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+--- Thread: If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself (/thread-11864.html)
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - kameden - 2014-05-31
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself before you started learning Japanese? I figure this might also be helpful for the people who are starting right now.
- Don't be afraid of forgetting
- Don't be afraid of overwhelming yourself
- Discussing how to learn Japanese isn't the same as actually learning Japanese
- Start listening earlier
- Stop being a perfectionist
- Learning kanji individually is a waste of time, just start directly with vocabulary and grammar
- Don't get so depressed about a bad day on Anki
- Stop putting every card on hard, Anki knows what it's doing, stop trying to control it
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - yudantaiteki - 2014-05-31
Invest in Google stock.
EDIT: More seriously, some of my advice wouldn't apply since I started learning in 1999 when the available Internet resources were far fewer than you young whippersnappers have today.
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - Danchan - 2014-05-31
Learn Chinese instead.
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - cophnia61 - 2014-05-31
kameden Wrote:If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself before you started learning Japanese? I figure this might also be helpful for the people who are starting right now.For the people as me who are starting right now, those are very valuable advices! It's good to know what an advanced student of japanese think about this subject
- Don't be afraid of forgetting
- Don't be afraid of overwhelming yourself
- Discussing how to learn Japanese isn't the same as actually learning Japanese
- Start listening earlier
- Stop being a perfectionist
- Learning kanji individually is a waste of time, just start directly with vocabulary and grammar
- Don't get so depressed about a bad day on Anki
- Stop putting every card on hard, Anki knows what it's doing, stop trying to control it
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - Misau - 2014-05-31
1) Don't get half way or more through RTK and have not even had a ponder about Vocab or Grammar
2) Try making up sentences as soon as possible
3) Making your dorm room look like a 60's rave with all the different colour of sticky notes is going to make your eyes hurt
4) Don't go on a diet whilst learning (I become a living hell to live with…supposedly)
5) Bribe yourself with your favourite food or activity i.e. If I get all these 1000 Kanji correct then I will have some Ben & Jerry's or I will read X amount of pages then I can have some CoD time
6) Don't think by learning X amount of words you are set for life. Even though I was brought up Bilingual, I still find words in both languages (….ok maybe I don't need all those words found in Countdown).
7) There is always going to be some native picking you up on your grammar.
8) You are going to find many of the people in your lecture hall think they are know it all's and pronounce things wrong.
9) Your mum is probably going to say "Why are you learning Chinese, let the Chinese do that" (Mother it is Japanese)
10) You are going to invite your evil granny out for dinner and she will insult an East Asian person who isn't Chinese by saying " I know what you did in the war, we don't want your dog, keep that in China" and you will apologise profoundly.
Biggest One: Doesn't matter how many times you review something, you will forget it months down the line
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - john555 - 2014-05-31
I wish in 2001 I had told myself to buy gold when it was around $250 per ounce. (I did buy silver though when it was under $10 an ounce).
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - mc962 - 2014-05-31
Stop playing video games all day and go do something in Japanese (probably should have told myself that yesterday).
Talk more, even though you don't really talk much in your native language
^Talk to the native-speakers/semi-fluent people you are friends with, you could probably hold a simple conversation if you really tried
Don't be afraid of jumping off the textbook ship (still working myself up to that one).
Stop playing video games all day
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - Kuzunoha13 - 2014-05-31
mc962 Wrote:Stop playing video games all day and go do something in Japanese (probably should have told myself that yesterday).Or you could play video games in Japanese? Also, what do you mean by "textbook ship"?
Talk more, even though you don't really talk much in your native language
^Talk to the native-speakers/semi-fluent people you are friends with, you could probably hold a simple conversation if you really tried
Don't be afraid of jumping off the textbook ship (still working myself up to that one).
Stop playing video games all day
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - anotherjohn - 2014-05-31
kameden Wrote:- Stop putting every card on hard, Anki knows what it's doing, stop trying to control itI think this did help at the time, but I'm sure paying the price for it now. ~80 mostly useless Core 6k reviews per day for the last ~6 months which are going to persist for a whole nother month before finally dropping a bit, though they do 'only' take ~12 mins.
The long-interval cards do give me pause though.
E.g. if a card has a 1 year interval:
- If I see the content of that card within a year, I don't need the review.
- If I don't see the content of that card within a year, despite reading regularly, wtf is the point of reviewing it?
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - Sauzer - 2014-05-31
Danchan Wrote:Learn Chinese instead.Well unless you're like 40 that handwriting should have been on the wall your entire life. Nobody past the 80s had any excuse learning Japanese as a mealticket.
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - Danchan - 2014-05-31
Sauzer Wrote:It's not just an economic reason. On the whole, I find Chinese people are direct, practical, and easy to talk to. Very similar to Australians in a lot of ways.Danchan Wrote:Learn Chinese instead.Well unless you're like 40 that handwriting should have been on the wall your entire life. Nobody past the 80s had any excuse learning Japanese as a mealticket.
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - qwertyytrewq - 2014-05-31
Danchan Wrote:Isn't that racist?Sauzer Wrote:It's not just an economic reason. On the whole, I find Chinese people are direct, practical, and easy to talk to. Very similar to Australians in a lot of ways.Danchan Wrote:Learn Chinese instead.Well unless you're like 40 that handwriting should have been on the wall your entire life. Nobody past the 80s had any excuse learning Japanese as a mealticket.
