AlanP
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Post by AlanP on Apr 20, 2014 7:40:03 GMT
I wanted to post something from the view of a complete beginner and how I found my methods. Every thing in this article is my opinion but if it helps anyone great!
I wasn't sure if it was appropriate to post this in here but here goes.
I first started to learn Japanese about years ago which lasted for about a few weeks. This was in a class environment and whilst I thought I did okay, after a few weeks the teacher started moving around and talking from too far a distance. Not easy when you're trying to learn a language and the teacher is quiet spoken. So I eventually stopped.
So a couple of weeks ago I decided to start again, this time learning on my own and getting a private teacher at some point.
So I scoured the internet for days for best methods. I watched dozens of youtube videos and a lot of the time I was promised the moon if I studied their "method" paid of course. So I eventually decided not to go with anybody/company who wanted money. Now when I previously studied it was by using the Japanese for Busy People series, so I thought that was the best option and all the reviews suggested buying the Kana version. This was a big mistake as I didn't know Kana so I got the accompanying workbook would teaches you Kana then you can use bk1.
On my travels I'd heard of Anki, RealKana and have both installed on my phone,desktop and Ipad. These are invaluable and best of all free, though the Anki version for IOS you have to pay for. These I use daily on the bus to work and back.
I got an idea from here (sorry can't remember who suggested it) and that was to tweet something everyday in Japanese. So I added a Japanese keyboard to my phone and I tweet a word a day at the moment. This helps me learn the characters and where they are on my phone and also a word. This may seem nothing but a word will become 2 words then a sentence and so on.
Next I enrolled in Lang-8 (free) where you can practice your written Japanese and people will correct it for you, you can also correct their English as well. I found this intimidating which is why I never joined in the beginning partly because I never knew any Japanese. It's a friendly place and I've already had help and made friends.Now I intend to type a few words or lines weekly, might not seem much but every journey starts with a single step.
Anyway that's it for now
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Post by Jembru on Apr 20, 2014 22:57:21 GMT
Of course you can start threads like this! In fact, I would love for you to update now and then as you travel along your journey. As time goes by, it will grow into a wonderful adventure that others can share in and learn from. The road ahead is long and at times tough, but it is also very rewarding. We have had other members join us at the start of their journey, and it always makes me smile when they pop back and write something in Japanese. Each time, I can see the progress they've made. I can be pretty hard on myself sometimes. It's not that I'm a perfectionist, but more that I'm impatient about how long it is taking me to develop. Now and then I get really upset and post frustrated rants here at Gaiwa. Hearing the highs and lows of other learners always gives me a boost though, and reminds me that wherever we are on our journey, we're all in it together, and the highs and lows are just a normal part of the process. It seems like you're off to a great start. I discovered anki and lang-8 very late in my studies (anki a year ago, and lang-8 around last October). I really feel a difference in my learning since discovering them and wish I'd used them since the very start. Maybe I'd even be fluent by now if I had! You know, I haven't been writing blogs on lang-8 lately either! What I do is keep a file on my PC of 'questionable sentences'. That is, when I've been practicing Japanese and said something that sounded wrong, but I wasn't sure if it was, or if there was something I just couldn't think of how to say correctly, I write those sentences down. When I have a good selection, I post them to lang-8 to see what the native speakers make of them. I find this really helpful actually, and often notice myself using their feedback in my Japanese shortly afterwards! We have a lang-8 thread actually, just in case you want to share your thoughts there too. Best of luck on your journey! If we at Gaiwa can help you in any way, all you need to do is ask! |
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AlanP
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Post by AlanP on May 26, 2014 8:23:00 GMT
A quick update. It's started to occur to me that as a beginner you don't really have a measure with which to grade yourself.Unless of course you are also learning conversation. This can prove a problem as you need to constantly motivate yourself. After finishing learning Hiragana and Katakana which was a little harder than I was led to believe. (Note don't believe everything you read). This leads me to believe that what's to come will have me banging my head on the table at regular intervals *  happy I try to motivate myself which is hard however I do find Kemushichan's study videos give me the kick up the behind when I need it. I do all the things I'm supposed to do Anki and other apps, follow my studies regularly but it didn't feel that I was getting anywhere. Then yesterday I was watching some of the Begin Japanology videos off you-tube, when it suddenly hit me I was recognising the Kana and reading from street signs without realising it. Don't get me wrong I wasn't able to always translate the symbols into a word mainly because Kanji was sometimes used and also my vocab isn't big enough. I guess the moral of all this is while you don't appear to be learning, you actually are retaining information which you will later realise. So don't get demoralised, immerse yourself a little bit with pod-casts, watch KemushiChan's videos on you-tube (beginners). |
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Post by Jembru on May 27, 2014 13:35:20 GMT
