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+--- Thread: What do you consider "basic" grammar? (/thread-2164.html)
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - tibul - 2008-11-27
kfmfe04 Wrote:All the arguments I see say either use one or the other or both (immersion and grammar). I don't see any compelling reasons why I shouldn't use both - so I use both.Completely agree, personally I use both methods and it works for me, as long as what ever method people use works for them then what's the big argument?
Why is everyone working so hard to try to convince everyone that his system is the best?
Why don't we leave it at: different people study better in different ways, and leave it at that?
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - Tobberoth - 2008-11-27
mattyjaddy Wrote:You did bring up the point that if you want to speak sooner then a textbook will get you there. Ok, but can you understand responses to what you say? What kind of conversations can you really participate in? Is speaking sooner a good idea? What situation requires you to speak to such an extent at an early period in your studies? What can a textbook provide that memorizing some key emergency phrases/vocabulary can't? Are you imagining a situation of being in Japan and needing to speak early? Like I said before, it's easier to acquire more meaningful parts of language (even if you are using a textbook). And those meaningful parts of language can take you a long way. Let's say you want to say you went somewhere yesterday. If you spent time studying a textbook, you might say "ikimashita" or "itta" or you might say "iita" by mistake. But if you learned some key vocab, you might say "kinou iku" and use gestures to get your meaning across. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I can't imagine a real situation where you'll NEED to conjugate accurately in the case you are required to speak early in your studies. Learning to conjugate fast to speak early just gets one into bad habits. It makes one think that language needs to be used consciously. That's not how natural language works. It should just fall out of your mouth. So really it's not good no matter how you do it to speak before it falls out of your mouth. Speaking serves to make your speaking more fluent and to solidify your grammatical knowledge, whether that knowledge is accurate or not.This is the part I disagree with the most, so this is where I will focus the argument. As for the rest, I'd say you misunderstood me. I'm not pitting textbook against input, I'm not saying textbooks is the way to learn Japanese, input isn't. I'm saying Textbooks is a great way to learn Japanese and probably the best place to start. It also happens to be the best place for a beginner to GET input, since it was made with beginners in mind.
On to the part of your post above. I understand their responses just fine, but I don't share their opinion. What kind of conversations one can partake in after completeing MnN 1 and 2? Why, pretty much any conversation. The only thing which will surprise you will be new vocabulary, you will already know the grammar used in 99% of any common conversation. Good thing is, the vocabulary will be concerning the topic of the conversation, and you can simply ask what the words mean. After finishing MnN, you can easily define words using simple Japanese, or understand words being described in Japanese. Is speaking sooner a good idea? YES, it's the fastest way to learn. I know people who have studied Japanese for 2 years but never really dared to speak it... and they still can't speak, they still can't parse Japanese very fast. People I know who spoke a lot of Japanese when I lived in Japan though, they got good very fast. The only way to have conjugations fall into your mouth is to speak using them, you can't study them for 10 years and expect them to jump out of your mind automatically. The faster you start speaking, the faster you will become fluent in speaking. As for what a textbooks can provide that an emergency handbook can't, I'm pretty sure you realize this yourself. An emergency handbook gives you set phrases. You won't be able to talk, just repeat a sentence you've read. Textbook studies are not memorization, it's understanding. If you have an emegency handbook and need a phrase not in it, too bad. If you studied using a proper textbook, just say it. You know the words and you know how to state it, just put it together. The more you do it, the faster you'll be able to do that kind of puzzling with words, and you become a more creative speaker.
I think you and I define early in your studies differently. I'm talking about finishing MnN 1 and 2. At that point, there's no way you'll say "kinou iku". You seem to be talking about someone who has finished 2 lessons of Genki or something to that extent, that isn't really relevant to what I'm talking about. I'm talking about getting to a GOOD conversational level fast, so that you can actually speak real Japanese. This takes two textbooks of minna no nihongo as long as you add some conversational practice. How long does it take using nothing but exposure? 1 year? 2? 4, as in the case of a baby?
