Zarxrax Wrote:I don't find studying Japanese fun. What drives me is the thought of one day being able to be able to utilize the language, to speak with people, to read things, and to watch and listen to things. The journey there is no fun at all. I don't *want* to sit down and look up words I don't know, add things into an srs to study, listen to it over and over, and suffer from a half-assed understanding of something that I would really like to fully understand. But I put up with it, because I know that's how I will get to where I need to go.

It's no different than pretty much every other thing in one's life. You know what's fun and enjoyable? Eating delicious stuff like burritos and pizza and burgers and ice cream and pecan pie. But I choose to diet and frequently give up those foods because the benefits of doing so outweigh the fleeting enjoyment that can be had.
I absolutely hate exercising. But I do it anyways, because I would rather not die of a heart attack before I'm 50.
I hate going to work, but I want money.

Of course its natural to want to make things as pleasant as possible. But in the end, sometimes you just gotta suck it up and do it.

I can understand that some people just don't like certain things, but nothing is inherently 'fun' or enjoyable (except maybe certain drugs and sex, but that's primarily biology); you have to make things enjoyable.

Following your examples.
Eating delicious stuff vs healthy stuff:
If you bother to appreciate different flavors and cook things on your own, pretty much everything becomes tasty (this isn't a matter of background either, my family never ate most of the things I eat now).
I gave up certain foods because they irritate my gut too much (not 'gluten intolerant' or celiac, just found my digestive health to be better without wheat); I quite enjoy my no-wheat alternatives (oat and brown rice pancakes are, arguably, superior to their wheat cousins), though I allow myself a treat every few weeks.

Exercising:
I used to hate it, now I don't; what did I do? I made goals and aimed for them; I took care of my body post workout; I didn't overwork myself. That made it fun.
The only reason I backed off this year is because of a knee injury (unrelated to exercising, though I did make it worse by trying to run on it).

Anki:
At worst, it's something I feel like I need to do for my day to feel complete (but I don't hate it); usually, though, it's interesting (thus fun).

Gritting your teeth and just doing it might be the way you've dealt with things, but there's a much better alternative: appreciate what your doing and enjoy it; or just be apathetic, if you can't like it. It'll probably help with your goal of living past fifty too, since all that stress you spend on actively disliking things probably isn't doing much for your blood-pressure.

This is mostly for other people, by the way; I know it's highly unlikely you care about my opinion, and you're even less likely to listen to it because it's directed towards you.

Regarding RTK:
I've said this in plenty of other threads, but I think RTK is useless between the stages of learning to recognize kanji as individual characters and actually writing them. Some people do this all at once (I don't recommend, because what's the point of writing kanji, but not knowing any Japanese), others wait until their Japanese is to the point where they feel they can afford the time to practice writing (I'm one of these people); in either case, RTK is probably only useful for a few months to a year of total study and there's no benefit to using it except for during these times. Illustrated on the lines below:
RTK (half a year(?): all)-----> Japanese
RTK (couple months: 'seeing') --> Japanese ------------> RTK (writing)

The difference being the amount of time before doing actual Japanese study, like vocab and grammar.
Not to say that you can't work on those things at the same time, but it's still time that could be spent on vocab and grammar.

I only practiced writing a few kanji, and only because I thought I had to, at the time (and I was practicing to produce them nicely, not just in the correct stroke order); this only happened for a few characters before I finally decided it was a waste of time. I haven't had any problems with studying since then (going for N1 this year, with an actual chance of passing).

"(I have still never seen the word "decameron" outside of this book)"

I still don't understand why people hate this key word so much. In all the time I was in Japan, I only ever saw that kanji in relation to the first 10 days, middle 10 days, and last 10 days of the month. Ever. And it was really common vocab, people used it all the time. Would you guys have preferred it if Heisig had called it '10 day period' instead? Because to me, decameron reads so much better.

You guys need to get up on your medieval Italian literature. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decameron
In all honesty, it's a pretty interesting book, and the idea of the Canterbury Tales was based off of the Decameron.

sholum Wrote:I think RTK is useless between the stages of learning to recognize kanji as individual characters and actually writing them. [...] RTK is probably only useful for a few months to a year of total study

RTK is extremely useful for kanji recognition which is probably why Khatzu changed his advice to do it primary for recognition. However I think an even more important point is that if you are taking more than a few months, the AJATT recommendation is six weeks, then you probably should move on and just keep adding a few cards as you move forward in your Japanese studies.

