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+--- Thread: A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? (/thread-8456.html)
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - drdunlap - 2011-09-24
IceCream Wrote:i'm sure Zorlee became even more awesome while he was in Japan, but i gotta say, he was definately already awesome before he left!!!I agree. Japan is no magical elixir for Japanese power (other than listening comprehension, perhaps)- it all boils down to hard work! Though Japan can facilitate the process.. if you let it.
If you check out his Lang-8 from around that time you'll find zillions of natives complimenting him, and you can read how natural he sounded for himself.
So, i dunno if the key is going to Japan, though that's bound to have helped his speaking... i think most of it is just consistent hard work, like he says...
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - AlexandreC - 2011-09-24
Did you include pitch on your SRS cards?
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - caivano - 2011-09-24
When I said that's the key I meant going to Japan after studying hard, reaching N2 level listening, reading and writing and then being in a situation with all Japanese friends and using Japanese all the time
Rather than going to Japan in general.
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - drdunlap - 2011-09-24
caivano Wrote:When I said that's the key I meant going to Japan after studying hard, reaching N2 level listening, reading and writing and then being in a situation with all Japanese friends and using Japanese all the timeThis too. :x I don't know about JLPT levels as I've only ever seen N1 but going to Japan with a significant amount of Japanese knowledge already in one's head is far more useful than going with next to nothing and hoping for magic.
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - magamo - 2011-09-24
IceCream Wrote:i'm sure Zorlee became even more awesome while he was in Japan, but i gotta say, he was definately already awesome before he left!!!This. I can't stress this enough. He was already awesome before he left. And it's not "awesome for a person who only learned Japanese for a year." If he had been learning Japanese for ages, people would still think his writing was pretty good regardless.
IceCream Wrote:If you check out his Lang-8 from around that time you'll find zillions of natives complimenting him, and you can read how natural he sounded for himself.This.
IceCream Wrote:So, i dunno if the key is going to Japan, though that's bound to have helped his speaking... i think most of it is just consistent hard work, like he says...And this.
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - ta12121 - 2011-09-24
IceCream Wrote:i'm sure Zorlee became even more awesome while he was in Japan, but i gotta say, he was definately already awesome before he left!!!yes, it comes down to daily work and consistency. That's what I like about languages, even if some may be harder than others(generally), it really comes down to effort, not skill or talent
If you check out his Lang-8 from around that time you'll find zillions of natives complimenting him, and you can read how natural he sounded for himself.
So, i dunno if the key is going to Japan, though that's bound to have helped his speaking... i think most of it is just consistent hard work, like he says...
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - Hashiriya - 2011-09-25
well I know why my Japanese is accent is only decent rather than great... I focus WAAAY too much on reading Japanese than I focus on speaking... I like reading books/playing games a lot more in Japanese than I enjoy speaking in it. Although I don't speak a lot in my native language to begin with either...
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - Splatted - 2011-09-25
I had the same thoughts about following the melody/rythm of the language, but I took it a little too far; I tried matching the pitches exactly, (or at a more appropriate octave) and ended up singing everything for a while. Trying to brake this habit led to my rap phase, which was a week of me speaking like the comedy black guys you sometimes get in anime and dramas.
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - AlexandreC - 2011-09-25
I think most people understand that every language has its own melody. We can liken this to music, but really it’s a feature of every language. It would be great if remembering that made the system simpler to acquire, but it’s not that easy. Plenty of gifted musicians have crappy accents in foreign languages, so there has to be more to it than that.
Even though every word has its own intrinsic melody, it sometimes changes depending on the words around it, and most importantly, sentence melody depends incredibly on your intended meaning. It’s a complex system. Even if we can perfectly mimic what we hear, we constantly create sentences we’ve never heard before, or we say them with a slightly different intent, and learning to say these just as a native would is a very lengthy process of trial and error. You’ll need a critical and analytical mind, and must self-correct whenever you notice someone say something differently from what you’d say.
