Why Japanese Feels Natural to Me as a Croatian Speaker (And Why English Natives Struggle More)

Learning Japanese has been one of the most fascinating journeys I’ve embarked on lately. As a Croatian speaker, I’ve discovered something quite remarkable: Japanese pronunciation feels surprisingly natural to me - much more so than it seems to for my English-speaking friends who are also learning the language.

At first, I thought this was just my imagination. But after diving deeper into the linguistics behind it, I’ve uncovered some genuinely mind-blowing connections between Croatian and Japanese that explain why my Croatian mouth feels so at home with Japanese sounds.

But let me be honest about why I’m learning Japanese in the first place. It’s not because I need to - I speak English fluently and work internationally as a tech entrepreneur. I’m learning Japanese simply because I like it. There’s something about how Japanese sounds that draws me in, much like Italian does (and these are really the only two languages that have this aesthetic appeal for me). Maybe it’s those phonetic connections I discovered, or maybe it’s something deeper, but Japanese just feels… right.

The Accidental Discovery

It all started when I was practicing Japanese verb conjugations and kept hearing something familiar. The polite past tense ending -mashita kept reminding me of the Croatian word mašta (imagination). At first, I dismissed it as coincidence, but then more similarities started jumping out at me.

When I learned that kasa means umbrella in Japanese, I couldn’t help but think of the Croatian kasa (cash register, or helmet in archaic usage). Then came kuma (bear in Japanese) and the Croatian kuma (wedding witness, or godmother in some dialects). The list kept growing.

These aren’t linguistic relatives - they’re pure coincidence. But they’re incredibly useful for memorization, and they hint at something deeper about why Japanese feels so accessible to Croatian speakers.

The Phonetic Foundation: Why Our Mouths Are Ready

Croatian and Japanese share crucial phonetic similarities that give Croatian speakers a significant pronunciation advantage from day one.

Perfect Vowel Harmony

Both Croatian and Japanese use a remarkably similar five-vowel system:

a as in mama (Croatian) = a in sakura (Japanese)
e as in pero (Croatian) = e in sensei (Japanese)
i as in misliti (Croatian) = i in mirai (Japanese)
o as in oko (Croatian) = o in omou (Japanese)
u as in ruka (Croatian) = u in fuyu (Japanese)

While nearly identical, there’s one small difference: Japanese /u/ is unrounded [ɯ] rather than Croatian’s rounded [u], but this distinction is minor enough that Croatian speakers can produce intelligible Japanese vowels from day one. English speakers, by contrast, often need significant vowel adjustment due to their complex diphthong system.

Consonant Comfort Zone

The consonant overlap is equally impressive:

Stops: /p b t d k g/ work identically in both languages
Nasals: /m n/ are perfect matches, and Japanese ny is essentially Croatian nj. Japanese also has a syllabic /N/ (ん) that surfaces as [ŋ, m, n] depending on context - a nuance Croatian speakers should train
The shared affricate: Croatian ć /tɕ/ (as in ćuti) closely matches Japanese ち /tɕi/, both using the voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate. Note that Japanese tsu (つ) is absent in Croatian onsets; learners may initially substitute /cu/, so targeted practice helps
Fricatives: /s z/ work identically; /h/ has similar tongue posture but becomes [ɸ] before /u/ in Japanese
The familiar /j/: Croatian jako and Japanese yama use the same palatal glide
The flap: Croatian uses a trilled r, while Japanese uses a single-tap /ɾ/ (similar to the American English “butter” flap). Croatian speakers need to lighten their trill for natural Japanese pronunciation

Simple Syllable Structure

Japanese loves simple (C)V syllables - consonant plus vowel. Croatian tolerates consonant clusters (like prst, trg) but has fewer dense onsets than English (“str,” “spl,” “scr”). This means Japanese rhythm feels lighter and more natural to Croatian speakers from day one.

The Coincidental Twins: False Friends That Help Memory

Dozens of Japanese-Croatian word pairs sound nearly identical despite having no linguistic relationship, creating powerful memory aids for vocabulary acquisition.