You're talking about people who want to say something in Japanese as early as possible. I'm talking about people who wants to be able to converse in Japanese as early as possible.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - vosmiura - 2008-11-27
Tobberoth, I think he's not talking about people who want to say something in Japanese as early as possible. On the contrary, he said you don't need to say much early on, and if anything some emergency phrases are all you need early on.
And yes, I think you are defining early on in a different way. I'm not sure I'd define finishing MnN 1 & 2 early on - it usually takes what, 1 or 2 years of classes to go through those?
He wants people to "acquire the language" as soon as possible, and you want to "converse in it" as soon as possible. To converse, you can learn rules and consciously plan everything you want to say, but that will put a limit on how fast you can speak and how fast you can parse input, and its only when you've "acquired" the language and can speak and listen without consciously thinking about correct grammar rules, that you can get to native level.
Personally I like to use some learning materials, because I think to acquire language the more you can understand the more you acquire, so I like to use materials that introduce things in a progressive manner as opposed to real (random) materials. I like to think I can get more input that way than if I have to stop all the time & look at dictionaries. I may be right, I may be wrong, but I'm enjoying it anyway.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - Captain_Thunder - 2008-11-27
kfmfe04 Wrote:Why is everyone working so hard to try to convince everyone that his system is the best?You must be new to the internet
Why don't we leave it at: different people study better in different ways, and leave it at that?
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - Tobberoth - 2008-11-27
vosmiura Wrote:And yes, I think you are defining early on in a different way. I'm not sure I'd define finishing MnN 1 & 2 early on - it usually takes what, 1 or 2 years of classes to go through those?I finished Minna no Nihongo 1 and 2 in 6 months... it can be done even faster, especially if you've already finished RtK when you start.
He wants people to "acquire the language" as soon as possible, and you want to "converse in it" as soon as possible. To converse, you can learn rules and consciously plan everything you want to say, but that will put a limit on how fast you can speak and how fast you can parse input, and its only when you've "acquired" the language and can speak and listen without consciously thinking about correct grammar rules, that you can get to native level.
You bring up learning rules and planning to speak, which is very true. What I'm saying is, that's what you do in the first.. 10-20 conversations. The more you converse, the faster it gets. Eventually, it's automatic. And that my friends, is fluency. Just because you learned how to say something by learning rules in a textbook, doesn't mean you'll always have to remember the textbook and think about the rules. You only do that the first few times you use it.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - vosmiura - 2008-11-27
Tobberoth Wrote:I finished Minna no Nihongo 1 and 2 in 6 months... it can be done even faster, especially if you've already finished RtK when you start.6 months may mean under 50 hours of study or over 500 hours of study. If its closer to 50 then that is early, but if its closer to 500 that's not early at all.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - Dragg - 2008-11-27
tibul Wrote:Because even if multiple methods will eventually get you from point A to point B, there are sometimes methods that are much faster than others. Heisig's method versus rote memorization is an excellent example of this idea. I once read a book about the history of the Japanese language in which the author remarked that no student could reasonably expect to learn the grade school kanji in less than two years. Obviously, he had never met a Heisig learner...kfmfe04 Wrote:All the arguments I see say either use one or the other or both (immersion and grammar). I don't see any compelling reasons why I shouldn't use both - so I use both.Completely agree, personally I use both methods and it works for me, as long as what ever method people use works for them then what's the big argument?
Why is everyone working so hard to try to convince everyone that his system is the best?
Why don't we leave it at: different people study better in different ways, and leave it at that?
The point is that many methods will give you progress (or at least a false sense of progress) even though over-reliance on some will make you heavily lopsided. I am one of those people that did too much of the sentence method and too little of everything else, and I am also therefore one of those people who Tobberoth mentioned who couldn't converse well even after 2+ years of study. I encourage the combination of grammar study with a well planned progressive immersion environment.
