zephro
Junior Member
Posts: 3,012
|
Post by zephro on Aug 4, 2024 19:20:32 GMT
Anyone got any tips for doing this better? Or is the answer just "speak it with actual people"?
As I've sort of been on/off learning Japanese for over a decade. I got free lessons with an actual teacher when I worked at PlayStation. But since then I've gone in and out of prodding DuoLingo or reading a textbook.
DuoLingo actively pisses me off because it has absolutely no explanation of grammar. Or Kanji meanings. Turns out 10 minutes with an actual textbook actually stuck it in my mind as 本 - hon. Means something like real/authentic/source. So on its own it is book. It is also Nihon - the name of the country and honto ni, "this is really/truly X". But nobody wants to explain grammar or stuff like that to me. It must be the mathematician inside but I actually find that easier than inductively picking it up by just repeating things over and over.
Anyway. Who has tried it as an adult? Who has succeeded? How? How not to? Etc.
|
|
|
|
Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 4, 2024 19:39:58 GMT
Hi language teacher here! More specifically English. It's a complicated thing because there are many factors involved that you can and can't control and the ones you can't have a massive impact on motivation.
I always recommend a combination of self study with a tutor/teacher to ensure you aren't fossilising bad practises which is very common. Grammar is important but don't let it take importance over production. I find people usually come in 2/3 brackets; those who learn by osmosis which is more applicable when you live in country of the spoken language, those who have issues with speaking and listening and those who have issues with reading and writing. I don't know your weaknesses but I have very clear recommendations and they're applicable for many people.
1. Have a goal for your learning. Don't make it an end goal but make continuous stretching goals to keep you motivated. So for example asking questions, adding different verb tense to those questions etc.
2. You will plateau. Everyone does. That's why having targets that are achievable will stop you from hitting a brick wall and why I recommend a tutor in tandem with your own personal learning.
3. If you do have a tutor you should always be doing at least twice amount of personal study and production you do with them. So if you see a tutor for 2 hours a week you should be doing 4 hours at home.
4. Make it fun, make it a game. When you go shopping try and make it a game of learning the vocabulary of the things within a supermarket. When you're writing an email how would you write that in the 2nd language?
5. Be kind to yourself. Learning another language comes easy for some people and not for others. It will come the more time you spend and the less pressure you put on yourself.
|
|
|
|
Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 4, 2024 19:45:39 GMT
In my own experience learning conversational Spanish it helped by living in a country where it was informally spoken. I will always recommend watching tv shows or movies in the chosen language with English subtitles then moving onto audio being the language you're learning AND having subtitles in the learning you're learning. I also did stuff like practising vowel sounds in the mirror and looking at how I shaped my mouth while doing them. When it came to reading I focused on what words I knew to get the gist rather than focusing on what I didn't know and then escalating from there.
|
|
zephro
Junior Member
Posts: 3,012
|
Post by zephro on Aug 4, 2024 19:57:14 GMT
Hmmm not sure about a goal. When I worked there it was so I could eventually cope with upper management and trips to Tokyo. What actually happened was any time my work was important enough to present in Tokyo my manager mysteriously went on my behalf for 2 weeks and attempted to take all the credit. So I quit.
I've not actually thought of a goal other than it seems a waste to half develop a skill and let it go to waste. Maybe I should think of something like "understand song lyrics" or "follow anime". I have been looking up courses/tutors as the purely inductive, no explanation given nature of Duolingo fucking sucks, though it helps with reading/writing new alphabets. Definitely better at reading/writing. The French oral and listening exams at school are some of my worst memories.
The grammar thing is more by way of example but getting actual explanations of underlying parts helps me understand and is the main way I've gone about it in life. Like I've programmed in a dozen languages, half that seriously, but if you know the underlying logic a new programming language basically takes a day or two to learn. The syntax and surface detail barely matters as the maths and logic underneath are the same(ish). That's not how human language works, but I still think I prefer to work out rules and go up from there.
|
|
dmukgr
Junior Member
Posts: 1,534
|
Post by dmukgr on Aug 4, 2024 19:57:55 GMT
As someone who once allegedly ordered a kebab in perfect polish at 3am in Wroclaw, but wasn’t aware of doing so at the time, I’d recommend just going out on the lash in said country a lot.