Japanese Word	JP Meaning	Croatian Word	HR Meaning
kasa	umbrella	kasa	cash register (or helmet, archaic)
kuma	bear	kuma	wedding witness/godmother (dialectal)
hana	flower/nose	Hana	common female name
soba	buckwheat noodles	soba	room
tako	octopus	tako	”so, thus”
neko	cat	neko	”someone” (colloquial)
yama	mountain	jama	pit, hole

These false friends are memory goldmines. When I can’t remember that kuma means bear, I picture a bear serving as a wedding witness - problem solved! Just remember: mnemonic twins are useful for memorization, but the meanings diverge completely; always double-check in context.

The Pitch-Accent Advantage

Here’s where it gets really interesting. Both Croatian and Japanese are pitch-accent languages, though their systems differ significantly. Croatian has a four-way distinction (short/long rising and falling tones) while Tokyo Japanese uses two-way high-low word melodies. However, they share something crucial: sensitivity to musical patterns rather than stress loudness.

English speakers often struggle with Japanese pitch accent because English relies heavily on stress patterns. Croatian speakers, however, already have ears tuned to pitch variations. Our brains are pre-wired to “listen for music” in language, even if the specific patterns differ.

What Croatian Speakers Need to Add

It’s not all smooth sailing. There are a few Japanese elements that don’t exist in Croatian:

Phonemic vowel length: In Japanese, ojiisan (grandfather) vs ojisan (uncle) differ only in vowel length
Gemination: The small tsu (っ) that doubles consonants
Some specific sounds: Like shi (し) = [ɕi], halfway between Croatian š and s, produced with a flatter tongue and unrounded lips

But these are minor adjustments compared to the massive phonetic overhaul English speakers need.

Why English Speakers Struggle More

English speakers face several challenges that Croatian speakers simply don’t encounter:

Vowel chaos: English has diphthongs and vowel shifts that don’t exist in Japanese
Consonant clusters: English speakers are used to complex clusters that Japanese prohibits
Stress vs. pitch: English stress patterns interfere with Japanese pitch accent
Phonetic interference: English sounds keep bleeding into Japanese pronunciation

Which Western Language Gives You the Best Head-Start for Japanese Pronunciation?

Systematic analysis reveals Croatian and Italian tie for optimal Japanese pronunciation advantages, significantly outperforming English and other European languages. (Note: Scores reflect my heuristic weighting; they’re illustrative rather than peer-reviewed metrics.)

Rank	Language	Vowel match (0-2)	Consonant match (0-2)	Simple syllables (0-2)	Prosody fit (0-2)	Gemination feel (0-1)	Total /9
🥇 1	Croatian	2.0 – 5 of JP’s 5 vowels (minor /u/ difference: [ɯ] vs [u])	1.5 – shares palatal affricate /tɕ/ and avoids /θ ð/	1.5 – CV-heavy, few clusters	1.5 – pitch-accent system but different structure	0.0 – no lexical gemination (lengthening only morphological)	6.5
🥈 2	Italian	1.5 – 7 vowels; quality overlaps for /a e i o u/	1.5 – no interdental fricatives, good palatals	1.5 – mostly (C)V; few final clusters	1.0 – stress (not pitch) accent	1.0 – robust lexical gemination	6.5
3	Spanish	2.0 – perfect 1-to-1 vowel set	1.5 – lacks /ʃ ʒ θ/ in most dialects	1.5 – simple syllables, clusters allowed but rare	1.0 – stress accent	0.0 – no phonemic gemination	6.0
4	Swedish	1.0 – 9 oral vowels, many front-rounded	1.0 – shares /ɕ/ but has /ɧ/	1.0 – clusters common	2.0 – lexical pitch accent (Accent 1/2)	0.5 – consonant length tied to vowel length	5.5
5	Portuguese	1.0 – 7-9 oral + 5 nasal vowels	1.0 – alveolar /ɾ/ matches JP flap	1.0 – frequent diphthongs, nasal codas	1.0 – stress accent, heavy reduction	0.0	4.0
6	French	0.5 – >14 oral + 4 nasal vowels	1.0 – uvular /ʁ/ diverges	1.0 – many final clusters, liaison	0.5 – intonation-based, no lexical pitch	0.0	3.5
7	German	1.0 – 8 vowels + length contrast	1.0 – clusters /ʃp ʃt/ etc.	0.5 – complex onsets/codas	0.5 – stress accent, no pitch	0.0	3.0
8	English	0.5 – ±20 vowels/diphthongs	1.0 – aspirated stops, /θ ð/ absent in JP	0.5 – complex clusters up to 3–4 consonants	0.5 – stress, strong vowel reduction	0.0	2.5

