Zgarbas Wrote:Also, in real life it's unlikely that people will have you look at a picture and have you describe it in a manner in which you offer your partner enough time to describe it himself, but that doesn't seem to matter =/. I have the IELTS coming up and I am so not looking forward to memorizing the patterns and formats and recommended thingies again* because being fluent isn't enough for these kinds of tests.

*because the English certificates scene is silly and you have to re-take every expensive test every other year or so just because*

That really sucks that you have to keep taking tests to prove your English level... FWIW, you speak like a native, and this is coming from the biggest grammar, vocab and spelling nazi you will ever meet :p (Whose English is, admittedly, slowly being corrupted by living in Japan, lmao)

dizmox Wrote:

Quote:While there isn't a multiple choice reaction box underneath people when they make various comments, there is really only a somewhat limited dialogue pool to draw from, with a small variety of patterns- each with their own give a little, take a little limitations- as to which are generally inferred and understood by others.

Pretending this were a live conversation, would you consider what you just wrote as just a selection from a limited dialogue pool?

Yes. Whether or not I was aware of it, yes. After years of using these patterns, you don't have to be fully conscious of what to choose. It is really only when things sound "odd", that your brain picks up that something more obscure was chosen.

Quote:I don't think general day to day discussion is so basic either...

It is. Regardless of what you think of it. It is only when you get into specialized fields of communication you are not used to do you start to become aware of these patterns.

The brain is a clever thing. It fools us all the time with illusions we perceive as the physical world.

ktcgx Wrote:

Zgarbas Wrote:*because the English certificates scene is silly and you have to re-take every expensive test every other year or so just because*

That really sucks that you have to keep taking tests to prove your English level... FWIW, you speak like a native, and this is coming from the biggest grammar, vocab and spelling nazi you will ever meet :p (Whose English is, admittedly, slowly being corrupted by living in Japan, lmao)

You conspicuously left out "pronunciation nazi". You don't have to know how to speak English to write it. Having a consistent (i.e. wrong) model of how it's pronounced may even make it easier to avoid spelling mistakes: if you don't know 'sun' and 'son' are pronounced the same, you'll never mistake one for the other in writing.

I scored 4/10 in Antimoon's pronunciation test. I also scored 620 on the "Writing Test" of a SAT practice exam without actually writing anything, so I guess I write better English with my mind than the average American writes with a pencil, but pronounce it worse than the average monkey.

[Zgarbas]

ktcgx Wrote:That really sucks that you have to keep taking tests to prove your English level... FWIW, you speak like a native, and this is coming from the biggest grammar, vocab and spelling nazi you will ever meet :p (Whose English is, admittedly, slowly being corrupted by living in Japan, lmao)

I don't mind the tests so much as paying for them. The tests cost $200+ a pop, which is a lot of money where I'm from (more than medium wage). This goes for almost all CEFRL tests, by the way, which are about $150 a pop. I wouldn't even dream of taking a CEFRL below C2 due to the sheer amount of money involved, whereas I can safely take the $20 JLPT every year.
(not to mention the fact that most of them expire, and in the case of English tests each area accepts a different test. So while my CPE was useful in Europe, it is not recognized in Japan, hence why I'm taking the IELTS).

@Vempele: My pronunciation/accent is pretty top-notch, though I usually dumb it down to not stand out. I do still encounter random words which I've been mispronouncing all my life, though. However, that test is BS since many of the words there (starting with sun and son) are pronounced completely different across the accents... You can pronounce everything like it's oop north and it doesn't make you any less correct.

uisukii Wrote:

dizmox Wrote:

Quote:While there isn't a multiple choice reaction box underneath people when they make various comments, there is really only a somewhat limited dialogue pool to draw from, with a small variety of patterns- each with their own give a little, take a little limitations- as to which are generally inferred and understood by others.

Pretending this were a live conversation, would you consider what you just wrote as just a selection from a limited dialogue pool?

Yes. Whether or not I was aware of it, yes. After years of using these patterns, you don't have to be fully conscious of what to choose. It is really only when things sound "odd", that your brain picks up that something more obscure was chosen.

Quote:I don't think general day to day discussion is so basic either...

It is. Regardless of what you think of it. It is only when you get into specialized fields of communication you are not used to do you start to become aware of these patterns.

The brain is a clever thing. It fools us all the time with illusions we perceive as the physical world.

I still find myself consciously thinking about the right choice of language in my native English all the time, let alone in Japanese. There's really no limit to the subtleties in communication that need to be paid attention to to really be eloquent.

good luck benny, but there is no way you'll reach n2 in 3 months even if just for listening/speaking and even if that section of the test were written entirely in kana/romanji. The reason for this is that the range of vocabulary/topics drawn from is more than you'd be able to cram in the 3 month time frame. iirc recommended vocabulary for n2 is around 6000 words and 1000 kanji. And you're not going to get a tonne of cognates for free as you would with some European languages.

