TheVinster Wrote:My personal pet peeve, and I don't think it's an arrogant thing to say, is when people try to type in romaji. Full sentences of romaji. Makes me want to blow my brains out.

Some may not know how to get Japanese input set up on their computer.

vix86 Wrote:

TheVinster Wrote:My personal pet peeve, and I don't think it's an arrogant thing to say, is when people try to type in romaji. Full sentences of romaji. Makes me want to blow my brains out.

Some may not know how to get Japanese input set up on their computer.

Regardless of the reason it's hard to read.

TheVinster Wrote:

vix86 Wrote:

TheVinster Wrote:My personal pet peeve, and I don't think it's an arrogant thing to say, is when people try to type in romaji. Full sentences of romaji. Makes me want to blow my brains out.

Some may not know how to get Japanese input set up on their computer.

Regardless of the reason it's hard to read.

If a textbook or any book I pick up has romaji written in it I instantly close it and put it back on the shelf.

uisukii Wrote:日本語上手ですね！

For this set phrase “compliment”, you can reply with another set phrase: まだまだ. The problem is that you still may sound as if you did want to hear “日本語上手ですね。” For that reason my preferred reply is plain: “No. It isn’t.” With stress placed appropriately, you may come off as modest or rude, but it’s up to you how you will be perceived.

Sadly, the kind of elitists the OP refers to are pretty much everywhere. I'm sure everyone here has had his bad teacher/lecturer/etc... at some point in his life.

In a teacher-child example, the usual result is that the child starts hating the said subject and concentrates on something else.

Adults, however, are more used to being criticized and many may still decide to pursue some sort of achievement in the same field. Let's say it's a student-teacher relationship at an university. In some cases, some students do get near the level of their instructor, resulting in a very interesting situation. Most often the teacher does recognize his pupils' ability, but instead of encouraging them, he starts to show off his own ability by constantly correcting the students for any kind of mistakes he can find (sometimes not even referred to the subject), often until the point where the students surpass their instructor.

In short, I think other people may sound or look "fluent" (like the teacher who is considered to be an "expert" in his field) only because your own ability still lacks, so don't get discouraged

I don't mean to be rude, but I found @uisukii's and @TheVinster's comments to be somewhat similar to the above example.
@uisukii, in your case you get corrected for something from a native (which you didn't know at first) and decide that the person is somewhat arrogant ("not really arrogance" sums up to that right?). Japanese usually do write in a polite or honorific language (not mentioning all the trolls in 2ch) so as a Japanese learner you are somewhat expected to write in them as well (if you can). Someone on a forum (you still don't know that he or she is a native) says that you should use ですよ instead of だよ so if you do know that that is the correct way of writing (I even think that just です is better than ですよ), you should just say "thank you" and get it over with. Instead you question the person's motive and (maybe) pursue their nationality. Why?
@TheVinster, ummm... you stop talking to a person cause he compliments you? Sure, pretty much every Japanese says it at first, whether he really thinks it or not, but why on Earth would you stop talking to them? It's something of a set phrase. You can easily check if they truly mean it just by saying いいえいいえ afterwards and observing their reaction. So why?

For some people, being good at Japanese is a big part of their identity and may be the only skill they've really invested in. People who have majored in Japanese and then come to Japan as an english teacher for example can get used to having 'expert' status among the other non-natives and may feel threatened in the presence of someone with superior skills.

I get the feeling that most people who have reached a fairly high level and stop actively studying become less invested in their identity as nihongo pera pera gaijin and stop caring. Eventually being good at japanese loses it's specialness, because you realise it's just the natural result of having been doing it for a long time. I don't really feel any sense of achievement about Japanese any more. Actually after over 5 years here, I'd be embarrassed if my ability was any worse.

One shouldn't let that sort of reasoning be the cause for not feeling that learning the language isn't an achievement in itself. That is quite sad to hear.

The fact is that the vast majority of people fail at such a "simple" task as having been studying a language for a long time. In Japanese you can also tinker around endlessly while not learning anything substantial in any sort of acceptable timeframe. Hell, it could be said that attaining a fairly high level at anything in this world only takes time and dedication.

Dedication in itself has value IMO. It shouldn't be taken for granted.

EDIT: Although I don't know whether this is different for people who make Japanese one of the skills they try to be proficient in, instead of the only skill. I think it's easier to feel the sense of achievement in something one considers a "hobby" instead of the primary purpose in life, where one breaths and lives the activity.

TheVinster Wrote:when people try to type in romaji. Full sentences of romaji. Makes me want to blow my brains out.

