Post by Jembru on May 22, 2014 11:52:30 GMT
Here at Gaiwa, we love to share our study tips with our fellow learners so we can help one another achieve our language goals swifter and more easily. I thought then, that it might be a nice idea to share what we would have done differently if we had known when we were just starting out, what we know now. Maybe we can inspire others to avoid our mistakes.
I have a fair few regrets if I am honest. Some of my biggest regrets are;
1) Overestimating my ability
I'm not alone in this, I know it's a pitfall new learners often fall into, but when I was a beginner (I mean, roughly a vocabulary of around 200 words, and a knowledge of basic masu/desu grammar, adjective conjugation and a tentative knowledge of the 'te' form). I'd read a few basic textbooks and despite the fact I hadn't retained all the information, I felt I'd learnt so much that my Japanese was probably not too far from fluent. No one I knew spoke a word of Japanese, so there was no one to correct my claims. In my defense, and the defense of everyone else who fell into this trap, this isn't necessarily from arrogance, but actually from underestimating how complex Japanese is, and how long it really takes to master any language, never mind one that is quite different from your mother tongue. It does seem to be native English speakers who are more likely to overestimate their ability, because mastering a second language is rarer, so we have no frame of reference to compare to.
Despite the hideous arrogance of thinking Japanese could be mastered in a matter of months, there are 2 more reasons I regret this.. firstly, it stopped me from really trying. I dabbled, learnt the basics and then moved onto other hobbies and interests, forgetting Japanese for many years until I suddenly found myself moving to Japan and realised that not only did I have to relearn those basics, but also found myself surrounded by a language that bore little to no resemblance to the Japanese I knew. The other reason I regret it, is that from the day I realised how little I know (it happened, surprisingly, years later.. on meeting JP in fact! When I was hit with the dreadful realisation that someone who only picked up Japanese passively from watching anime, could speak better and had a wider vocabulary than I did!), it was a heavy blow to my confidence. I felt so much shame for my arrogance, that I became the polar opposite, constantly telling myself, and anyone who would listen, how dreadful my Japanese was. Which brings me to my next regret;
2) Saying negative things about myself.
So, while my occasional dabbling had probably pushed my vocabulary up to 300-400 words, and I'd learnt about 150 kanji, I started studying Japanese in a more serious way a few months after meeting JP, in the Autumn of 2011. Honestly, I think I have achieved an incredible amount in under 3 years. Sure, I'm not where I would have liked to have been after 2 and a half years, but I definitely haven't been idle, and I definitely have much to show for my efforts.
What I wish I hadn't done then, is constantly tell myself I'm terrible, I can't learn languages, my memory is no good.. Japanese is too difficult for me. By saying these things so much, I have destroyed my confidence and probably made it harder for myself to develop. By assuming I'm going to fail before I've even tried, what chance do I have of succeeding? I intend to stop this of course, and I have been doing so much less, or at least catching myself when I say it and balancing it with something positive. One can be self-confident without being arrogant.
3) Studying Japanese as though it is an academic subject
For so long, I had studied Japanese as though it were just a series of dry facts, such as you'd find in a chemistry textbook. I memorised grammar like it was scientific equations, and stored vocabulary in my mind alongside their English counterparts.. 'think 'cat' remember 'neko'. This was such an inefficient way to study and as a result, I have struggled to hold down a conversation not because my Japanese isn't good enough, I mean, sure, my vocabulary has a way to go, but I should be able to bluff my way well enough by now. No the issue has been thinking in English when I speak. For too long I have had to stop and think, 'now what is 'night shift' in Japanese again?.. okay and now how do I conjugate a verb to say 'I have to'.. ah that's right... '今夜、夜勤なので、今寝なきゃならないんだ' Erm... where'd they go? Oh, my laptop went into sleep mode...'
Of course, these days I try to treat Japanese as a physical process and it's making a real difference. Still, it's not something that comes naturally to me yet. I deeply regret that I discovered this fact so late. If only I'd started out this way, just think where my Japanese could be right now.
4) Not using the Internet.