My polish coworkers who witnessed it were mightily impressed.
Saying that, I’ve been trying to learn Greek for over thirty years and am still shit at it, so who knows.
|
|
|
|
Post by Danno on Aug 4, 2024 20:03:10 GMT
Damn Jambo, you're cool as fuck 😎
*I mean this genuinely
|
|
Rich
Junior Member
Posts: 1,994 
|
Post by Rich on Aug 4, 2024 20:05:01 GMT
Private lessons. Duolingo is good for vocabulary and some grammar but will never teach you how to speak. My conversation has progressed massively in just a couple of months after a few years of Duolingo.
For online lessons, I went on preply.com and tried a couple of tutors before settling on my current one.
|
|
|
|
Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 4, 2024 20:27:07 GMT
Damn Jambo, you're cool as fuck 😎 *I mean this genuinely Ha thanks. I am not. |
|
|
|
Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 4, 2024 20:28:00 GMT
Private lessons. Duolingo is good for vocabulary and some grammar but will never teach you how to speak. My conversation has progressed massively in just a couple of months after a few years of Duolingo. For online lessons, I went on preply.com and tried a couple of tutors before settling on my current one. Preply is a good shout. I also teach on Preply. |
|
|
|
Post by Danno on Aug 4, 2024 20:32:01 GMT
Damn Jambo, you're cool as fuck 😎 *I mean this genuinely Ha thanks. I am not. pffffbbbbrrrrtttt to you |
|
|
|
Post by Jambowayoh on Aug 4, 2024 20:34:15 GMT
Hmmm not sure about a goal. When I worked there it was so I could eventually cope with upper management and trips to Tokyo. What actually happened was any time my work was important enough to present in Tokyo my manager mysteriously went on my behalf for 2 weeks and attempted to take all the credit. So I quit. I've not actually thought of a goal other than it seems a waste to half develop a skill and let it go to waste. Maybe I should think of something like "understand song lyrics" or "follow anime". I have been looking up courses/tutors as the purely inductive, no explanation given nature of Duolingo fucking sucks, though it helps with reading/writing new alphabets. Definitely better at reading/writing. The French oral and listening exams at school are some of my worst memories. The grammar thing is more by way of example but getting actual explanations of underlying parts helps me understand and is the main way I've gone about it in life. Like I've programmed in a dozen languages, half that seriously, but if you know the underlying logic a new programming language basically takes a day or two to learn. The syntax and surface detail barely matters as the maths and logic underneath are the same(ish). That's not how human language works, but I still think I prefer to work out rules and go up from there. It doesn't have to be a big goal. Just small ones. You want to learn a song, you want to want to write an informal/semi formal/formal email. Just little things to keep you going. You set what you want. If you want a tutor look for someone who talks less than you in a lesson a good teacher is someone who leads the class but doesn't dominate, talks only when needed and ensures that you've learnt at least one thing when you leave a class. Less lecturing more talking. |
|
|
|
Post by Nanocrystal on Aug 5, 2024 4:32:27 GMT
My wife's French so I've been slowly learning French for years and am now somewhere between intermediate and advanced. Right now I'm improving my comprehension a lot by listening to French podcasts. The ideal ones are where people tell stories off the cuff, i.e. conversational French rather than written/scripted French, which tends to be a lot simpler and understandable. Transfert is a really good one. We also watch the French news every day. Plus Duo Lingo and the occasional Skype call with the in laws. We have tried speaking only French to each other a couple of times but it just gets frustrating and we quickly return to English (she's completely fluent). Obviously nothing beats visiting a country where it's the main language and completely immersing yourself.
