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+--- Thread: The Discouragement Thread (/thread-1762.html)
The Discouragement Thread - kazelee - 2008-11-22
Did Khatzu says all classes suck?
Quote:As for other bad English speakers, that's my point exactly, they only learned through input, they never spoke to a native, or even to each other. And they suck at speaking.Are you sure about that, because most of the bad English speakers I've met are bad at speaking English because they don't really need it. They keep to people who understand their language and, in a lot of cases, their culture. They are bad because they have no desire to be to good. Being in an English speaking country does not mean they are bombarded with input. Especially when they go out of their way to avoid it.
They are like that kid who is bad at piano because he never took the time to sit down and practice. He just gives up because piano is "too hard."
Students of English who are "bad" tend to be bad because they are trying to say more than they know.
The Discouragement Thread - TerryS - 2008-11-22
PrettyKitty Wrote:"Are you intending to marry a Japanese man? If not then what's the point? The only reason to learn Japanese is to marry a Japanese man. If that's not your goal then you need to think up something else that will get you a man instead of this nonsense!"Darn good thing no one's said that to me -- I would smack them!
The Discouragement Thread - TerryS - 2008-11-22
cdelugo Wrote:There are always people trying to discourage you from learning new things, but in the end you'll be the better for it.Ain't that the truth!
I'm about to turn 40, and many times when people find out I'm in college, they say, "What are you, a career student?" Not only is that extremely rude, but it is ignorant of the fact that many adults attend college for the first time later in life from desire to change careers. The derogatory term "career student" means that you are too lazy to get a real job, so you're going to go to college for the rest of your life and avoid real work (by doing intellectual stuff instead).
Oddly enough, the first time someone said this to me, he actually was unaware of what it usually means, and was giving me a compliment. His sister has steadily advanced in her career and income by continually updating her education, and by "career student", what he really meant was "a hard-working person with the initiative to attend college and advance their career and earn great money".
Since then, though, people have called me a "career student" in the derogatory sense a handful of times. It's true, they just want to pull you back. Sometimes they think you go to college to feed your ego. (Like that would motivate you through "no life" and "no money" for long!)
As for Japanese specifically, most people think it's a very unusual choice of language, but they are curious as to why and want to talk to me about it. They might think I'm crazy because Japanese is really hard. Often times, they tell me I'm very smart to be studying a language like Japanese. I don't really get discouragement about Japanese, but about college. (But the discouragement is greatly overwhelmed by the encouragement.)
The Discouragement Thread - TerryS - 2008-11-22
alyks Wrote:TerryS, I didn't say that. It was Phuana.Sorry, I copied and pasted and wrote the quote tags, I should have at least used the "Quote" feature and pasted over the entire quote.
The Discouragement Thread - bodhisamaya - 2008-11-22
Ah, about to turn 40 myself in April. My best friends are Buddhist monks who consider themselves career students :-)
The people I know who speak and pronounce the worst English were born here in America. In Hawaii, a typical compliment to tasty food you prepared might go, "Hey Bra, dese grinds broke da mouf!" My mother in Arkansas, Ann, pronounces her name with two syllables.
The Discouragement Thread - liosama - 2008-11-22
People are bad at a language because they don't read enough.
I don't get how hard this is to see:S?
A written language is the most perfect form of a language.
So, if you read lots, when you speak, just be a little lazy and wala. If you chose the lazy path, you'll sound more colloquial, if you chose to be sophisticated, then you'll sound like a book worm intellectual.
Read first, speak later.
The Discouragement Thread - annabel398 - 2008-11-22
liosama Wrote:People are bad at a language because they don't read enough.I agree that reading a lot is one of the best ways to improve mastery of a language. However, the mark of the autodidact (one who teaches herself, usually via reading) is knowing how to read a word but not how to say it. Sometimes it even works the other way round: not recognizing that a word one has read and a word one has heard are in fact the same word.
I don't get how hard this is to see:S?
A written language is the most perfect form of a language.
So, if you read lots, when you speak, just be a little lazy and wala. (emphasis added)
Voila, anyone? :-)
(ETA: Imagine an accent grave... I find that diacritical marks don't always render consistently on browsers so I usually leave them off when typing online.)
The Discouragement Thread - askayscha - 2008-11-24
Tobberoth Wrote:Man, people are getting some mad discouragement, I can't really relate... Then again, I didn't start to study Japanese seriously until I lived in Japan and that's a good a reason as you're going to get.encyclopediadramatica definitely?