I didn't discover just how much amazing free content there is available online until I met my friends here at Gaiwa. By the time I discovered this stuff, I'd already been studying seriously for over a year.. a year of only having the content of the CDs that came with Japanese for Busy People, with which to expose myself to spoken Japanese. Well, JP's anime too, but it just didn't interest me enough (see next point), and had too many words I couldn't understand, to make it much use as a resource. When I started studying with my language exchange partner, her Japanese was so different to the textbook dialogues I was used to, that I went into panic mode and completely shut down, you know, like robots do in cartoons when they're asked a question to which there is no answer and their circuits blow.. that was me, my circuits blew, and it reinforced my self belief that I was crap at Japanese, and created a damaging fear of conversation practice that it would take years to recover from. Had I only known the Internet was there, with heaps of podcasts and videos I could have been studying from... had I only become accustomed to the speaking styles and speed of the videos featured in erin.ne.jp or even Nihonjin no Shiranai Nihongo.. that first encounter with Miyo wouldn't have been so shocking. I may not have understood her necessarily, but at least the sounds she was making would have felt familiar, and safe and I wouldn't have panicked so readily.
How different things could have been....
And finally, maybe my biggest regret..
5) Growing out of anime
This isn't because I felt anime was below me or for 'weeaboo's (actually, I'd LOVE to be super-kawaii and live on cloud anime land.. and I intend to, if only I can get off cloud minecraft land and start getting all fan-girl over anime!! Why? Because I like to be controversial and challenge people to question the stupidity of their prejudices), no, it was because I thought Pokemon represented all anime. I was a huge pokemon fangirl and I still get all nostalgic over it to this day. I collected everything and filled my bedroom with pokemon merchandise, because during the height of pokemania, I was old enough to have a part time job that funded my addiction. Like most cases of overindulgence, there inevitably came a moment when I couldn't take it anymore. I'd had my fill of pokemon and thus anime just felt too much. After that, while I've appreciated the occasional series for the gripping story lines, I don't feel any desire to go looking for my next anime series, or practice drawing those wide-eyed angular faces on every blank piece of paper I come by.
Yet the passion, excitement and sense of wonder that Japanese ignites in the hearts of anime fans, is amazing. Those people have such a driving force to get good at Japanese, and an abundance of exposure to the language, without even having to step foot in Japan itself. So many of the people I know either in person, or via their popular youtube channels, who have mastered Japanese at least to the level I'm aiming for, have this burning passion for anime. It makes me wonder, had they never gotten into anime, would they have ever become fluent in Japanese? Would they have even cared enough to open a textbook? I rarely watch movies, but there are some, like Shawn of the Dead, that I have seen so many times that I can practically recite the dialogue.. now imagine if I knew an anime series that well? If I'd watched it over and over to the point that the lines, in Japanese, just rolled off my tongue? Yeah... I wanna slice of THAT pie please!
So... what are your Japanese learning regrets? What would you do differently, if you could turn back the clock and start over?
I have a fair few regrets if I am honest. Some of my biggest regrets are;
1) Overestimating my ability
I'm not alone in this, I know it's a pitfall new learners often fall into, but when I was a beginner (I mean, roughly a vocabulary of around 200 words, and a knowledge of basic masu/desu grammar, adjective conjugation and a tentative knowledge of the 'te' form). I'd read a few basic textbooks and despite the fact I hadn't retained all the information, I felt I'd learnt so much that my Japanese was probably not too far from fluent. No one I knew spoke a word of Japanese, so there was no one to correct my claims. In my defense, and the defense of everyone else who fell into this trap, this isn't necessarily from arrogance, but actually from underestimating how complex Japanese is, and how long it really takes to master any language, never mind one that is quite different from your mother tongue. It does seem to be native English speakers who are more likely to overestimate their ability, because mastering a second language is rarer, so we have no frame of reference to compare to.
Despite the hideous arrogance of thinking Japanese could be mastered in a matter of months, there are 2 more reasons I regret this.. firstly, it stopped me from really trying. I dabbled, learnt the basics and then moved onto other hobbies and interests, forgetting Japanese for many years until I suddenly found myself moving to Japan and realised that not only did I have to relearn those basics, but also found myself surrounded by a language that bore little to no resemblance to the Japanese I knew. The other reason I regret it, is that from the day I realised how little I know (it happened, surprisingly, years later.. on meeting JP in fact! When I was hit with the dreadful realisation that someone who only picked up Japanese passively from watching anime, could speak better and had a wider vocabulary than I did!), it was a heavy blow to my confidence. I felt so much shame for my arrogance, that I became the polar opposite, constantly telling myself, and anyone who would listen, how dreadful my Japanese was. Which brings me to my next regret;
2) Saying negative things about myself.
So, while my occasional dabbling had probably pushed my vocabulary up to 300-400 words, and I'd learnt about 150 kanji, I started studying Japanese in a more serious way a few months after meeting JP, in the Autumn of 2011. Honestly, I think I have achieved an incredible amount in under 3 years. Sure, I'm not where I would have liked to have been after 2 and a half years, but I definitely haven't been idle, and I definitely have much to show for my efforts.