|
|
nazo
Junior Member
Posts: 1,313
|
Post by nazo on Aug 5, 2024 7:43:42 GMT
For me having a goal was definitely key. Have you looked at the Japanese Language Proficiency Test? There are 5 levels ranging from pretty basic to advanced, I made passing them my goal and it really helped me focus. Once I'd passed them though my motivation tailed off pretty quickly. They are solely focussed on reading / listening though, there's no production part so not that useful if your goal is to speak to other people.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bill in the rain on Aug 5, 2024 7:56:55 GMT
Private lessons. Duolingo is good for vocabulary and some grammar but will never teach you how to speak. My conversation has progressed massively in just a couple of months after a few years of Duolingo. For online lessons, I went on preply.com and tried a couple of tutors before settling on my current one. I agree with this, despite not actually doing it myself. I think things like Duolingo might work when you're learning a language similar to your base language. (English to french/spanish/etc..) as a lot of the grammar is similar, and you can intuit a lot of stuff. But for something like English to Japanese, there's too many differences and complexities to intuit without decent explanations. There are a bunch of sites that do a good job of focusing on various parts of Japanese (wanikani for kanji, bunpro for grammar, etc..) but if your goal is to communicate then the best thing is to talk with someone. It won't help at all with kanji etc.. but it'll at least make you feel like you're progressing. I know some people who've succeeded just by going the grammar/kanji route, but it didn't work for me. I know others who've succeeded just by going out and drinking with the locals every night ;-) I really need to get some private lessons sorted myself. |
|
zephro
Junior Member
Posts: 3,012
|
Post by zephro on Aug 5, 2024 12:42:23 GMT
I doubt the grammar/kanji type stuff on its own would work. But the fact that stuff like Duolingo doesn't explain it AT ALL and just expects you to randomly pick it up is seriously annoying. I learn rules better than just intuiting things.
DuoLingo seriously doesn't help by including particles as part of "a new word".
kitanai and kitanaina aren't separate words. They're both dirty, the na just indicates its an adjective in the sentence. It's a bit of grammar to distinguish between saying "the dirty dishes" or "that dish is dirty". It does the same thing for verbs with ka on the end, when ka is basically a question mark. Grrrrr.
This all said I do enjoy it and really it's just for my own satisfaction. I guess that's why picking a goal or trying to do conversation is hard. I've got no real reason to speak it anymore.
Maybe I'll go with read some manga, avoids awkward video chats ¬_¬
|
|
zephro
Junior Member
Posts: 3,012
|
Post by zephro on Aug 5, 2024 12:46:46 GMT
Actually that's exactly what's pissing me off. DuoLingo is basically going you've learnt ikimasuka, desuka, ikimasu, desu. You've learnt 4 words! No I fucking well haven't I've learnt 2 verbs and the basic rule of how to turn any verb into a question you fucking nimrods.
|
|
nazo
Junior Member
Posts: 1,313
|
Post by nazo on Aug 5, 2024 12:50:23 GMT
Kitanai isn't a na adjective, it's an i adjective. Clearly Duolingo isn't working for you 
I'm doing Duolingo for French and it's ok for picking up words but hopeless for everything else. I can't imagine learning Japanese from it.
I mostly learnt Japanese through a combination of self-study with books and CDs (it was a long time ago), private lessons and talking to my wife back in the days when she had an interest in interacting with me (it was a long time ago).
|
|
zephro
Junior Member
Posts: 3,012
|
Post by zephro on Aug 5, 2024 12:55:41 GMT
I picked a random adjective off the top of my head and had a punt ¬_¬ Let's just pretend I said kirei, unless that's also wrong then I'll pick another. I only really get any of this as I had proper in person lessons a decade ago. Sigh.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bill in the rain on Aug 6, 2024 5:34:34 GMT
If you're more into learning the grammar, rules, sentences etc.. then bunpro might be worth a free trial.
I haven't used it very much, but I know some other people think it's good.
Dunno if it has a mobile app, but I doubt it.
There are a couple of ones that do learning through reading articles, but I forget the names. Might be worth a try if that method works for you, though I dunno how much grammar they explain.