It may be the case that a strategy of focusing on spoken fluency can get you pretty far with european languages because once you have the basic grammar, pronouns, key verbs and structural vocabulary down you can then rely on cognates, similarity to (english) grammar, and a lot of guesswork, but there aren't nearly as many low hanging fruit with japanese. The effort/payoff (language ability) curve will be pretty different for Japanese.

dizmox Wrote:JLPT1 is roughly equal to an English speaker having intensely studied French reading and listening for a year, considering Chinese people take about that long to pass.

This is just plain wrong, the spoken language with Japanese and Chinese is not that similar and it takes them a long time to get good at speaking Japanese. Far longer than it would take most English speaking people to learn French, which has far more similarities to each other.

They don't normally pass N1 in one year either. That said, the Chinese do have an inbuilt advantage in that most "difficult" Japanese words which are more rare tend to actually come from quite common Chinese words very often, which would give them a big advantage in a JLPT style test where they can still understand the meanings without ever having to have heard the word before.

It goes without saying anyway that you just can't compare 4 different languages this way and claim relative difficulties to be equivalent, its ridiculous.

Quote:This is just plain wrong, the spoken language with Japanese and Chinese is not that similar and it takes them a long time to get good at speaking Japanese. Far longer than it would take most English speaking people to learn French, which has far more similarities to each other.

They don't normally pass N1 in one year either.

I'm just talking about reading and listening, which is all that's covered by JLPT. These two valid objections somewhat cancel each other out too.

I'm fully aware that many people who've just passed N1 (including Chinese people) are still in the 片言 stage.

Zgarbas Wrote:Also, in real life it's unlikely that people will have you look at a picture and have you describe it in a manner in which you offer your partner enough time to describe it himself, but that doesn't seem to matter =/. I have the IELTS coming up and I am so not looking forward to memorizing the patterns and formats and recommended thingies again* because being fluent isn't enough for these kinds of tests.

*because the English certificates scene is silly and you have to re-take every expensive test every other year or so just because*

Have you ever taken the IELTS?

Being fluent will make it a walk in the park. I was really nervous about the speaking part, and still managed a 7.5 -- without memorising any patterns -- and my English is terrible compared to yours, and my accent is by no means "top notch".

Getting a 7.0 average will satisfy pretty much all IELTS requirements in England, and possibly in Japan too.

[Zgarbas]

^^' I'm aiming for a 9.0 for consistency.

(I think your English is pretty damned good, and find that peoples' accent is pretty irrelevant when gauging their language ability)

Meaning a raw score of at least 97.5%, which is ridiculous. Tests that require 97.5% to pass should be banned. They're no longer testing your English ability, they're testing your ability to optimize for the test.

[Zgarbas]

Well I already have an IELTS equivalent, so paying $250 just to score below what I already have would be pretty anticlimactic. The English speaking scene is pretty crazy here, and I don't want to end up with an average score just because I don't need a higher one for what I'm currently applying for =/

Are you aiming for an overall score of 9.0 or a 9.0 for every subscore?

[Zgarbas]

Overall 9.0. I won't cry myself to sleep if I score an 8.5, though.

Hi Benny, welcome to the forum!

To be honest, I don't know much about you, but from what I read you seem to quite a motivated guy, and that's already a great example for many people.

I read your rants about JLPT, but why don't you just take it anyway? It's unexpensive, it isn't that long and it would be interesting how far your studies take you on that tests, even if only for the sake of curiosity.

BTW, why are you learning Japanese now? Is it just for the heck of it, or do you have any goal for which you need to know Japanese?

Vempele Wrote:

ktcgx Wrote:

Zgarbas Wrote:*because the English certificates scene is silly and you have to re-take every expensive test every other year or so just because*

That really sucks that you have to keep taking tests to prove your English level... FWIW, you speak like a native, and this is coming from the biggest grammar, vocab and spelling nazi you will ever meet :p (Whose English is, admittedly, slowly being corrupted by living in Japan, lmao)

You conspicuously left out "pronunciation nazi". You don't have to know how to speak English to write it. Having a consistent (i.e. wrong) model of how it's pronounced may even make it easier to avoid spelling mistakes: if you don't know 'sun' and 'son' are pronounced the same, you'll never mistake one for the other in writing.

