the problem with learning japanese
 

let me be clear. there are multiple aspects to this subject, but i am going to focus on just one.

i'm going to start with a story.

wen moving to my new flat in university i met my new flat mates, who had already been acquainted with each other for several weeks. one of the several foreign students, from spain, came to manchester to learn english. as a fellow language student i was happy to engage with him about various aspects of language, for instance what sounds natural, unnatural or down right ungrammatical in english. i could see how, although his current proficiency was quite good and more than adequate to see him through multiple common scenarios, his lack of refinement was frustrating as he wanted to take his accuracy to the next level.

so, despite the fear of looking like an elitist perfectionist, i tried to correct him whenever he made even small errors. it occured to me however, that my other flatmates never did this. aslong as it was not completely wrong they would ignore all the minor floors. my flatmate thinks he hasnt made a mistake and the mistake is reinforced.

my teacher also told me that when he went to japan and spoke japanese poorly, the locals would tell him, in fact, that his japanese was actually quite good. i feel that this was a mixture of the kind nature of the japanese and avoiding causing the foreigner to lose face from his liguistical errors.

it is a proven fact that outsiders are treated more kindly and as a result language slip ups are ignored.

They tell you you're good because they don't expect you to go out of your way and learn a language thats completely different to your own, that you'll only be able to use in that one tiny part of the world. The fact that you can make the effort to squeeze out a "korr nee chee war" often enough to knock some locals in Japan off their feet.

Dude, you're in Manchester, one of the most ethnically diverse cities in England AND you're at Uni which means there's bound to be some exchange students. Go down to your international hub and ask the person in charge to give your details to any Japanese student willing to language exchange. Wait for them to contact you and when they do, spend lots of time with them, speak only in Japanese where possible TELL them to correct your mistakes otherwise they won't due to politeness.

Saying that though, none of the exchange students at my Uni have ever said "nihongo jiyouzu" to me lol

Hi.
I'm a native-Japanese speaker who has been studying English for over 30 years.
I can speak English as a second language to some extent, and I can communicate with non-native English speaking people to some extent.
Yet if you are a native-English speaker, you know that I'm not a native-English speaker, because my English sentences are different from natives' English.

I think there are several levels of a language. For example;
Level one; unable to communicate, always
Level two; able to communicate, sometimes,
Level three; able to communicate, 75%,
Level four; able to communicate more than 90%, though unnatural as a native tongue
Level five;able to communicate always, almost natural
Level six; able to communicate perfectly, and identical to native-speakers

As a learner, one should have the aim to what level he should go.
AND
As a teacher, one would think what level he should request the learner to obtain.
They doesn't match from time to time, which is the cause of your trouble, right?

It depends on the situations.

If I want to take a comfortable and cheerful time with a foreign people, the Level three might be enough. My aim is not to correct his grammar, or not to improve his Japanese, but have fun with him, talking with him. In such cases, if he speaks Japanese with the level three, I would say "nihongo ga o jyouzu desune!"

If you want to improve Japanese to the level six, you should say to us about it. Then we will help you. But being-strict might be very tough thing to both of us.

////////////////////////////
And now, suppose I would request you the proofreading of my English sentences here, what will you do?

If I say that I want to become the level six, then you have to correct most of my English, don't you?

Besides, if I say that I only want to become the level three, then you just correct a few sentences, and you would say that my English is good,
wouldn't you?

I don't think it is the nature of Japanese people, but common to all human beings.

This is true anywhere in the world. About the only person I correct on English is my mom (former English teacher) and my wife (in a teasing manner, as she's not from the US—and only very rarely).

It would ruin a conversation to correct someone's English whenever they made a mistake.

Parents don't really correct their two-year olds' grammar, either, and the kids get along just fine within another two years before school.

School is for getting great grammar. The real world is for improving your flow.

interesting points but dont get me wrong. this is not a completely limiting factor and i constantly hassle my friends already for my accuracy.

im just putting it out there that in certain situations ppl wont correct u because they think it cud b rude wen u r trying so hard and u dnt know u sed anything wrong.

its different wen ur wrong, u mimic other ppls patterns naturally but wen ur older u need to be conscience of wots wrong and wots right.

as i sed though, this is just one aspect to language acquisition

I agree, this is a general phenomena everywhere you go! It shows that even the Western people still have enough civility and (sense of) shame left.

I think, there are no problems on learning Japanese, but what I can say is that it's not that easy to learn, it takes extra effort. :) I've been studying and practicing this language for almost 6 months. And, I am learning a little by little. :) It's good to learn other languages because it could help me interact with foreigners. :)

I really didn't like doing that, but I hope it proves a point.