Other thing worth investigating is. stuff like chatGPT. Get it to chat with you, or get it to explain grammar points. YMMV, but I guess it'll keep improving.
|
|
zephro
Junior Member
Posts: 3,012
|
Post by zephro on Aug 6, 2024 18:29:01 GMT
Interesting, as it does avoid having to talk to someone on a zoom call.
Also whoever actually came up with Katakana was 100% laying a trap for filthy foreigners in the future.
|
|
|
|
Post by Fake_Blood on Aug 6, 2024 19:05:38 GMT
I was raised Dutch, but lived in Brussels which is mostly French, I picked up English from games/movies and the internet, and I got 1 hour/week of German in school for like 5 years. So I’d say there’s various levels of knowing a language. Like that German I got in school? BS, I can read it, and I know the grammar and verbs, but I can’t speak it. My English sounds okay in my head, but when it comes out I know I sound like an episode of allo allo, just because I don’t get to use it much. So for me, apps and books can only take you so far, that zoom call you’re avoiding? Probably the only way to even get close.
|
|
|
|
Post by Nanocrystal on Aug 7, 2024 0:45:35 GMT
I was raised Dutch, but lived in Brussels which is mostly French, I picked up English from games/movies and the internet, and I got was taught 1 hour/week of German in school for like 5 years. So I’d say there ’s are various levels of knowing a language. Like that German I got was taught in school? BS, ?? I can read it, and I know the grammar and verbs, but I can’t speak it. My English sounds okay in my head, but when it comes out I know I sound like an episode of allo allo, just because I don’t get to use it much. So for me, apps and books can only take you so far, and that zoom call you’re avoiding? Probably the only way to even get X split infinitive close. See me.Sorry I couldn't resist.  I'm actually just dead jealous of bilingual people. |
|
|
|
Post by skalpadda on Aug 8, 2024 3:26:27 GMT
First of all: Agree with everything Jambo said.
I'm not an expert by any means, but I speak a couple of languages pretty well. French is the only one I've learned entirely on my own (no school/lessons, don't have any French people trapped in the basement to torment), but it's been going okay. I'm not nearly as good at it as I am at English and probably never will be, but I'm getting comfortable with both comprehension and output. French is obviously not as big of an undertaking as Japanese, but it's certainly possible without torturing yourself.
If there's one thing to stress it's that motivation is the main thing when you're learning on your own. If you don't have some outside necessity pulling you along you need to find something you enjoy and actually want to use it for. Doesn't have to be a big thing, just getting something more out of it than doing it for the sake of doing it.
Duolingo is a bit shit, for a multitude of reasons. It has one virtue: It's really easy to use when you don't know where to start. If you're getting something out of it and don't find it insufferable it can be decent for drilling a bit of syntax and vocab into your head. Just don't let it be the main (and absolutely not the only) way you learn.
There are "tips and notes" and at least the Swedish ones are pretty good primers on the basics, but the app is notorious for refusing to show them. You can find all the Japanese ones collected here: duome.eu/tips/en/jaI don't want to make too much of a mega post right now, and I'm no use when it comes to Japanese in particular, but I can list some more general things that have worked for me if you want.
Or is the answer just "speak it with actual people"? Maybe, but probably not. At least not the only answer. If speaking is really motivating for you and you have someone patient and fun to speak with then speaking will be great, even if you're "bad" at it. If you don't have that person, still have big gaps in your vocab and don't have an intuitive grasp of at least basic grammar it's going to be frustrating and despiriting. It's not fun to feel like you can't express yourself when you're an adult. At some point you need to speak to get good at speaking, but not speaking to people doesn't stop you from acquiring all the other things involved with learning a language. It's probably not a big roadblock.
But nobody wants to explain grammar or stuff like that to me. It must be the mathematician inside but I actually find that easier than inductively picking it up by just repeating things over and over. You can definitely find people to explain grammar to you. There's a place called reddit and there are subreddits full of people who won't flippin' shut up about it.  I don't know if or to what extent this applies here, but something I see a lot with people learning Swedish is trying to sort of "crack the code" to make the language make sense. That's a pretty natural instinct; We want things to make sense, and it's how we learn and think about most rules-based things, but it's worth keeping in mind the difference between rules derived from logic and rules based on convention. Languages are almost entirely the latter. You can learn the convention, but it usually doesn't explain anything. Some people get very cross about that.
