The learning process is beginning to get very disorienting.

My reading speed in English goes down significantly after a Japanese shadowing session. I begin to over analyze sentences, and notice how English particles make less sense than Japanese ones.

To add to that...

I can longer just scan a page of kanji. It's as if I'm forced to stop, break the kanji down into elements and strokes, and try to figure out the meaning of each one before I move on to the next.

I liken this to my time as a child. I would contemplate almost endlessly the meaning of what, or like, or however, or once upon a time. I would invariably come to the conclusion that language is some weird thing that makes no sense. However, as I grew older I stopped questioning the language and just used it.

Now, as I read page after page in this new language, and hear countless of hours of meaning mixed in with sensical nonsense, I endlessly comtemplate the meaning of なん、　or な、or の、or　で.

I can't for the life of me seem to get しばらくして out of my head.

The strangest part... through all of this...

I Want Moar!!!

*Watches Episode 10 of Seigi no Mikata for umpteenth time*

umm wat 0_0

Exactly!!!



Now you know how I feel!!!

Before I started Heisig I was already pretty proficent with reading Kanji; like English, you begin to recognize kanji by their shape, not each individual stroke order.

Now I feel like I'm reading kanji with two sets of eyes. The first set of eyes lets me scan a passage quickly and pull out the meaning. The second set lets me look at each individual kanji, deconstruct it's shape, and see where it fits into Heisig.

I think being able to see Kanji in both perspectives is vital to mastering Japanese. Recognizing the shapes of kanji only gets you so far; after a while kanji that look very similar start to get you in trouble.

But also if you have to examine each individual kanji while you read, you're not focused on the meaning so much as the characters themselves.

I think it just takes time and practice.

samesong Wrote:Now I feel like I'm reading kanji with two sets of eyes. The first set of eyes lets me scan a passage quickly and pull out the meaning. The second set lets me look at each individual kanji, deconstruct it's shape, and see where it fits into Heisig.

That's true.

Pre-Heisig, I only sometime took notice of the left-hand-side radical. By using the general feel of the Kanji's shape, I thought I knew what I was reading. Now, this works most of the time, but in a test environment or in a production environment where you are asked to choose between Flash, Mr. T, or Data on the left-hand-side, it helps tremendously to know Heisig.

kazelee Wrote:I can't for the life of me seem to get しばらくして out of my head.

しばらくは、滝に・・・

I have a weird situation where I stopped doing Heisig reviews almost as soon as I was finished, but instead got into sentences very intensely, especially KO. So now I usually can't for the life of me remember the English keyword, but I know what those kanji mean, in a Japanese sense. I mean, the shape of the kanji has a pronunciation and a meaning attached, but the English keyword intermediate step has dropped away very quickly. So reading feels phonetic as in English, it's just a sounding out and usually an a-ha moment, not a dissection of particles and Heisig meanings.

I'm now adding the kanji back to my main deck with Japanese keywords, with thanks to wrightak's excellent work.

phauna Wrote:I'm now adding the kanji back to my main deck with Japanese keywords, with thanks to wrightak's excellent work.

Thanks for that hint, phauna. Looks like the site is here:

http://wrightak.googlepages.com/afterrtk1

I think I will be converting, too... ...will be very happy to get rid of those crazy synonyms! I wonder what's the best way to transition.

May have to restart a whole new second deck and ween off the first...

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Edit: Actually the recent thread here is interesting:

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=929

Onyomi 2000 study concurrent with RTK1 may be best - maybe it's too early to burn the RTK1 deck.

Is there currently any way to implement wrightak's work into RTK? Or would the easiest way be to simply use an anki deck and scratch using RTK for reviews?

Your English reading speed drops "significantly" after studying a Japanese passage?

Are you a non-native English speaker or just a drama queen?

i've noticed my ability to read english subtitles during a film has suffered.. I think it's directly related to my studying japanese.. my ears are open, looking for japanese sounds and words.. So I'm trying to translate what I hear while I simultaneously read the english meaning at the bottom of the screen.

.. Unfortunately, this has carried over into films that aren't evem Japanese.. I'm so used to listening closer to the words that I'll often have to reread an english line a couple times before picking it up

FutureBlues Wrote:Your English reading speed drops "significantly" after studying a Japanese passage?

Are you a non-native English speaker or just a drama queen?

Awesome

You're a funny human being.

When you read 700-900 wpm and suddenly you read less than 300 you tend to notice.

There is a lot rereading lines and stumbling over the most basic of sentences.

It goes back up after a few hours of reading English again.

Now let's focus on what this topic is really about; the mind shift.

On a plus side, It's getting easier to ignore my bro.

Edit: This Japanese RTK thing is more than a bit interesting.

For me it is the oposite. My English reading speed is improving.

mentat_kgs Wrote:For me it is the oposite. My English reading speed is improving.

Are you native to english?

Perhaps things will get back to normal once I get a better mastery of this language.

FutureBlues Wrote:Your English reading speed drops "significantly" after studying a Japanese passage?

