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+--- Thread: I've failed...and I've been lying to myself (/thread-13540.html)
RE: I've failed...and I've been lying to myself - kanttuvei - 2016-02-21
(2016-02-21, 8:08 pm)ryuudou Wrote:No, a standard Japanese driving license. The same kind everyone has. It does not require any Japanese, you can do the process completely in English (no reading, no writing, no speaking). Even when driving you do not need to know any Japanese, the car navi speaks to you in English if you wish. Street signs have romaji.(2016-02-21, 5:14 pm)zx573 Wrote: There's a pretty big list of countries where you can transfer your foreign driver's license to a Japanese driver's licenseTemporary license. When it comes to driving being able to reliably read the signs and streets and buildings is important.
(Note, the only big exception is the Japanese stop sign which is a triangle with the hiragana "tomare" , instead of a red hexagon + "STOP". So if you don't read Japanese, maybe you think "caution" instead of "stop".)
RE: I've failed...and I've been lying to myself - ryuudou - 2016-02-21
(2016-02-21, 8:33 pm)kanttuvei Wrote:(2016-02-21, 8:08 pm)ryuudou Wrote:No, a standard Japanese driving license.(2016-02-21, 5:14 pm)zx573 Wrote: There's a pretty big list of countries where you can transfer your foreign driver's license to a Japanese driver's licenseTemporary license. When it comes to driving being able to reliably read the signs and streets and buildings is important.
Nope.
Quote:Foreigners can drive in Japan with an International Driving Permit (IDP) for a maximum of one year.
Quote:International driving permits are not issued in Japan and should be obtained in your home country in advance. Japan only recognizes international driving permits based on the 1949 Geneva Convention, which are issued by a large number of countries.
RE: I've failed...and I've been lying to myself - zx573 - 2016-02-21
(2016-02-21, 8:08 pm)ryuudou Wrote:Not being able to get a job because they don't meet the requirements set by the company does not equate to "never be able to legally work". There are jobs that would still take you as you even listed yourself. They aren't good jobs, but a job is a job.(2016-02-21, 5:14 pm)zx573 Wrote: You can legally work in Japan without knowing the script.As a dish washer, illegally under the table in a hostess club, or teaching English in the form of being an ASL (assistant language teacher) for the main teacher who is a functional literate adult that merely uses you for examples and pronunciation.
Anyone who knows even the bare minimum about the Japanese job market knows that most normal jobs require at least N2 from non-Japanese applicants.
(2016-02-21, 8:08 pm)ryuudou Wrote: Temporary license. When it comes to driving being able to reliably read the signs and streets and buildings is important.Temporary or not, they are still allowed to legally drive in Japan, which you said would not be possible. I'm not entirely sure where you got the temporary license thing from, though. I just double checked multiple websites and nowhere do they state that the license is temporary. Maybe you are thinking of the International Driving Permit which has a 12 month expiration date? Side note: I learned that I am able to transfer my driver's license to a Japanese driver's license as of an agreement signed last month, so I learned something new and useful!
Also, in response to your response to kanttuvei: Look up 外免切替. That's the process you go through in order to transfer your foreign driver's license into a Japanese driver's license and is not related to the International Driving Permit. http://www.jaf.or.jp/inter/translation/index_e.htm
(2016-02-21, 8:08 pm)ryuudou Wrote: Nobody said it doesn't mean you don't know any Japanese at all.If you don't know the kanji then you don't know Japanese. Right?
I'm not going to respond to the rest of your response because I think we're on the same page as far as that stuff goes. I feel like some of the discussion could've been avoided with better word choices.
RE: I've failed...and I've been lying to myself - sholum - 2016-02-21
(2016-02-21, 7:54 pm)ryuudou Wrote:(2016-02-21, 5:11 pm)sholum Wrote: Learning kanji (squiggles) without context (language) does not impart the agreed meaning and use of the squiggle to the learner, thus learning characters on their own isn't learning language.RTK is context because it's a book aimed at acquiring the Japanese script as it's used in Japan (jouyou kanji). Learning the kanji is context, because the kanji is the Japanese script.
(2016-02-21, 5:11 pm)sholum Wrote: It is impossible to read things unless you understand themIncorrect. If you know the readings of kanji you can read them without knowing what they mean.
