“Backwards this language is,” Yoda might have said upon first encountering English. After all, for native English speakers, the usual sentence structure is Subject-Verb-Object and for Yoda, as well as Japanese, Subject-Object-Verb is the norm. This is a common stumbling block for new students of 日本語 and one that takes some time to get used to. Following are a few tips that can help you internalize that more quickly.
Input, Input, Input
Did I mention the importance of getting vast amounts of Comprehensible Input? One influence on my studies was a gent who went by the handle of Khatzumoto, creator of AllJapaneseAllTheTime.com, who claimed to achieve fluency in 18 months by massive and continuous input. An astute observation of his was, “You don’t learn a language, you get used to it.”
So it is with SOV. The more you expose yourself to it, the faster you’ll get used to it. In the spirit of comprehensible input, start simple and as your become more comfortable, then expand. How simple? Basic declarative sentences at first, then more complex sentences with relative clauses modifying nouns, longer sentences with conjunctions and so on.
食べている
(someone) is eating.
ラーメンを食べている
(someone) is eating ramen.
背が高い男の人はラーメンを食べている
The tall man is eating ramen
The bottom line is, immerse yourself — read and listen as much as you can, even if you don’t understand everything perfectly. Your brain is a pattern-recognition engine and the more examples it has to work with, the faster it learns to spot the patterns.
Grammar and Word Order
I am not suggesting you break out a grammar book and start memorizing rules. We’re here to learn how to use Japanese, not how to pass grammar tests. But we still need to know the basics of grammar and syntax in order to process what we hear and read: grammar explanations are there to facilitate understanding.
During this “adjustment” phase as you’re getting used to SOV, take the time to analyze sentences and note the ordering of words and phrases. Identify the main verb of the sentence (hint: it’s at the end). Identify the subject of the sentence, even if it’s not explicitly stated (not a Zen koan – Japanese omits lots of words when assumed you’ll understand from context). Identify phrases used to modify other words and their placement (e.g. if you see a sentence fragment ending in a casual verb right before a noun, that is a relative clause used to describe the noun). And so on.
Familiarize yourself with the grammar and syntax as a way to facilitate understanding.
Color Coding
As useful practice to make the preceding explicit is to write out your notes, using highlighters or different colored pens to color code the different grammatical constructs. The physical actions combined with conscious analysis will help your brain encode the syntax and patterns more quickly. Plus the colors will stand out more in your visual memory, also aiding the encoding process.
Acceptance
Understand that this will take time and give yourself permission to be confused for a while until one day you’ll suddenly realize you’re not. You are literally rewiring your brain. It won’t happen overnight, but with enough input, some amount of focus and the time required for memory consolidation, get there you will.