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before I stop working - jordan3311 - 2011-08-07
hey guys, Just wondering if you guys had any suggestions for good books that can help improve my speaking and get me to an intermediate level of Japanese. I know that this is a weird question ^^'.Why not just speak right? Well I am going back to college and my speaking partners will be meeting without me?(there is a Japanese meet up near my apartment that meet up on Saturdays and speak Japanese). Also am stopping my job so i am wanted to see I could buy a good Japanese book to farther my studies. Maybe something with a CD. thanks for the help =D
before I stop working - Jarvik7 - 2011-08-07
I would recommend a book that you can have a conversation with.
Since those don't exist, find another way to talk in Japanese such as via Skype.
A bit less sarcastically, start reading fiction to get more of a grasp of conversation patterns. There are no textbooks I'd recommend specifically for conversation.
before I stop working - jordan3311 - 2011-08-08
thanks. Do you have an suggestions for any good books then?
before I stop working - Jarvik7 - 2011-08-08
That depends entirely on your level and your tastes in fiction.
There are a few threads for fiction recommendations already.
before I stop working - pudding cat - 2011-08-08
You could try the Shadowing - Let's Speak Japanese book. It's bascially a book of very short conversations transcripts with a CD.
edit: I see I already mentioned this in your other thread. Sorry!
before I stop working - SammyB - 2011-08-08
pudding cat Wrote:You could try the Shadowing - Let's Speak Japanese book. It's bascially a book of very short conversations transcripts with a CD.Has anyone tried this book? And was it helpful?
before I stop working - pudding cat - 2011-08-08
@SammyB
There's a thread on the book here http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=1943&page=1
before I stop working - dtcamero - 2011-08-08
if what you need to say is not apparent to you, then you need more input. case closed. forcing it with english-structured japanese will not help.
go watch some anime ;D
before I stop working - mutley - 2011-08-08
If you find that it is the spoken style of Japanese itself that is quite hard to understand/reproduce then a textbook called なめらか日本語会話 is quite useful. It covers things like contractions of words, use of different particles, common phrases to start/finish a conversation or change topics etc.
Other than that, if you don't have an actual person to talk to, then you need to talk to yourself. When you are watching or listening to something, try shadowing what they are saying, then try using the same sentence structure but changing some of the words/tenses etc. to describe something slightly different. Just repeating exactly what they say might improve your accent, but I think it's limited in helping your production unless you actually try creating your own sentences too.
Something that often slows down pre-intermediate learner's conversations is the inability to instantly recall the correct form of a verb on the spot. It's not necessarily that they don't know how to make the different forms, just that it takes them too long. Again the best way to practice this try creating sentences by yourself. When you learn a new verb try using it to make up sentences using all it's different forms.
I wish I was disciplined about practicing like this. It gets pretty tiring, and requires a lot more active effort than just reading or listening.
before I stop working - nest0r - 2011-08-08
@dtcamero - Deliberate learning, fluency development, and output practice are also invaluable, beyond just input, or watching anime. ;p For a nice breakdown of research leading up to a combination of these factors in a language learning program, see: http://www.victoria.ac.nz/lals/staff/Publications/paul-nation/2007-Four-strands.pdf
In the past (most recently here, here, here, and here) I mentioned an interest in corpus/applied linguistics-derived texts for speech styles (where they look at register variation and apply them to materials), and it looks like there might be something like that here: Japanese for All Occasions: Mastering Speech Styles from Casual to Honorific
“In Japanese, register -- the way you change your words depending on who you are speaking to -- plays a key role. The rules of register in Japanese are far more complicated than they are in English, but until now there hasn't been a book that lays it all out in an accessible format. Japanese for All Occasions is a much-needed introduction to this bewildering aspect of the language, aimed at intermediate students and above.” (Their definition of register's a bit too simple and limited here to spoken language, but it serves the purpose. See Halliday, et al.'s work for more, especially as it pertains to written language.)