That sounds even worse than when people use only ひらがな and expect it to be easier to understand what exactly is being communicated without any 漢字.

Inny Jan Wrote:

uisukii Wrote:日本語上手ですね！

For this set phrase “compliment”, you can reply with another set phrase: まだまだ. The problem is that you still may sound as if you did want to hear “日本語上手ですね。” For that reason my preferred reply is plain: “No. It isn’t.” With stress placed appropriately, you may come off as modest or rude, but it’s up to you how you will be perceived.

I told her my Japanese was nothing, but that her English was very skilled. She didn't respond to that. Maybe deflecting a complimentary stock phrase straight off the bat is something you're not supposed to do with strangers, also? Ah well, しょうがない。

Arupan Wrote:@uisukii, in your case you get corrected for something from a native (which you didn't know at first) and decide that the person is somewhat arrogant ("not really arrogance" sums up to that right?). Japanese usually do write in a polite or honorific language (not mentioning all the trolls in 2ch) so as a Japanese learner you are somewhat expected to write in them as well (if you can). Someone on a forum (you still don't know that he or she is a native) says that you should use ですよ instead of だよ so if you do know that that is the correct way of writing (I even think that just です is better than ですよ), you should just say "thank you" and get it over with. Instead you question the person's motive and (maybe) pursue their nationality. Why?

I didn't decide the person was arrogant. It was something which happened recently, involving Japanese with someone else, and decided to add it to the topic. The phrase "not really arrogant" could have been "no arrogant, but this is all I've got to compare with at the moment"- maybe it's a cultural thing: in Australia we often use these types of what people may confuse with sarcasm, nuances in our speech.

The correction was in respect to an example which was comparing making a Japanese sentence out of an English sentence, and how it doesn't translate properly. I was surprised by this out of nowhere correction in relation to something which wasn't addressed to anyone in particular, and between another person and I who had been discussing something in private earlier, about the topic. The reason as I asked about her nationality, though indirectly, was as she "signed" her comment with kanji, a name, and I was trying to find out whether it was a name, or something she/he liked to call herself (which is common on creative writing forums/website, and especially if it's "Asian"- come across a few people who call themselves something-"san", thinking that is how you are supposed to address yourself).

After that she formally introduced herself, I also, afterwards apologizing in advance for my poor Japanese because I'm only learning, etc. etc.

I didn't really question her motive or anything defensive like that. It has been blown out of proportion for a simple little encounter with a stock phrase, which is what I was trying to communicate. Inny Jan, picked up on it. Everything was a bit of context, I guess.

Quote:You can easily check if they truly mean it just by saying いいえいいえ afterwards and observing their reaction

Funnily enough this is exactly how I responded, lol.

I wish I were fluent enough to be arrogant.

I'll be feeling stupid until I'm on par with an eloquent native and even then I'd just feel "well, I finally caught up with everyone else here and stopped being the one guy in my social network/workplace who talks like a moron" more than anything. I guess it's easier to become arrogant in a gaijin bubble.

uisukii Wrote:

TheVinster Wrote:when people try to type in romaji. Full sentences of romaji. Makes me want to blow my brains out.

That sounds even worse than when people use only ひらがな and expect it to be easier to understand what exactly is being communicated without any 漢字.

Even worse when people throw random 単語 into their sentences to show they understand some 日本語 (haha, just kidding).

[Zgarbas]

Arupan Wrote:Teachers

Aside from the fact that my own Japanese teacher is a sadist (the only explanation I can find for her behavior is that she gets turned on by Fradenscheude), I think the arrogance generally stems from the knowledge that most of the students don't know what to expect and/or a tendency to overestimate/idealize the language, rather than arrogance itself. You lose your drive when you see that so many of your students fail, kind of how many of my math teachers would stop trying to actually teach maths since they knew the kids they were teaching to had no real interest in it (we were the Humanities section).

E.g. The Japanese teachers I've studied under (3, not counting the assistants) were very quick to overwhelm us with the intricacy and subtlety of the language, and would often go offtopic, sometimes to a ridiculous amount. Of course, the "By the way"s are necessary up to a point, but... I get why you'd mention that one time when you were confused because it was your first time encountering ために as a cause, rather than a volitional construct, but not when you're talking to kids who've barely learned about AはBだ just so they'd know that they'll never have full understanding of anything。 And then there was that teacher who I asked about katakana usage for loan words and he somehow ended up telling a 40min story about kimonos and how he bought a used kimono so he could make a home-made tea cozy...

Basically they'd take any opportunity to bring up the vast amount of intricacy and history behind any word and its usage, which struck me as arrogant. It also managed to drive off many students because we all got the feeling that we're never going to be able to grasp all these things.