I am a member of a certain online forum though where anything having any relation at all to Japan sucks shit and anyone who has even a slight interest is a complete faggot.
japanese to them is utter faggotry.
The Discouragement Thread - FloconDeNeige - 2008-11-26
I get people thinking I'm trying to be 'asian'...Though I am Indian -.-'...
Mostly everyone that studies Japanese at my university are chinese so when I walk in, i stick out a lot and people just wonder why I'm even there. They are less likely to befriend me because of the way I look, different interests etc. I find that quite discouraging to learn the language. I even considered not taking it as my major because of the racism.
People that don't know me assume i'm a nerd with no social life that sits around at home watching anim? all the time and that I am trying to be Japanese...which is so far from the truth xD
My family think its a pretty useless language and I should learn my own first...
(Which I can speak anyway, just not completely fluent)
Those are a few, but I find Japanese genuinely fun to learn, there are so many resources out there that make it interesting too. So for now i'll keep at it =)
The Discouragement Thread - Odieone - 2008-11-26
FloconDeNeige Wrote:I get people thinking I'm trying to be 'asian'...Though I am Indian -.-'...Flocon take heart brother... i have the same problem studying Japanese in Japan. In my daily life, I can't find the motivation sometimes to learn Japanese
Mostly everyone that studies Japanese at my university are chinese so when I walk in, i stick out a lot and people just wonder why I'm even there. They are less likely to befriend me because of the way I look, different interests etc. I find that quite discouraging to learn the language. I even considered not taking it as my major because of the racism.
- outside of Japan, you can't find people who uses it
- the Japanese work-style is so hard to understand - they could take forever to do something thats relatively trivia.
- they are uber polite but would gladly bowl over 90 year grannies to score a seat on a train then pretend to sleep.
- preach a lack of morals in the world but sell cartoon porn.
But I do think studying Japanese and Kanji, helps you to understand not just what alot of people have to deal with when it comes to studying English and therefore appreciate how hard some people work to get there - be it studying Japanese or English.
Any culture has its ugly side and its good side.
Bottom line.. keep going because knowledge is power.
Better to be a Rich Nerd then a poor Jock. just ask Bill.
The Discouragement Thread - FloconDeNeige - 2008-11-28
Or in my case a poor nerd =P woo gooooo science + language...
but meh you're right...there are SO manythings i dont agree with in Japanese culture but sometimes the key is just about having a open mind.
Thanks for hte encouragement =)
<3
The Discouragement Thread - Tobberoth - 2008-11-28
Odieone Wrote:Better to be a Rich Nerd then a poor Jock. just ask Bill.Wouldn't it be pretty baised to ask a rich nerd that question?
The Discouragement Thread - kazelee - 2008-11-28
Tobberoth Wrote:So then we should ask all the poor jocks out there? Or perhaps scour the globe for some poor nerd? Or maybe we should do a survey, they are soooooo reliable? LOL.Odieone Wrote:Better to be a Rich Nerd then a poor Jock. just ask Bill.Wouldn't it be pretty baised to ask a rich nerd that question?
The Discouragement Thread - Jarvik7 - 2008-11-28
Odieone Wrote:- preach a lack of morals in the world but sell cartoon porn.IANACOHA (I am not a consumer of hentai anime), but Prudish much? Oh no! sex! Try not to view the entire world through Christian(/Abrahamic) goggles.
I can't say I've ever heard a Japanese person preach about much of anything... Unless you mean right wingers in their shiny black vans. Nice collection of stereotypes though, everyone knows that all those yellow people are all the same right?
Quote:Bottom line.. keep going because knowledge is power.Wouldn't it be better to be happy? I'm sure there are an awful lot of miserable rich people out there. Money can't buy happiness (cliche #1). I'm sure there is probably a study out there that correlates intelligence with depression too. Ignorance is bliss (cliche #2). Now I'm not advocating stupidity, but if someone is happy with sports and not books, good for them. (Not that physical activity is the opposite of intelligence, false dichotomy) Bill got to where he is today through a combination of being in the right place at the right time and business acumen, not any sort of special technical ability anyways.
Better to be a Rich Nerd then a poor Jock. just ask Bill
askayscha Wrote:encyclopediadramatica definitely?A lot of people take things way too far and take an interest in Japan into the realm of faggotry. See the pictures of "weaboos" on said site. Squinting in pictures to make yourself look Asian? wtf? It doesn't help matters that a lot of people like that have an incredibly superficial understanding of Japan.
japanese to them is utter faggotry.