Doing a quick search for previous mentions of this text, I see @Nagareboshi mentions pre-ordering the above book. If you're reading this @Nagareboshi, what do you think? The samples at Amazon look a bit like what Japanese the Manga Way covers, but I assume there's much more to the book than that.
before I stop working - dtcamero - 2011-08-09
tokyostyle Wrote:Also if you find yourself needing to be a stammering mess when confronted with the opposite sex then anime might also be useful.That's a brilliant idea. More evangelion please... i also need to be a blubbery moron when presented with an awesome robot suit that will kick ass and save the world...
Nestor that book sounds interesting and when you're trying to UNDERSTAND keigo, for example, it might be cool (except for the small problem that it sounds like it's written in english). However when it comes to production, a handful of example sentences will leave you still speaking english, only with japanese words and phrases.
Skills are not acquired from books... I'll grant you that output practice is important but way later and it sounds like OP isn't developed enough / hasn't input nearly enough to be in a place to start assembling the phrases he's heard 100 times and therefore really understands. This isn't being patronizing, it takes a long time to get there. But if you rush it you're just developing bad habits.
Also jordan I commend your effort to socialize but your meet-up sounds like it will be really painful if you try to force japanese out of your head. you need to make friends, actual friends with some japanese people, WITHOUT making them your sensei. it's difficult, but the best way... because then you're faced with the language a lot and you can try things out in a less stressful environment. Something I liked to do was have my j-gf speak jpnese and I would respond in english... that helped a lot for listening comprehension. I started making simple responses, that became more complex over time.
before I stop working - nest0r - 2011-08-09
@dtcamero
When you're doing deliberate study in combination with other methods, as it's much more efficient, you may use English explanations of Japanese. What's important is that they're good explanations and easily understood. This is also true for definitions of words.
The sheer number of example sentences isn't as important as having examples to illustrate the points being explained. Corpora based on native speakers and writers as well as native media are ideal materials for these sentences, and with the applied linguistics background, is most likely what would be used for register analysis in this book.
To perform deliberate learning using an SRS with a book such as this, you may internalize the principles by applying them to the examples using spaced retrieval. This will greatly speed up your learning as input through exposure alone is very slow and limited. Output may be minimized at the onset relative to deliberate learning and input, but it's something you may include from the beginning to great results, and increasingly as you progress.
before I stop working - dtcamero - 2011-08-09
I'm all for srs-ing stuff... but those books that purport to explain japanese to foreigners always seem to talk about this imaginary idealized version of language that doesn't really exist. that's fine for a rough explanation at the beginning of an investigation into something, like a wikipedia article to get one's bearings... but as soon as possible you need to get into native material otherwise you lose the real context, be it efficient or not.
Without native media you can study for years and maybe even pass JLPT, but when you get over there you won't be able to understand the koban when he tells you how to find the subway, and forget about macking on girls in shibuya...
before I stop working - Thora - 2011-08-09
@jordan: I recall a couple threads on spoken Japanese will a bunch of resources and advice, in case you haven't already stumbled onto them.
[edit: posted before seeing about 2 posts]
dtcamero Wrote:Nestor that book sounds interesting and when you're trying to UNDERSTAND keigo, for example, it might be cool (except for the small problem that it sounds like it's written in english). However when it comes to production, a handful of example sentences will leave you still speaking english, only with japanese words and phrases.It's not meant to be the sole learning resource. Also, I imagine there's a range of registers and styles, not just keigo. One of the risks of learning exclusively from exposure to jmedia seems to be that people won't develop a sufficient range. The fellow-at-that-input-only-blog ;-) admitted that after 18 months he could only use colloquial. Even 2 years later, when he jokingly tried to imitate businessman speech in a video, he tanked. Learning about different registers heightens learners' sensitivity to the differences in the input they're using to learn. It makes time spent reading and listening more effective. Learning keigo rules obviously isn't enough, but you can use sentences to internalize patterns (concentrated input?) and then you need to get a feel for it in real social contexts. Don't implicit and explicit make a wonderful pair? ;p
Also, btw, the advice (guess whose?) to only read about Japanese grammar in Japanese - or, do not read about grammar Japanese until you can do it in Japanese - is not good advice, imo. Plenty of people benefit from, for eg, quick look ups of usage in a grammar reference dictionary. By doing so, they start to interpret more accurately and catch nuances, an awareness that would have taken a long time otherwise and may have resulted in fossilized misinterpretation. Besides, learning a big heap of grammar/linguistics vocab in Japanese is hardly a priority for communication.