In addition writing kanji by hand is generally useless for learners, except a few fringe cases, and it seems strange that this is still even recommended considering Khatzu pointed this out five years ago.

Assuming that writing the kanji makes the whole process only twice as long, I believe the cost is actually quite a bit higher than that, what are the benefits of this in the age of computers and smartphones? Do the majority of Japanese learners need the skill of writing so much that it makes sense to keep this the default advice? I don't doubt that using writing as a way to train recognition was brilliant in the 1970s but why do people still hang on to it 40 years later?

(Just to be very clear: I am a big fan of the RTK order and being able to learn kanji ahead of having a big Japanese vocabulary but I've never heard a proper defense for writing the kanji since this point was brought up in 2010.)

My thoughts on RTK:

1. I needed RTK. Some people don't, they can learn by rote, or simple recognition. That's great for them, and I'm happy for them. Never worked for me. But the imagination aspect really did. So, so glad I found it.

2. You should write out the kanji, because it will improve your Japanese handwriting. If you ever intend to go to Japan, you're going to find out quickly just how much the country still relies on writing things out by hand, so you will use hand-writing all. the. time. Unless of course, you enjoy having hand-writing that looks like a 2 year old's...

On production:

1. You need to be speaking right away so that the process of automaticity of language kicks in. This is what enables you to speak without thinking through your sentence first in your native language. Yes, you'll make many mistakes at first, but you can correct them later (they don't fossilise unless you stop caring about them). So don't worry about your mistakes at first. All children in your native language make *so* *many* *mistakes* when they are kids, but the proportion whose mistakes "fossilise" is vanishingly small.

2. If you have no one to talk to, talk to yourself. Narrate your day to yourself. 'I'm putting my comb over here, I'm going to have a shower now', that kind of thing. The important thing is to make it automatic, and for that you need a *lot* of speaking every single day.

ps, thanks for the link, interesting sounding book!

ktcgx Wrote:2. You should write out the kanji, because it will improve your Japanese handwriting. If you ever intend to go to Japan, you're going to find out quickly just how much the country still relies on writing things out by hand, so you will use hand-writing all. the. time. Unless of course, you enjoy having hand-writing that looks like a 2 year old's...

This is quite debatable. I wrote very little in Japan and I ran into a lot of foreigners that couldn't write at all. While you should be able to write legible characters, being able to do it from memory is a different thing. Its a skill that one should definitely have I think, but as I told many people, when you have a limited amount of time in the day to study, you are probably prioritizing the things that will pay off the most and writing is at the bottom of that list.

ktcgx Wrote:If you ever intend to go to Japan, you're going to find out quickly just how much the country still relies on writing things out by hand, so you will use hand-writing all. the. time.

After 10 years here this is not my experience at all. I can write my address extremely fast now but aside from that I almost never have to write anything down. In the very rare cases that I must hand write something, I punch it into my phone and copy it down. There are jobs here that require being able to write by hand, but in the population of Japanese learners these are outliers and nowhere near common enough to make this the standard advice.

Furthermore you need at least three of the other skills developed to a high level before you can put kanji hand writing ability into action. So why are we putting the writing skill ahead of the others? My argument is that hand writing should be last, the fifth skill, after reading, listening, speaking, and composition. Furthermore I would put it off completely until your comprehension is roughly N1 or upper N2. Not only do you need the ability to write the kanji characters themselves, but you need the skills to compose a sentence that isn't going to need major revisions once written down.

サラリーマン川柳

最近は
ケータイ無いと
字が書けず

Here's an uplifting blog post about trying to learn Japanese and taking excessively long to do it:

http://abundancedeclared.blogspot.ca/201...chive.html

tokyostyle Wrote:After 10 years here this is not my experience at all.

Well, I lived there for 4 years, and that was my experience. But then again, I was teaching, and schools have lots of forms to fill in and whatnot. So I'll amend my previous statement with YMMV

ktcgx Wrote:On production:

1. You need to be speaking right away so that the process of automaticity of language kicks in. This is what enables you to speak without thinking through your sentence first in your native language. Yes, you'll make many mistakes at first, but you can correct them later (they don't fossilise unless you stop caring about them). So don't worry about your mistakes at first. All children in your native language make *so* *many* *mistakes* when they are kids, but the proportion whose mistakes "fossilise" is vanishingly small.

