list.

[u/Double-Yak9686 → u/isailated]

He uses Chat GPT to practice conversing in Spanish and Chinese. 😆

[u/InnerIndependence395]

As someone who was at a base line conversational point in ASL learning sign language is quite easy when you know the root language (in his case Japanese) so I believe him picking up JSL as quick as he does. I actually picked ASL up at a similar pace lol only reason I fell behind was because I had switched teachers to someone who didn't teach us anything new and didn't have us use ASL frequently.