Am I wasting my time at 48 years old?

[PaulK]

Hi Everyone,

I am sorry to post such a negative and depressing message, but I am really down. I have posted questions on this forum before. From my humble experience doing so, I found there were a few kind souls who could, or tried to, emphasize with my language learning challenges; while on the other hand, there were those who obviously are very proficient (something which I don't begrudge them-good for them I say), but who could not understand why I was not able to comprehend a relatively simple reading passage.

I came to Japan in 1991 at the age of 30 for the JET Program. I am lived in Japan on and off for about 7 years. For the past 18 years I have studied 9mostly on my own) on and off, as well as audit an introductory course briefly while in grad school in 1998, and studied in some community classes at the local international center here in town. I have puchased over the years a plethora of books, and feel that I have made a genuine concerted effort to learn the language. A former tutor gave me an unofficial JLPT practice test and I passed level 3 (that was in 2001). Foreign friends usually recommend that I study with my Japanese wife; however, I have found it difficult. She cannot, through no fault of her own, provide me comprehensive explanations for grammatical problems I encounter. I usually get frustrated when she speaks at a normal speed, and end up just giving up. I really like her family but find I can add my 2 cents worth into daily conversation to be polite, but then am absolutely clueless to what they say in response.

I really need help.

Paul

[JackIsLost]

ahhh, i sometimes get frustrated too when i can't understand a quick pace conversation that my girlfriend is having with her friends. i've taken a japanese class since then, and i can pick up the gist of what they say by expression and tid bits.

i think your main problem is that recognizing vocabulary words that is spoken. from what i read you have books piled mile high, but books don't teach your brain how to pick up on a normal sentence. have your wife start out easy on you. "what time is it" "time to eat breakfast" "wake up" then mix it up, and build your ears to the language. your text books and tests really don't help your ears too much. hope i made sense!

[yuriyuri]

I think one of the first questions to you would be; Do you enjoy the ways in which you have been trying to learn the Japanese language?
In the end, if you can enjoy something you will always learn more/faster from it.

The second question would be, how long do you study each day? week? month?
If your answer is 1 hour a day, or 1 hour every 2 days or something like that, then your learning is going to be extremely slow.

I can only suggest things based on the way that I'm learning, so the list below is basically what I do every single day for 4 - 10 hours.

- Make sure you have a means to move things from your short term memory into your long term memory
You can use flash cards to do this, but making your own flash cards and keeping track of when to next look at each one is time consuming and boring.
So I would recommend downloading a program called Anki from here: Anki - friendly, intelligent flashcards
If you want to know more about it, just click through the intro videos (He uses Japanese language as the examples in his videos anyway)
If you use anki, try to make sure you go through the cards every single day, it's no big deal if you miss a day here and there though.

- Make sure you know how to read and write at least the kana (Obviously)

- I personally used James Heisigs "Remembering the kanji" to learn how to write kanji.
(It will not teach you how to read the kanji)
For some reason that I don't really understand this book is quite a controversial subject, so I will just leave it at that and you can see what you think of it.

- Find some Japanese media/literature you can enjoy, personally I like to watch a a lot of movies and dramas.
If you find a drama you really enjoy you can even probably find the script for it here: http://www.dramanote.com/
Dramas are great things to watch, because they will always be using natural, modern, every day Japanese (Of course there are exceptions, like if you happened to be watching a drama set in the distant past but you get the idea)

- If you feel as though you need some less technical/more lucid explanations of grammar then Tae Kim's grammar resource is great for this.
Tae Kim's Japanese guide to Japanese grammar

- Sign up to smart.fm - The place you go to learn. and do some of the Japanese vocab lists on there.
(There is a plugin for anki which will automatically download a smart.fm list to a new anki deck)

- Make sure you listen to as much full speed, natural Japanese as you can.
You may not be able to understand it all now, but you will soon get used to the sounds etc. and things will seem to become slower.

- Find some Japanese music you like, music is great because you can put it on an mp3 player and listen to it on the go.
You can also look up the lyrics and even learn some vocab from it.

- Record yourself saying correct sentences in Japanese and identify the weak points in your pronounciation.
Shadowing has also helped me a lot with my pronounciation so far.

- Use Lang-8 - Multi-lingual language learning and language exchange to write journal entries which will be corrected by native Japanese speakers. (Of course it goes without saying that you should be polite and correct others English too)
If you do this, pay very careful attention to any grammar corrections.
For some reason grammar seems to slip under the net a bit sometimes and people fail to pay attention to it.

- If your really struggling to understand something, just leave it and move onto something else, you'll come back to it at a later date and wonder why it caused such a problem for you.

- If you simply can't figure something out, post a questions here or on any other Japanese language forum.
Someone will be willing to help you out.