2. If you have no one to talk to, talk to yourself. Narrate your day to yourself. 'I'm putting my comb over here, I'm going to have a shower now', that kind of thing. The important thing is to make it automatic, and for that you need a *lot* of speaking every single day.

QFT

This really is true. The worry about mistakes seems to paralyze so many people from *using* Japanese, but using language is the only way to make it yours. Language remains a "study subject" until you start using it and one should start from as early as possible.

Yes, you will make mistakes, and if you work with non-native speakers you will hear mistakes. It is not going to taint your Japanese unless, as ktcgx-san so rightly says "you stop caring about them". If you are getting plenty of native input too and trying to grow in Japanese you will grow. But by *using* the language constantly you have something to grow *from*, rather than leaving it on the theoretical plane.

A used language is a language. A studied (only or mainly) language is a subject.

(And no, I don't argue against study. I have even written geeky articles on Japanese grammar. But that isn't learning a language. That is learning *about* a language. I do that too, and find it very interesting, but I don't confuse the two things. Knowing a lot *about* a language helps you learn the language. But it isn't in itself learning the language.)

And use does have to be active as well as passive use, or the automaticity of language won't kick in. I have never had much success talking to myself. I've tried it a lot but I really need communication. But even talking with people below my level (having Japanese-only relationships) has been enormously helpful. Far more than I would have expected before I tried it.

tokyostyle Wrote:

sholum Wrote:I think RTK is useless between the stages of learning to recognize kanji as individual characters and actually writing them. [...] RTK is probably only useful for a few months to a year of total study

RTK is extremely useful for kanji recognition which is probably why Khatzu changed his advice to do it primary for recognition. However I think an even more important point is that if you are taking more than a few months, the AJATT recommendation is six weeks, then you probably should move on and just keep adding a few cards as you move forward in your Japanese studies.

In addition writing kanji by hand is generally useless for learners, except a few fringe cases, and it seems strange that this is still even recommended considering Khatzu pointed this out five years ago.

Assuming that writing the kanji makes the whole process only twice as long, I believe the cost is actually quite a bit higher than that, what are the benefits of this in the age of computers and smartphones? Do the majority of Japanese learners need the skill of writing so much that it makes sense to keep this the default advice? I don't doubt that using writing as a way to train recognition was brilliant in the 1970s but why do people still hang on to it 40 years later?

(Just to be very clear: I am a big fan of the RTK order and being able to learn kanji ahead of having a big Japanese vocabulary but I've never heard a proper defense for writing the kanji since this point was brought up in 2010.)

I agree on the benefits of the order in which RTK introduces kanji.

Honestly, I was guessing at how long it might take to go through RTK for writing practice (I still haven't done it), I should have made note of that before.
I took about four months to go through RTK by recognition, but that's because I fell into the trap of trying to get the keyword down perfectly, once I realized that it wasn't really worth the effort (a little over half-way through), I went much faster. That was also my first time using Anki, so I wasn't using it properly (daily) and added cards poorly.

Even while doing spelling practice for English class, as a kid, I never used writing as a means of practice (I practiced orally with my parents). In fact, I've never used repetitive writing as a means to learn anything but writing (the most recent things being kana and some mathematical notation (the worst was trying to make my integral signs not look like the letter 'S'...)).
So yeah, writing for memorization isn't something I understand using either, but some people claim it works better for them (probably helps them concentrate).

ktcgx Wrote:

tokyostyle Wrote:After 10 years here this is not my experience at all.

Well, I lived there for 4 years, and that was my experience. But then again, I was teaching, and schools have lots of forms to fill in and whatnot.

I actually have to fill out quite a few forms by hand myself, but it's basically all personal information which is something you could memorize outside of a rigorous RTK study. Thus if someone that just moved here was asking me for advice I would definitely suggest they learn to write their address by hand as that one in particular comes up a lot. Even elementary school kids are required to learn this even though they won't learn some of the kanji until later.

Also, having lived here so long I have run into situations where it would have been nice to be able to write by hand. However it was always social situations like snowboarding and diving trips where you write the same kind of sentiments over and over. It didn't take me long to re-memorize the 10-20 kanji you need to write variations on 楽しかったです！

I did do the first 1,000 or so kanji of RTK by writing but I never noticed it was that helpful to actually developing handwriting skills for sentences. Writing or copying full sentences and full words, instead of individual kanji, helped me a lot more. (Take that with a huge grain of low sodium substitute of course. I was practicing specifically for writing small meaningless messages in other people's dive logbooks.)