People always being told they're excellent and then never having the self reflection skills to actually understand that it's a friendly compliment, not an assessment. So they get big headed about it. Happens in every walk of life. People always either overestimate or underestimate themselves. I don't think I've met anyone who was simply arrogant about their abilities, they just lack perspective most of the time.

Last summer I did a short term Uni exchange programme, and I was the only English person there. There was a bunch of French people there in a lower level class but I didn't really interact with them. It wasn't that I thought I was better, but I had spent £3k+ of what remained of my finances and 11 hours on an Aeroplane to speak Japanese. I wasn't going out of my way to speak English. I don't know if that makes me arrogant or not.

Crispy Wrote:

sethg Wrote:Just use their arrogance as motivation. Four years ago, I was surrounded by people who had studied abroad and supposedly really knew Japanese and they made me feel stupid when asking questions about simple Japanese. I used the anger from those experiences to become better than them. Today, I know for a fact that I am a better speaker of Japanese and can certainly understand more than any of them.

Whatever you get, from any situation, turn it into motivation to be better.

Good advice.

So true. I started learning Japanese because of applemilk1988. I mean I always had an interest but at the time I already processed it in my brain that it would be impossible to become fluent and I didn't want to become another anime fan that fails at learning Japanese. She just gave me the final push to try since she was so arrogant and people were saying she tries to make her japanese seem better than it actually is. I understood everything she said in her vids in like one month if that lol. now my Japanese is so good in that I never thought I would get this far. So in this way I'm glad there are arrogant people because at least I got something out of it.

Ps her Internet dirt is on raspberrysyrup.livejournal.com
I had lotsa fun reading that back in the day

AlgoRhythmic Wrote:I have no idea what/who Krashen is, but believing you have to be autistic or have super-DNA to learn a language outside of university courses sounds really stupid to me. When I finally decided to start studying this language more actively, I spent 30 minutes of doing research on the Internet before I was convinced that self-study is the way to go.

I was exaggerating, no-one has actually mentioned genes. But there's the idea of natural talent, that some people just have "an ear for language learning", and others don't. I don't see any reason to assume such a thing plays any part. If some sorts of individual biological differences exist, they're insignificant compared to the differences in our attitudes, what we actually do, and how much time we put in.

Just curious, what things did you read during those 30 minutes?

mourei Wrote:

TwoMoreCharacters Wrote:I realize that this venting does makes me seem very arrogant... >.> but it's... <.< it's difficult to be humble when you're always right lolololol

I don't think that you seem arrogant. I think the problem might be that unsolicited advice tends to come off as obnoxious and end up falling on deaf ears. If they ask you, or you can tell that they're interested, this shouldn't be a problem. If not, there's not really a lot you can do about it anyway.

With the way I'm talking about learning-methods, surely I come across as a little overconfident and juvenile though. At least people on here probably find that obnoxious, I mean I did manage to mention Stephen Krashen like, twice in a thread not related to methods.

mourei Wrote:Mind if I ask, where are you at in Sweden? I'm studying in Stockholm atm, and the learners I hang out with in school seem pretty laid back, certainly not only studying the language formally.

Haha, Stockholm here too. ...You wouldn't be at SU?

People I've met are pretty laid back, sure. Isn't that a common tone for learning Japanese, that people are genuinely interested and identify with Japanese on a personal level? It's not like with "Mandarin→job opportunities", or "Spanish→generally enhanced travel experiences" or something like that.

Anyway, I guess I was thinking about the occupation-wise full time dedication to toiling through courses just for learning the language--which by itslef, while the years go by, doesn't necessarily lead you into a career path to support yourself in life. If people are considering that but are still laid back in that regard then it's all fine, but I'm reluctant to how I'll be thought of if I, coming along out of nowhere, make people question their efforts and dedications and feel put down.

I might just be thinking too much.

I'm at KTH, so most of the people I meet are studying technical subjects. We've got weekly language exchange meetups in the library, and I think that you have something similar too?

Yeah, you shouldn't put people down for what they choose to study, but I think that's different from being realistic about what you can expect from your approach. Of course, that's hard to explain for someone who isn't open to the idea, though I think I've met rather few people here who wouldn't even listen to me about something like Anki. That's a whole different cake from adopting it, though. Anyway, you just have to not come across as preachy and annoying, although admittedly, I'm not entirely sure I always manage that myself.

Nice, I'm hoping to join into KTH next semester, not Japanese related. Yeah there's a separate room where motivated people hang out once a week.

