Zgarbas Wrote:Let's be honest, the topic will just keep popping back up, so we might as well have a dedicated thread for it.
And while it's certainly heated, it's not exactly a full-on flamewar (it's funny because there are so many "oh my gosh the forum has gone downhill because this thread is heated" ideas, when in fact it is still much more tame than any random thread on a normal forum). Also, adding a "talking about Benny" taboo to the Ajatt taboo would be kinda silly.

So yeah, I'm going to let everyone sort out the conflict themselves, like the adults
they are

ktcgx: Still not fluency .
Haych: Don't instigate other users.
raharney: You could be a bit nicer.

Edit: Where's jankensan's post? =/

I was being nice.

BUT I have been accused of being mentally unstable, my ideas have been described as "rubbish", someone claimed I invent words (if only I were really so clever), and there have been calls to have my postings suppressed.

But sure. I'll try to be nice.

<hilarious joke edited out by zgarbas>

=(

[Zgarbas]

raharney Wrote:I was being nice.

BUT I have been accused of being mentally unstable, my ideas have been described as "rubbish", someone claimed I invent words (if only I were really so clever), and there have been calls to have my postings suppressed.

But sure. I'll try to be nice.

I shall rephrase it: Please do not act defensive and hostile when the other forumites are reacting to what they perceive as gobbledegook, instead considering your means of expression and how it can lead to misunderstanding and conflict, thus assuring that your future debates and discussions will be more pleasant.
I am sorry if you felt offended.

has anyone read his book?

Zgarbas Wrote:

raharney Wrote:I was being nice.

BUT I have been accused of being mentally unstable, my ideas have been described as "rubbish", someone claimed I invent words (if only I were really so clever), and there have been calls to have my postings suppressed.

But sure. I'll try to be nice.

I shall rephrase it: Please do not act defensive and hostile when the other forumites are reacting to what they perceive as gobbledegook, instead considering your means of expression and how it can lead to misunderstanding and conflict, thus assuring that your future debates and discussions will be more pleasant.
I am sorry if you felt offended.

You mean I should conform and become bland and conventional in my manner of expression?
No. Sorry. I can't. Just never was good at that kind of thing.
But I promise to be nice.

Benny Wrote:and now I come to the first observation of something I would have changed for this project:

People are way too obsessed with avoiding Romanization. Don’t listen to them.

This is something he wrote in his latest update. I'm afraid to tell you Benny that romanization is the devil. It will destroy you.

Actually, got to agree with Benny on that one.

You should definitely learn a language's native script eventually because of all the content it unlocks, but I don't think romanised stuff will cause irreparable damage to one's accent or anything else and it may simply be more accessible at times.

nadiatims Wrote:has anyone read his book?

I haven't. Here's an opionion of someone I trust:

Volte Wrote:Some of what he says is obvious. Some of what he says is (in my opinion) wrong. Some of it is useful. Personally, I've read his book and didn't think much of it, but it has some ok tips. Where I think his style really shines is in pointing out that people don't need to be silent studying in classrooms for years before they dare say more than a few words - if you already don't have this misconception, great.

http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/for...32367&PN=1

I think using romaji in the absolute beginner phase should be avoided by almost every student, though there may be exceptions and the type of project Benny is doing would probably qualify as such an exception. If conversational ability has a very high priority it might very well be more effective to learn kana a bit later. Yet I don't think he should regret having started with kana right away, as I see it it shows you're taking the language seriously.

But advising other (future) students of Japanese to take the same 'shortcut' is a mistake in my opinion. In most situations banning romaji from day one has huge benefits that'll allow people to learn much more efficiently, especially if you care about reading and writing. Benny's situation can't be generalized to the majority of people wanting to learn Japanese and giving them the idea that learning kana early on isn't that important is doing them a disservice.