I think you misunderstand what I said, I mean that writing them out is good to make your handwriting nicer, not as necessarily as a memorisation aid.

Interesting, I actually was taught how to make my kanji messier and more fluid so that they could be written quickly while still being legible.

There are some cases where you must write as pretty as possible though. Hand-written entry sheets come to mind.

tokyostyle Wrote:Interesting, I actually was taught how to make my kanji messier and more fluid so that they could be written quickly while still being legible.

There are some cases where you must write as pretty as possible though. Hand-written entry sheets come to mind.

I think the intuition of where to join lines etc, comes from writing the kanji out many times. You naturally tend to figure how to write them in a more flow-y style, which I don't think is more "messy". For example, I naturally ended up writing 時 with only 2 strokes, but wouldn't have ended up like that without having written it out thousands of times over the years.

tokyostyle Wrote:I did do the first 1,000 or so kanji of RTK by writing but I never noticed it was that helpful to actually developing handwriting skills for sentences. Writing or copying full sentences and full words, instead of individual kanji, helped me a lot more. (Take that with a huge grain of low sodium substitute of course. I was practicing specifically for writing small meaningless messages in other people's dive logbooks.)

I've been writing words/sentences since November, and it's definitely less painful and much more practical for actually writing Japanese. I remember RTK reviews being terribly slow as I converted everything from keywords and mnemonics into strokes. Doing that while trying to write a sentence, let alone a composition, isn't even thinkable.

I find that visual and muscle memory kick in more when writing words, and the process is largely automatic after the cards reach maturity. I spent a lot of time with RTK years ago though, so I have the advantage of a lot of half-remembered stories and general experience with the language. I've got no idea what I'd recommend to a beginner.

ktcgx Wrote:

tokyostyle Wrote:Interesting, I actually was taught how to make my kanji messier and more fluid so that they could be written quickly while still being legible.

There are some cases where you must write as pretty as possible though. Hand-written entry sheets come to mind.

I think the intuition of where to join lines etc, comes from writing the kanji out many times. You naturally tend to figure how to write them in a more flow-y style, which I don't think is more "messy". For example, I naturally ended up writing 時 with only 2 strokes, but wouldn't have ended up like that without having written it out thousands of times over the years.

Be careful with this, though, because your "natural" flowy style may not be what Japanese people do. I've been told by several Japanese people that the semi-cursive characters I use for my own notes look strange.

john555 Wrote:Here's an uplifting blog post

Personally, I like this uplifting quote better:

http://imgcc.naver.jp/kaze/mission/USER/...118c49.jpg

今すぐ諦めるのと 一年びっしり練習した後諦めるの どっちがいい？

I only read the opening post of this read, so I'm replying exclusively to that.

vgambit Wrote:1. Fun learning material

2. Lasting motivation

3. A strong work ethic

1. For many, there will be no such thing as fun reading material in the beginning. Rewarding is a better word, in my opinion. Almost anything you read, even children's literature, will be difficult. Why? Because children have an intuitive understanding of grammar and already recognize thousands of words. But if you dedicate yourself to a book, manga, or anime without giving up, you will begin to reap the benefits of your labor. When you encounter a complex sentence that, after fifteen minutes of studying, finally makes sense, you will feel accomplished. That's what reading material should do for you.

2. Stop relying on motivation. Motivation is fleeting. If you want to learn Japanese, dedicate yourself to it. Say to yourself, "No matter what, I will dedicate myself to Japanese at least one hour a day, regardless of how tedious it sounds." This is what people who accomplish goals do. When asked about the Sistine Chapel, Michelangelo responded, "If you knew how much work went into it, you would not call it genius." Do you think he ever took a day off painting because he simply didn't feel like it? Why should language learning be any different?

3. This I can agree on, but it's more a product of the former two.

So, in summary, you need all three of these things to learn Japanese:

1. Rewarding reading material

2. Dedication

3. A strong work ethic.

I only read the first post too. My advice would be:

1. Study every day without exception. Even if it's for a few minutes, it makes it much easier to keep the ball rolling if you studied the previous day. Conversely, if you skip studying one day, it's much more likely you'll skip the next day and so on. You say if you can only scrape together 30-60 minutes but I'd imagine you have that kind dead time every day and don't even use it. I spend 60 minutes every day and haven't changed my lifestyle much. I study on my phone while walking the dog, waiting for food at restaurants, walking from my car into work and back, waiting for my wife to get ready, etc.. Sometimes it's only 30 seconds or 5 minutes, but it adds up to hundreds of hours per year.