That's all of the advice that I can personally offer you.
I've never been to any classes or anything so I can't talk about them.
Other than that just be patient, have fun with the language, and eventually you will see yourself improving

[PaulK]

Dear yuriyuri & JackIsLost,

Thank you so much for your kind and thoughtful responses. I really appreciate your understanding, encouragement, and advice.

Thak You Vey Much,

Paull

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by PaulK

Hi Everyone,

I am sorry to post such a negative and depressing message, but I am really down. I have posted questions on this forum before. From my humble experience doing so, I found there were a few kind souls who could, or tried to, emphasize with my language learning challenges; while on the other hand, there were those who obviously are very proficient (something which I don't begrudge them-good for them I say), but who could not understand why I was not able to comprehend a relatively simple reading passage.

I came to Japan in 1991 at the age of 30 for the JET Program. I am lived in Japan on and off for about 7 years. For the past 18 years I have studied 9mostly on my own) on and off, as well as audit an introductory course briefly while in grad school in 1998, and studied in some community classes at the local international center here in town. I have puchased over the years a plethora of books, and feel that I have made a genuine concerted effort to learn the language. A former tutor gave me an unofficial JLPT practice test and I passed level 3 (that was in 2001). Foreign friends usually recommend that I study with my Japanese wife; however, I have found it difficult. She cannot, through no fault of her own, provide me comprehensive explanations for grammatical problems I encounter. I usually get frustrated when she speaks at a normal speed, and end up just giving up. I really like her family but find I can add my 2 cents worth into daily conversation to be polite, but then am absolutely clueless to what they say in response.

I really need help.

Paul

I take it you don't speak Japanese at work. So, basically, you spend your entire life in Japan speaking English? What, did you think you'd magically start speaking?

Buddy, you have to get out and speak Japanese with people! There's no possible way you could have been doing this for 7-18 years and not be able to hold conversations at normal speed. No. Possible. Way.

[MMM]

Every day that goes by it is going to get harder. Is 48 too late? You know yourself better than I do, but I would look into any community centers around where you live. Some have Japanese classes or tutoring. It is practically impossible to teach yourself Japanese, no matter how many books you try. Ultimately, one-on-one with a teacher or tutor is the best, but even a classroom situation is better than a book or computer program, in my opinion.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by MMM

Every day that goes by it is going to get harder. Is 48 too late? You know yourself better than I do, but I would look into any community centers around where you live. Some have Japanese classes or tutoring. It is practically impossible to teach yourself Japanese, no matter how many books you try. Ultimately, one-on-one with a teacher or tutor is the best, but even a classroom situation is better than a book or computer program, in my opinion.

What I don't get is OP has been living in Japan for 7 years. He has to be doing something seriously wrong (like avoiding Japanese) not to be able to speak it well by now. Either that or his left temporal lobe is damaged.

[bELyVIS]

I'm 45 and still learning. Japanese will be my 4th language and sometimes I wonder if I still have room in my brain to fit in more.
Just have your wife speak only Japanese to you. If you have to learn something, you will. Gambatte.

[PaulK]

Dear KyleGoetz,


Obviosuly you are very proficient in the language and have a lot of advice for those who want to learn. Why waste your time with me. Help others. Like I wrote, I appreciated the kind, non-judgmental responses of the first two members who replied to my post, you must have better things to do with your time.

Just for your information. I have not lived in Japan for 7 years consecutively. The last 5 were in the Middle East. But, I suppose you're also a fluent Arab speaker, so I have absolutely no excuses for not being fluent in Arabic and Japanese.

I am not working. Cannot find a job here in my humble corner of rural Japan. I guess that is another defect you could highlight and jump on me about.

I am sure you're a great person and obviosuy very intelligent. What I would not give to able to speak Japanese like you, but the fact of the matter is, I can't.


My Best to You,

Paul

[seiki]

Originally Posted by PaulK

Dear KyleGoetz,


Obviosuly you are very proficient in the language and have a lot of advice for those who want to learn. Why waste your time with me. Help others. Like I wrote, I appreciated the kind, non-judgmental responses of the first two members who replied to my post, you must have better things to do with your time.

Just for your information. I have not lived in Japan for 7 years consecutively. The last 5 were in the Middle East. But, I suppose you're also a fluent Arab speaker, so I have absolutely no excuses for not being fluent in Arabic and Japanese.

I am not working. Cannot find a job here in my humble corner of rural Japan. I guess that is another defect you could highlight and jump on me about.

I am sure you're a great person and obviosuy very intelligent. What I would not give to able to speak Japanese like you, but the fact of the matter is, I can't.


My Best to You,

Paul

I understand what you mean some people just like to act like a three year old. Just try to have more conversations it is easy to learn how to write and read a forign language but you need to connect your ears to the words in your brain.