Unnatural Japanese

I donno if this belongs here or whatever. 関係ない。。。

Anyway, my grammar is pretty good. Writing is by far (other then reading) my biggest strength. I know what makes sense and why.

However, often when I show my writing to Japanese people, they will understand what I'm saying but explain 'ちょっとおかしいねえ。。' or something.

How does one go about learning what sounds 'natural' and what doesn't? I know reading helps, which I spend a lot of time doing. But I still end up writing stuff that sounds weird. Understandable, but not natural.

People aren't usually that bothered, but I want my Japanese writing to sound normal. Not like it was written by a foreigner.

Suggestions?

If you're already reading a lot the only thing I can think of would be to read aloud (hearing and seeing should help memory) and even writing what you're reading while saying it out loud as you write it (should further reinforce memory). If you're already doing that, I guess just keep doing it and it should get better.

B1ueM4oM4o said:

I want my Japanese writing to sound normal. Not like it was written by a foreigner.
Suggestions?

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Wanting to sound "normal" is a tough task. When people say that it's "okashii", normally you used the wrong words or you used stiff and/or old fashioned words/phrases. There are basically 2 ways to sound more "natural" and "normal", the quick way and the slow way.

Quick way: Learn short common expressions as-is. e.g. Try memorizing "ringo ga tabetai na" instead of "ringo wo tabetai" (although both are correct but the latter is used more often in writing).

Learn COMMON conjunctions (e.g. to itte) and collocation (e.g. yori ni yotte)

Try breaking down sentences into smaller fragments. Try to avoid long relative clauses. Making a ultra long sentence won't necessarily be a way of demonstrating your masterful Japanese proficiency. More often than not it would just confuse the listener.

Mimic how natives speak, and note the word order of their sentences. e.g. casually, people usually say "abunai janai? kore.." instead of "watashi wa kore wa abunai to omoimasu".

Understand the culture in greater depths. e.g. direct vs. indirect passive voice, or when to use which specific reading (like momiji vs kouyou or furusato vs kokyou)





Slow way: Learn commonly known idioms. e.g. neko wo kaburu, hone wo oru etc.

Learn compound verbs. Last time I asked there are at least 1000 words that you should know.

Learn onomatopoeia. It's hard and not particularly effective to use flashcards for this, unless you have also written down sample sentences on them. The problem with learning this is that many giongo and gitaigo can only be used in specific situations. giongo and gitaigo would make your speech more lively, but won't necessarily make it more "natural" though.

Learn phrases/words (through tv etc) that you otherwise wouldn't be able to learn if you live in a foreign country, but nevertheless can be important. e.g. "ホッチキスでとめる" (to staple something) "水を流す"(to flush the toilet) "ボタンを留める" (to fasten your buttons)

Read more.



The best way though, is to find the books and resources that will give you info on these finer details. Many language books nowaday are rehashes of one another. Many books go into how wa is different from ga, or give very long explanations on how to differentiate tara, ba, to, nara etc. Yet, so few books actually provide tips on how to fine tune your Japanese. Common phrases like " ためになる" "気持ち短めに" "電話に出る" "買って出る" " 会社のつけにする" are normally not found in your standard text, and can only be found in less mainstream teach-yourself books, so you will have to dig deep in order to find these treasures.

Good luck!

nhk9 said:

Wanting to sound "normal" is a tough task. When people say that it's "okashii", normally you used the wrong words or you used stiff and/or old fashioned words/phrases.

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Really ? When it is used on me it is more alarming than unnaturally sounding like a textbook. Normally it means things like there are outright grammatical errors, seriously awkward expressions and/or the meaning is different than I had intended.

Without knowing more about the exact problem, all I can say is to second Glenn's recommendation of listening/watching as much as possible (Radio, videos, tv whatever you can). Everyone has a preferred learning style, but at least I rarely forget a phrase after hearing it whereas reading I can zone out almost immediately.

Avoid direct translation of English sentences into Japanese sentences. Easier said than done, though. In reality, nothing is going to help except massive exposure to Japanese.

Of course, without a sample of what the OP's Japanese is like it is a bit hard to make accurate recommendations, though. Just exactly what is meant by おかしい is the sticking point, as Elizabeth said. Also, when I've been told おかしい it's also been because I've said something that just doesn't make sense to Japanese people, or is something that they just wouldn't say (like 直訳 and whatnot).

Bring what you wrote here.

B1ueM4oM4o said:

However, often when I show my writing to Japanese people, they will understand what I'm saying but explain 'ちょっとおかしいねえ。。' or something.

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You shouldn't be bothered too much, I like "chotto okashii" Japanese, cause it makes you sound creative. If everyone spoke like the Japanese, that would be boring!
Quoted from Yoko TAWADA, "Slipped, Fell, and I lost my heel":

Now and then I accidentally overhear the conversations of Japanese travelers at a train station, for example, and there are times when their manner of speaking sounds terribly artificial to me. I don't quite know how to adequately express this feeling, but it sounds just like an English class where students are practicing conversation with memorized dialogue. I wonder if everyone lives out their lives talking in such a manner. Perhaps the words 'natural' and 'unnatural', 'skillful' and 'awkward' are discriminatory terms. There are no grounds for saying one kind of Japanese is natural and beautiful, and anything else is no good. Isn't it all right for Japanese to be spoken and written in a completely different style? Especially if it more nearly approaches the experience of the people using it in their lives, including foreigners living in Japan or Japanese living overseas. At any rate, I felt that it was impossible to write the things I wanted to in ordinary Japanese. You could say that it was as a result of this feeling that a novel without heels was born.
http://happano.org/pages/subette_koronde.html#Anchor-space-49575

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I totally agree.