What I wish I hadn't done then, is constantly tell myself I'm terrible, I can't learn languages, my memory is no good.. Japanese is too difficult for me. By saying these things so much, I have destroyed my confidence and probably made it harder for myself to develop. By assuming I'm going to fail before I've even tried, what chance do I have of succeeding? I intend to stop this of course, and I have been doing so much less, or at least catching myself when I say it and balancing it with something positive. One can be self-confident without being arrogant.
3) Studying Japanese as though it is an academic subject
For so long, I had studied Japanese as though it were just a series of dry facts, such as you'd find in a chemistry textbook. I memorised grammar like it was scientific equations, and stored vocabulary in my mind alongside their English counterparts.. 'think 'cat' remember 'neko'. This was such an inefficient way to study and as a result, I have struggled to hold down a conversation not because my Japanese isn't good enough, I mean, sure, my vocabulary has a way to go, but I should be able to bluff my way well enough by now. No the issue has been thinking in English when I speak. For too long I have had to stop and think, 'now what is 'night shift' in Japanese again?.. okay and now how do I conjugate a verb to say 'I have to'.. ah that's right... '今夜、夜勤なので、今寝なきゃならないんだ' Erm... where'd they go? Oh, my laptop went into sleep mode...'
Of course, these days I try to treat Japanese as a physical process and it's making a real difference. Still, it's not something that comes naturally to me yet. I deeply regret that I discovered this fact so late. If only I'd started out this way, just think where my Japanese could be right now.
4) Not using the Internet.
I didn't discover just how much amazing free content there is available online until I met my friends here at Gaiwa. By the time I discovered this stuff, I'd already been studying seriously for over a year.. a year of only having the content of the CDs that came with Japanese for Busy People, with which to expose myself to spoken Japanese. Well, JP's anime too, but it just didn't interest me enough (see next point), and had too many words I couldn't understand, to make it much use as a resource. When I started studying with my language exchange partner, her Japanese was so different to the textbook dialogues I was used to, that I went into panic mode and completely shut down, you know, like robots do in cartoons when they're asked a question to which there is no answer and their circuits blow.. that was me, my circuits blew, and it reinforced my self belief that I was crap at Japanese, and created a damaging fear of conversation practice that it would take years to recover from. Had I only known the Internet was there, with heaps of podcasts and videos I could have been studying from... had I only become accustomed to the speaking styles and speed of the videos featured in erin.ne.jp or even Nihonjin no Shiranai Nihongo.. that first encounter with Miyo wouldn't have been so shocking. I may not have understood her necessarily, but at least the sounds she was making would have felt familiar, and safe and I wouldn't have panicked so readily.
How different things could have been....
And finally, maybe my biggest regret..
5) Growing out of anime
This isn't because I felt anime was below me or for 'weeaboo's (actually, I'd LOVE to be super-kawaii and live on cloud anime land.. and I intend to, if only I can get off cloud minecraft land and start getting all fan-girl over anime!! Why? Because I like to be controversial and challenge people to question the stupidity of their prejudices), no, it was because I thought Pokemon represented all anime. I was a huge pokemon fangirl and I still get all nostalgic over it to this day. I collected everything and filled my bedroom with pokemon merchandise, because during the height of pokemania, I was old enough to have a part time job that funded my addiction. Like most cases of overindulgence, there inevitably came a moment when I couldn't take it anymore. I'd had my fill of pokemon and thus anime just felt too much. After that, while I've appreciated the occasional series for the gripping story lines, I don't feel any desire to go looking for my next anime series, or practice drawing those wide-eyed angular faces on every blank piece of paper I come by.
Yet the passion, excitement and sense of wonder that Japanese ignites in the hearts of anime fans, is amazing. Those people have such a driving force to get good at Japanese, and an abundance of exposure to the language, without even having to step foot in Japan itself. So many of the people I know either in person, or via their popular youtube channels, who have mastered Japanese at least to the level I'm aiming for, have this burning passion for anime. It makes me wonder, had they never gotten into anime, would they have ever become fluent in Japanese? Would they have even cared enough to open a textbook? I rarely watch movies, but there are some, like Shawn of the Dead, that I have seen so many times that I can practically recite the dialogue.. now imagine if I knew an anime series that well? If I'd watched it over and over to the point that the lines, in Japanese, just rolled off my tongue? Yeah... I wanna slice of THAT pie please!
So... what are your Japanese learning regrets? What would you do differently, if you could turn back the clock and start over?