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+--- Thread: The Discouragement Thread (/thread-1762.html)
The Discouragement Thread - Nii87 - 2009-05-13
I took out my workbook full of kanji in it, and one of the Chinese girls in my Japanese class said it looks like a child's handwriting!
The Discouragement Thread - Nukemarine - 2009-05-13
Nii87 Wrote:I took out my workbook full of kanji in it, and one of the Chinese girls in my Japanese class said it looks like a child's handwriting!No, it looks like a Chinese child's handwriting. Subtle but important difference.
By the way, did she elaborate: Too neat, too straight, not fluid?
The Discouragement Thread - vengeorgeb - 2009-05-13
Gingerninja Wrote:the best i got the other day, "Why are you learning Japanese, what use is that here?".. cos i don't want to stay here the rest of my life perhaps?.This is interesting. I have always felt excluded because people around me, like in the real world, just don't appreciate my skills or they are just stupid and ignorant, lack passion and determination, etc. Of course there have been exceptions.
Another thing is that I always complain and argue that the problem is that I need to get away from here, like you say: "I don't want to stay here the rest of my life". But it strikes me that, I live in a 3rd world country but you don't and you feel the same way. So where the heck is better? Japan? Of course not.
I am determined to "become Japanese" and that involves living in Japan so I have decided that Japan is definitely that "happy place", however, it is obvious we will meet just as stupid people over there. So maybe the problem is the people and not the place.
The Discouragement Thread - sheetz - 2009-05-13
Maybe it's because I was always a bit of an oddball, but nobody I know has ever said anything negative about my language studies. Maybe it's the people I hang out with, or maybe it's because I just don't care what other people think and they know it.
The Discouragement Thread - ファブリス - 2009-05-13
Nii87 Wrote:I took out my workbook full of kanji in it, and one of the Chinese girls in my Japanese class said it looks like a child's handwriting!I'm not sure if that's what Nukemarine implied, but if you look at hand written chinese its way more difficult to read than hand written Japanese. You'd have to be native or have written in kanji/hanzi for years for your handwriting to look "adult". Plus, hand writing doesn't look like kaisho.
The Discouragement Thread - mentat_kgs - 2009-05-13
Nii87 Wrote:I took out my workbook full of kanji in it, and one of the Chinese girls in my Japanese class said it looks like a child's handwriting!I don't take this as discouragement. For me it sounds like praise!
The Discouragement Thread - harhol - 2009-05-13
Well we are "children" in terms of the language. I dread to think what my handwriting was like when I started writing the Roman alphabet.
The Discouragement Thread - mentat_kgs - 2009-05-13
Innocent but with a great future ahead.
The Discouragement Thread - Gingerninja - 2009-05-13
jorgebucaran Wrote:"I don't want to stay here the rest of my life". But it strikes me that, I live in a 3rd world country but you don't and you feel the same way. So where the heck is better? Japan? Of course not.i did actually mean in the context of that arguement with my customer about my town i live in. No one ever seems to escape, you get a job and thats you for the rest of your life. no advancement, no plans, no motivation.
Apart from obviously cultural differances id imagine the standard of living between the UK and Japan wouldn't be that far differant.
I didn't mean it in a "i must escape this hellhole or it'll kill me kind of way" more in, i want to do something with my life that isnt living and working in the town i was born in just like everyone i've ever met.
I love britain. (apart from the ever increasing amount of leechers, teenage mothers, crackheads and many of the other things blighting us atm.) Why you think we get so many people emigrating here. Its a nice place at its core. its just starting to rot around the edges.
The Discouragement Thread - Gingerninja - 2009-05-13
harhol Wrote:Well we are "children" in terms of the language. I dread to think what my handwriting was like when I started writing the Roman alphabet.if you asked anyone at my workplace they'd still say i write like a 6 year old.
The Discouragement Thread - Nii87 - 2009-05-13
Thanks guys. No, she didn't elaborate on why it wouldn't look like an adult's handwriting, I'll make sure to ask that next time!
I suppose you could take it as praise, but it just got me thinking... If I write Kanji for long enough, would my handwriting become 'adult-worthy'? Or is there something else required, some kind of learning or exposure to Japan we are missing? What do you guys think?
The Discouragement Thread - harhol - 2009-05-13
Nii87 Wrote:Or is there something else required, some kind of learning or exposure to Japan we are missing? What do you guys think?My guess is that it's related to school & exams. You couldn't succeed in school if it took you ten seconds to write each letter, so you'll develop shortcuts naturally over a period of time. And, because we're learning via component parts, it's going to look artificial anyway (imagine teaching someone how to write a 'g' in three separate stages). Once the whole kanji becomes a fixture in your memory, rather than just dirt + fingers + king etc... then you can't help but develop your own, more natural style.
