Post by Jembru on Jan 25, 2014 7:46:42 GMT
On the old forum, we used to try to correct one another's Japanese, as noticing mistakes and ironing them out of our Japanese, is a vital part of learning. However, the problem with correction is that there's not always a sensitive way to present it. We may also be wrong in our belief about what is 'correct'. So I have decided to start a thread where rather than say 'so and so said...' we just collect together common mistakes we've been noticing. It may be reading something someone said that made us notice the mistake, but we don't have to present it in a way that makes it obvious who we're talking about.
What we must do however, is let someone know if their correction is wrong. If I've pointed out a 'common mistake' and it turns out not to be a mistake, I'll have been avoiding that structure for no good reason. So please, discuss these things. Let it break out into a debate if necessary, but don't just ignore them.
One last thing before I start. I talk about 'grammar' and 'usage' as though they're two different things. A lot of people lump them in together, and that's okay too. They overlap a lot and it's not always easy to tell the difference. So I'll quickly explain what I mean.
When I speak of grammar, or 'structural grammar' as I often say to avoid confusion, I'm talking about the form words take or the actual structure of a sentence. 'I walkted to school' is a grammar error, because the past tense of 'walk' isn't 'walkted'. 'I go to shopping' is also a grammar error, as we don't use 'to' before the gerund in English. However, 'My hobby is accumulating stamps', is actually grammatically correct. The structure is fine and most of us would understand what this person meant. However, it is incorrect usage. It's not normal to use accumulate with stamps, and especially if this were a friendly situation, accumulate is a little stiff, and usually reserved for business or academic situations. This is why I sometimes say I don't believe in 'Advanced Grammar'. Even in Japanese, advanced 'grammar' books, as far as I can see, are just page after page of function words (these are particles or words acting as particles), and I don't consider these grammar. For example, while you'll need to be told the structure it takes, you'll already know the structure when you learn '～て以来', because you will have learnt ～てから when you were a beginner, it's the nuance that is different, hence I believe this is usage and not grammar.
Okay, lets get going. So here are two examples of usage errors I see learners make often. The first, I have seen both on this forum and the old one, as well as in countless youtube J-vlogs, the second, I actually never noticed until a native speaker pointed out that learners often make the error, then I realised I've been making the mistake too!
1) 試験やテストを取る shiken ya tesuto wo toru
I see this so often because learners often talk about whether or not they've taken the JLPT or plan to, or they have exams and tests at school/uni. This is an example of a usage error and is called 'L1 interference'. L1 interference is when we try to say something the way we would word it in our mother tongue, or when we misunderstand a word or phrase due to it sounding like something else from our first language (L1 is your first language and is just a handy short hand to make reading books and research papers on language acquisition less tiresome). The learner here is literally saying 'take a test or exam'. However, the Japanese say 'to receive a test', and thus use the verb 受ける (ukeru).
2) 日本語を独学で習っています nihongo wo dokugaku de naratte imasu
This is such a common usage error. Students tend to think that 習う simply means 'to learn' so they'll say things like (and I quote myself here) それは最近習った言葉 (sore wa saikin naratta kotoba). However, unless they learnt those words in a class, from a teacher, this sentence is wrong. 習う carries the nuance that you are taking lessons, in the way when someone says 'I'm learning to drive' in English, we don't assume they mean they're doing so from books without a teacher. You can get away with it, especially in a cheeky way if a friend explained a word, (like how I'll call my friends 'sensei' if they explain something about Japanese to me in a conversation), but using things like 教えてもらう (oshiete morau), are more natural even then. Even natives apparently aren't always clear about this distinction, but if you're teaching yourself at home, and not taking formal lessons in the language, please avoid using 習う.
I hope others will make use of this thread. I think this is a much better way to offer correction without breaking people's flow or worse, their confidence.
What we must do however, is let someone know if their correction is wrong. If I've pointed out a 'common mistake' and it turns out not to be a mistake, I'll have been avoiding that structure for no good reason. So please, discuss these things. Let it break out into a debate if necessary, but don't just ignore them.
One last thing before I start. I talk about 'grammar' and 'usage' as though they're two different things. A lot of people lump them in together, and that's okay too. They overlap a lot and it's not always easy to tell the difference. So I'll quickly explain what I mean.
When I speak of grammar, or 'structural grammar' as I often say to avoid confusion, I'm talking about the form words take or the actual structure of a sentence. 'I walkted to school' is a grammar error, because the past tense of 'walk' isn't 'walkted'. 'I go to shopping' is also a grammar error, as we don't use 'to' before the gerund in English. However, 'My hobby is accumulating stamps', is actually grammatically correct. The structure is fine and most of us would understand what this person meant. However, it is incorrect usage. It's not normal to use accumulate with stamps, and especially if this were a friendly situation, accumulate is a little stiff, and usually reserved for business or academic situations. This is why I sometimes say I don't believe in 'Advanced Grammar'. Even in Japanese, advanced 'grammar' books, as far as I can see, are just page after page of function words (these are particles or words acting as particles), and I don't consider these grammar. For example, while you'll need to be told the structure it takes, you'll already know the structure when you learn '～て以来', because you will have learnt ～てから when you were a beginner, it's the nuance that is different, hence I believe this is usage and not grammar.
Okay, lets get going. So here are two examples of usage errors I see learners make often. The first, I have seen both on this forum and the old one, as well as in countless youtube J-vlogs, the second, I actually never noticed until a native speaker pointed out that learners often make the error, then I realised I've been making the mistake too!
1) 試験やテストを
I see this so often because learners often talk about whether or not they've taken the JLPT or plan to, or they have exams and tests at school/uni. This is an example of a usage error and is called 'L1 interference'. L1 interference is when we try to say something the way we would word it in our mother tongue, or when we misunderstand a word or phrase due to it sounding like something else from our first language (L1 is your first language and is just a handy short hand to make reading books and research papers on language acquisition less tiresome). The learner here is literally saying 'take a test or exam'. However, the Japanese say 'to receive a test', and thus use the verb 受ける (ukeru).
2) 日本語を独学で
This is such a common usage error. Students tend to think that 習う simply means 'to learn' so they'll say things like (and I quote myself here) それは最近習った言葉 (sore wa saikin naratta kotoba). However, unless they learnt those words in a class, from a teacher, this sentence is wrong. 習う carries the nuance that you are taking lessons, in the way when someone says 'I'm learning to drive' in English, we don't assume they mean they're doing so from books without a teacher. You can get away with it, especially in a cheeky way if a friend explained a word, (like how I'll call my friends 'sensei' if they explain something about Japanese to me in a conversation), but using things like 教えてもらう (oshiete morau), are more natural even then. Even natives apparently aren't always clear about this distinction, but if you're teaching yourself at home, and not taking formal lessons in the language, please avoid using 習う.
I hope others will make use of this thread. I think this is a much better way to offer correction without breaking people's flow or worse, their confidence.
I sometimes use "L1 interferance" (but for me, L2 interferance) on purpose when I don't know something (translating from English instead of Swedish, in Swedish we "make" the test 