Grammar is useful, especially basic grammar. If you (for example) want to learn Swedish it's really helpful to know that definite articles aren't separate words but suffixes, that we don't conjugate verbs by pronoun at all, that we have two grammatical genders and the adjectives have to agree, etc. Things that help you label and think about important concepts. Memorising tomes full of grammar rules - not as useful. You can't run every sentence through a checklist of a bajillion rules whenever you want to say something. At some point it has to become intuitive, and that comes from exposure and practice. Not necessarily traditional rote repetition. There's a big linguistics discussion to be had here, but in short: Repetition is important for learning, but what you ideally want is repetition of things in different contexts where you actually understand what it means, without translating or just beating your head against it until it "sticks". That way you associate words with what they actually represent (not a translation), and the grammar with how it changes the meaning.
|
|
zephro
Junior Member
Posts: 3,012
|
Post by zephro on Aug 8, 2024 12:03:35 GMT
This is more to do with my learning style, as having been taught via the almost entirely inductive method that you'd pick up grammar just by doing. I know that isn't the best way for me to learn anything as it is basically a list of all the subjects I did worst at at school. So it's more to do with structure and context actually making things easier for me.
No rules are actually rules anyway it's all just statistics, even in science.
|
|
|
|
Post by One_Vurfed_Gwrx on Aug 8, 2024 19:12:43 GMT
I did do Japanese at uni and tried to focus on grammar more than vocabulary where I could get away with it as I always said it is easy to look up unknown vocabulary in a dictionary but if you cannot use it then it is meaningless even with a huge repertoire of words. Also with Japanese I try to learn vocabulary through kanji a lot to kill 2 birds with 1 stone but not every word has kanji so it isn't foolproof.
At the lower level Tae Kim's guide to Japanese grammar was quite a good website, but I don't know if it is still about. Bookwise the Kanji in context series is highly regarded for kanji learning (I have tried to use it to pick up forgotten kanji but time is my biggest enemy). People tend to recommend the grammar dictionary series but I only have the first one and haven't really looked at it yet to judge personally (Dictionary of Japanese Grammar (with 3 levels if I recall).
When I learned JlKorean I over focussed on grammar and ended up very unbalanced with much poorer vocabulary than my grammar implies I should have. Entirely self taught. I also cheated a bit with a Japanese to Korean grammar dictionary too (and normal dictionary) as the grammar forms have a lot of similarities.
|
|
|
|
Post by skalpadda on Aug 9, 2024 2:20:39 GMT
I don't know anything about language education in British schools (beyond hearing a lot of complaints), but that sounds like it would suck for anyone. It's not an either/or thing - you want clear explanations for things you can't figure out or intuit (which will be most things at the start), but you absolutely need lots of input and at least some output outside of purely studying as well. Sorry if this is presumptuous, but it sounds like maybe you haven't thought so much about things you want to do for their own sake? Is there something you want to read? TV, movies, games? Talk to people? Work... things?
To take a simple but concrete example from myself and starting French: I like reading, I know from experience that reading is amazing for vocab. No chance I'd get through a novel any time soon. I like graphic novels - French has a lot of those and they're much less scary. Goal 1: Be able to read bandes dessinées.