2. Find a simple method of study and stick with it. This makes #1 much easier. There are many different methods out there and I'm not sure one is inherently better then another as long as it's sensible. However complicated methods just create reasons not to study if you don't have X. The best method is one that makes it easy for you to actually study. Something simple like a smartphone with anki and core loaded lets you study anywhere and anytime you have a minute or two. You don't have to think about what to study next, it's right at your fingertips.

3. You don't need motivation, inspiration, blogs, forums, websites or amazing software. All you need is to keep studying something sensible and keep doing it. That's it. If you keep at it every day, it's like getting on a train and if you stay on the train you should reach your destination.

Looks like this is another thread about the methods of AJATT.

That was the exact method that I used few years ago up until today, even though I don't "study" Japanese as much anymore but I can say that I am happy that I am able to:

1. Understand anime, news, random youtube crap, Japanese movies, Japanese-dubbed American movies without much problem (all without subtitles).

2. Read a novel and understand most of it without having to look up words in the dictionary.

Of course I still run into stuff that I just can't understand from time to time, whether it's they're speaking too fast, or unknown vocab, but I just shrug it off now. It sometimes happens in variety shows of that sort where they will say something that I just do not understand.

But overall I am happy with my progress, now I am not fluent, but my speaking has improved quite a lot even though I rarely speak to any Japanese people.

I don't long for Japan like I used to, I'm content where I live, I don't have any plans to move there or anything. So I'm just no longer in a rush, but I hopefully will one day be able to become as fluent in Japanese as my native language.

I haven't read through the entire thread, just the op's initial post.
I think your main problem is motivation: it's not genuine, therefore it won't last too long, or at the very least you will experience ups and downs (mostly downs after some time).

Also, I've seen on these forums people suggesting to learn whole sentences. Why would you do that in the first place?? I think learning even short sentences beats the whole purpose of fluency: being able to construct your own sentences, from your own thoughts, right on the spot. That is what fluency is (in my opinion). You should be able to build up sentences on your own, from WORDS, that's it. It will feel awkward at first, or wrong even, but as you progress you will be able to THINK Japanese easily, thus become more fluent. I can't really see that happening learning entire sentences.

So in summary, my opinion: find the right motivation, and learn a lot of words, and start putting them together. Sooner or later you will become fluent.

.

Raschaverak Wrote:Also, I've seen on these forums people suggesting to learn whole sentences. Why would you do that in the first place?? I think learning even short sentences beats the whole purpose of fluency: being able to construct your own sentences, from your own thoughts, right on the spot. ...

So in summary, my opinion: find the right motivation, and learn a lot of words, and start putting them together. Sooner or later you will become fluent.

The problem with this idea is that languages differ. Obviously, you cannot simply substitute words from Japanese into your native language's grammar, but beyond that, you cannot simply use simplistic grammar equivalent transformations to come up with natural sounding sentences. Languages are full of idioms, fixed expressions, habitual sayings, all manner of things that are not quite rules and not easily codified, but nonetheless, if you don't do it the way natives do it you'll sound distinctly odd, if not difficult to understand.

To draw an analogy, you could say 'atoms' are the simplest unit of matter, but atoms do not exist in isolation - they naturally form molecules. And not simply by attaching any arbitrary atom to any other atom, but by complex rules. Languages have the same thing - words form phrases and sentences according to complex rules, and you cannot simply arbitrarily stick them together. Unlike physics, these rules aren't universal but are different from one language to the next.

Of course, many words can simply be learned in isolation - colors, sizes, names of animals and trees and food items ... a plethora of simple concrete nouns and adjectives, and even many physical verbs and adverbs. However, to properly understand or express yourself in a language beyond such simplistic items, you need to learn the patterns of the language. That's where the value of learning phrases and sentences rather than words in isolation comes in.

I would in fact say it is impossible to learn a language by learning grammar rules on one hand and isolated vocabulary on the other hand and trying to just 'put them together'. Of course, if you combine such study with lots of reading and listening you may be fine without -formally- studying phrases and sentences, but there is no way to predict the natural patterns without some kind of heavy exposure to phrases and sentences constructed by natives.