The Discouragement Thread - kazelee - 2009-05-13
tenaciousjay Wrote:I think mixing languages up is pretty normal until you've reached a certain level of fluency. I speak English as a 1st language, French fluently, Japanese so-so, and Tahitian less than so-so. Studying Japanese hasn't affected my French or English much at all, but a lot of Tahitian has a consonant-verb-(repeat) structure similar to how Japanese sounds and I have found myself mixin' those 2 languages up a lot more than the ones I'm fluent in. I'd assume that people who spoke any of the latin based languages would have similar problems until they attained a certain level of fluency. I think I've had this problem playing different first person shooters before that I don't play often enough. I'll get use to the button layout of one game and then play another and run up behind someone for a 1 hit kill only to hit the jump button and like land right in front of them. The key I think is just to push on til' it becomes subconscious.Agreed. Had same problem with French/Japanese. Want to say Japanese time, French came out. It's not weird isn't it (TOT).
The Discouragement Thread - Whatsifsowhatsit - 2009-05-26
mafried Wrote:I think it's a uniquely monolingual thing. blackmacros hit the nail on the head with his description. When I learned Spanish as a monolingual teen, Spanish became associated with "2nd language." So when German came along my brain had trouble reconciling the two and the German ended up replacing the Spanish rather than existing side-by-side. It's not something I've ever heard people who've been bilingual since childhood complain about however.I hope this is true, since I learned Dutch as a native language and English at a very young age through television and computer games etc.
As for the discussion about Japanese handwriting, I agree with harhol's last comment (and don't really have anything else to add).
The Discouragement Thread - Jarvik7 - 2009-05-26
My girlfriend looked at some Japanese I had written a few years ago and said it was messy, but it looked like typical Japanese male highschool student's writing.
I was both satisfied and dissatisfied by that, but I don't care at this point if my Japanese is super pretty. My English handwriting certainly isn't.
My Chinese professor was always going off on how my handwriting is amazing and giving me 100% on all hanzi assignments, but that actually annoyed me since the characters were obviously ugly. I just wrote them as fast as possible to get the assignment done (old-school write this character 70 times type of work).
The Discouragement Thread - theasianpleaser - 2009-05-26
Wally Wrote:One of the very oldest jokes ...LOL! I hate Americans, yet I am one...
What do you call someone who speaks two languages? (Bilingual, of course.) What do you call someone who speaks three languages? (Trilingual, naturally.) What do you call someone who only speaks one language?
American.
The Discouragement Thread - mafried - 2009-05-26
hate is such a strong word
The Discouragement Thread - Robatsu - 2009-05-26
Here's one I heard the other week:
"Wow you have weekly jump! I'm probably the only other person who appreciates this!"
(Flicks through).
"Errm, you DO know they publish this in English, right?"
The Discouragement Thread - Nii87 - 2009-05-26
mafried Wrote:hate is such a strong wordI despise that comment.
The Discouragement Thread - welldone101 - 2009-05-26
Jarvik7 Wrote:My girlfriend looked at some Japanese I had written a few years ago and said it was messy, but it looked like typical Japanese male highschool student's writing.Perhaps, compared to his average grading assignments, yours was like eating his mothers home-cooked dumpling compared to Han's parlor down the (non-Chinese)-street.
I was both satisfied and dissatisfied by that, but I don't care at this point if my Japanese is super pretty. My English handwriting certainly isn't.
My Chinese professor was always going off on how my handwriting is amazing and giving me 100% on all hanzi assignments, but that actually annoyed me since the characters were obviously ugly. I just wrote them as fast as possible to get the assignment done (old-school write this character 70 times type of work).
The Discouragement Thread - Nukemarine - 2009-05-27
Robatsu Wrote:Here's one I heard the other week:Ok, you brightened up my day with that one.
"Wow you have weekly jump! I'm probably the only other person who appreciates this!"
(Flicks through).
"Errm, you DO know they publish this in English, right?"
The Discouragement Thread - welldone101 - 2009-06-16
Gingerninja Wrote:[...]I love britain. (apart from the ever increasing amount of leechers, teenage mothers, crackheads and many of the other things blighting us atm.) [...]I think the bigger problem is the teenager fathers, but that's just me.
The Discouragement Thread - undead_saif - 2009-06-27
I still get the "What good will Japanese bring you?" comments, I usually reply with "My love to languages" and always get that strange look, lol.
But nothing of what people say discourages me anymore because I don't care about people thoughts about something I do anymore, eventhough it's a 50% bad thing.
The last stupid thing I've heard is "You can't do (something) and you think you can learn kanji?"
Edit:
Although most people give that strange reaction about my learning of Japanese, they always give the impressed impression too.
The Discouragement Thread - Musashi - 2009-06-27
Whatsifsowhatsit Wrote:Nah, we Dutch people have a talent for languages, don't worry bout losing that English ahahamafried Wrote:I think it's a uniquely monolingual thing. blackmacros hit the nail on the head with his description. When I learned Spanish as a monolingual teen, Spanish became associated with "2nd language." So when German came along my brain had trouble reconciling the two and the German ended up replacing the Spanish rather than existing side-by-side. It's not something I've ever heard people who've been bilingual since childhood complain about however.I hope this is true, since I learned Dutch as a native language and English at a very young age through television and computer games etc.
The Discouragement Thread - Whatsifsowhatsit - 2009-06-27
Musashi Wrote:Nah, we Dutch people have a talent for languages, don't worry bout losing that English ahahaHaha, well thanks, but... I was thinking more about that I hoped that meant that a third language (such as in this case Japanese) would be easier because I'm not technically monolingual