Maybe I will just forget japanese

[m477]

If Japanese is really what you want to do for a career, as in for the rest of your life, then it's not unreasonable to expect you to do whatever it takes to get a few textbooks and such. (like a part-time job, etc)

Also, expecting people to explain the basic stuff that you can get from any textbook is a waste of time, of both theirs and yours. It's pointless to try to reproduce a textbook on the forum, and a post that somebody wrote in a few minutes isn't going to explain something as well as a carefully edited textbook.

No one is telling you that you can't do it. But it will be a major undertaking to get where you want to be; probably on the order of several thousand hours of studying over the course of several years.

 

[MajideSaiaku]

Get a japanese penfriend or something.

My japanese g/f has taught me more japanese by normal conversation then deleberate attempts myself have acheived.

 

[GoldCoinLover]

Good idea. However, it is very difficult to find someone who is fluent in both japanese and english. I do know of one person, mac, he is a member of this forum. His english is decent, but , however, he cannot explain most of japanese.

 

[Hyde_is_my_anti-drug]

If it makes you feel any better I really don't think you can learn Japanese from a book. You can memorize it, sure, but learn it not so much. I gave up on trying to use books or teaching programs or any kind of structured teaching system at all when it comes to learning Japanese or any other language. You learn much, much faster from just listening to the spoken language and looking at the writing in context.
I've been learning Japanese by ear and site now for several years and it really works. Instead of tripping up on techicalities instead I just think of what sounds right when I say it. I didn't learn the techical grammitical system for Japanese until this year! Although when I didn't know it vs. now not much has changed really because I never tripped over "oh, where should this word go?" or "what particle means 'am'???" I never thought, "I want to say 'I study at the library' in Japanese that means I have to say, 'Library' which is 'toshokan' then 'at' which is, uh, 'de', right? And then 'study' which is 'benkyou shimasu.'" That mindset is all wrong. I would simply say what sounded right. I wasn't thinking about word order, particles or any of that. Because trying to learn a language through translations of it is SUICIDE. You get stuck in your head thinking, "He just said "ashi" which means "leg", right?" takes twice as long to respond for one thing since your translating and it doesn't work either. "Watashi" doesn's mean "Me" it means Watashi. It is easier and logical to think this way. When we speak English (or whatever any one person's native language is) you aren't translating in your head. You hear "Me" as "Me" not another word in another language for referring to oneself. Don't think about what things are in English when learning Japanese. It's not natural and it takes twice as long.
Learning through books and classrooms is just as unnatural to me as well. One, because all they do is make you think in the translation mentallity which gets you stuck in your head. Two, I never learned my mother language in a classroom, you learn a language through hearing it spoken in context not through a teacher pointing to random words on a black board and making the class say them.
So yeah, all that to say don't get discouraged. You can learn something without needing to go out and buy a gazillion books on it. It's more natural that way anyhow.

 

[Mike Cash]

You seem to have some sort of mistaken idea that learning through the use of textbooks unavoidably involves learning to produce speech by some sort of piece-by-piece direct translation method.

 

[Elizabeth]

Good idea. However, it is very difficult to find someone who is fluent in both japanese and english.

There are actually several of us fluent or advanced in both that come here regularly but without listening to how we accomplished what we have, that knowledge is never going to be possible to take advantage of.

 

[GoldCoinLover]

There are actually several of us fluent or advanced in both that come here regularly but without listening to how we accomplished what we have, that knowledge is never going to be possible to take advantage of.

What do you mean?

 

[GoldCoinLover]

If it makes you feel any better I really don't think you can learn Japanese from a book. You can memorize it, sure, but learn it not so much. I gave up on trying to use books or teaching programs or any kind of structured teaching system at all when it comes to learning Japanese or any other language. You learn much, much faster from just listening to the spoken language and looking at the writing in context.
I've been learning Japanese by ear and site now for several years and it really works. Instead of tripping up on techicalities instead I just think of what sounds right when I say it. I didn't learn the techical grammitical system for Japanese until this year! Although when I didn't know it vs. now not much has changed really because I never tripped over "oh, where should this word go?" or "what particle means 'am'???" I never thought, "I want to say 'I study at the library' in Japanese that means I have to say, 'Library' which is 'toshokan' then 'at' which is, uh, 'de', right? And then 'study' which is 'benkyou shimasu.'" That mindset is all wrong. I would simply say what sounded right. I wasn't thinking about word order, particles or any of that. Because trying to learn a language through translations of it is SUICIDE. You get stuck in your head thinking, "He just said "ashi" which means "leg", right?" takes twice as long to respond for one thing since your translating and it doesn't work either. "Watashi" doesn's mean "Me" it means Watashi. It is easier and logical to think this way. When we speak English (or whatever any one person's native language is) you aren't translating in your head. You hear "Me" as "Me" not another word in another language for referring to oneself. Don't think about what things are in English when learning Japanese. It's not natural and it takes twice as long.
Learning through books and classrooms is just as unnatural to me as well. One, because all they do is make you think in the translation mentallity which gets you stuck in your head. Two, I never learned my mother language in a classroom, you learn a language through hearing it spoken in context not through a teacher pointing to random words on a black board and making the class say them.
So yeah, all that to say don't get discouraged. You can learn something without needing to go out and buy a gazillion books on it. It's more natural that way anyhow.