"PHENOMENON" IS SINGULAR; "PHENOMENA" IS PLURAL!!1!


:)

I'm having a hard time with particles.
I thought about getting a book to help me,Oxford University Press: All About Particles: Naoko Chino, but I don't know much about the book other than it's published by Kodansha Int'l. I've heard they publish good books.

Actually in Italy we tend to speak bad Italian ourselves when we speak to a foreigner. If their Italian is very bad we tend to lower to their level of errors because we think they understand better.

As a non native living abroad let me tell you that I appreciate if my wife corrects me (native speaker) when I make big errors. But had she corrected me every mistake I did, I would have stopped talking to her a long time ago. Sorry, but it gets old after a while.
I used to exchange email with penpals in Japan and we both corrected every single mistake in every email...the exchange didn't last long, because the emails were getting heavy and tiring.
Now they let my errors slip and I let theirs slip too, correcting only the major ones and communication is much more enjoyable. I agree that school is for perfecting grammar....

Yeah, I have a good friend who I just kind of help with her English. If she ever doesn't understand something (maybe a grammar point, new vocabulary, wording, etc.), she feels comfortable enough to ask me to help her out.

Normally when helping her, I treat the situation more formally, and then maybe give some more common alternatives. However, my teaching her actual English structure is really only limited to reading/writing comprehension. When we speak to each other, I'll surely help her out if she either says something wrong, mispronounces a word, or the like, but for the most part I don't nitpick on every time she makes a small mistake as long as the message she is trying to convey is accurate and effective. This would just discourage her. The point of our talking is to get her used to normal English conversation speed/flow.

Perfect Reply^^ :)

This is a cool topic. I'll try to share some of my feelings here.

On correcting/being corrected constantly:
There are particular ways of going about this. Sometimes you can ruin a conversation by being too blunt or by having bad timing. I think it's key to use what I think is referred to as something like the "mother & child" relationship. Basically you kind of repeat what they said but in the correct way. This, of course requires a certain level of ability on their part. As switching "you's" with "I's" would be important. Even still though, overdoing that can be a problem so unless explicitly asked to do so I think it's wise to pick and choose.

Relating to the "mother & child" relationship, the native speaker obviously has experience with this as their "mother" (or equivalent) did so for them. However, a person who is learning the language as their second+ language will probably make mistakes that do not resemble mistakes of a native learner. So a lot of the mistakes can be difficult to explain. For example, in English we say "go to bed, go to the mall, go to work, and go shopping". We know that "just because". When a person says "go to shopping" we have to explain to them why you need a "to". For someone who is really into their language's grammar, they'll be able to explain that immediately. For someone who doesn't think about grammar a lot it might not be obvious. Furthermore, it might be hard for the learner to grasp the concept as their language's equivalent phrase is clearly "go to shopping". Also there are dialects that can make this issue even harder-- I guess in England you guys say "go to hospital". In California everyone says "go to the hospital"... and taking away the "the" would be felt as incorrect. In other words, the learner may have had input from different dialects, which may or may not have different grammar from your own.

As for my personal experience, I've found that my version of "interlanguage" is great. You, as a learner of Japanese will try your best to use Japanese grammatical patterns and as many Japanese words as you know. You fill in the blanks with English. Your partner will do the opposite, in the same fashion. You can create that "mother & child" relationship I was talking about. It worked great for me and has worked well for other people. It requires willing participants who take it seriously. People listening in on your conversations will have NO idea what you are talking about, so it's a language that has very limited usage, but I believe it is the bridge from L1 to L2.

Referring to Japanese reluctance to interfere-- I know my wife doesn't like correcting my Japanese because she feels that what little mistakes/idiosyncrasies I have left are cute for whatever reason. We speak Japanese and pretty much only Japanese. This is to the extent that if I speak English in front of her or make a mistake in Japanese that is non-native like, she usually gets surprised because she suddenly remembers I am a foreigner!

At any rate, good luck in your learning.

Hello there dear, im really new here ive just signed in here and im desesperately looking for some alive kind japanese that could help me out with the language but for now id like to know how to write by Juanita (my name) in japanese because id like to start to use hiragana or so as signature aswell for my drawings in my DA site !

Could u help me out please >_<!? Its been almost a year that i cant find a single japanese at all over the net, really difficult! I have a crazy love for them >_< and i watch animes often thats why i believe id learn it quicker than the usual and anyway took me about 4 months to go to the supposed lvl 4 at english so i hope going to level 3 in japanese in 6 months at least so i can understand what the anime stories say, thats pretty much a good start for me >_<! but im confused bout kenji, hiragana etc >_<

could u tell me how i write by Jojos as signature in my artworks in hiragana or kenji Dx?? or both perhaps?

