So how about a forum where only Japanese can be used? English can be used, but it has to be invisible text, so those who want to avoid it can (say for explaining some grammar or giving someone else advice on how to improve). However, it would be great for everyone to stick to no Japanese where possible.

Why? Well, I don't get much of a chance to have complex conversations in Japanese. Mostly it is introductory stuff or jokes. I would love to be able to flex some of the more complex vocab I have been learning recently and to practice making detailed points in Japanese. I would also love to see how you guys structure your Japanese, I'm sure we could all learn a lot from each other.

Some topic ideas:

Easy:

Do you prefer cats or dogs, why?

Moderate:

If you had the power to change Japan as you see fit, what would you do?

Difficult:

What political system do you support? Why?

It might be worth having some rule that posts should be tagged with a rough difficulty level and try to get people to roughly stick to posts that are around their level. I'm thinking of the situation where someone low level makes a post and high level people overtake the conversation and the low level people can't keep up. We can always see how it goes anyway.

I think also it would be great if we pick out each others errors. Not to an insane degree, but hey I love it when people show me my mistakes.

What do you guys think?

They call it lang8 I think.

Or maybe Tae Kim's Forums.

I think it's a good idea. And to be fair, it's nice to have a place to just dicuss general things rather than write a journal and get quite impersonal (e.g. lang-8).

[ファブリス]

Sounds good to me, but is there enough interest for it? Maybe we should start with a big Japanese-only thread, I could sticky it if you want.

I'll shy away from creating or posting in that topic because I don't study any Japanese lately I mostly do passive listening once in a while, and you guys are way ahead of me! So feel free to create the topic with a generic enough title that we can sticky up, something like "General discussion in Japanese" ?

It would be good to separate beginner and intermediate or advanced Japanese, I agree, perhaps that would be less intimidating for some. I don' tknow how you'd handle this in a single topic but we can also have two sticki'ed Japanese-only topics : one beginner, (english allowed?), and one intermediate/advanced.

ファブリス Wrote:Sounds good to me, but is there enough interest for it? Maybe we should start with a big Japanese-only thread, I could sticky it if you want.

I'll shy away from creating or posting in that topic because I don't study any Japanese lately I mostly do passive listening once in a while, and you guys are way ahead of me! So feel free to create the topic with a generic enough title that we can sticky up, something like "General discussion in Japanese" ?

It would be good to separate beginner and intermediate or advanced Japanese, I agree, perhaps that would be less intimidating for some. I don' tknow how you'd handle this in a single topic but we can also have two sticki'ed Japanese-only topics : one beginner, (english allowed?), and one intermediate/advanced.

Sounds great

Just wondering what the current opinion/interest for this is.

I find the Japanese thread is hard to keep going.

I currently have this site blocked except for Mondays (I made an exception for today) since I spend to much time on it and checking it. I realised the benefit I get from learning more about study techniques here is less than the benefit from using that time for Japanese.

I don't believe that there is huge benefit to be had from a Japanese forum, since I believe in the input hypothesis, but I really enjoy the chance to talk to people taking more or less the same road as me. The other people I know who are studying Japanese generally have no clue on how to study it.

I realise there are forum's like that on Tae Kims, but I think one here could be better for a few reasons.

1. All English must be invisible text and should be only be used when it is really need. EG for beginners talking about different grammar constructs. There is a lot of English in the Tae Kim Japanese forum.
2. Correcting mistakes. We can make it a place were you generally correct the mistakes of other people.
3. Pretty good community. Trolling and flaming is not common here.

How about starting a new thread for advanced learners/native speakers and possibly one for beginners too? I know there is an intermediate Japanese thread, but it doesn't seem to be a place where beginners would feel comfortable or native speakers can post in Japanese.

Another idea is starting bilingual threads on this forum, i.e., you use both English and Japanese so that everyone can understand your posts. Replies can be either in English or J-E bilingual. This way everyone can join your threads and you can talk about anything. Beginners may be able to pick up some phrases from bilingual posts too.

Posting bilingually in an existing thread may be against the general rules of this forum, but if you're the OP and cool with monolingual replies, I guess ファブリス says ok unless you flood this forum with your bilingual threads intimidating beginners.

Writing bilingual posts sounds like a lot of work to me...