The Discouragement Thread - playadom - 2008-11-28
Jarvik7 Wrote:IANACOHA (I am not a consumer of hentai anime)Now THAT'S an interesting acronym. Sounds like a volcano named by the indigenous peoples of some island somewhere.
The Discouragement Thread - Odieone - 2008-11-29
Hahah yeah Jarvik mate. I think life would be pretty constricted and less interesting to think of all the negatives. Best to live and let live.
And money isn't gonna make you happy but it makes you happy enough so you can focus on doing things that make you happy.
Jarvik, if you only spent time in Osaka then you might not have noticed the preaching as much. I always think of Kansai people as the Australian equivalent of the english speaking world. Hard working but never takes things too seriously and always willing to have a laugh. God I envy you.
The Discouragement Thread - Dragg - 2008-11-29
kazelee Wrote:Did Khatzu says all classes suck?Yes, Khatzu says that "classes suck" on the AJATT website. But I suppose the fact that he didn't use the word "all" makes it open to interpretation to some folks. It seems pretty clear to me.
The Discouragement Thread - Mcjon01 - 2008-11-29
Dragg Wrote:Don't they though? I mean, I like the idea of classes, and I've always had pretty great teachers, but sweet merciful god, the students! It's like, no, I don't care about your 200 bootleg J-Rock CDs, or how dreamy you think Gackt is. You're a man, why are you saying these things to me?kazelee Wrote:Did Khatzu says all classes suck?Yes, Khatzu says that "classes suck" on the AJATT website.
And there's always that one guy that somehow managed to make it to the upper level courses but still sounds like McGruff the Crime Dog whenever he tries to stumble through a sentence with ら り る れ or ろ.
The Discouragement Thread - liosama - 2008-11-29
Mcjon01 Wrote:And there's always that one guy that somehow managed to make it to the upper level courses but still sounds like McGruff the Crime Dog whenever he tries to stumble through a sentence with ら り る れ or ろ.Tell them they suck, I do. That is the beauty of a public learning environment like class, interaction. You learn your wrongs from others, and they learn from you. If they complain that you're being too arrogant tell them to ***** off and be thankful, it is their loss in the end if they're too arrogant to realize their wrongs.
I've been called a 'tryhard' because I put on an accent instead of saying "alligator gozaimass", what do i do? continue to ignore and progress
The Discouragement Thread - Evil_Dragon - 2008-11-29
Mcjon01 Wrote:It's like, no, I don't care about your 200 bootleg J-Rock CDs, or how dreamy you think Gackt is. You're a man, why are you saying these things to me?Oh so true. For some reason Japanese classes tend to lure in a kind of crowd I would tell my children to stay away from. I thought I was pretty weird myself, being interested in science, languages, philosophy and stuff, before I attended Japanese class in university.
The Discouragement Thread - mentat_kgs - 2008-11-29
Nah, these crouds never get off the begginer courses.
The Discouragement Thread - Evil_Dragon - 2008-11-29
mentat_kgs Wrote:Nah, these crouds never get off the begginer courses.I guess you were a bit luckier than me.
Two years and there are still people who attach san, kun and god forbid even chan to my name... in public.
The Discouragement Thread - samesong - 2008-11-29
Evil_Dragon Wrote:I'd still consider the first two years beginner coursesmentat_kgs Wrote:Nah, these crouds never get off the begginer courses.I guess you were a bit luckier than me.
. The dumbasses start getting weeded out after the 3rd or 4th year, and are replaced (at least in San Diego) by Japanese Americans who run circles around anybody else in the class.
The Discouragement Thread - kfmfe04 - 2008-11-30
liosama Wrote:People are bad at a language because they don't read enough.I agree with the idea that for a easy-to-pronounce language like Japanese or German, it is much better to read first and then speak later.
I don't get how hard this is to see:S?
A written language is the most perfect form of a language.
So, if you read lots, when you speak, just be a little lazy and wala. If you chose the lazy path, you'll sound more colloquial, if you chose to be sophisticated, then you'll sound like a book worm intellectual.
Read first, speak later.
But I wonder if this is the best path for, let's say, Japanese student learning to speak English? For some reason, many Japanese are notoriously bad at English pronunciation (katakana or 外来語 may be one of the culprits - not practicing enough correct pronunciation early on may be another)...
What do English teachers think of "Read first, speak later" for native Japanese? If it doesn't work, what are better methodologies for native Japanese learning English?
The Discouragement Thread - mentat_kgs - 2008-11-30
You need to study pronuntiation from the start, you are right. But dictionaries come with phonetic transcription and example audio.