Quote:Skills are not acquired from books...Again, who said the book was to be used alone? It's not either/or...
Quote:Something I liked to do was have my j-gf speak jpnese and I would respond in english...Sounds like you need to dump her for a girlfriend who doesn't speak English then. No English, remember? ;-) (I used to do the same with friends.)
You're right, extreme views make for catchier writing. case closed. ;p
before I stop working - jordan3311 - 2011-08-09
@dtcamero
thanks for the info. The japanese meet up is informal practice and most of the people there are advance/native Japanese speakers. Its pretty chill and laided back. At my current level is hard to understand everything they are saying buy I feel that it is helping my listening skills also the people there make me feel welcome even tho I am a beginner.
before I stop working - dtcamero - 2011-08-09
Thora Wrote:She was actually great for learning because her japanese was better than her english, and while she COULD speak english she'd get tired after a while and revert... after we got comfortable talking that way she would just speak japanese by default unless I didn't understand. Talking that way (my english, her jpnese) I found really useful bc at that point I had very little speaking practice and a huge gap between passive and active vocabulary.Quote:Something I liked to do was have my j-gf speak jpnese and I would respond in english...Sounds like you need to dump her for a girlfriend who doesn't speak English then. No English, remember? ;-) (I used to do the same with friends.)
Much more of a problem actually is my fellow learner friend's J-gf who lived in america 10 years and has english as good as his. She doesn't want to bother speaking japanese with him because their communication is harder so they only talk english. She's also really patronizing about his ability like he's a child or something... and he went to such trouble to find a jpnese girl, it's pretty sad.
before I stop working - Thora - 2011-08-09
That's a shame. Feeling it's safe to make mistakes and having supportive people is really important, I think. Oh, another benefit of mixing languages at that level is speed and fewer misunderstandings. It can get tiring otherwise.
before I stop working - Nagareboshi - 2011-08-10
nest0r Wrote:Doing a quick search for previous mentions of this text, I see @Nagareboshi mentions pre-ordering the above book. If you're reading this @Nagareboshi, what do you think? The samples at Amazon look a bit like what Japanese the Manga Way covers, but I assume there's much more to the book than that.In the first part of the book verbs, adjectives, honorific prefixes, personal pronouns, copulas, names, and a brief overview of the differences in male and female speech are presented. There are example sentences demonstrating for each point, demonstrating the use in different speech styles: honorific, humble, polite, plain, and some even in super-polite form. There is audio for all the example sentences.
In the main lessons you find various topics: Introduction, Identifying things, Invitation to a Tea Party, Describing states, Asking Permission, Realting personal experience etc. Each lesson comes with some short dialogues, with parts of the dialogues underlined. The underlined parts are explained in the Notes section. The Notes for each lesson were selected with learners at the intermediate level in mind, and what they are most likely to encounter at that stage. Special emphasize was put on the new N4 for all notes. They cover expressions, sentence-final particles, sentence patterns, male and female speech, among other things.
At the end of each lesson is a practice section. This section covers activities like translating sentences from English to Japanese using appropriate levels of politeness, complete sentences, correct the speech-style mistakes, mark the correct parts, etc. The correct answers are in the back of the book.
Most of the topics covered in this book can be found in any beginner or intermediate text. However, the dialogues are interesting, the sentence patterns are useful and can be applied on the spot, it really helps getting a grasp of the differences between speech styles, and it is great for self-study, shadowing and speaking practice. It gives you plenty of bang for the buck. I like it and can recommend the book.
If you want more specific information about this book just ask.
before I stop working - nest0r - 2011-08-10
That's pretty detailed, thanks. ^_^
Ah, what about the audio beyond initial example sentences, is that for dialogue as well? How is the dialogue constructed? You said short, do you mean like Speaker 1/Speaker 2 taking turns 2-3 times or something like that? Do they describe contexts? Do they reference particular corpora or native materials as the sources for the dialogues? What about the quality of the audio?
Looks like the only sample images for the book are for that initial basic section (which looks like it contains the same type of info JMW does).
before I stop working - Nagareboshi - 2011-09-09
nest0r Wrote:That's pretty detailed, thanks. ^_^I am very sorry for my very late reply ... !