May I please study at a college? Japanese/

 

[GoldCoinLover]

You seem to have some sort of mistaken idea that learning through the use of textbooks unavoidably involves learning to produce speech by some sort of piece-by-piece direct translation method.

Sorry, I'm confused. What is your point?

 

[Mike Cash]

That wasn't directed at you, Kevin. It was a reply to the post above it. I should have made that more clear in my post.

 

[Elizabeth]

You learn much, much faster from just listening to the spoken language and looking at the writing in context.
I've been learning Japanese by ear and site now for several years and it really works. Instead of tripping up on techicalities instead I just think of what sounds right when I say it. I didn't learn the techical grammitical system for Japanese until this year!

Of course anyone below a certain age (12-13, I don't know the precise cut off points) who is immersed in a second language for long enough with a brain still plastic and developing enough to be able to pick it up in the same way they did their mother tongue will learn it to a native or near native level. The rest of us generally need greater outside support. Which is why textbooks help millions of people. Still your point about transitioning over to thinking in the other language is a good one. Japanese who are very, very, very slow in English conversation are still translating every input and answer back into Japanese, just as their grammar books had always been patterened for them to respond.

 

[Hyde_is_my_anti-drug]

I'm 16 and learning through ear is still working just fine for me.

You seem to have some sort of mistaken idea that learning through the use of textbooks unavoidably involves learning to produce speech by some sort of piece-by-piece direct translation method.

From my experience of trying to learn Spanish and French through textbooks that is exactly what happens. I know people who took 4 years of a language in highschool but can't speak a lick. Why? Because textbooks frankly, for most people, don't stick. Unless your the next Hermione Granger.

May I please study at a college? Japanese/

You can do whatever you please. I was just stating my experience with learning languages.

Oh, something that helps, is getting lots and lots of Japanese movies (rent them if you must and get DVDs so you can turn off the subs). Watch them without subtitles or looking up the plot on the net. It's a great and easy way to hear Japanese in context.

 

[Elizabeth]

I'm 16 and learning through ear is still working just fine for me.

Of course. My only point was that sounds like you were young enough when you started to absorb it in the way a native does. No one, not even textbook companies, are claiming book learning alone is going to give you conversation ability and make anyone fluent. It's one part of a larger picture and array of methods which is one reason even most people studying abroad still rely on them for basic grammar explanations and vocabulary.

 

[Hyde_is_my_anti-drug]

I still dunno about that. There's a female blogger who didn't learn Japanese 'til she was well over 20 and she learned the same way I did. And one of my Acting Teachers learned Spanish the same way when he was like 30-something.

 

[Elizabeth]

I'm sure there are exceptions, just as there are people who can play music by ear without ever learning to read it or who don't need to start with scales and exercises. But for the vast majority of cases listening and reading natural text alone isn't going to do it. Anyway, everyone has their own way of learning as long as the result works for them, who is to say what is right or wrong, natural or unnatural ?

 

[Hyde_is_my_anti-drug]

I guess you missed the part where I said "unnatural to me". I'm sure there are the Hermione Grangers amonst us who can learn a language that way. But you don't get slang etc from textbooks. For example: in a Japanese textbook I have it says "chan" is to be only used when referring to a young girl. Now as everyone here should know that's not really the case. Techically the book is correct however the term is no longer used in such a narrow way in Japan. If you learn a language through textbooks you will be techically correct but when speaking to natives will probably run into many roadblocks and get confussed.

 

[Elizabeth]

I guess you missed the part where I said "unnatural to me". I'm sure there are the Hermione Grangers amonst us who can learn a language that way. But you don't get slang etc from textbooks. For example: in a Japanese textbook I have it says "chan" is to be only used when referring to a young girl. Now as everyone here should know that's not really the case. Techically the book is correct however the term is no longer used in such a narrow way in Japan. If you learn a language through textbooks you will be techically correct but when speaking to natives will probably run into many roadblocks and get confussed.

You won't learn to speak period from a textbook alone, never mind slang, there is a world of difference between the complexity of real speech and book presentations. All I'm saying is that it's a good starting point to organize your mind around the basic structure of the language, pick up some useful phrases, and a useful corollary reference for more advanced students.

 

[Mike Cash]

While working as an English teacher in the past, I had occasion to meet quite a few people who expounded the virtues of the method that way-too-long-to-be-practical-screen-name is defending here. Without exception, they had extraordinary fluency.....and deplorable proficiency. They mistakenly assumed that because they were able to produce speech quickly and relatively effortlessly, as with their native language, that they were producing speech which was accurate and intelligible.

They tended to overlook a few points:

1. People are horrid judges of their own proficiency and, at least in the case of Japanese, tend to greatly overestimate their abilities.

2. Fluency does not equal proficiency, nor does it guarantee accurate or even reliably intelligible speech. Often the listener's brain has to work overtime trying to "adjust" the multitudinous errors in an attempt to figure out what the person is trying to say.