To me, this discussion is less about one method being better than all others, but more about order and schedule proportion. The original poster was asking a question in regards to the point at which a person could be said to have a good enough level of grammar basics to move on to the sentence method. Maybe it was incorrect for me to assume that grammar rules need to be learned before the sentence method for optimal benefit, but I still stand by the idea that study of grammar rules can help accelerate true understanding.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - Tobberoth - 2008-11-27
vosmiura Wrote:Well, if you want some perspective, Minna no Nihongo is 50 chapters if you count both books (some of the later chapters aren't important to the conversations I'm talking about... it's not very probable that you will have to use sonkeigo or kenjougo in a day to day conversation unless you work at a Japanese company). A chapter is one dialog (with audio included). The dialog is usually pretty short. You get a few example sentences of what you will learn in the chapter. You also get a few example situations, usually just a question and an answer or something like that, I guess it's to show how it can be used in common situations, not just example sentences. You then get a page of grammar. This is extremely simple example sentences where the important grammar is highlighted. In the case of verb conjugations for example, you get a sentence and 5 verbs which can be used in it, all of them showing how it's conjugated differently for the different kinds of verbs. Then you get a page or two of exercises where you get a sentence without grammar, more or less a list of vocabulary which you have to make into correct sentences using the new grammar. After that, you have a page where you have a small dialog, and under that, you have some listes of different vocabulary. Your goal is to say the above dialog using the vocabulary in the list below instead of the vocab used in the example dialog. After that, a short audio exercise, just listen to a sentence write the answer. After that, some regular exercises where you have some blanks you need to fill. Lastly, a short text which you have to read then answer questions about it.Tobberoth Wrote:I finished Minna no Nihongo 1 and 2 in 6 months... it can be done even faster, especially if you've already finished RtK when you start.6 months may mean under 50 hours of study or over 500 hours of study. If its closer to 50 then that is early, but if its closer to 500 that's not early at all.
That's all, a full chapter in Minna no Nihongo. Safe to say, you don't have to spend much time on each chapter, I'd say you could do one chapter a day if you put an hour or two into it. Let's say 2 hours. That's 100 hours to complete both books, and then you should be at the level of conversation I'm talking about. That's also JLPT3 level of Japanese, just that is pretty nice motivation. (I personally passed a nonofficial JLPT3 test with 95% correct after those 6 months of study.) Could you get to the same level using nothing but exposure in 100 hours of study? I don't think so. Of course, I have no proof otherwise. Btw, I'm not saying someone who spends 100 hours to complete both MnN books will get 95% correct on JLPT3, it would probably take quite a bit more effort than just that (me living in Japan in all probably accounted for a big part) but at least, JLPT3 brings nothing new to the table which isn't covered.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - vosmiura - 2008-11-27
Like you say, living in Japan probably accounted for a lot. And I think you mentioned earlier how after every chapter you learned, you encountered that usage in the real world. I wouldn't underestimate how much effect that immersion has had on top of studying from the textbook.
When we talk about exposure for 100 hours, I don't think there's anyone on this forum who just watches Anime and does nothing else, right? Those people that follow AJATT at least, should also be sentence mining, looking up stuff in dictionaries, reviewing, and that sort of thing.
I started with textbook study then moved onto the sentence method, and after doing that I thought that the sentece method worked much faster than doing textbook exercises.
I don't have Minna no Nihongo, but I have Japanese for Everyone (which is not the same book). JFE has fewer chapters - 24 I think - but it's more dense so covers a similar amount of ground if not a bit more from what I've read. One chapter is about 12 pages long.
I did 10 chapters of JFE before I started trying the sentence mining approach. I started mining from various learning resources like 2001KO, ADOBJG/ADOIJG and some of the Kodansha learner series of books. I would also watch some Japanese dramas & anime - nothing like 24/7 as AJATT but one or two shows per day.
What happened is that very soon after roughly 600 sentences, I went back to check JFE and I could understand most of it including the 14 chapters I never studied. At the same time I had also covered several readings for about 600 kanji thanks mainly to 2001KO, whereas JFE uses less than 300.
That's when I decided textbook exercises weren't the fastest way to learn for me (especially after doing RTK I wanted to put those kanji to work). I had better results doing input with sentences. Though I still use learning resources for explanations and examples.