What the columns mean

Vowel match – how many of Japanese’s five pure vowels (/a i u e o/) exist with similar quality.
Consonant match – overlap in core consonants & absence of “trouble makers” (/θ, ð, v, r̥/…).
Simple syllables – preference for CV, few tricky clusters.
Prosody fit – presence of pitch accent or at least minimal vowel reduction.
Gemination feel – whether the language already distinguishes double vs. single consonants (a huge help for words like kita ≠ kitta).

Bottom line:

Croatian and Italian sit in a sweet spot: near-identical vowel sets, palatal consonants already in place, and either pitch accent (Cro) or native gemination (It).

Spanish speakers enjoy a perfect vowel overlap, but must learn Japanese consonant length from scratch.

Swedish has the luxury of pitch accent but battles an oversized vowel system.

English trails because it combines a complex vowel inventory and dense consonant clusters.

The Croatian Secret Weapon: Accent Neutrality

Here’s something that doesn’t show up in the table but appears to give Croatian speakers an advantage: accent neutrality. When you hear a Russian speaking English, you immediately know they’re Russian. When an Italian speaks English, their accent is unmistakable. The same happens when they speak Japanese.

Many Croatian speakers report adapting to foreign accents more easily than speakers of other languages. Our phonetic system appears relatively neutral, lacking the strong interference patterns that immediately mark speakers of certain languages. While this observation needs systematic research to confirm, anecdotal evidence (including my own Japan experience) suggests Croatian speakers may achieve more native-like pronunciation with less effort than speakers of languages with more distinctive phonetic patterns.

This accent neutrality, combined with our phonetic compatibility, gives us an almost unfair advantage in Japanese pronunciation. We can focus on perfecting the subtleties of pitch accent and gemination instead of fighting against our native phonetic patterns.

The Learning Advantage

This phonetic compatibility gives Croatian speakers a real head start in Japanese. We can:

Focus on grammar and vocabulary instead of fighting pronunciation
Use coincidental twins as powerful memory aids
Leverage our pitch-accent intuition for natural intonation
Build confidence quickly with natural-sounding speech

Beyond the Sounds: A Deeper Connection

There’s something almost magical about discovering these connections. It feels like finding a secret passage between two seemingly unrelated worlds. Every time I encounter a new coincidental twin or notice how naturally a Japanese sound comes out of my mouth, it reinforces my belief that language learning is full of beautiful surprises.

The fact that Croatian and Japanese share these coincidental similarities isn’t just linguistically interesting - it’s practically useful and deeply encouraging. It shows that sometimes the path to learning something new is shorter than we think, especially when we pay attention to the tools we already have.

For Fellow Croatian Speakers

If you’re Croatian and considering learning Japanese, I encourage you to dive in. Your mouth is already prepared for 90% of Japanese sounds. Your ears are already tuned to pitch variations. Your brain is already comfortable with simple syllable structures.

Use those coincidental twins as memory aids. When you hear mashita (past tense polite form), think of mašta (imagination) and picture yourself imagining past events. When you learn kasa (umbrella), visualize someone wearing a helmet (kasa) in the rain.

My Japanese Learning Journey: An Input-First Approach

Before diving into my methodology, I need to introduce someone whose work has been absolutely transformational to my Japanese learning journey: Matt vs Japan. Matt is arguably the most influential figure in modern Japanese acquisition theory, and his scientifically-grounded approach has revolutionized how serious learners tackle this language.

What sets Matt apart isn’t just his near-native fluency - it’s his systematic deconstruction of language acquisition science and his ability to translate cutting-edge research into practical methodology. Discovering Matt’s input-first approach felt like finding the missing piece of the puzzle. His methods aren’t just theoretical; they’re battle-tested by thousands of learners who’ve achieved remarkable results.