Please >_<

Cheers!

I don't understand why you need people to correct you.

With the technology available today you can correct yourself, you can easily google the sentence you want to say, the correct version of the sentence will appear and you will know how to say it.


For example if you google : "I go to the store yesterday", the result will probably show up as "I went to the store yesterday"....there you go, now you know how to say it correctly.

Same for Japanese.

If I want to know how to say something in Japanese, and I don't know how to say it. I will just google it up or go to random Japanese websites, 99% of the time I'll find what I want to say. I'll just mimic and copy.

Juanita = ホワニータ, assuming it is the Spanish name. I verified by checking how the name of a character (Juanita Solis) in a popular TV show is written in Japanese.

Your answer is right there dude. Instead of wanting to get people to correct you. Just open up your ears more like a little kid, and listen, listen, listen, and repeat. Eventually when you have heard the language enough, you will find yourself correcting yourself, because to a certain extent you have been able to internalize the language like a native would.

I think the only way to be able to speak Japanese sooner is by living in Japan for at least a couple of years.

Writing as you have above might be confusing to many who are studying the English language.


I correct my friend-- and she is always grateful. Plus-- I usually correct her written English in her Emails-- which she also appreciates.

Hell, it's confusing to us natives too :P

Ill tell you something:

Thats one of the best things u can ever do to her. Look at me, im Brazilian, female, never ever knew not even how to say yes in english when i was 11-12 but i learned it to the fluent level in 4 months and i was just 12 back then....

Ofc i didnt know as much as a person my age now but i knew about 600 words already (more or less i believe). And i finished my course as the best student among ppl age 22-28... that were already doing uni (here in Brazil kids 12 learn what kids 8 learn in UK schools >_<....).

I learned it that fast because i always asked teacher to correct me as much as possible, i also do that with anything i learn that way i can speed up things. Ofc i dont know a lot still but people that hear me actually believe that i live in the uk or us sometimes...and since when i got a pc i use it to ask my foreign (uk, chinese, philipine, tons from us, greece, etc) ppl to always correct my English. Thats definately the best method ive found... :3

As in for japanese, i think i should do the same, i already understand some words from animes and know how to write them, theyre not that many words but thats pretty nice for someone that never had classes, ive been working like nuts sleeping 2 hours per day and doing systems analysis Uni right now so i had to take a pause at learning japanese, but ill try to get back at it asap as i can!

Oh if u know some or anybody else :3 feel free to join me XDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD!

And guys if theres any japanese game that i could play here in brazil tell me because gaming was the main tool i used to really improve my English! >.<!

:3! So keep it up ;3 ure doing just fine :) :p

I believe, that you can learn every language very quickly as long as you really go into the country of the mother-tongue and really spend time mostly or only with natives. Even if you do not know much or any before you went there.

It doesn't take you longer then just a couple of months actually. For non romance- germanic languages like Japanese or Chinese it probably takes a little longer perhaps at least for us.

To be fair, you most likely didn't learn so fast compared to the 22–28yos because you asked the teacher to correct your mistakes. You learned so fast because you were 12, which means you were not past the second critical period yet.

Once you pass the second critical period, learning languages for almost everyone becomes immeasurably more difficult.

The first critical period is while baby or toddler, and it marks the point where you start having trouble learning distinct sounds like the difference between aspirated and non-aspirated p as "different" sounds. To explain, the "p" in "pet" and the "p" in "happen" are the same sound to native English speakers, but to Spanish speakers, the "p" in "pet" does not exist, and to Hindi speakers, the two letters make words mean different things! English speakers don't even hear the difference unless they're told to listen for it. This is one reason Hindi is difficult for native English speakers to learn past a certain age. Also, one of the telltale signs of a gringo Spanish speaker is their use of the "pet-p" instead of "happen-p" at the beginning of words like "pajaro" (parrot) and "pelota" (ball).

The second critical period is around puberty, and it marks when, for most of the population, it will become nearly impossible to learn a new language to fluency.

There are exceptions, of course—usually those who already know multiple languages and thus "know" how to learn another or those who are musically-inclined (i.e., have an "ear" for sound).

Granted, this is all half-remembered from my linguistics class nearly ten years ago. But the fact remains that children find it much, much, much, much, much easier to learn a second language.