I don't live in Japan, but I guess if i did I would have been able to advance more in the same time.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - alyks - 2008-11-27
vosmiura Wrote:When we talk about exposure for 100 hours, I don't think there's anyone on this forum who just watches Anime and does nothing else, right? Those people that follow AJATT at least, should also be sentence mining, looking up stuff in dictionaries, and that sort of thing.I like how people seem to think that our entire worldview of Japan is from anime and manga. I know I'm going to go around using temee all the time because all I do is read manga. Of course, it doesn't help that these are the only things to do in Japanese.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - vosmiura - 2008-11-27
alyks Wrote:(puzzled) I don't know how you got that from what I said.vosmiura Wrote:When we talk about exposure for 100 hours, I don't think there's anyone on this forum who just watches Anime and does nothing else, right? Those people that follow AJATT at least, should also be sentence mining, looking up stuff in dictionaries, and that sort of thing.I like how people seem to think that our entire worldview of Japan is from anime and manga. I know I'm going to go around using temee all the time because all I do is read manga. Of course, it doesn't help that these are the only things to do in Japanese.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - Dragg - 2008-11-27
@vosmiura
I've never used JFE, but if it's like most good textbooks, it's going to have exercises which require application and a little creativity. KO is great and I recommend to everybody, but it doesn't emphasize production in the same way as a textbook. Good textbooks will introduce you to a small pool of vocab every lesson along with various sentence structures so that you can plug in words to form your OWN sentences. I think this type of creative output within a limited and therefore safe context will make a student more well-rounded than sentence mining alone.
I went down a similar learning path as you but with less textbook exposure. The problem is I never got to the point where I got comfortable conversing. Although textbooks don't usually force you to speak out loud, I think that the generalized exercises translate to better spoken Japanese later on. Production cards lack creativity and IMO are too sentence-specific to have an optimal effect on generalized understanding.
I'm curious as to whether or not you are practicing verbal speech at all, and if not, at what point and how do you plan on incorporating it? Some, but not all, of AJATT adherents have a very rigid view as far as refusing to speak Japanese much at all for a long time. I understand that mistakes are probably more easily ingrained early on, but good textbooks and audio series often encourage output within limited structure that make such mistakes unlikely. Accent problems are also unlikely when the textbooks have accompanying audio CDs.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - Tobberoth - 2008-11-27
vosmiura Wrote:Like you say, living in Japan probably accounted for a lot. And I think you mentioned earlier how after every chapter you learned, you encountered that usage in the real world.Indeed. I used the ability in conversation I got from MnN to speak to my friends and my girlfriend, and thus "encountered" the usage. I didn't stumble upon the words when watching TV in Japan (because I never watched TV in Japan). I didn't when reading a newspapers (because I couldn't). I encountered the words because I felt confident in my output, something most people working solely with exposure techniques do not. I'd say that I wasn't actually encountering them... I was using them. Most of the situations in MnN comes up a lot when you live in Japan, so you're always thinking "phew, good thing I read that chapter on how to talk about this kind of thing in Japanese". I doubt I would feel the same about the KO sentences (I've done about 200 of them and found most of them to be pretty useless sentences. The vocabulary is great though.)
I'm not going to lie, MnN is probably a lot more useful when studying in Japan than when studying somewhere else... that's what it was made for and that is why it's the most used textbook in Japan, pretty much all language institutes use it.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - vosmiura - 2008-11-27
Honestly I'm not very good at conversing either. I don't get much chance to practice speaking. However my understanding of native level input is also still often limited, and I don't expect to be able to say something that I would not understand if it was said to me. My output progresses but still lags behind input. I believe (or should I say hope?) that once I can understand more natural input, production will improve too.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - mattyjaddy - 2008-11-27
Thanks vosmiura. You correctly interpreted what I wrote.
Tobberoth. One part I see I wrote in a confusing way. The "kinou iku" wasn't from a text book learner but was from someone who learned emergency words/phrases if they needed to speak early. My argument as vosmiura made clearer is simply against speaking early, ie before words fall out of your mouth.