(2016-02-21, 5:11 pm)sholum Wrote: this is even a popular example of why knowing characters doesn't mean knowing languageMoving the goalposts. I simply said that RTKanji is studying Japanese.
(2016-02-21, 5:11 pm)sholum Wrote: If characters have the attribute of 'language', and weren't simply arbitrary tools of languageThe characters are just as much the language as the sounds are. The jouyou kanji are a unique group of characters with a unique usage (including Japan-invented kanji) that only exist that way within the Japanese usage.
(2016-02-21, 5:11 pm)sholum Wrote: As for you changing your point, you didn't do it very wellI didn't change my point at all. You misunderstood.
(2016-02-21, 5:11 pm)sholum Wrote: I was a bit... (crass? blunt?) with my initial sentence, but it does seem that all my conversations with you have been arguments over stupid things that ultimately have no value for improving language studies.I have no idea who you are. Perhaps you're often find yourself in these kind of discussions because you're guilty of the behavior you're talking about.
A character set is a set of scribbles that are meaningless out of context. Sound patterns are sounds that are meaningless out of context. You can work on your pronunciation of Japanese sounds all you like, but unless you're speaking Japanese words when you do so, you're just making sounds. In the same way, if you learn to write the kanji outside the context of actual Japanese language, you're learning to replicate scribbles, not learning Japanese.
These characters aren't in context in RTK, they're by themselves, with English keywords assigned to them that sometimes loosely correlate to their basic theme or meaning in Japanese. That connection to Japanese is about as solid as air...
You can not read something (understand written language, since you're going to split hairs) unless you understand it; that's such a basic fact that there's no better way to say it, you understand because you understand, going any further is philosophical babble.
I moved no goal posts, I used the example of the letter 'p' from the beginning and mentioned that, since many kanji overlap (are the same as) traditional Chinese characters, it's perfectly reasonable, by your logic, to say that learning kanji means you're learning Chinese writing.
I misinterpreted your sentence, because it made no sense to me when I first read it...
ryuudou Wrote:You also seem to conflate misrepresentation with me changing my point.I never said you changed your point, I said you nitpick statements like 'learning kanji in isolation isn't learning Japanese' until they have nothing to do with their original form; we're now having an argument that might as well be saying that if I copied the Hebrew alphabet into a book right now without any idea of what sounds those letters make or what clusters of them actually mean, I'd still be studying Hebrew. This is either completely false, or a semantics game. Squiggles aren't written language until they have context, such as what words they represent. The fact that I title my attempt to copy scribbles that I don't understand as 'attempt to copy Hebrew characters' doesn't magically make it not an attempt to almost blindly learn scribbles.
(Why Hebrew? Because it's a language I know next to nothing about, and it's the first thing that came to my mind; replace with Farsi or something else, if it so pleases you).
I could learn every single character in the Hebrew script and assign each one a tag word with which I remembered it by, just like in RTK, and practice recalling them from memory with those words; would you say I know any Hebrew then, or did I learn, completely out of context, the script that is used to write Hebrew?
Maybe a better example would be the Latin or Greek scripts we use every day. Sure, I can produce those characters, and I even know most of their names (at least the Greek ones), but that doesn't mean I know one lick of Greek or Latin by learning those scripts; I merely know the script used to represent those languages.
Being literate is important in our world, so I'm not trying to downplay the importance of it in helping one to improve their language abilities at a greatly increased rate.
For my (hopefully) final attempt to convey why characters aren't language, let's go back to spoken language. What makes sounds language? Those sounds are organized in a manner that has been agreed to have some meaning. Is a babbling baby speaking a language? In all likelihood, no; they are imitating the fact that, when adults want something, they make noises (not crying, that's biological); the baby has no idea what those noises mean at first, but they try to replicate them to achieve some result; until they figure out that it requires certain sounds in certain patterns to convey their desires, there is no language being spoken.
In the same way, written language is language not by virtue of its scribbles, but by virtue of its organized scribbles. Until it actually means something, it's not language, just scribbles.
However, in both cases, it's easily agreed that neither speech nor literacy would develop without learning those basic bits that make the language, but which I claim aren't language until they are organized with meanings.
This is my final argument, we agree to disagree if there's still no understanding; like I said, we've never argued something useful. And yes, we've argued about stupid shit before; it's why I always sigh in resignation when I see you arguing against something I've written; I don't remember names that well, so the fact that I remember you as 'that guy that always gets in dumb arguments with me' shows that I've typed too many posts directed at you.