... So don't get demoralised, immerse yourself a little bit with pod-casts, watch KemushiChan's videos on you-tube (beginners). To be honest, I think even those who have been studying for a few years can benefit from remembering this advice! We can all get a little demoralised at times. I'm not sure if I am just more forthcoming than most (OP excepted: maybe it's a Northerner thing ^^) with my struggles, but I think that just because people don't often mention their struggles and anxieties publicly, it doesn't mean they don't have any! About the kana thing; while it is true that some people will exaggerate how easy something was for them, I think the most likely issue is that learning kana depends largely on your learning style and your learning method (and whether or not it matches that style). There aren't any really good online quizzes for testing your learning style, but if you don't know yours, it's a good idea to attempt a handful and see what feels most true to you. Some people are a blend of more than one learning style and you can even find people for whom any style works well (and these people seem to be able to succeed at just about anything they put their mind to). I'm straight up an auditory learner, with pretty dampened kinesthetic and visual ability (well, I AM short sighted and mildly dyspraxic, so it probably figures). I learn best from listening. This is very obviously reflected in my Japanese, because the most common things you'll hear me moan about is trouble speaking (kinesthetic learners find this very easy), and reading (visual learners tend to recognise kanji more easily). If you found kana took a little while to master, I'm going to guess you're not a visual learner either. You even mention podcasts quite a lot, so maybe you're a fellow auditory learner. I think it's a good idea to try to work out your learning style though, because it can help you to find the best learning methods for you, and to understand why some skills take a little more effort for you, while others find them easier! Oh and if you want to practice listening to real Japanese, you should pop down to Newcastle during the World Cup! We're going to watch a Japanese match together. That should be a hoot, but also, because of the visual focus of the game, easier to dip into than a general chat over a pint, that could be about anything and everything! Some links for those who are interested, just to get you started: About learning stylesA quiz to help you find out your learning style. A short but more abstract quiz that considers the skills in terms of your everyday behavour. |
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Post by chocopie on May 27, 2014 14:12:09 GMT
After finishing learning Hiragana and Katakana which was a little harder than I was led to believe. (Note don't believe everything you read). This leads me to believe that what's to come will have me banging my head on the table at regular intervals * happy I think, in addition to some people finding kana easy, it's the learning kanji afterwards that makes pretty much everyone look back with rose-tinted glasses to those happy kana days. |
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Post by Jembru on May 27, 2014 14:42:36 GMT
Ha, yeah that could be it too!
I also forgot to say, as an auditory learner, I find mnemonics are best for helping me to remember kanji. Kana too, I began by making up little stories about what the pictures are meant to be. Like, I think of a kettle when I look at katakana's 'ke', ne reminds me of a necktie, 'shi' drawn from an invisible vertical line on the left, is 'shyly' peering around a door... and so on and so forth. Not sounds as such, but I linked them to words in my head, and that worked better for me than remembering how to draw them, or simply recalling them from sight.
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AlanP
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Post by AlanP on May 27, 2014 16:23:21 GMT
... So don't get demoralised, immerse yourself a little bit with pod-casts, watch KemushiChan's videos on you-tube (beginners). There aren't any really good online quizzes for testing your learning style, but if you don't know yours, it's a good idea to attempt a handful and see what feels most true to you. Some people are a blend of more than one learning style and you can even find people for whom any style works well (and these people seem to be able to succeed at just about anything they put their mind to). I'm straight up an auditory learner, with pretty dampened kinesthetic and visual ability (well, I AM short sighted and mildly dyspraxic, so it probably figures). I learn best from listening. This is very obviously reflected in my Japanese, because the most common things you'll hear me moan about is trouble speaking (kinesthetic learners find this very easy), and reading (visual learners tend to recognise kanji more easily). If you found kana took a little while to master, I'm going to guess you're not a visual learner either. You even mention podcasts quite a lot, so maybe you're a fellow auditory learner. I think it's a good idea to try to work out your learning style though, because it can help you to find the best learning methods for you, and to understand why some skills take a little more effort for you, while others find them easier! Oh and if you want to practice listening to real Japanese, you should pop down to Newcastle during the World Cup! We're going to watch a Japanese match together. That should be a hoot, but also, because of the visual focus of the game, easier to dip into than a general chat over a pint, that could be about anything and everything! Some links for those who are interested, just to get you started: About learning stylesA quiz to help you find out your learning style. A short but more abstract quiz that considers the skills in terms of your everyday behavour. Thanks a lot Jem I took all the tests above and it seems I am a Auditory learner at least from what I've learned so far. I'm going to look into this further and find out how to use it. Your first link has some good ideas. |
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AlanP
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Posts: 31
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Post by AlanP on Jun 27, 2014 15:30:02 GMT
It's been a while so thought I'd better update things.