As far as studying for 10 years and conjugations not falling out of your mouth. Ok, well how about a year and a half? I don't like using myself as an example but I think in this limited case it's ok. When I started learning Japanese, I looked in textbook and saw that the -te form has several different ways to make it depending on the verb. I didn't memorize the various ways. Instead I read a bunch of children's picture books. The -te form is everywhere in those. Before long I was naturally able to recognize verbs even in the -te form. It took some time and some looking up words and some checking back with the text to see which dictionary form the -te form went to. But now that I'm starting to speak more and more, the -te form really does just fall out of my mouth, as well as -masu and -mashita and -tai and -ta and so on. I didn't so much memorize the rules as understand them by reading about them and then approach the forms in context. If I didn't remember the rule or recognize, I would just check back and hold it in my head long enough to understand what I was reading. Eventually I didn't have to check back anymore. Something similar happened with kana. I had them in my head well enough to start approaching my school's lunch menu and children's picture books. When I forgot how to read one, no big deal, I just looked it up and then kept reading. Now reading them is pretty much automatic. (Though I still have trouble distinguishing katakana so, n and tsu, shi when I see them in words I'm not familiar with. Just a matter of time and exposure though.) (By the way, I wasn't particularly seeking out -te since it was something I wanted to learn. It was just something I read about in a text along with -masu, ha, wo, ni, SVO order, etc. It came up often in my reading so it's something that I picked up on quickly.)
You said that I misunderstood you. I think it might also go the other way around. I acknowledged that there is confusion of terms and ideas in this argument including what people mean by textbook and input. But I wanted to examine your example which did, in fact, pit pure textbook learning against pure input acquisition. I felt it was a flawed vignette that didn't accurately represent the potential of either side. Whether or not it was representative of your whole opinion on language study or if it even fits well with it is another question.
On to the rest of your reply. You said working with MnN can give you the ability to understand/participate in 99% of regular conversations. I can't comment on this since I don't know MnN. But I am familiar with beginner's textbooks in a few different languages and they are all very similar. Most of them can prepare you for most normal conversations as long as your conversation partner is also a foreigner or is a native using foreigner speak (meaning slowed down, enunciated, non-dialect, non-slang Japanese). I don't consider foreigner speak a normal conversation. My experience is that learning from a textbook does NOT give one the ability to participate in normal conversations. It can give you a base to start trying to understand conversations. But it just takes time and exposure to be able to participate in a normal speed, slang/dialect filled conversation which ARE normal conversations. For me I find I can handle one on one conversations but as soon as two native speakers get together unless I try to take charge of the conversation or thrust myself into it constantly, the pace/dialect/slang/etc. speeds up beyond my comprehension. Also, if you are not in Tokyo (other big cities might be ok, too) where a more "standard" Japanese is spoken (what the hell is that ん before が、ぎ、ぐ、げ、ご anyway?!?), you will have a hard time getting along in a normal conversation--one about the weather, where you are going, what you did yesterday, etc.--just from studying a textbook. You will need exposure to get you there.
I must disagree with your assertion that speaking is the fastest way to learn. It's the fastest way to make your speaking flow better/faster. It's the fastest way to get things stuck in your mind (good or bad), especially if you are speaking in repetitive exercises before getting out and speaking in real conversations. But it is NOT the fastest way to gain grammatical competence (this is different from grammatical knowledge--generally, it refers to ability to make grammatical sentences while knowledge is knowing grammar rules which you can use to make grammatical sentences) which is generally the goal of language learning. Your example of not-speaking people vs. speaking people is somewhat flawed. I wager that the people who didn't speak perhaps didn't attempt to understand what was going on around them and participated in fewer conversations (since most people prefer conversation partners that actually respond). I also wager that the people who spoke a lot listened to language in context (input, exposure) 10 times as much as they spoke. Consider your conversations with friends. If generally people get an equal amount of time to speak in a conversation, at minimum you are listening as much as you are speaking. That's a two person conversation. Add in more people and the time you spend listening goes up and the time spent talking goes down. This doesn't even count time listening to one-way sources of input--TV, speeches, radio, etc. So let me a amend what I just said above. The action of speaking itself does not help you learn a language. But speaking with others implies a conversation and thus speaking gets a foot in the door, so to speak, so that you have access to vast amounts of comprehensible input.