It is practically impossible to try to teach these people to break their numerous bad habits because they're incredibly overconfident in their abilities and can't see either how they sound or how their errors lead to miscommunications and/or extra work for their listeners.

 

[Hyde_is_my_anti-drug]

People like that don't really listen then. If you use your ears you can hear when you're off base on a great many things like diction etc. I don't assume I'm perfect and I'm constantly correcting the way I say things in both English and Japanese. Like for the longest time I said "Simasen" instead of "Sumimasen." I didn't realize I was saying it wrong 'til I watched an Anime were a character said it really, really slowly for comitic effect. Used to say, "Mushimushi" too instead of "Moshimoshi" but eventually I heard the difference and fixed it. It's no different then a baby saying "dump twuck" instead of "dump truck" in time they either fix it themselves or someone points it out. You say what you hear, or what you THINK you hear. That's how everyone learns. Like I recently learned that orange is said with an "ah" not a hard "or" same for words like "horror."
And say what you will about my screenname. I luffles it so nyah.

 

[Elizabeth]

People like that don't really listen then. If you use your ears you can hear when you're off base on a great many things like diction etc. I don't assume I'm perfect and I'm constantly correcting the way I say things in both English and Japanese. Like for the longest time I said "Simasen" instead of "Sumimasen." I didn't realize I was saying it wrong 'til I watched an Anime were a character said it really, really slowly for comitic effect. Used to say, "Mushimushi" too instead of "Moshimoshi" but eventually I heard the difference and fixed it. It's no different then a baby saying "dump twuck" instead of "dump truck" in time they either fix it themselves or someone points it out. You say what you hear, or what you THINK you hear. That's how everyone learns. Like I recently learned that orange is said with an "ah" not a hard "or" same for words like "horror."
And say what you will about my screenname. I luffles it so nyah.

Well, it's a good idea for anyone to correct their pronunciation. It's a lot tougher knowing when to add auxillary verbs like "kuru" or "iku" when "tsukuridasu" is better than just "tsukuru" (or any compound verb) the "kara/ni" distinction and a million other knotty grammar points books can usually point out much more efficiently than even native speakers, if you haven't been fully immersed at a young enough age to achieve near native level proficiency yourself.

 

[Kinsao]

I think the best way to learn is by a combination of the methods. That way you get the good things from all.

The best thing is when you can, as Hyde was saying earlier, actually think in the language rather than having to mentally translate everything. Of course, this takes time.

If you are immersed in the language and hear it spoken around you quite a great deal, this will come to you much quicker than if you are learning from textbooks and class but without hearing the spoken language often.

For the vast majority of people (IMO), if they actually go to a country and live there, they will incline to pick up the spoken language by Hyde's method, and pick it up quickly, for the necessity of survival and functioning.

This is a good thing for fluency. But textbook grammer is essential too, because although you do pick up the grammer points from the spoken language, at some time you might want to say a complicated sentence and not be quite sure... which tense... how does that verb go? and how do I say "misanthropist"? etc. etc... you get my point... at higher level you need to learn more from books because naturally you want to expand your vocab and complexity in a way you wouldn't necessarily use in everyday speech.

Oh, and movies/radio/TV, it's good to listen to as much as possible of the language, however your learning method.

It sounds like GoldCoin doesn't get the chance to learn using Hyde's method, since he doesn't know enough Japanese speakers. If he went to Japan, I'm sure his learning would speed up.

EDIT: I say "orange" with an "o" sound as in "horror". ☝ Maybe it's a British thing? :?

 

[DoctorP]

Like for the longest time I said "Simasen" instead of "Sumimasen." I didn't realize I was saying it wrong 'til I watched an Anime were a character said it really, really slowly for comitic effect. Used to say, "Mushimushi" too instead of "Moshimoshi" but eventually I heard the difference and fixed it. Like I recently learned that orange is said with an "ah" not a hard "or" same for words like "horror."

A basic textbook will explain to you exactly how to say these things...very easy to get them right the first time you try them if you follow the steps.

 

[Duo]

the question is though... is it as cool as learning it from an anime character..... i think not

 

[Hyde_is_my_anti-drug]

A basic textbook will explain to you exactly how to say these things...very easy to get them right the first time you try them if you follow the steps.

Sure, you could learn it from a textbook but somehow, to me, learning it without a book seems more...human? I'm not sure exactly what word I'm looking for but I think you get my point.
And yeah, eventually it would be a good idea to get at least a grammer book...or not. Look at me, never touched a grammer book of English OR Japanese in my life--waaaaiiiit, then again it probably would be a good idea for no other reason then what I just said. Me have no good grammer. Me talk pretty one day.

 

[Elizabeth]

A basic textbook will explain to you exactly how to say these things...very easy to get them right the first time you try them if you follow the steps.

I don't see the point in purposefully avoiding any kind of structure either.
Even basic phrases and survival sentences for people living there are going to take much longer to figure out what they mean and how to use them without a class or even picking up a phrasebook. Which leaves out the whole question of reading and writing that is also absolutely crucial to fast understanding of complex material especially for homonyms and formal speech that may have many possible meanings.