RE: I've failed...and I've been lying to myself - dtcamero - 2016-02-21
![[Image: Someone-is-wrong-on-internet.png]](https://africacheck.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Someone-is-wrong-on-internet.png)
RE: I've failed...and I've been lying to myself - kanttuvei - 2016-02-21
(2016-02-21, 8:42 pm)ryuudou Wrote:(2016-02-21, 8:33 pm)kanttuvei Wrote:(2016-02-21, 8:08 pm)ryuudou Wrote:No, a standard Japanese driving license.(2016-02-21, 5:14 pm)zx573 Wrote: There's a pretty big list of countries where you can transfer your foreign driver's license to a Japanese driver's licenseTemporary license. When it comes to driving being able to reliably read the signs and streets and buildings is important.
Nope.
Quote:Foreigners can drive in Japan with an International Driving Permit (IDP) for a maximum of one year.Quote:International driving permits are not issued in Japan and should be obtained in your home country in advance. Japan only recognizes international driving permits based on the 1949 Geneva Convention, which are issued by a large number of countries.
So obviously you don't have a clue, do you? Nobody is talking about International driving permit, we are talking about Japanese Driving License. Please read, for example, the Japan Automobile Federation website (in English)
http://www.jaf.or.jp/e/switch.htm
I DO actually live here and I have switched my foreign license into a Japanese driving license.
No test requirement :
Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, Norway, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Taiwan and South Korea.
RE: I've failed...and I've been lying to myself - tokyostyle - 2016-02-22
(2016-02-21, 8:33 pm)kanttuvei Wrote: No, a standard Japanese driving license. The same kind everyone has. It does not require any Japanese, you can do the process completely in English (no reading, no writing, no speaking).
The driving tests are giving using English cues and they even have courses given entirely in English. My Japanese was so non-existent at the time I ended up just memorizing the course rather than trying to pay attention to the instructors accent. (I was last to go in my group both times I took it.)
(2016-02-21, 8:33 pm)kanttuvei Wrote: (Note, the only big exception is the Japanese stop sign which is a triangle with the hiragana "tomare" , instead of a red hexagon + "STOP". So if you don't read Japanese, maybe you think "caution" instead of "stop".)
I don't even consider this an exception because it appears on both the written and driving test. You don't need to read Japanese at all as long as you recognize the sign and stop completely.
ryuudou Wrote:Temporary license.
I wouldn't consider my license, which I have had for ten years, temporary especially when I get to trade it in for a gold one next month. It's also better than most standard Japanese licenses because I have manual transmission permission!
RE: I've failed...and I've been lying to myself - ryuudou - 2016-02-22
(2016-02-21, 8:47 pm)zx573 Wrote: they don't meet the requirements set by the company does not equate to "never be able to legally work".I just meant someone who didn't even graduate elementary school is not allowed to work for a lot of places.
(2016-02-21, 8:47 pm)zx573 Wrote: They aren't good jobs, but a job is a job.As a dish washer, illegally under the table in a hostess club, or teaching English in the form of being an ASL (assistant language teacher) for the main teacher who is a functional literate adult that merely uses you for examples and pronunciation.
Anyone who knows even the bare minimum about the Japanese job market knows that most normal jobs require at least N2 from non-Japanese applicants.
(2016-02-21, 8:47 pm)zx573 Wrote: Temporary or not, they are still allowed to legally drive in Japan, which you said would not be possible.And it isn't. I wasn't talking about drivers licensed obtained in foreign countries and then transferred over. I was talking about Japanese citizens who wouldn't be able to take the native written test because they can't read.
(2016-02-21, 8:47 pm)zx573 Wrote: I just double checked multiple websites and nowhere do they state that the license is temporary. Maybe you are thinking of the International Driving Permit which has a 12 month expiration date?Yes.
(2016-02-21, 8:47 pm)zx573 Wrote: Also, in response to your response to kanttuvei: Look up 外免切替. That's the process you go through in order to transfer your foreign driver's license into a Japanese driver's license and is not related to the International Driving Permit. http://www.jaf.or.jp/inter/translation/index_e.htmI wasn't talking about that. I was talking about Japanese people. However even the 適性検査 requires a degree of Japanese language ability according to the page.