Since my original post I've struggled a little, mainly with structuring my learning to reach a specific objective. I was learning from JFBP and using Anki and other online methods to remember things. But it was getting frustrating because I didn't seem to be getting anywhere despite the time I've been investing. I'm self-teaching.
So I looked around and the best option seemed to be study as if for an exam. So I decided to use the N5 as my target. It gave me specifics to learn and meant I could structure my learning. It's been working great so far.
I joined Memrise and loaded the N5 courses and are currently working my way through them slowly, making sure I get things right before opening another section.
I'm still using Anki and also listen to a japanese podcast 30 mins a day as well as watch a video/movie of some kind daily.
I'm starting to pick words out and have even begun writing in Japanese from memory (big deal for me) basic stuff only.
My pronunciation is improving as I repeat everything I hear when reviewing multiple times.
Well time to go, about to watch "Grave of the Fireflies" anime someone recommended to me.
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Post by Bokusenou on Jun 29, 2014 21:03:43 GMT
AlanP Looks like you're making some great progress! I also found the JLPT vocabulary lists useful. One thing I've found helpful is to have something in Japanese playing in the background while I'm doing other things. Sometimes I'll find a new word later and suddenly remember it being used somewhere, when I figure out I heard it in one of the podcasts or TV streams I had played in the background earlier, which helps cement it into my head. Also, sometimes I just hear an interesting word and take a little dictionary break to look it up.^^
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AlanP
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Post by AlanP on Jun 30, 2014 8:11:27 GMT
AlanP Looks like you're making some great progress! I also found the JLPT vocabulary lists useful. One thing I've found helpful is to have something in Japanese playing in the background while I'm doing other things. Sometimes I'll find a new word later and suddenly remember it being used somewhere, when I figure out I heard it in one of the podcasts or TV streams I had played in the background earlier, which helps cement it into my head. Also, sometimes I just hear an interesting word and take a little dictionary break to look it up.^^ Thanks Bokusenou, that sounds really useful. At the moment I just listen to a podcast on the way to work. I do pick up little things now and again when I've learnt them. When I first started listening to podcasts they sounded like well gibberish but as time passes that's no longer the case. Listening whilst making tea and other chores is a good idea. |
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Post by Jembru on Jul 2, 2014 17:37:13 GMT
Listening to podcasts is a great idea! Rather than trying all the time to pick out the meaning, try to simply pick out the individual sounds. Adults don't really learn in the same way as a baby does, due to out brains being structured quite differently, but we can still benefit from mimicking some of their techniques. The very first thing a baby does is to try to imitate the sounds of what will become their mother tongue. Linguists call this 'baby jargon' and there has been at least one study (read 'I only know of one') that seemed to suggest that even very small babies have a recognisable 'accent' depending on their native language.. that's long before they learn to speak.
So, we as learners can really benefit from not only trying to pick out individual sounds whether or not we understand, but also, when you're somewhere private, repeat words aloud as you think you heard them (it doesn't even matter if you're wrong). It's fine that you have no idea what the word is so are essentially doing the cleaning while barking out the Japanese equivalent of 'ducks'.....'indirectly'....'for my part'....'tinnitus'. The point is you're not just aimlessly listening to the recording, but actively engaging with it. It's this active involvement with the language that will shorten the gap between the present moment, and the day you have your first conversation with a native speaker!
Having a goal in mind is a good idea too. Mine have always been function based (things like, 'read and write kana', 'write grade 1 kanji', 'make short video journals' and my current goal 'join in with every day conversations'), while others seem to like to use general tests as a markers of development. It sounds like you might be leaning that way, so have you heard of J-cat? We have a thread for it somewhere here. It's a free online Japanese test that you can take every 6 months to see where your current skill is. I signed up to it but always manage to find something more important to do, so never got around to it. From August I'll be trying to improve my written Japanese, so I might force myself to sit the test then, so I can compare my before and after results!
Anyway, keep up the good work. You really seem to be really on the right track! I hope other beginners will see this thread and follow in your footsteps!
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AlanP
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Post by AlanP on Jul 19, 2014 9:40:22 GMT
I'm struggling a little now with speech, I suppose it's the one thing that's difficult to do on your own. I was thinking of getting auditory tapes like Pimsleur (which seems the best). I tried one for free on their site and it seems ok. Does anyone have any opinions on Pimsleur or any other types of auditory learning.
Of course I'm still going to continue with my book studies etc as well, this is purely for speech.