Ah, what about the audio beyond initial example sentences, is that for dialogue as well? How is the dialogue constructed? You said short, do you mean like Speaker 1/Speaker 2 taking turns 2-3 times or something like that? Do they describe contexts? Do they reference particular corpora or native materials as the sources for the dialogues? What about the quality of the audio?
Looks like the only sample images for the book are for that initial basic section (which looks like it contains the same type of info JMW does).
There is Audio for everything in the book, the examples, the dialogues, everything. The dialogue is 7 lines long, most of the others are ten lines, so they are rather short. Usually there are only two speakers, some dialogues have 3, and a handful up to 5.
The context becomes clear from the topic and a short introduction. For example: A Japanese class is going on a field trip to a Sake factory. Before the trip, the teacher sounds out his class to figure out how many students are going to go. The topic title is: Inquiry. In this particular example there are three people talking.
The audio quality is great, and the dialogues are spoken in native speed, here is an example. http://depositfiles.com/en/files/aj1iab7fy
They don't reference any particular native materials but there is a list of books. A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar, Drohan Francis, G. A Handbook of Japanese Usage, Japanese Sentence Patterns for Effective Communication, A Handbook of Modern Japanese Grammar, and some others.
This is about all I can say about this book.
before I stop working - caivano - 2011-09-09
dtcamero Wrote:if what you need to say is not apparent to you, then you need more input. case closed. forcing it with english-structured japanese will not help.3 sentences and I disagree with all of them
go watch some anime ;D
If you want to get better at speaking practice speaking. What is English structured Japanese anyway and why would anyone use that?
before I stop working - dtcamero - 2011-09-09
english structured japanese is what happens when your brain's western language faculties imagine what a japanese sentence should be. not only does this sound wrong but will easily create bad habits. better to collect an inexhaustible supple of native speakers' sentence patterns and use them, until you can eventually go straight from the brain into japanese-language faculties, ね？
some of the problems with english-stuctured japanese:
-incorrect noun-verb matching
-unusual vocabulary choices
-accent issues
caivano Wrote:why would anyone use thatthese are the problems with trying to speak before you know what should obviously be said. it's not a deliberate study choice, but rather a problem of insufficient input.
before I stop working - kainzero - 2011-09-09
nest0r's link to the four strands of language learning addresses the input hypothesis proposed by krashen, which is what you're trying to defend.
i find that my experiences in studying language closely match the four strands theory as well. if you want your arguments to be listened to, you should also consider the theories brought up in that paper and read them first before them brushing it off.
one thing of note from the paper is that input can be augmented by output. if you are trying to say something and can't think of how to communicate it, when you see it again in your input you will understand how to phrase it, and it'll stick with you.
i will also add that my writing (which i've practiced a lot) is much weaker than my speaking (which i hardly ever practice) to the point where Japanese people are surprised. yet input (podcasts/tv/magazines/books/music) is the same.
before I stop working - caivano - 2011-09-09
dtcamero Wrote:these are the problems with trying to speak before you know what should obviously be said. it's not a deliberate study choice, but rather a problem of insufficient input.Making those kinds of mistakes is fine imo, someone who starts to speak making mistakes will improve at speaking way faster than someone sat in their room watching anime. When you speak to people you will start to realise these mistakes and they will be corrected over time.
Talking to native speakers is a great source of 'input'. Of course other forms of input are valuable too.
before I stop working - ta12121 - 2011-09-10
caivano Wrote:The problem with output in the beginning is, you don't understand+your mind isn't used to Japanese and it's sound. It takes something like 800 hours for your mind to internalize Japanese. But the good thing about understanding is, it's already half the battle for speaking. Same applies for writing, you need to have good reading skills in order for you to have good writing skills.dtcamero Wrote:these are the problems with trying to speak before you know what should obviously be said. it's not a deliberate study choice, but rather a problem of insufficient input.Making those kinds of mistakes is fine imo, someone who starts to speak making mistakes will improve at speaking way faster than someone sat in their room watching anime. When you speak to people you will start to realise these mistakes and they will be corrected over time.
Talking to native speakers is a great source of 'input'. Of course other forms of input are valuable too.