I scored 4/10 in Antimoon's pronunciation test. I also scored 620 on the "Writing Test" of a SAT practice exam without actually writing anything, so I guess I write better English with my mind than the average American writes with a pencil, but pronounce it worse than the average monkey.

Well given I've never heard Zgarbas speak...
Also, there are so many different correct accents to English, it's a bit difficult to be one... As long as someone has an understandable accent, I'm ok with that. I do actually do quite a bit of pronunciation with my students. They're getting pretty decent...

The Japanese version of the ACTFL OPI measures speaking ability. Just take that if the JLPT doesn't work out for you.

irishpolyglot Wrote:and am not giving a watered down version

No reading and writing is in itself is watering it down. Why tell people you are B2 when you can't read or write? Hopefully your testing method won't water it down further.

irishpolyglot Wrote:an independent Mandarin school in Beijing where they critiqued my level after spending hours with me. The conclusion was B1

Was this done at 3 months? Did they actually test content? B1 isn't only about fluidity. It also means you know a certain number of words and grammar. Chinese doesn't have a B1 test, so that means testers would need to be very familiar with the test in european languages. I've always said you reached A2 because I know I'm at B1, and my girlfriend and teacher both tell me I'm at least a notch above you on the scale. My teacher says I'm B2, but I'm not. The fact is, she's a good teacher, but she isn't familiar with the european scale. Maybe that's what happened to you.

irishpolyglot Wrote:I hope people don't get too obsessed with that aspect of things though

You basically said you're going to do something that most learners say is impossible, and you don't want us to be obsessed with it? I remember how you insulted learners of Mandarin when they questioned your ability to reach C1 in 3 months, essentially claiming a superior method. In the end, when most said you did about as well as the average person in three months, you claimed that's all you wanted to show - that you were just an average person, and an average person can reach your given level in 3 months. So was your method superior or average? Are Japanese learners also doing things the wrong way?

irishpolyglot Wrote:I am totally open to suggestions for what I can do in January in Japan to demonstrate my level.

I just hope you will get vocabulary, grammar and listening tested. A video showing how well you drive 200 language learning related words just doesn't do it for me.

yep. As i said there is no way he'll be anyway near n2 level. If he thinks it's possible based on experience with european tests, then all I can say is that those european tests and/or languages must be much much easier.

But given the suitably vague description of n2 on I'm sure he'll be able to convince some that he succeeded.

wikipedia: "The ability to understand Japanese used in everyday situations, and in a variety of circumstances to a certain degree"

If "everyday" situations includes introducing yourself/family, ordering a beer, and getting directions but excludes watching and following a something TV program (even something as easy as a kids cartoon), describe a dream, or talk about your opinion on something other than your favorite color (even non-persuasively) then yeah totally doable.

@Wulgar2

I am not as familiar with Benny's website and history as you are but from the little I have read I think you have him all wrong.

His attitude is not at all any assumption of superiority. Instead, his constant message is that any eejit can learn a language with the right enthusiasm and methods.

I think English speakers are constantly discouraged from learning other languages. A few weeks ago I was at a restaurant in Venice with a bunch of English speakers. When I started to talk to the waitress in very basic Italian using Latin cognates with bit of an accent, they all laughed at me and said, 'but the waitress speaks English' (sure doesn't everyone so why bother). When it comes to Asian languages, the message constantly is 'but Japanese/Korean/Mandarin is the hardest language in the World. They have a different way of thinking. English speakers can never learn it.' Etc.

Benny is fighting the fight for the silenced English speakers of the world.

benny just reinforces that english natives are unable to get beyond "tourist level" in foreign languages.

@nadiatims
Tourist level? As in, being able to talk to random strangers? Nothing wrong with that. You could also call it the 'immigrant level' as well.
Polyglotism has existed at the 'tourism/immigrant level' for most humans in most societies in most epochs in history.

tourist level does not equal immigrant level. Immigrants are able to get jobs, ie. follow instructions, serve customers, read manuals etc. Immigrant level covers a pretty big range but go meet any non english immigrant in Japan. They will be well beyond tourist level. Many will have studied japanese full time for a year or two before or after arrival. Big difference.

@nadiatims
You see:
'non english immigrant in Japan' = high language level
(which I know is NOT true. I've met many's the non english (speaking) immigrant in Japan.)
english speaker = useless at learning languages, can't get beyond ordering in a restaurant etc. etc.

This is just your unproven assumption that English speakers are crap at learning languages.

And if this is what Benny is out to prove wrong more power to him.
Feck the begrudgers, as they say.

nadiatims Wrote:benny just reinforces that english natives are unable to get beyond "tourist level" in foreign languages.

I read somewhere that he has a C2 level in French and Spanish and has worked as an engineer in both of them...