I’m so convinced of the power of Matt’s approach that I’ve joined his Matt vs Japan Skool community - a thriving dojo of serious Japanese learners. The results I’ve achieved using his methodology, especially leveraging my Croatian phonetic advantages, have been so striking that I felt compelled to share them in this blog post. If you’re serious about Japanese acquisition rather than just basic communication, Matt’s approach deserves your attention.

Matt’s methodology maximizes Croatian speakers’ natural advantages through massive input, delayed output, and strategic skill sequencing - an approach that feels tailor-made for our phonetic gifts.

The Foundation: Input Before Everything

My learning philosophy centers on a radical principle: massive input before output. Instead of jumping into speaking from day one like traditional methods suggest, I’m building a vast internal database of the language through thousands of hours of listening and reading.

This approach aims to develop what Matt calls an “intuitive language engine” - an unconscious, predictive model of Japanese built through listening and reading “as close to every waking hour as possible.” The goal is to cultivate the ability to ask my brain “what would a Japanese person say in this situation?” rather than “how do I translate this English phrase into Japanese?” This cognitive shift bypasses L1 interference and generates more natural, idiomatic speech.

This isn’t just “watching anime” (though that’s part of it!). It’s a systematic approach based on how our brains actually acquire language - through statistical learning and pattern recognition, not conscious rule memorization.

Phase 1: The Primer - Building the Foundation

Matt’s methodology begins with creating a targeted, high-efficiency “primer.” This provides the minimum necessary foundation for consuming native media. Traditional textbooks suffer from inefficient vocabulary selection (learning “animals” and “colors” before high-frequency words) and illogical grammatical sequences (teaching polite forms before explaining the underlying casual structure). Matt’s primer focuses on what actually matters.

Grammar Foundation: Matt strongly recommends Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese Grammar over textbooks like Genki. Tae Kim teaches Japanese “from a Japanese point of view” on a “first principles basis,” starting with fundamental casual forms before introducing polite variations. This provides a logical structural map of the language’s operating system rather than obscuring it with surface-level politeness forms.

Phonetic Calibration: Matt advocates spending considerable time calibrating your ear and mouth to Japanese sounds:

High Variability Phonetic Training (HVPT): Matt recommends using specialized software to train your brain to distinguish Japanese phonemes from multiple speakers in various contexts. Following his advice, I used this to build accurate “perceptual buckets” for sounds that don’t exist in Croatian or English.

Chorusing Practice: Matt advocates chorusing over traditional shadowing - speaking in perfect unison with native speakers while matching their rhythm, intonation, and pronunciation exactly. This technique addresses a fundamental challenge: when infants learn their native language, their brain sorts all sounds into a limited number of “buckets.” Adult learners face the problem that new language sounds that don’t fit existing buckets get forced into the closest native ones, creating foreign accents.

Matt’s chorusing method efficiently creates new “buckets” for each distinct Japanese sound. It allows learners to intuitively hear discrepancies between their pronunciation and the native recording, including subtle differences like the Japanese ‘a’ versus the English ‘a’. This improves not just pronunciation but also comprehension, as the brain receives higher-fidelity data.

Listening-First Approach: Matt strongly emphasizes deliberately delaying learning to read Japanese scripts (hiragana, katakana, kanji) until your auditory foundation is solid. Following this advice, I delayed reading to prevent the common mistake of subvocalizing with English/Croatian sounds when seeing written Japanese.

Phase 2: The Immersion Engine

Matt’s core methodology centers on what he calls the “immersion engine” - a carefully engineered environment for massive input consumption. This phase constitutes the long-term practice of consuming vast quantities of authentic Japanese content to forge an intuitive language model.

Strategic Content Consumption: Matt recommends starting with content where you understand maybe 5-10% - a radical departure from traditional “comprehensible input” theory. The goal isn’t immediate understanding but exposing your brain to authentic language patterns. Matt’s hardcore approach involved listening and reading “as close to every waking hour as possible,” specifically aiming for at least “six anime episodes every day” (over two hours of active listening) plus significant reading time. Following this advice, I started with low-comprehension content to build my foundational database.