That's not really a sensible short term goal (at least not what I wanted to read), but it was something I wanted to do and was willing to spend a lot of time on. I didn't do it instead of "proper" studying, and it took a long time. There were several stacks of graded readers from the library, and a lot of other stuff. But it gave a path and a constant measurable sense of progress. Made the boring stuff feel worthwhile, which made me able to do more fun stuff, and so on. Same with listening comprehension, writing, etc. If you're feeling lost or just need some inspiration, reddit actually isn't a bad place to visit in my experience. r/LearnJapanese looks equivalent to r/Svenska and r/French, which are generally good places. They have a wiki and a resource list that might be helpful just in themselves. I've always gotten good answers in r/French. I once asked a question about capitalization in titles and people started summarising Lexique des règles typographiques en usage à l'Imprimerie nationale at me. It was wonderful. I was raised Dutch, but lived in Brussels which is mostly French, I picked up English from games/movies and the internet, and I got 1 hour/week of German in school for like 5 years. So I’d say there’s various levels of knowing a language. Like that German I got in school? BS, I can read it, and I know the grammar and verbs, but I can’t speak it. My English sounds okay in my head, but when it comes out I know I sound like an episode of allo allo, just because I don’t get to use it much. So for me, apps and books can only take you so far, that zoom call you’re avoiding? Probably the only way to even get close. Same for me with German - 4 years, twice a week. I don't really speak it and was never much good, despite (somehow) having good grades. I was just never that interested and haven't had any real use for it. Je regrette de ne pas avoir choisi le francais au lieu de l'allemand à l'époque.
I used to try to suppress my Swedish accent (I don't have the typical one, thank god), but at some point I just stopped caring. Sane people don't mind or even care as long as they understand you. If anything I lean into my accent these days, because it's funny.
|
|
|
|
Post by Bill in the rain on Aug 9, 2024 3:06:56 GMT
It depends a huge amount on what your goals are.
Input is very different from output. If someone's goals are to read manga and watch anime then their approach would probably be very different from someone who wants to have a discussion.
Learning different parts has cross-benefits for other parts, of course, but I've found that if your goal is speaking then you really need to speak.
People also have different standards. Some people want to sound native or speak with near-perfect grammar, whereas others are quite happy to make mistakes or sound unnatural as long as they can get their point across.
Personality also plays into is a lot. I've met Japanese people with almost perfect English vocab and grammar who could hardly speak a sentence, and people with almost zero vocab and grammar who could chat reasonably well in English about daily topics.
The former were usually more introverted and detail-oriented, whereas the latter were usually more extrovert and outgoing.
|
|
|
|
Post by skalpadda on Aug 9, 2024 17:44:40 GMT
It also hinges a lot on what opportunities you have. If you can practice expressing yourself freely without pressure you'll develop confidence really fast no matter how good/bad you are at the rest.
I learned Danish because I had half-Danish girlfriend and could chat and sing silly songs with her niece and nephews. Danish is very easy for a Swede, but their phonology is bonkers (not intelligible to most other Scandis) and I would never have done it without that opportunity. Yeah, input and output are different, but output always requires the relevant input skills + something. It helps to learn it all in parallel, especially if you need/want to speak immediately, but it's not possible to be good at output without being good at input.
Random Japanese question: Does the pitch accent affect meaning/comprehension? I'm curious because we have it as well (as does Norwegian), but there are only a handful of words that can change meaning. Nearly impossible to perfect and a marker that you're not native, but that's about it. Always wondered if it's the same in Japanese and the few other languages that have it.
|
|
nazo
Junior Member
Posts: 1,313
|
Post by nazo on Aug 9, 2024 18:47:56 GMT
As a rule, Japanese doesn't have pitches. There are a couple of words with the same pronunciation where the intonation supposedly determines which meaning but I can never remember which ones and no-one has ever looked confused because I told them I can eat with bridges rather than chopsticks.
|
|
|
|
Post by skalpadda on Aug 9, 2024 20:35:26 GMT
It sounds very similar. Pitch accent isn't as extreme as tone in tonal languages (Chinese) and it's not pitch change for stress (as in English), but mandatory pitch curves within single words. AFAIK only a few Balkan languages, Basque, Lithuanian, Latvian, Swedish and Norwegian have it in Europe, so it's pretty rare. It's interesting that it seems completely separated from language families. At least in Swedish many non-natives have trouble even hearing it, but it's not a big deal. Most of the time using the wrong or no accent just sounds a little off, but fully comprehensible. Eyeing though the wikipedia article on Japanese pitch accent they're realised differently and Japanese doesn't have accents on all words, but in broad strokes it seems the same.
Yep.
|
|
I'm actually just dead jealous of bilingual people.