(2016-02-21, 8:47 pm)zx573 Wrote: If you don't know the kanji then you don't know Japanese. Right?I never said all of Japanese. You can be fluent in the spoken language while being illiterate in the written one.
RE: I've failed...and I've been lying to myself - ryuudou - 2016-02-22
sholum Wrote:A character set is a set of scribbles that are meaningless out of context.Sound is as well.
sholum Wrote:You can work on your pronunciation of Japanese sounds all you like, but unless you're speaking Japanese words when you do so, you're just making sounds.If someone were to recite the kana over and over that counts as practicing Japanese. The kana as a set is unique to Japanese.
sholum Wrote:In the same way, if you learn to write the kanji outside the context of actual Japanese language, you're learning to replicate scribbles, not learning Japanese.RTK is context because it's a book aimed at acquiring the Japanese script as it's used in Japan (jouyou kanji).
sholum Wrote:These characters aren't in context in RTKYes they are. It's the jouyou kanji + some Japanese name kanji.
sholum Wrote:they're by themselves, with English keywords assigned to themThe keywords can be done in many languages including Japanese. The keyword is not the important part though, and you focusing on the keyword indicates that you may not understand RTK all that well. RTK is keyword to kanji because the primary activity of RTK is outputting kanji, and being able to write them fluently like Japanese people.
sholum Wrote:You can not read something (understand written language, since you're going to split hairs) unless you understand itIncorrect. You can read things without understanding (reading kanji you don't know the meaning of, or reading English words you've ever seen before). What you're referring to is comprehension.
sholum Wrote:I moved no goal postsYou did. You originally said that RTK isn't studying Japanese (or more accurately I originally said it is, and you tried to claim it isn't). However one who does not know even the basic jouyou kanji cannot be literate in the Japanese language. If the result of knowing all of the standard Japanese script (hiragana/katakana/the Japanese set of kanji) is literacy in Japanese, then logically learning that script is studying Japanese.
Studying any part of the parts essential to full function in the Japanese language is studying Japanese.
sholum Wrote:I'd still be studying Hebrew. This is either completely false, or a semantics game. Squiggles aren't written language until they have context, such as what words they represent.The Hebrew alphabet is objectively the Hebrew alphabet, and perspective/accumulated knowledge does not change this. Even if you don't know any words yet if you are teaching yourself the Hebrew alphabet you are in the process of learning Hebrew. The language is the entire system.
sholum Wrote:would you say I know any Hebrew then, or did I learn, completely out of context, the script that is used to write Hebrew?The characters are a part of the language just as much as the sounds are. You can be fluent in the spoken language while being illiterate in the written one. For most of the history of the Japanese language the written language actually had different rules from the spoken one. It was called 文語.
sholum Wrote:For my (hopefully) final attempt to convey why characters aren't language, let's go back to spoken language. What makes sounds language? Those sounds are organized in a manner that has been agreed to have some meaning. Is a babbling baby speaking a language? In all likelihood, no; they are imitating the fact that, when adults want something, they make noises (not crying, that's biological); the baby has no idea what those noises mean at first, but they try to replicate them to achieve some result; until they figure out that it requires certain sounds in certain patterns to convey their desires, there is no language being spoken.It's possible to read text without knowing what it means, and comprehend text without being able to read it. Being able to speak Japanese and read/write Japanese are both important parts in knowing Japanese.
In the same way, written language is language not by virtue of its scribbles, but by virtue of its organized scribbles. Until it actually means something, it's not language, just scribbles.
RE: I've failed...and I've been lying to myself - ryuudou - 2016-02-22
(2016-02-21, 11:07 pm)kanttuvei Wrote: So obviously you don't have a clue, do you?You should get a degree in projection. My example was not referring to transferring foreign licenses obtained in languages other than Japanese over to Japan. It was referring to the process of obtaining a home-brewed Japanese license as a Japanese person.
If you are illiterate you cannot do so. Being able to read and write is very important.
(2016-02-21, 11:07 pm)kanttuvei Wrote: Nobody is talking about International driving permitIt's something you can get based on a foreign license. See above though.
RE: I've failed...and I've been lying to myself - Zgarbas - 2016-02-22
If you could finish this particular offtopic discussion, that would be great. Please take it to the pms if you feel the need to continue.