I think he did great with learning kana by the way, remembering them all in just a few days is a great achievement. Reading them reliably and quickly in just a week is impossible I think, it takes much more practice. For me it felt more like decoding than reading in the first month. Which is also one of the reasons to start as early as possible. Being able to read kana fluently gives freedom and opens up many possibilities.

nadiatims Wrote:Actually, got to agree with Benny on that one.

You should definitely learn a language's native script eventually because of all the content it unlocks, but I don't think romanised stuff will cause irreparable damage to one's accent or anything else and it may simply be more accessible at times.

Yep. I think its fine to learn the very basics in your first few weeks using Romaji, but at least being able to read Kana is basically a necessity before long. That seems to be exactly what he says himself though, so its all good.

Anyway first thing I noticed was he pronounced こんにちは better right off the bat, though you can't get much from his reading since its so slow. Misreading 思います early on was quite cute, though I stopped watching after that.

If nothing else its pleasing to see he could read Hiragana in one day. I know Kana is easy, but its suprising how often I see questions like "Can I learn Kana in 3 weeks??". Seems a day is enough after all!

And I must admit to being suprised that by day 4 he felt confident enough trying to force the whole lessons to being entirely in Japanese (or at least his side in Japanese). Whenever I've studied with teachers I've probably always defaulted to English far more than I should, simply because its convenient and I'd want to avoid the really hard work having to think so much.

For me personally my reading is excellent (if you don't mind me saying so, at least I can read N1 practice tests fine and I'm currently reading 1Q84 with no problem) but my speaking far lags behind, simply because I haven't practiced enough (even when I did live in Japan).

I'm finishing up going through the 10k word list to make sure I know all of them (doing 50 new words a day, should finish in a few days) and then maybe I should start hitting Skype hard and practicing for a few hours a day. I think I'll give it a try.

I haven't read all these pages of debate, but if you still read this, Benny, I was inspired by your youtube the other day to get social on the web and got some real conversation practice. thanks.

@tashippy Great! Keep it up!
@NightSky Yes, I hope this video encourages more people to try to learn Kana quicker. Even those who have completely different goals to me can see that they can even get into reading quicker than they thought if some Irish guy who doesn't even care for reading can do it!
Yes, speaking is what it's all about for me, so I force myself to simply not use a word of English. Today and yesterday I've had many awkward silences, but the way I see it, why would I pay a teacher to speak English to me, or why would I pay someone to listen to me speak English? My English is already good enough.
I'm training for situations in Japan where I will be far from English speakers. Falling back to English is not an option, so I pretend like my teachers can't understand a word of it.

(As a side note, technically I'm not paying my teachers, since I've accumulated enough referral credits on italki to get free lessons for these next months, even having two a day. I promote the link http://fi3m.com/italki on my site's resources page, genuinely saying italki is a good resource for spoken practice and thanks to that I get free lessons! Other people can do this too, on their Facebook walls / Youtube channels / blogs etc.)

But yes, to make the conversation 100% Japanese so quickly, you definitely need a high tolerance for frustration, feeling and knowing you sound like an idiot etc., and you need to be able to laugh at how silly it all is, so that the other person doesn't feel awkward themselves. I've let loose the chains of perfectionism long ago. Best life decision ever. I maintain that attitude is the most important thing in improving spoken skills. Talent is wasted on people who don't use it. I prefer to be a mediocre learner who is incredibly motivated.

@Savii True that my advice is not good universally. I always try to prequel it to say "... if you have the same kind of spoken goals as I do". Any advice given universally is generally bad advice, since there will be someone it won't be good for.

@RawToast Sure! Steve K and I are on friendly terms now, so I'd definitely see if he wants to do a recorded chat in January or February in Japanese. I may do a free-for-all and talk to anyone who speaks Japanese who has a sizeable audience. We'll see about that later.
Honestly, I'd rather people talk to me after I've explored Japan a little, so that I can add cultural knowledge to the discussion and retrospect on the project and what I would have changed. For me, my opinion on my Japanese project has no context until I've been in Japan.