One last thing. You say textbooks encourage understanding not memorization. I say they encourage understanding of memorized stuff. But language isn't memorized stuff. And language isn't understanding of memorized stuff. Language is an ability to convey information in such a way that someone else understands and neither of you need to understand why or how it worked for the communication to have been successful. It just sounded right. Some people say learning rules can be a step towards that unconscious communication. I think Informed input is a way to bypass the understanding of memorized rules. Textbooks can be a resource for informed input. So can a teacher. So can a context. But it's not necessary to work through a textbook in the order it has chosen or in it's entirety for it to be of use. It's not necessary to memorize the rules. It's helpful if you understand them. But it's not necessary to understand them in the order they introduce them. When your mind is ready it will understand them. That's why it's good to return and reread, but not memorize or force yourself to stick to the textbook's mostly arbitrary grammatical progression. I agree that input on it's own with no other resource will take an extremely long time and might even be impossible for an adult. But no where in my previous post did I say that input alone is a good idea.
So, to be clear, what I'm talking about is people who want to speak and understand Japanese that sounds right.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - TerryS - 2008-11-27
kfmfe04 Wrote:All the arguments I see say either use one or the other or both (immersion and grammar). I don't see any compelling reasons why I shouldn't use both - so I use both.That's true, but I think the thing that AJATT is trying to get across strongly, is that early on, you need a larger proportion of immersion compared to bookwork, to learn a language fluently and not painfully slowly. And he's right!
Why is everyone working so hard to try to convince everyone that his system is the best?
Why don't we leave it at: different people study better in different ways, and leave it at that?
But when the AJATT guy or anyone who does lots of input exaggerates this too strongly, or says if you just use books you'll never get anywhere, or that if you did have to choose just one, it should be "immersion" -- and they are right -- they tick everybody off because it seems to insult people using books.
I have had little opportunity to practice listening and speaking until recently, and I know how slow using just books goes.
In contrast, there are people who never learn to read and write, even in their own language, but especially another, and they can speak it just fine -- not perfectly, but fine, like a normal person.
There is truth to that.
So to learn faster, do a lot more input early on, that is the lesson to be learned.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - kazelee - 2008-11-27
Looooong posts.... @_@
Soo...
To summerize, books+immersion=good
Captain_Thunder Wrote:Was tempted to say something similar.kfmfe04 Wrote:Why is everyone working so hard to try to convince everyone that his system is the best?You must be new to the internet
Why don't we leave it at: different people study better in different ways, and leave it at that?
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - shneen - 2008-11-28
TerryS Wrote:But when the AJATT guy or anyone who does lots of input exaggerates this too strongly, or says if you just use books you'll never get anywhere, or that if you did have to choose just one, it should be "immersion" -- and they are right -- they tick everybody off because it seems to insult people using books.Eh. It goes both ways. People with a more "traditional" background get flabbergasted by the lack of books and classes, etc. Mention studying from a book or deviating from AJATT in anyway and the AJATT fans get their panties in a twist and out along the lines of "OMG. You'll never learn anything from a book! You'll never be able to understand or speak Japanese." And insinuate that us book-learner types don't do any listening or immersion at all.. and that we obviously all suck at Japanese.
Which if that were the case, I guess I wouldn't be able to speak/understand Japanese at all.
But I can speak, and I can understand everything that goes on around me. And 3 of the 6 years that I've been studying were spent in a classroom... with a textbook. Fortunately I had a professor who knew what she was doing and kept things interesting and moving along.