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Post by chocopie on Jul 19, 2014 11:48:36 GMT
I haven't tried Pimsleur before, but free resources I know of are www.erin.ne.jp/en/www.ajalt.org/rwj/When you say auditory learning, are you looking for lessons that are aimed specifically at getting you to speak, or something that's more like a normal textbook but as an audiobook like japanesepod101? If you like japanesepod101, I'd recommend getting their premium subscription for a month, put their feed on itunes, download everything they have and then cancel your subscription (I think you have to change the settings so that it doesn't auto-renew). |
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Post by Jembru on Jul 20, 2014 5:13:57 GMT
Speaking seems to come more naturally to some people than others. It's something I really have to work at too. What I'm a little concerned about is that you might be underestimating how much progress you're making. It doesn't take months to reach fluency, it takes years.. We can't expect to just magically be able to express anything we want to after a year of studying and I am worried from how you've worded things in this thread, that you're frustrated because you expected to be able to understand everything you listen to, or open your mouth and speak perfect, rapid Japanese, after so short a time.
I try to be frank about how much I study and how slow progress is, because I see the Internet is packed with liars and charlatans trying to convince people it's possible to 'be fluent' in a year, 6 months, 3 months. It's NOT. These are ridiculous claims. Lets apply some logic here.
There is no way to accurately measure how many words you need to know in order to speak a language with reasonable fluency. An estimate that I came across recently suggested around 3,000. Based on how many words the JBP series teaches, the number of anki cards I've added and the fact that there are words I have picked up from friends that aren't included in any of these things, I'm fairly confident that I know somewhere around 3,000 words and I am not fluent. I have a friend I would consider fluent, who appears to know around the same number of words as me (based on how often we have to ask one another for meanings). So words alone aren't what makes us 'fluent' but it's not going to be possible to speak unless we know enough. So lets be generous then, and say you would need at least 2,500 words to be able to hold a conversation. (based on my own experiences, I personally feel it's quite a lot more than that). To learn that number in a year you'd have to be learning around 50 new words a week. Possible, yes, but add to that the time you need to spend on your listening skills, speaking practice, grammar awareness, reading.. you soon see that 'fluent in a year' is out of most people's reach. I've known people who did year long intensive courses in Japan and still came back mixing up basic grammar. That's not to say they failed, just that they're normal human beings.
So what I'm trying to say, is you most likely ARE making progress. You just need to be proud of what you have so far achieved and understand that slow and steady wins the race. I rushed. I crammed in too many words over too short a time and ended up unable to recall any of them quickly enough to speak at normal speed, or to be able to keep up with what people were saying. Over the last few months I've probably progressed faster than I ever have before, because I finally understand that language ability isn't about collecting facts and building knowledge, it's a physical skill like playing the piano or doing ballet. You learn the basics quite quickly, but then after that you have to put in the hours of repetition, building your muscle memory, increasing your flexibility. THAT can not be learnt in a year!
So give yourself a break. Enjoy speaking to yourself as much as possible. Shout at the TV, join in with the conversations people are having on your podcasts when you catch what they're saying (or just ask them what the heck they're talking about ^^), and don't try to force the impossible. You're human, you're normal and you're going through exactly the same development stages each and everyone one of us here has gone though, and you're doing just fine!
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Post by Jembru on Jul 20, 2014 6:24:35 GMT
This was originally tagged onto the end of the previous post but I've decided to separate them because it was too long, even for me!
I used Pimslear for German. It doesn't really teach you much and even the entire course only covers basic survival phrases, making it neither cost nor time effective compared to other methods. You don't come away being able to build your own sentences or anything, but it does give your mouth muscles and vocal chords a good workout that makes it easier to speak. I used to make my own recordings for listen and repeat, so I could tailor them to things relevant to me personally and match them to what I was studying in my textbooks. I found that really helpful while going through Japanese for Busy People.
I've kept a video journal for over a year now because I noticed that J-vloggers on youtube seemed to develop their verbal skills quite quickly and presumed it was due to the constant retakes in the early days leading to literally hours of speaking practice. I'm usually too lazy to remake my videos so don't get as much out of them as I could, but when I do make them 2 or 3 times I end up sounding pretty darned fluent, so it's definitely great practice.
Chocopie also recommended a book to me 'Shadowing' that is a series of dialogues for the purpose of improving the physical act of speaking. It helps with listening too. I understand there is a version for beginners so if you can get your hands on that (I got mine online from JP Books) you might find it helpful. I love it because although understandably contrived in order to cram in as many idioms and quirks of natural speech as possible, the dialogues are at natural speed (in fact, the upper end of 'natural speed' at times) and are written as Japanese is used rather than how linguists think it SHOULD be used. That's refreshing from a textbook. Of course, for a free way to shadow natural speech, as both Chocopie and myself have already suggested, Jpod and erin.ne are great places to find dialogues that you can drill. I've used both resources quite extensively.
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happy