Creating more Japanese only threads sounds like a good idea but I have a request: Can we change the font? I find it quite small and when it's in faded grey italics (for quotes), it's very difficult to read.

Why not start a separate forum? I think a single thread is a bit restrictive...

Fabrice mentioned before he's reticent about creating new forums that are likely to have little use.

My vote goes for 3 stickied threads similar to what Magamo and Thermal suggested. Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. Now, there's no "rule" what goes in any of them. More of a guideline. If there's a gentleman's agreement on use of invisotext for English or other languages, post how on top post.

Traffic on the three threads can determine if there's need of it's own dedicated sub-forum.

wrightak Wrote:Writing bilingual posts sounds like a lot of work to me...

Creating more Japanese only threads sounds like a good idea but I have a request: Can we change the font? I find it quite small and when it's in faded grey italics (for quotes), it's very difficult to read.

I mean, only the first post by the OP is forced to be bilingual and replies can be either monolingual or bilingual. Since the main purpose is practice, I think it's all right if Japanese part of a bilingual post isn't faithful to the English text. I guess posting only one or two simple Japanese sentences with a long English text would still be beneficial. The point is everyone can converse in English while practicing Japanese if they want.

For example, I ask "Can I attach an image to my post on this forum?" and you want to reply "Not that I'm aware of." But you don't know how to say it in Japanese, so you reply:

"@magamo
Not that I'm aware of. By the way, how do I say this in Japanese?"

And someone might reply to you:

"@wrightak
It's 出来ないはずだけど。Wording can vary depending on context, though. For example, ..."

Possibly the guy answered your question posts it bilingually so you can read his explanation in Japanese too.

Maybe too complicated? As Nukemarine says, 3 stickied threads might be better, but I'm not sure.

Edit: Can you change the font size in your browser, wrightak? Or do you mean you only want to use larger fonts for Japanese characters?

Nukemarine Wrote:Fabrice mentioned before he's reticent about creating new forums that are likely to have little use.

My vote goes for 3 stickied threads similar to what Magamo and Thermal suggested. Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced. Now, there's no "rule" what goes in any of them. More of a guideline. If there's a gentleman's agreement on use of invisotext for English or other languages, post how on top post.

Traffic on the three threads can determine if there's need of it's own dedicated sub-forum.

This is what we tried and basically it didn't work because there are a number of reasons that we don't have one (or three) threads in a forum. None of us would use such a forum in English, so it is not surprising that the Japanese variant is little different.

Unfortunately, I think the only way to test how much interest there is in a Japanese forum is to create one and see how much it is used (or ask people).

I personally like the idea of having guidelines for the forum which people can override when they make a thread if they so choose.

I think it's a cool idea, isn't there already a 中級会話 thread running. Maybe something like that but also in 初級 and 高級 (and maybe 超級 for the super advanced? lol). I'm not sure it should be having all kinds of rules, just casual 会話 maybe.

The problem is that the japanese threads we have aren't being used, for several reasons.

1. People don't know where they belong (I personally find some posts in the intermediate thread to be quite advanced while other posts are quite simple, "intermediate" is becoming too wide possibly).
2. People can't have several discussions there since it's just one thread. If you want to talk about something, you're destroying other peoples discussions, it's hard to find posts which matter to your own line of discussion. Basically, it's thread which is supposed to go off-topic constantly.

I think an new forum is a good idea, and each thread should be labeled. So I could start one called:
環境問題について話そう(中級) while someone else creates one called 自己紹介(初級).
I think people would find it easier to find threads they can use and contribute to, making it more useful than the current japanese threads which aren't used at all.

Quote:Edit: Can you change the font size in your browser, wrightak? Or do you mean you only want to use larger fonts for Japanese characters?

Yeah, this site looks fantastic for English. However, whenever people start writing in Japanese, the fonts and colours don't look so great I think. Japanese text does not look good in bold or in italics. The recent topics list looks like it's a bold font, and quoting is always in italics.

Tobberoth Wrote:The problem is that the japanese threads we have aren't being used, for several reasons.

1. People don't know where they belong (I personally find some posts in the intermediate thread to be quite advanced while other posts are quite simple, "intermediate" is becoming too wide possibly).
2. People can't have several discussions there since it's just one thread. If you want to talk about something, you're destroying other peoples discussions, it's hard to find posts which matter to your own line of discussion. Basically, it's thread which is supposed to go off-topic constantly.