For anyone saying B2 is impossible (and even B1, which I have indeed reached in 3 months in unrelated languages - remember, I'm aiming for a spoken level, while my reading may just be A2 or lower), excuse my very unJapanese boldness, but:
"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it." - George Bernard Shaw
This is not a guarantee of anything, but too many people throw around "you can't do it" way too much. Some food for thought on that subject, if you aren't too cynical to watch some fun videos about pushing your boundaries beyond limits others put on you, is here: http://www.fluentin3months.com/reality-distortion/

Savii Wrote:I think using romaji in the absolute beginner phase should be avoided by almost every student [...]

TBH, considering his approach and goal, I was kind of surprised when I learnt that he wasted his time on learning kana.

The argument that "doing romaji is going to damage your pronunciation" is flawed when in studying language somebody (like Benny) relies on actual sound/audio rather then the script. (In fact, studying through sound/audio should be primary way of learning how to speak, but I digress.)

If anything, it's relying on script alone that is going to hurt your pronunciation. There are many aspects of speech that script, regardless of its form, simply doesn't include.

I don't think Benny should be particularly exceptional.

[s0apgun]

I personally think reading kana is easier and faster than reading romaji. Whenever I'm watching anime and they have the intro song subtitled in romaji at the top and kana at the bottom I struggle with pronouncing the romaji but breeze through the kana.

s0apgun Wrote:I personally think reading kana is easier and faster than reading romaji. Whenever I'm watching anime and they have the intro song subtitled in romaji at the top and kana at the bottom I struggle with pronouncing the romaji but breeze through the kana.

That's true for me as well and for most people who can read Japanese -- it's half as many symbols to read for the same pronunciation, after all, and has a few advantages in fit to the language.

However ...
It's -only- true after some weeks or months of practicing reading Japanese. In the case of a special project to learn to speak in 3 months, the advantage isn't clear since the breakeven point in reading speed probably comes around halfway through the learning process.

On the other hand, being able to read kana opens up tons of learning resources on the web, and kanji is no longer a substantial barrier online because even if resources aren't pure kana, rikai will give you the kana for a given kanji, usually correctly.
(Although, this last part is irrelevant for Benny. It only matters for people on a similar learning trajectory who actually intend to read things.)

wulfgar2 Wrote:Looks like Benny is going to attempt Japanese now. Here is a recent
tweet:

Benny Wrote:First class over. This language is WAY less intimidating than one would have you believe. Definitely gotta go study Hiragana now though!

Thoughts?

Admittedly curious as to what led Benny to be able to make such a conclusion on day one, especially after kanji has been removed from the equation. And this isn't meant as criticism, necessarily. I am genuinely curious as to what aspects of the language he feels are overhyped in terms of difficulty and what he has seen at this point that has already led him to feel confident in debunking such arguments right out of the gate.

Inny Jan Wrote:

Savii Wrote:I think using romaji in the absolute beginner phase should be avoided by almost every student [...]

TBH, considering his approach and goal, I was kind of surprised when I learnt that he wasted his time on learning kana.

The argument that "doing romaji is going to damage your pronunciation" is flawed when in studying language somebody (like Benny) relies on actual sound/audio rather then the script. (In fact, studying through sound/audio should be primary way of learning how to speak, but I digress.)

If anything, it's relying on script alone that is going to hurt your pronunciation. There are many aspects of speech that script, regardless of its form, simply doesn't include.

I don't think Benny should be particularly exceptional.

It doesn't take that long to be able to read kana. The script will hurt his pronunciation, but remember its only for his first youtube videos with Japanese only. I think he wants to make videos in the future with no scripts. Luckily for him, he apparently has hours upon hours of free lessons with Japanese teachers, so I'm sure his pronunciation will improve.