Initial Lookup Strategy: Matt’s approach for the very beginning, when understanding only about 5% of content, isn’t to look up every unknown word. Instead, he suggests letting most Japanese “wash over” you and only stopping to look up words that “start to pop out” because they’re “super frequently used” or when you feel you “almost could understand that sentence.” This selective approach - roughly “one word every two minutes” - maintains flow state while avoiding overwhelm. The criteria for what to look up evolves dynamically as comprehension increases.

Digital Ecosystem Engineering: Matt strongly recommends creating separate YouTube accounts, social media profiles, and even computer user accounts exclusively for Japanese content. This trains algorithms to feed you personalized Japanese content streams, creating a self-perpetuating immersion environment. Matt implements strict digital controls: “a bunch of different YouTube accounts” - one exclusively for Japanese videos (where all recommendations become Japanese) and another for English content. On computers, he uses “browser extensions that hide all recommended videos” and homepages to minimize distractions. As Matt puts it, “it’s better to just not know it exists so to try to in a way like make your environment so that you don’t even see the temptations.” Following this advice, I created my own separate Japanese-only digital ecosystem.

Focused Listening Strategy: Matt advocates employing both active and passive listening. Passive listening means having Japanese playing even during chores or daily activities to “flood your brain with Japanese.” Active listening involves consciously understanding sentences and looking up unfamiliar words while maintaining flow state.

Sentence Mining: Rather than learning vocabulary from textbook lists, Matt recommends collecting sentences from media that interests you and creating flashcards. This helps learn vocabulary in its natural context and usage patterns, which I’ve implemented in my own study routine.

Subtitles Strategy: Matt suggests initially using Japanese subtitles with anime to aid reading and listening comprehension, gradually transitioning to no subtitles as comprehension increases. I followed this progression in my own viewing habits.

Gamification for Consistency: Matt emphasizes reframing learning as a game to maintain motivation over thousands of hours - actively engaging with content by picking out words or understanding sentences provides a sense of achievement and dopamine. Matt’s 1T Rule (sentences with only “1 Target” unknown element) keeps this process manageable while ensuring context supports learning.

Personal Fit: As someone with ADHD and introverted tendencies, this methodology provides an ideal learning environment. The complexity allows for hours of hyperfocus, while the input-heavy approach avoids draining social pressure. Measurable milestones and micro-achievements maintain long-term motivation.

Phase 3: Smart SRS Usage

Matt positions Anki as a “reinforcement tool, not a primary learning environment.” It solidifies knowledge gained from the primer and immersion through active recall and spaced repetition. Matt recommends targeting the most common 10,000 words to achieve 80% or more comprehension in daily conversation, creating “a bookmark entry for that word in your head” for later contextual learning.

Matt’s best practices include:

Contextual sentence cards with audio, images, and definitions rather than isolated vocabulary
Recognition over production cards to build passive vocabulary (Japanese-to-English rather than English-to-Japanese)
Contextual definitions avoiding traditional bilingual dictionaries, which Matt views as “bilingual thesauruses” that provide lists of English words with similar meanings rather than explaining the nuanced meaning of Japanese words. This can lead to L1 interference and unnatural phrasing. Instead, Matt recommends using ChatGPT for on-the-spot grammar explanations and contextual definitions that describe the word’s meaning conceptually, like a monolingual dictionary would
Automated mining tools to minimize disruption to immersion flow
High-frequency focus prioritizing words based on usage frequency rather than thematic groups

Following Matt’s guidance, I’ve implemented these practices in my own Anki usage.

The Silent Period Strategy

Perhaps most controversially, Matt advocates an extended “silent period” - avoiding forced Japanese output until your internal model is robust enough for natural speech to emerge. In Matt’s personal case, he experimented with avoiding speaking Japanese for extended periods, including a three-year stretch focused “purely on input no output.” His rationale is to “avoid making any bad habits” because “it’s a lot easier to learn to do something right the first time than to unlearn.” However, the exact length of this period can be adjusted based on individual comfort and circumstances.

Matt’s approach is grounded in usage-based linguistics: the brain builds its language model statistically from “tokens” (phonemes, words, or constructions), where early linguistic experiences have exponentially more weight. If you get “a couple tokens in the wrong place” early on, they establish strong “attractor fields” that pull subsequent similar inputs towards those incorrect categories, even with massive later correct input. This is why bad habits are so difficult to unlearn - early mistakes can “fossilize” into deeply rooted, self-reinforcing patterns.