I think an new forum is a good idea, and each thread should be labeled. So I could start one called:
環境問題について話そう(中級) while someone else creates one called 自己紹介(初級).
I think people would find it easier to find threads they can use and contribute to, making it more useful than the current japanese threads which aren't used at all.

I agree. I have no idea what people are talking about if the thread title is just advanced or novice. They could be talking about anything from cooking to life in china 2000 years ago. If everything has a thread, it's easy enough to find something interesting(that is of course if people are posting), on the other hand, 1 thread makes interesting conversation difficult to find.

IceCream, people are free to post in any language from what I'm noticing. The conversation becomes limited in who participates to be sure.

Hmm, guess it can go down to the person starting the thread can request the replies be in a certain language (Japanese, Dutch, German, Spanish, etc.) though English is assumed to be default language. Should enough Japanese threads start popping up, Fabrice can determine if it warrants its own forums.

So, leave it like it is? Maybe add a note to the forums that posts in Japanese or any language are more than welcome? I see no problem with multi lingual threads popping up in all the forums.

Nukemarine Wrote:IceCream, people are free to post in any language from what I'm noticing. The conversation becomes limited in who participates to be sure.

Hmm, guess it can go down to the person starting the thread can request the replies be in a certain language (Japanese, Dutch, German, Spanish, etc.) though English is assumed to be default language. Should enough Japanese threads start popping up, Fabrice can determine if it warrants its own forums.

So, leave it like it is? Maybe add a note to the forums that posts in Japanese or any language are more than welcome? I see no problem with multi lingual threads popping up in all the forums.

Hardly. I entered a line of Dutch and was tapped on the back by a certain person (you know who you are) that we're only allowed to speak 'American' here.

A Japanese-only thread might give good reading and writing practice, but would it give AUTHENTIC reading and writing practice? There may be those on this forum who's Japanese skills are native-like, but how can the novices tell who they are?

No offense, but if I'm going to tale the time to read Japanese I want to be sure it is 100% authentic.

An alternative might be to have a thread in which we introduce short Japanese texts and discuss them, translate them, study them together. That, I could go for.

Musashi Wrote:

Nukemarine Wrote:IceCream, people are free to post in any language from what I'm noticing. The conversation becomes limited in who participates to be sure.

Hmm, guess it can go down to the person starting the thread can request the replies be in a certain language (Japanese, Dutch, German, Spanish, etc.) though English is assumed to be default language. Should enough Japanese threads start popping up, Fabrice can determine if it warrants its own forums.

So, leave it like it is? Maybe add a note to the forums that posts in Japanese or any language are more than welcome? I see no problem with multi lingual threads popping up in all the forums.

Hardly. I entered a line of Dutch and was tapped on the back by a certain person (you know who you are) that we're only allowed to speak 'American' here.

It had to have been a joke. It would be unlikely anyone would be serious about that comment. This site doesn't originate in America after all. Fabrice even congratulated a user for starting a Spanish thread a while back I believe.

バンプ

The more I think about it 日本語での会話, or 日本語で話そう！ sounds more apt.

ファブリス様がいらっしゃいますでしょうか。

[ファブリス]

bodhisamaya Wrote:It had to have been a joke. It would be unlikely anyone would be serious about that comment. This site doesn't originate in America after all. Fabrice even congratulated a user for starting a Spanish thread a while back I believe.

Non-english threads are welcome, so long as people remember the main language of the forum is english (not "American" by the way).

Se habla español is still stickied in the Community forum.

Seeing as we have a majority of english users, and a multilingual forum can be come a mess to manage, I think it would be best to create general non-english topics like this one above, where members who can speak the language can discuss together, regardless of topic. I think this would be better than creating any number of new topics in non-english, where the participation will be limited.

In summary, please feel free to create "*speak french here*" "*speak italian here*" (*in your language*) etc topics, in the Community forum. Members who can speak those languages can follow these topics, and participate without creating a mess in what is otherwise a primarily english-language forum. And PM/Report a message to me if you want those stickied.

I can appreciate your reluctance to have a multilingual forum. This site is currently primarily geared towards learning Japanese. Can you let me know why you won't have a speak in Japanese forum though? There appears to be sufficient demand.

So I am thinking about throwing together an actual 掲示板 for this on proboards or something.

Admin: see my reply further down.