A lot of people believe that if you wait before you speak (or whatever variation on a “silent period”), you will avoid making mistakes that are difficult to fix later on. But because pronunciation is such an intense process of trial and error, even if you waited, you would still need to go through this process of making mistakes and paying attention to others’ language so you could self-correct. You need to speak right from the start (in controlled situations: with partners, etc.).
The OP said he hardly spoke during the first year, and many people may construe that as an indication that not speaking is a good idea, but he also went on to spend 10 months in Japan, prior to which he apparently already had a large vocabulary and an excellent command of the grammar. He may have waited, but it seems he spoke as much as he could when he went to Japan. If you can’t go to Japan, waiting before you speak will only extend this learning process many times.
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - Tori-kun - 2011-09-25
@Zorlee: Thanks for putting up that video! I really like you (for some reason) for how you just are, so humble. It just worked for you as you wrote in your post and it's not at all something I or we as leaners should be envious about. No, just the opposite: seeing your video, listening to your recording and reading your journals at lang8 gives me so much ***** MOTIVATION I'm always looking for, motivation and power, that's it. Thanks for giving showing me where I can find it daily; you're just great, dude. Peace to Norway from Germany \o
[Edit] You sound.. as if you have caught a cold or something. Or at least I have that type of voice when I have a cold. Hope you're healthy, though ;D
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - Zorlee - 2011-09-25
Wow, a lot of questions here! Let's see...
TheVinster - I found subs for London Hearts on d-addicts.com.
louischa - I worked as a volunteer in a church. My work mainly consisted of music education and teaching English. It was great fun, yet pretty tough. Even if you know the language, learning a new culture, being away from home and everything - it's pretty rough! After 5-6 months it got better, and the last months of my stay kicked serious ass. =) About how I applied etc, I did a regular job interview for ノルウェー伝道団, basically a Norwegian missionary organization, got the job and went to Japan. I got payed, but not very well. They payed my rent and gave me enough money to eat. Nothing more, nothing less.
AlexandreC - No, I did not include pitch in my srs cards.
mmhorii - Oh, yeah! Serious chops! I saw her live in Osaka. Probably one of the coolest concerts I've ever seen
Icecream, magamo, Tori-kun: Thank you guys so much for the kind words! It really means a lot coming from you guys =)
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - TwoMoreCharacters - 2011-09-25
Here we go again...
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - TheVinster - 2011-09-25
Zorlee Wrote:TheVinster - I found subs for London Hearts on d-addicts.com.Unfortunately I cannot find where you got subs for TV shows. The subtitles list pretty much only has dramas on it. I use d-addicts all the time but maybe I'm missing something...
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - Zorlee - 2011-09-25
Ah! That's right, I forgot to say that you won't find them in the subs section, but if you open the specific episode you might find subs, f.ex:
http://d-addicts.com/forum/viewtopic_90405.htm
Here you'll find both the episode + .srt subs!
Enjoy!
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - Splatted - 2011-09-25
Yay! I've been wanting to branch out in to variety shows but the lack of subs put me off. Thanks a lot!
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - TheVinster - 2011-09-25
Yeah I got tired of dramas so I've been craving normal TV shows with subs. It seems like I'll have to start paying attention more to the torrent threads, but it also seems restricted to that one user (having looked at more recent torrents of London Hearts not done by him). Thanks a lot. I hope London Hearts is good.
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - Kyoshi88 - 2011-09-25
Thanks for posting your progress so far, it gives me a way good way to compare to myself. You're far ahead of me, but at least now I know I'm going in the right direction.
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - zer0range - 2011-09-25
Zorlee Wrote:Practice a lot. Practice every day. Practice does not make perfect - perfect practice makes perfect.Your whole post was a gem, but for me, here's the gem within the gem.
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - vonPeterhof - 2011-09-26
Zorlee, thanks for your helpful and informative post. However, I am not sure if your awareness of the intrinsic language melody and of the importance thereof stems just from you being a musician. Like AlexandreC said, lots of gifted musicians have horrible accents. While a musical training can certainly help in noticing the melodic patterns it does not guarantee that you will make full use of those patterns in your own speech.