It's not related to Japanese, but I understand where you're coming from. I had the same problem with German, which I learned for many years in school. So when I started going to college in Germany a few years ago, I was very fluent. Even my accent was pretty damn good. But when I didn't know how to say something I'd just think in English and translate.

But I did get better over time, imitating common phrases, common mispronounciations, and even common grammatical mistakes! Now, after four years of living here, I'm still not perfect, but good enough to fool some Germans into thinking I'm a native speaker.

If you're in Japan, great. Just keep absorbing the language. If not, keep exposing yourself to colloquial Japanese. We're lucky in that there's PLENTY of Japanese floating around the internet, bookstores, movies, etc. So just keep reading and listening and imitating.

I think the best way to sound 'Normal' in Japanese is not only to write a lot or to read a lot, but to SPEAK !!!
Speaking in Japanese is really important and is for me the most important i think,because it's really the only way to learn the language correctly (of course i know grammar also, that's the basic, you cannot understand anything of a language if you don't have the grammar) i think the best way is to find (if you don't already have) a japanese friend, or japanese friendS so you could train to talk with them and then you will see by yourself that most of the time they use other form then you would use, and it's because you (like the most of us i think) use and talk the language like we learned it on paper, on screen, in books or on video's, softwares and so on, but nothing is really the same then a real talk in japanese with japanese people and i think that with several discussions( even if they are short or repetitive) you will learn more quickly and understand more quickly then with reading the grammar and vocabulary style all day long, because in japanese language, who knows better then Japanese people themselves? ^^

がんばってね！

nhk9 said:

Common phrases like " ためになる" "気持ち短めに" "電話に出る" " 買って出る" " 会社のつけにする" are normally not found in your standard text, and can only be found in less mainstream teach-yourself books, so you will have to dig deep in order to find these treasures.

Good luck!

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Mind elaborating on what these phrases mean and showing common usage examples? The only one I know is 電話に出る and I hadn't heard that one until a couple days ago (been taking a two week intensive class along with a homestay family, quite useful stuff, though exhausting).

電話に出る

田中さんはただ今他の電話に出ておりますが
tanakasanwa tadaima hokanodenwani deteorimasuga,
Polite: (speaking to a customer) Mr Tanaka is on the phone right now, but...

電話に出たの？
denwani detano?
Did you answer the phone

denwa ni deru = to answer/ talk on the phone

Charles Barkley said:

Mind elaborating on what these phrases mean and showing common usage examples? The only one I know is 電話に出る and I hadnt heard that one until a couple days ago (been taking a two week intensive class along with a homestay family, quite useful stuff, though exhausting).

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ためになる＝beneficial, adventageous, good use to

日本語をやっておくと、ためになりますよ。。 It might be to your advantage to study Japanese.


気持ち短め（みじかめ）に I don't think is common at all (at least I've never heard it) but if it is anything it can't be other than having a "rather short temper," eh ? :?


買って出る＝To step forward, volunteer, take on a challange

パーテイの後、片付けを買って出ました(進み出した)。 I volunteered to clean up after the party.


会社のつけにする＝to write off as a business expense, to charge the company

食事代は、会社のつけにして支払った。I paid for the meal out of company funds.

I'm not completely confident on the naturalness of this example sentence, but at least you get the idea.

Thanks for so many replies everyone. Kind of how I expected them (keep studying and listening, speaking etc.)

Elizabeth said:

気持ち短め（みじかめ）に I don't think is common at all (at least I've never heard it) but if it is anything it can't be other than having a "rather short temper," eh ?

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I'm not sure 100% without any context, but I assume it is the same as 心持短めに slightly shorter (than usual, average, etc.)
Other examples you've written are excellent.

Those are very good examples Elizabeth. I was trying to point out "髪を気持ち短めに切る"

気持ち
(5)（副詞的に用いて）ほんの少し。ちょっと。心持ち。
「―、右に寄って下さい」

This usage is not something that you'd find in your normal textbook, but it seems to me that many natives know the meaning of this word in this context

I donno if this belongs here or whatever. 関係ない。。。

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関係ない is
correct, but we don't use it that way. It should be どうでもいい when you want it to sound native. Chinese might say 没関係 there, though.

Depending on whether you are writing formally or informally, you should use common or popular words.

Wakan is a good tool. When you read your written sentence aloud, check nouns etc on Wakan. It says 'pop' next to some entries, which is obviously more casual. I haven't checked up why, but most words I get seem to be more popular when it is a katakana word. It seems like casually japanese rather to use katakana than encorporating kanji.
A note for this is that 'popular' words are more natural, as they are used a lot.

Can somebody please tell me if I'm incorrect here, I would like to know when I am wrong.

Cheers, Joe