My main beef with AJATT is the cult-ish following it seems to have and the fact that whenever someone suggest doing something different or tweaking the method in any way, the proverbial "AJATT bibles" start flying. Other than that, the method does have some merits... immersion is a huge part of learning a language, and I wouldn't be as good as I am without it. But I can't discredit the foundation I got from studying grammar early on. I certainly don't have to think about it anymore, but I think it certainly does help me dissect new patterns that I come across. And I too, am glad for some of the topics we covered way back when... like how to politely complain to my neighbors when they're blaring enka early in the morning
kazelee Wrote:Looooong posts.... @_@Exactly.
Soo...
To summerize, books+immersion=good
But kids, just because my studying methods are different doesn't mean that I want to hear the entire AJATT website recited to me. I've read it. I know what it says. And I'm sure the opposite is true as well.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - kfmfe04 - 2008-11-28
shneen Wrote:My main beef with AJATT is the cult-ish following it seems to have and the fact that whenever someone suggest doing something different or tweaking the method in any way, the proverbial "AJATT bibles" start flying. Other than that, the method does have some merits...I agree with this assessment 100%.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - alyks - 2008-11-28
shneen Wrote:My main beef with AJATT is the cult-ish following it seems to have and the fact that whenever someone suggest doing something different or tweaking the method in any way, the proverbial "AJATT bibles" start flying. Other than that, the method does have some merits...Actually, I don't think anybody actively arguing the against textbooks even mentioned AJATT. It's kinda funny how everybody attributes everything to AJATT, as if it's always "AJATT vs Traditional".
In actuality, probably less than 10% of this discussion had anything to do with arguing in favor or against AJATT. Probably because not many people here disagree with the method. The only true method to AJATT is massive hours and sentences/SRS. Everything else is extra. In retrospect I see several differences fueling the debate:
English is detrimental/English is helpful
Grammar rules are a red herring/grammar rules are a shortcut
We can learn like children/we can't learn like children
Native fluency is possible/native fluency is not a reasonable goal
Textbooks are not "real Japanese"/movies, internet, doramas, manga, anime, books are not "real Japanese"
I think the only thing AJATT really talks about and takes an opinion on is the very last one. Also, I think all of us were a bit misinformed about this one.
But I agree with TerryS.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - shakkun - 2008-11-28
alyks Wrote:Native fluency is possible/native fluency is not a reasonable goalWhat. Nobody has ever said either of these things. Please quote me the moron who said textbook Japanese is real and movies aren't. Equating people who read textbooks with these ridiculous statements is a strawman argument.
Textbooks are not "real Japanese"/movies, internet, doramas, manga, anime, books are not "real Japanese"
I'm indifferent to this argument because people should learn however they like and care way less about how other people do it. And there isn't a wrong answer. The only fundamental requirement is immersion. Reading a textbook won't mutilate your Japanese, not reading one won't bring your acquisition to a grinding halt. But I guess if people didn't have strong opinions internet forums wouldn't exist.
Edit: Actually I don't think anyone ever said "we can't learn like children" either, just "learning like an adult is faster". Khatsu says this too. It took me 8 years to stop sounding like an idiot in English and 16 years to get a big enough vocabulary to read and write adult essays. I'm not planning to take that long with Japanese.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - Tobberoth - 2008-11-28
mattyjaddy Wrote:So, to be clear, what I'm talking about is people who want to speak and understand Japanese that sounds right.This post indeed made your opinions more clear to me, unfortunately I still disagree with most of it. However, I now disagree with the details, not your whole idea. I'm really stressed now so I can't go into detail but I guess the important part is that we have different priorities in our learning. You say that normal conversation ability must include slang and dialects. I do not, my girlfriend is completely fluent in Japanese (korean who has lived in Japan for 6 years) and she speaks only standard Japanese and uses no slang. Not because she doesn't understand it, but because she doesn't LIKE it. Her opinion is that foreigners who speak slang and in dialects are forcing themselves to be more Japanese than they are. Standard Japanese is standard Japanese, if you learned it, why "defile it" with dialects. Now I don't share her opinion, I think it's nice to spice up ones Japanese to show proficiency, but the point is, she is truely fluent and she needs no slang nor dialectal knowledge (hell, most people in Tokyo don't even understand some dialects, why should we as foreigners do it?). It's true that understanding a conversation between two native japanese is harder than a japanese person talking directly to you, but that's because when they talk to you, you have the ability to ask "what does X mean?" "Can you clearify that?" etc. The problem isn't lack of conversational ability, it's lack of vocabulary. I say one can be fluent in a language without knowing words such as "exhaust" and "karoshi" etc because there are words in Swedish I do not understand, yet I'm native in Swedish.