According to Matt’s theory, by the time natural speech begins to emerge, intuition for what sounds correct should already be highly developed from massive input, allowing learners to bypass many common mistakes. Output isn’t a tool for learning but “the result of having acquired it.”

This isn’t absolute silence; Matt recommends innovative techniques like:

Crosstalk: Matt describes conversations where you speak English while your Japanese partner speaks Japanese. This method serves as a practical solution for social interaction during the silent period, allowing for interactive practice and comprehensible input without forcing the learner to produce error-filled output that could lead to fossilization of bad habits. It also helps build social connections without the psychological pressure of speaking Japanese incorrectly. I’ve found this technique particularly useful during my learning journey.

Matt’s final phase activates the passively acquired knowledge once sufficient input has built a robust internal model, meticulously refining pronunciation to a native-like standard.

The Language Parent Concept: Rather than modeling speech after multiple sources, Matt recommends choosing a specific native speaker to model your speech after. This helps acquire natural style, intonation, and rhythm consistently. Matt often recommends actor Takuya Kimura for men due to his “charismatic, cool, and badass” persona and vast content availability. Matt emphasizes consulting with native speakers to select an appropriate model and avoid unintentionally adopting an undesirable persona.

Chorusing Over Shadowing: Matt advocates chorusing as superior to traditional shadowing - repeating sentences in “perfect unison” with native speakers for optimal pronunciation training.

Mental Practice and Inner Monologue: Matt describes how after sufficient input, a natural progression occurs where the inner monologue begins to shift to the target language. Matt would practice by imagining conversations or scenarios, like being interviewed in Japanese, which helped train output skills mentally before actual speaking. This mental practice contributes to developing the intuitive language engine.

Cognitive Shift for Natural Output: Matt teaches that when ready to produce language, the internal process must fundamentally change. Instead of thinking “how do I say X English phrase in Japanese,” Matt’s approach is to “query the brain” by asking “what would a Japanese person say in this situation?” This cognitive shift allows the brain to bypass direct translation from English and instead retrieve the most appropriate, naturally occurring patterns from the acquired Japanese database, generating more natural and idiomatic speech.

Pitch Accent Mastery: While Matt found that most grammar and vocabulary can be acquired intuitively through input, he discovered that pitch accent often requires conscious study to master. This involves learning pitch accent rules, memorizing the pitch patterns of words, and actively thinking about them while speaking until it becomes habitual. Matt acknowledges that a listening-heavy approach from the start can help natural acquisition, but for those who don’t follow this path, conscious effort becomes necessary for truly native-like sound.

The Acquisition “Ceiling” Concept: Matt references J. Marvin Brown’s theoretical “ceiling” in language acquisition - the maximum level achievable through input alone. According to Brown, doing things that cause interference (like early conscious analysis or output) can lower this ceiling, limiting ultimate attainment. However, Matt’s experience with pitch accent demonstrates that active, conscious work can help overcome this limitation and push beyond the input-only ceiling. While the resulting skill might be more conscious and require more effort than naturally acquired aspects, it can still achieve near-native accuracy.

Why This Works for Croatian Speakers

This input-first approach leverages all our Croatian advantages:

Our phonetic compatibility lets us focus on subtleties rather than basic sound production
Our pitch-accent intuition helps with Japanese prosody acquisition
Our accent neutrality means we don’t carry strong interference patterns

Identity Motivation Advantage: Croatian speakers possess a unique psychological advantage in language acquisition. Unlike speakers with strong “foreign accent” patterns that immediately identify their origin, our accent neutrality allows us to more easily develop “identity motivation” - the deep, subconscious drive to sound like and be accepted as a member of the target language group. When we speak Japanese, we don’t carry the heavy phonetic baggage that immediately marks us as “foreign,” making it psychologically easier to identify with Japanese speakers and develop the intrinsic motivation that drives truly native-like acquisition.