I don't know whether to agree or not if reading roomaji from the start will hurt one's pronunciation. When I first started learning Japanese I went straight to hiragana and katakana in a day. Took about a week or two to read them in my head at a decent speed, so to be honest I never truly saw roomji floating around my head, only kana.

irishpolyglot Wrote:For anyone saying B2 is impossible (and even B1, which I have indeed reached in 3 months in unrelated languages - remember, I'm aiming for a spoken level, while my reading may just be A2 or lower), excuse my very unJapanese boldness, but:
"People who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it." - George Bernard Shaw
This is not a guarantee of anything, but too many people throw around "you can't do it" way too much. Some food for thought on that subject, if you aren't too cynical to watch some fun videos about pushing your boundaries beyond limits others put on you, is here: http://www.fluentin3months.com/reality-distortion/

"The CEFR describes what a learner is supposed to be able to do in reading, listening, speaking and writing at each level."

According to their own classification you do not reach B2 by simply speaking. I'm not saying B2 is impossible (infact I think it is possible with the correct method), but what you are aiming for is NOT B2. It is about HALF the criteria of B2.

You should not ramble on about B2 when you are not actually aiming to get to B2. CEFR if I'm not mistaken, is not something you dice up into "reading level" "writing level" "speaking level" "listening level" giving you 4 different levels (eg A2, B1, C1, B2).... It is 1 single level given as an evaluation of your ability in the language.

It is impossible for a native speaker of English to reach B2 in Japanese in 3 months.

Even reaching B1 will be a huge stretch.

For comparison, it takes the US government more than 18 months of full time training to get diplomats to that level in Japanese.

Benny, in your opinion what is the vocabulary level for b2 if you had to put an approximate number on it? or b1 for that matter? I'm talking about the number of words one has good enough passive knowledge of to recognise the meaning in context (ie. in life or in a test).

The reason I ask is, because equating cefr b2 with jlpt n2, then I would expect passive knowledge of somewhere between 5-10 thousand words. Ie. somewhere between the vocab levels of the old level 1 and level 2 which you can see on wikipedia.*

If you take a lowball of 5000 and then halve that again for good measure to 2500, that's still a lot of vocab to familiarise yourself with in 3 months. On paper familiarity is doable I think but being able to recognise them in normal speech is, I am tempted to say, not possible for a language mostly lacking in cognates. European languages maybe, I don't know. And I am massively lowballing the numbers here as I know you don't care about reading as such.

* vocab levels are only given for the old jlpt format which had 4 levels. The current N2 is, I believe, thought to fall somewhere between the old 1 and 2.

[Zgarbas]

AKITOD Wrote:You should not ramble on about B2 when you are not actually aiming to get to B2. CEFR if I'm not mistaken, is not something you dice up into "reading level" "writing level" "speaking level" "listening level" giving you 4 different levels (eg A2, B1, C1, B2).... It is 1 single level given as an evaluation of your ability in the language.

Actually, exams aside, if you complete something like an Europass CV you're expected to write your level for each skill accordingly, including a different estimation for spoken interaction/production (it helps that most CEFR tests give you a grade per skill). You can be C2 in speaking and 0 in everything else (think illiterate natives).

C2 is supposed to be the equivalent of a well educated native speaker. An illiterate native speaker can never fall under the definition of well educated.

Yeah Zgarbas, where is my post?! Did I get censored or did the internet eat it?!

[Zgarbas]

Point taken, but since the world is cruel to us language-learners natives always get the highest level in language level since they use their magical native powers, so I think they count as C2 . Either way, they're pretty fluent in speaking the language.... it's just that they're completely (or functionally) illiterate. It can happen.
And then there's languages which don't have a written version (like Rromani and many dialects).

@jankensan, I honestly don't know =/. I did not delete it, and I don't think you can delete it either. It was there when I was posting and I was the only mod online, so I doubt someone else got to it (I would've found out anyway). Glitch in the matrix?

Another guy who wants to learn Japanese:
http://rawlangs.com/1-japanese-challenge/