Omg thank you so so so so soooooooo much, phew now i can put a japanese signature on my drawings aswell!! Thank you one more time, Gosh *0* iunno i have a huge crush over this language hahaha XDDDDDDDD

Oh btw if u happen to want to chat or anything and have a bit of patience helping me out a little more with japanese feel free, if not thats totally fine because im fully happy with the help with my name already!!

Btw if i wanna write some drawing was made by me, how do i write "By" Juanita in japanese aswell?

Cheers :3 !
:vsign:

Well i quite agree with you, still why like ive met nobody in brazil that learned english so early? it might not be that amazing there but here its pretty much a hell of a nice thing, trust me, i have music inclination i also can understand a bit of french, italian (90% spoken but i NEVER studied or never watched for real an ita movie but anything on youtube in ita i can understand quite well and not all brazilians can do that AT ALL), i also speak a bit of spanish, my native language is portuguese-brazilian (different from portugal).
I think im an ok learner at languages and i wont give up on japanese, if you wanna help me out with it, feel free, ill be truly thankful XD!
:p

I think you would master Spanish really fast^^

wen i rite essays for my uni, i get heavily critiqued on my grammar, vocab, structure. its got to b topnotch. wen i wrote articles for website they always had to b flawless. me and my friend converse about the intricacies of english all day cos i have studies english grammar and phonetics and linguistics.

but i dnt think its in anyone's right to grill someone on their language and spelling on a forum. dnt make the internet a school.

i do however note that this forum seems to mostly use full standard english in most posts. so i could be the exception.

also, don't be so ambiguous about ur socalled proven point. what exactly did you prove?

I dunno, I think language should always be treated with respect. It's not yours to toy with, really. I'm not trying to be a dick, but when you spell things wrong and make needless abbreviations ("u" instead of "you," "prolly" instead of "probably," "your" instead of "you're") you rob the language of its expressive potential and allow ignorance to prevail through generalizations.

Disregard if English is not your native language.

perhaps, but i have always seen forums as a chance to let ur guard down. abbreviations, i see, as an expression of comfort and closeness.

you're would be spelled ur, but thts not important

Yeah, ur right. lol.
I guess I've never thought of "relaxed" spelling before. That's an interesting, and admittedly valid, take on it.

I think this "relaxed spelling" shows a lack of intellegence. It was created to save space when writing text messages because of a 100 or so character limit. This limit does not exist on the internet, you don't have to press the "8" key 7 times to get the character you want, so there's no need to abbreviate in such a way.

They know better, they just don't care. Welcome to modern times. Who am I to tell people they can't spell like shit? I don't agree with it, but I'm just one in 6.8 billion people.

falling in line and listening to what someone else says is fine to be just another guy. but u shud never condemn difference.

everything you know and love, every piece of creative work is deviance from the norm at some point. the much studied kansai dialect is wonderful. but i guess its just because no1 told they were dumb for saying something thats wrong.

then again i kno a lot of old ppl who don't like such changes so ur not alone.

close-mindedness and being stuck in ur ways shows a lack of intelligence.

i'm in mensa.

be srsly, this is off topic. so please stop in my thread.

i saw it to be reflective of something like the japanese masu etc. forms and short forms.

i appreciate you considering my opinion.

I know many young people use abbreviations but on here where we have members from around the world-- whose English is a second language, I feel it will be more helpful to them to see the language in its correct form.

Are you English? not criticising you but for those studying English language,

"My friend and I converse." PS congratulations on belonging to Mensa.

So why are you at Manchester and not Oxford?

I generally try to use most mechanical or syntactical rules when writing on forums. This is especially true when it comes to sharing information with the intent to educate.

Which brings us back to the topic at hand. For explanations in how one might improve his or her ability to speak a second language, those replying should probably try to be fairly formal in their writing habits. This is to maximise clarity and understanding.

thanks, i think. cant reli tell if that was a flame.

tbh, with cases like that, its so widely used that foreign speakers better had learn it. it has somewhat become accepted.

for instance, what is the plural of octopus? 3 have become accepted in the modern language, but only one is correct.

if you don't learn these nuances, you can get confused.

also, i think my primary point was my lack of caring on the subject of grammatic accuracy and articulations on forums.

if we're are to argue the finer points. . .

this is for english learners:

negating adverbials should not be used to start sentences.
use of commas are. . .
wen using the "for" conjunction in such a way, there needs to be a conjunctive subordinate clause present.

now you know as well as i that this is nit-picky and that most passers-by won't have a clue what i'm talking about and so i think its fine to let things slip. pointing out those things is just fun and games.

btw, yes. manchester is in england. . .