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - mc962 - 2014-05-31
anotherjohn Wrote:I've done that a bit with pokemon, although I havent gotten much in terms of Japanese video games yetkameden Wrote:- Stop putting every card on hard, Anki knows what it's doing, stop trying to control itI think this did help at the time, but I'm sure paying the price for it now. ~80 mostly useless Core 6k reviews per day for the last ~6 months which are going to persist for a whole nother month before finally dropping a bit, though they do 'only' take ~12 mins.
The long-interval cards do give me pause though.
E.g. if a card has a 1 year interval:
- If I see the content of that card within a year, I don't need the review.
- If I don't see the content of that card within a year, despite reading regularly, wtf is the point of reviewing it?
And I meant venture outside the world of my textbooks and read something, study stuff from things aside from textbooks (such as adding more words from songs and books and stuff)
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - Danchan - 2014-06-01
qwertyytrewq Wrote:You would have to explain that one to me.Danchan Wrote:Isn't that racist?Sauzer Wrote:Well unless you're like 40 that handwriting should have been on the wall your entire life. Nobody past the 80s had any excuse learning Japanese as a mealticket.It's not just an economic reason. On the whole, I find Chinese people are direct, practical, and easy to talk to. Very similar to Australians in a lot of ways.
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - Aspiring - 2014-06-01
Maybe he's thinking of the possible generalizations.
(Australia is a diverse country, and China has an estimated population of 1,364,560,000; according to wikipedia)
Edit: I stand corrected
If I could go back in time I would tell myself,
Not to read too much into everything.
To trust in my own ability/ and in others.
If it isn't broken, don't fix it
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - Danchan - 2014-06-01
Of course I'm being flippant, but I think its exactly that large population size that helps contribute to peoples openness and confidence. The Chinese aren't even a tiny bit afraid of laowai, and I really find that refreshing. I suppose somebody coming from the other direction might be more annoyed by it and long for some Japanese style peace and quiet, of course.
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - Northern_Lord - 2014-06-01
I would tell myself to start learning a lot more words from the very beginning. By the end of my first year my spoken vocabulary may have been around 1500 to 2000, which isn't a whole lot.
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - Loviatar - 2014-06-01
- Be kinder to yourself. Its okay if some ability of yours is vastly worse than another.
- When getting to know a Japanese person, solve the polite/casual-language issue as quickly as possible. Its less akward that way.
- No use telling about Anki etc to people who stubbornly stick to i.e. rote-memorization. If they don't notice themselves they could use better methods, they never will.
- Concentrate, concentrate, concentrate
- More native media!
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - qwertyytrewq - 2014-06-01
Danchan Wrote:I think it's racist because it's a generalization of an entire country and is offensive to people who are indirect, unpractical and hard to talk to. It's like saying Asians are good at math. It's positive racism but it's still racism and in my opinion, just as bad as saying black people do more crime.qwertyytrewq Wrote:You would have to explain that one to me.Danchan Wrote:It's not just an economic reason. On the whole, I find Chinese people are direct, practical, and easy to talk to. Very similar to Australians in a lot of ways.Isn't that racist?
If I was an anti-social Chinese person that doesn't like talking to foreigners, I would object to your generalization.
The second point that can be made is whether this generalization is more offensive to China (which has lack of racial diversity) or Australia (which is apparently as diverse as the US).
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - Danchan - 2014-06-01
Show me a single Japan blogger who never makes a sentence which says... "Japanese people are often..." or "Japanese people generally..." I don't think there is anything particular shocking or uncalled for in noting that, for example, people in Japan are -generally- not comfortable starting conversations with strangers, or talking with foreigners. It is not me generalizing from an armchair across the other side of the world based on stereotypes I've seen in films, it is an everyday reality I've had to deal with in some way or other for several years (I highly doubt I would ever get the gainjin seat on a train in China).
EDIT: Anyway, I think this is a derailment of the real threads intentions, and that's my fault. If you would like to continue this maybe we should make another thread.
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - tashippy - 2014-06-01
john555 Wrote:I wish in 2001 I had told myself to buy gold when it was around $250 per ounce. (I did buy silver though when it was under $10 an ounce).You should start a thread about this, in which we will all speculate on prices for rare metals, invest, and then we will finally earn something for our kanji studies!
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - apirx - 2014-06-02
I'd just tell myself to suck it up and start reading earlier. In hindsight I had no idea of Japanese before I started reading.
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - MelonBerry - 2014-06-02
Stick with doing the core deck everyday, instead of every 3 or 4 days. You won't be making any progress.
Start reading more from the beginning, as well as writing.
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - zurisu - 2014-06-02
"Work on Japanese every single day and make it into a habit."
If I had done that when I first tried to learn Japanese back in 2007 I would be fluent by now
Instead I kept quitting after a week, lol.Well, at least I'm on the train for good now. At least, it feels that way after over a solid year. Making an effort to form it into a daily habit really gives you the momentum you need. To. Succeed. *cheesy music*
If you could go back in time, what would you tell yourself - sethg - 2014-06-02
Sadly, I'd tell myself, "Enjoy learning the language. Have fun! Make friends. But never go to work in Japan. Never put yourself through the ridiculous torture of working at a typical Japanese company. Study in Japan. Live in Japan. Don't work in Japan, though. It will make you lose every ounce of love you have for the language, because you will be berated in it, talked down to in it, and, no matter how well you speak it, you will be treated as forever an outsider who can never 'understand how the Japanese think' or some such nonsense."
For study, though, I'd tell myself to start reading sooner. And I'd tell myself to stop trying to learn every kanji perfectly, and instead focus more on enjoying the process after learning the main 2,000.