I should just be able to go with it naturally if the topic comes up. Trying to suggest things people can relate to. Telling about Anki shouldn't be a problem since a lot of people seem to know about it, though not taking it seriously. I think they've been recommended it in class, there's at least one really interesting teacher there.

edit: God, it wouldn't be too great if people could google this conversation up

Haha, we could erase it if you'd like.

Nah it's probably fine, I edited out a little keyword.

the only pet peeve i have is when a non-japanese speaker corrects a japanese speaker's roomaji.

like seriously
wtf is their problem

the strangest experience i had was last year when i met an online friend with my cousin. my cousin had been living in japan for a year but was not particularly interested in learning the language (he taught there for the experience of living in another country), and my online friend said she was studying english but actually stopped.

i actually had to play the role of translator... keep in mind that i still suck at japanese and i was really confused a lot of the time as sometimes i'd speak to our friend in english and speak to my cousin in japanese and sometimes they'd understand me anyway.

to make things more confusing they both had a mutual interest in k-pop, lol

@Zgarbas: It's "Schadenfreude" :S

kainzero Wrote:the only pet peeve i have is when a non-japanese speaker corrects a japanese speaker's roomaji.

like seriously
wtf is their problem

Ahahaha... serious? Pardon my French, but that sounds retarded. I'm not really sure how I would respond to something like that. Probably not in English, at least. Do you come across that often? It sounds like really, really strange compensation.

uisukii Wrote:

kainzero Wrote:the only pet peeve i have is when a non-japanese speaker corrects a japanese speaker's roomaji.

like seriously
wtf is their problem

Ahahaha... serious? Pardon my French, but that sounds retarded. I'm not really sure how I would respond to something like that. Probably not in English, at least. Do you come across that often? It sounds like really, really strange compensation.

Heehee... Can I admit that I'm guilty? My situation is a little special, though. I teach at a junior high school, and in the first grade the first thing my JTE (Japanese Teacher of English) does is start teaching kids Hebon-shiki (Hepburn-style) romaji instead of the Kunrei-shiki they learned in elementary school. So basically they go from writing "tikatetu" to "chikatetsu" and from "susi" to "sushi." I think she does it to start giving them a feel for English spelling/sound relationships. (Not that our spelling is reliable.)

Now, can I add my personal little rant to the thread? At the high school joined to my junior high, there's a guy who thinks he's some kind of God of Japanese. He will state things like, "I can talk circles around plenty of people who have passed N2," etc. Recently, a poor guy who's just starting to learn Japanese through the JET Language Course asked said God of Japanese if he's taking the advanced course. Instead of just saying no, the guy rolled his eyes and said, "Um... Excuse me? Eheh." And YET, he admits that he can't understand teineigo. TEINEIGO. He took a lot of Japanese in university, so I know he learned it at some point, but he forgot it I guess. I know he usually uses Japanese with his close friends, but he doesn't use polite Japanese in the office, and I've heard it from some teachers. Also, he admits that he can't understand what's being said in the morning meeting every day. Yet he turns it into a boast. "Oh, I pretty much can't understand it unless it's Kansai-ben." I wish I could understand Kansai-ben, too, but he needs to stop bragging if he can only use Japanese appropriately in casual situations... /rant

ojousan Wrote:And YET, he admits that he can't understand teineigo. TEINEIGO. He took a lot of Japanese in university, so I know he learned it at some point, but he forgot it I guess. I know he usually uses Japanese with his close friends, but he doesn't use polite Japanese in the office, and I've heard it from some teachers. Also, he admits that he can't understand what's being said in the morning meeting every day. Yet he turns it into a boast. "Oh, I pretty much can't understand it unless it's Kansai-ben." I wish I could understand Kansai-ben, too, but he needs to stop bragging if he can only use Japanese appropriately in casual situations... /rant

He's certainly lying about the Kansai-ben thing; it doesn't make any sense that you would forget standard Japanese in favor of Kansai-ben, since standard Japanese is also used so often in Kansai. I'm not sure I'd believe his claim about teineigo either. He's trying to craft some image of himself as a tough-talking cool Kansai-jin, and I imagine he's failing miserably. Part of it might be an attempt to hide some of the weaker points of his Japanese--if he doesn't understand the morning meetings it's either because his vocabulary is too small or his listening comprehension skills aren't high enough to handle speech at that speed.

To be honest, I'm not so good at speaking です・ます　anymore either compared to casual, but I try my best if I'm talking to my vice principle/principle/office people/BOE people. But he's talking about comprehension, which is absurd. Your comprehension of teineigo should increase if you're in Japan, regardless of whether or not you're actively using it for most of your Japanese speaking.