Join the Community

Join me at Matt vs Japan Skool community - a vibrant “Dojo” where hundreds of serious Japanese learners share this methodology. If you’re interested in a science-based, input-first approach to Japanese acquisition, I highly recommend joining. Here’s what makes this community special:

🌎 Community Section: Interactive space with categorized discussions:

🌐 General chat for broad questions and discussions
💬 Direct posts from Matt with insights and updates
📺 Content recommendations from fellow learners
💻 Resources and tool sharing
💪🏼 Wins where members celebrate their progress

🎖️ Weekly Immersion Leaderboard: Track your learning hours and join the weekly accountability challenge. It’s not about winning - it’s about camaraderie and staying motivated. No matter how many hours you put in, the community celebrates your effort.

📖 Classroom Section: Structured learning content organized into courses:

Essential Theory: The foundational course that gets you up to speed quickly
Advanced Theory: Deep dives into specific topics and methodologies
Resources: Comprehensive collection of tools and materials
Milestone Courses: Additional content unlocks at 3-month, 6-month, and 1-year milestones

🛠️ Live Weekly Workshops: Join Matt for interactive Zoom sessions where you can ask questions, get personalized advice, and connect with other learners. All workshops are recorded and posted within 24 hours, complete with highlight clips.

The methodology isn’t easy - it requires discipline and long-term thinking. But for those willing to trust the process, it offers a path to genuinely native-like proficiency rather than just functional communication.

Current Progress and Real-World Testing

As of July 2025, I’ve completed the initial phase of this methodology with around 100 core vocabulary words solidly acquired and about 200 hours of active immersion under my belt. The real test came in March 2025 when I spent two weeks in Japan - my first time in the country.

To my amazement, I was able to handle service-based conversations - ordering food at restaurants, asking for directions on the street, navigating train stations, and managing hotel check-ins - with confidence. My Croatian phonetic foundation really showed its power: Japanese people consistently understood my pronunciation on the first try, something I noticed other foreign tourists struggling with.

But beyond the language success, I fell in love with Japan itself. Tokyo’s incredible blend of ultra-modern efficiency and traditional culture fascinated me. The safety - being able to walk anywhere at any time without concern - felt liberating. Most striking was the genuine politeness and helpfulness of people, from station attendants patiently helping with complex train routes to restaurant staff going out of their way to accommodate dietary questions.

The most striking language moment was realizing I wasn’t translating in my head during these interactions. My brain was directly accessing the Japanese patterns I’d absorbed through hundreds of hours of input. The Croatian advantages are real and significant.

This experience has me considering a longer stay in Japan for full language immersion. The thought of living in this environment while continuing my work is incredibly appealing for accelerating Japanese acquisition.

The key insight? Language learning isn’t about memorizing rules - it’s about training your brain’s predictive model. My Croatian phonetic foundation gives me a massive head start in this statistical learning process.

The Bigger Picture

This discovery has reinforced my belief that language learning is full of unexpected connections and shortcuts. Sometimes the barriers we expect aren’t there, and sometimes the help we need comes from the most surprising places.

For me, Japanese isn’t just a language I’m learning - it’s a linguistic adventure that’s shown me how my Croatian background gives me unique advantages. It’s a reminder that our native languages aren’t just communication tools; they’re also powerful launching pads for exploring new linguistic worlds.

The journey continues, and every day brings new discoveries. Who knows what other coincidental connections await? The only way to find out is to keep exploring.

Key Takeaways for Croatian Speakers

Leverage your vowel advantage: Focus on mastering the slight [ɯ] vs [u] difference rather than rebuilding your entire vowel system
Trust your pitch intuition: Your existing pitch-accent sensitivity will help with Japanese prosody, even though the systems differ
Embrace the input-first method: Matt’s methodology maximizes your natural phonetic advantages
Use coincidental twins as memory aids: Words like kasa/kasa and kuma/kuma make vocabulary retention easier
Capitalize on accent neutrality: Your adaptable phonetic system gives you a head start toward native-like pronunciation
Consider Japan immersion: Full immersion provides the ultimate learning environment for rapid acquisition

Learning Japanese and need guidance? Feel free to get in touch - I’m always happy to help fellow language learners, especially if you’re discovering your own surprising linguistic advantages!