As for you opinion on how knowledge from textbooks and knowledge from exposure differs, I understand your opinion, mine is different. Unfortunately, we have very little scientific proof on this so we can't really bring up facts. I simply don't agree that the learning you get from exposure is superior. I use -te form fluently, you do it as well. You learned it from exposure, I learned it from a textbook. All we know is that we are both fluent and we learned it differently. Do you know it better because you learned it from exposure? I doubt that. Did you learn it faster? I doubt that as well. Alas, we have no proof so I'm afraid we can't get any farther in that argument
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - shneen - 2008-11-28
alyks Wrote:English is detrimental/English is helpfulCorrect me if I'm wrong, but isn't the left side of your list all mostly points that are made by following AJATT? English is poison, Who needs grammar? Let your brain figure it out, Tetbooks suck, sound like a native in 18 months, etc, etc, etc. So that's why it comes down to AJATT vs. Traditional... this stuff gets spouted over and over again.
Grammar rules are a red herring/grammar rules are a shortcut
We can learn like children/we can't learn like children
Native fluency is possible/native fluency is not a reasonable goal
Textbooks are not "real Japanese"/movies, internet, doramas, manga, anime, books are not "real Japanese"
The method itself is okay... It's got some strong points.. and it's got some weak points. And I think most people here would agree with that. But no one likes to be told "...you're going to end up sucking at the language..." if they choose to stick to other methods.
I'm not arguing against the method, but I think what people have been simply trying to point out is that having some background in grammar or using a textbook isn't going to make your Japanese "suck." And in some cases, it can be useful... I probably can't count the times I've said "Man, I'm glad Nakama had a chapter on that!" I'm a fan of immersion and listening... and production, for that matter... hell, I live in Japan and spend 8 hours in an office listening to my co-workers blather on and it's done great things for my Japanese, so I can't argue against using lots of input. But, like I said, I can't discount the fact that I have studied grammar and learned in a more structured setting, because it gave me a great step to where my level is today.
At any rate, I liken grammar to driving a car. Some people want to know what's under the hood... and some people just want to be able to put the keys in the car and drive. But in the event of a problem, knowing a little bit about the inner workings can help you out, no matter which camp you fall into.
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - kazelee - 2008-11-28
I'm fluent in the -te form. Fluent like a 5 year old. Just put -te at the end of everything.
Mr Shakkun Wrote:What. Nobody has ever said either of these things. Please quote me the moron who said textbook Japanese is real and movies aren't. Equating people who read textbooks with these ridiculous statements is a strawman argument.I've seen this before on random forums that have nothing to do with language. They are not morons. They are just misinformed. I think though, Mr Alysk was just throwing out examples not anything really set in stone.
We keep going in circles. The illusion of a "superior" path..... I want to say something smart, but my brain it tired of typing this sort of stuff over and over (not just on this forum). LOL
What do you consider "basic" grammar? - iSoron - 2008-11-28
shakkun Wrote:What. Nobody has ever said either of these things. Please quote me the moron who said textbook Japanese is real and movies aren't.
Tobberoth Wrote:The conversations [in Minna no Nihongo] aren't dumbed down in the slightest. They are focused. They are natural real dialogs while still not introducing too much at the same time.
Tobberoth Wrote:I want to be able to go up to a random japanese person and have a natural correct conversation about how to get there. Not yelling "omae, eki doko? fukusatsu na michidakara sa. wakanai pyon." just because I heard those words in the latest anime I saw.http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?pid=33113#pid33113
Sorry Tobberoth, I couldn't resist.