Might I suggest that your first language being Norwegian, another language with pitch accent, also has something to do with it? For example, my first language is Russian which does not have fixed stress, just like English. Because of this ever since I started studying English I knew that learning which syllables are stressed is important. However, I never even realized, until it was pointed out to me a few days ago, that in English stressed syllables tend to have a higher pitch than the unstressed ones, whereas in Russian it is the other way round. My first reaction was "Crap! Has my accent been way off this entire time?", but then I analysed the way I normally speak English and saw that I was stressing syllables with the right tone even without being aware of the difference. I guess simple accent imitation goes a long way.
BTW, hvor i Norge bor du? Jeg er i Oslo nå (留学生として).
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - Zorlee - 2011-09-26
vonPeterhof: I don't think there's a direct link between music and languages, and like you said, great musicians can have a horrible accent and non-musicians can sound native-like in a foreign language. However, I do think that paying attention to small variations in sound is something you do both when you play music AND when you imitate a native's way of speaking. Paying attention to the small details is basically what's important.
And by the way: Jeg flyttet til Oslo for en måned siden, så jeg bor også i Oslo!
Håper du har det fint i Norge! Si ifra hvis du lurer på noe 
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - zhfac - 2011-09-26
When you say you "...I worked REALLY hard on the KO2001 books and finished inputting them into Anki within a couple of months " does that mean that you just put the sentences in to Anki and just read them? How did you pick up the grammar you did not understand? How did you make your cards (front/back)? Just curious as I may be taking the KO2001 route or Kanji damage.
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - kainzero - 2011-09-26
i feel like i'm doing the same thing as you, except slower. and without the japanese immersion year.
it took me a year and a half to get through ko2001 and a year to get through kanzen master 2kyu (i put in my last card yesterday, actually).
i can imagine how going balls out would've led me to more success sooner but at the same time, i do feel good that i'm still making progress while contending with the rest of my hobbies. an hour a day is still good practice; of course, the more hours you can put in and still have good practice, the better.
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - AlexandreC - 2011-09-27
vonPeterhof Wrote:Might I suggest that your first language being Norwegian, another language with pitch accent, also has something to do with it?Apt observation.
Most of what Zorlee has listed in his opening post doesn't include audio and he confirmed he didn't note pitch on his SRS, so he acquired his accent during his stay in Japan. I think it's an important point to keep in mind for anyone who wishes to accomplish as good a pronunciation as his, without having the opportunity to live in Japan.
(Jeg vil ikke si at du ikke har arbeidet svaert mye, men jeg synes aksenten er ikke lett aa laere hvis du ikke kan bo i Japan.)
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - Lucky_Two - 2011-09-27
AlexandreC Wrote:Most of what Zorlee has listed in his opening post doesn't include audio and he confirmed he didn't note pitch on his SRS, so he acquired his accent during his stay in Japan.Note:
Quote:- I've been listening to Japanese non-stop for two years (iPod <3)Also, thanks for making this post, Zorlee. Your Japanese level is a testament to how far being consistent and working really hard gets you, since, as far as I can tell, you didn't use any particularly unique methods/techniques/etc. Very encouraging.
- TV, movies, games, books - all media has been, and still is, Japanese only.
A Norwegian guy speaking Japanese? - TwoMoreCharacters - 2011-09-27
AlexandreC Wrote:Most of what Zorlee has listed in his opening post doesn't include audio and he confirmed he didn't note pitch on his SRS, so he acquired his accent during his stay in Japan.That's a pretty big assumption to make! So hearing Japanese everyday for a year has no effect? You need to listen to Japanese while being in Japan for it to work?
AlexandreC Wrote:(Jeg vil ikke si at du ikke har arbeidet svaert mye, men jeg synes aksenten er ikke lett aa laere hvis du ikke kan bo i Japan.)One reason for why it wouldn't be easy is because the average learner doesn't immerse in Japanese for hours everyday.