Are you a non-native English speaker or just a drama queen?

I can't help but agree with this comment. I can read a whole book in Japanese and I've never noticed it infringing on my ability to read English in the slightest.

I think there is an argument that if one has been speaking Japanese for a long time then suddenly speaks English, a lot of Japanese type phrases will pop into the persons head that don't really translate over so well (causing that "I think I've forgotten English" feeling), but that isn't even close to English reading speed, which is a completely separate skill and won't be slowed by seeing another script.

kazelee, its always nice to see people who are very enthusiastic and excited about what they are studying - but you come off like a ten year old kid that can't handle the excitement sometimes. If you could tone that down a bit that would be great....

I pretend to myself I'm getting crap at English (my native) in an attempt to get into the mindset of 'portray your opinions in Japanese or don't at all'.

I also very feabily think "そうか" to myself when the need arises.

Ugh, one day. One day I'll turn into a butterfly. >:-D

NightSky Wrote:kazelee, its always nice to see people who are very enthusiastic and excited about what they are studying - but you come off like a ten year old kid that can't handle the excitement sometimes. If you could tone that down a bit that would be great....

Hmm, I dunno. I think it's best to nurture any sort of positive thinking in this mental battle that is language learning.

kazelee seems closer to the goal than I am. And when I get to the goal I imagine I'll be, like, in a state of eternal ecstasy. You just know it's somehow gonna be an anti-climax anyway, but...

NightSky Wrote:I think there is an argument that if one has been speaking Japanese for a long time then suddenly speaks English, a lot of Japanese type phrases will pop into the persons head that don't really translate over so well (causing that "I think I've forgotten English" feeling), but that isn't even close to English reading speed, which is a completely separate skill and won't be slowed by seeing another script.

I was reading silly . I think the change in reading speed was more because I got throttled by reading Japanese at speaking speed for such a time.

As for words not quite seeming the same. This holds true. I keep over analyzing English, especially particles, much the same way I did when I was younger.

It's happening less and less with each shadowing session. Like I'm getting used to going from one mode to the other. That is, if my mind even switches modes when I study Japanese. No one can know for sure.

NightSky Wrote:kazelee, its always nice to see people who are very enthusiastic and excited about what they are studying - but you come off like a ten year old kid that can't handle the excitement sometimes. If you could tone that down a bit that would be great....

Cool man,

I was aiming for five .

Close enough.

Virtua_Leaf Wrote:kazelee seems closer to the goal than I am. And when I get to the goal I imagine I'll be, like, in a state of eternal ecstasy. You just know it's somehow gonna be an anti-climax anyway, but...

It really is though. In the beginning, the first few months of real japanese studies, your skill exploads upwards all the time. Suddenly you realize you can understand quite a bit when reading manga etc etc etc... but as you get better, progress slows down. Not that you actually learn less, but that what you learn has less impact. When you know 100 kanji and learn 100 new ones, you just DOUBLED your ability. However, when you know over 4000 words, learning 50 new ones won't really make a remarkable difference, even if it's still good progress.

"He who knows no foreign language knows nothing of his own." -- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I'm getting that over analytic feeling again when trying to construct sentences in English. Instead of just tossing the ideas together, I keep trying to understand how the individual parts relate to each other. Instead of just attaching phrases together and accepting the meaning I'm trying to understand the why. Been spending the last couple of days studying on particles is probably why.

I've noticed in Japanese a lot of words can only be understood by understanding the words and particles that surround them. I knew this was true of English as well, only, now I'm really starting to see it.

When I was studying French I had this problem where I couldn't understand it, written or spoken, no matter how much I tried. I understood the words, individually, but not the sentences as a whole. Just recently I tried something. Instead of reading and trying to understand what I'm reading, I would just read as fast as I could. At first it was like reading gibberish, but, soon, in doing this I was able to understand a complex sentence for the first time. I wasn't very strong on the individual parts but I got the total idea.

I tried this with a Japanese sentence and was surprised at how much sense the language made -what with it being backwards and all.

Tobberoth Wrote:It really is though. In the beginning, the first few months of real japanese studies, your skill exploads upwards all the time. Suddenly you realize you can understand quite a bit when reading manga etc etc etc... but as you get better, progress slows down. Not that you actually learn less, but that what you learn has less impact. When you know 100 kanji and learn 100 new ones, you just DOUBLED your ability. However, when you know over 4000 words, learning 50 new ones won't really make a remarkable difference, even if it's still good progress.

I'm noticing a sort of plateau like effect... where It seems like no matter how much I study nothing changes, then suddenly, I can hear a little more.... understand better what's going on in a story.... tell my smart-ass brother what that random compound means when he asks.... Okay I made that last part up.

After going through the core 2000 on iKnow it felt like I had learned virtually nothing. Then after squeezing in some of the KO lists, and using the Tae Kim anki deck I actually began to feel like I knew something while watching TV or reading. It was like that little extra threw me over the wall.

I wonder if anyone has found the p90x of learning...

kazelee, you rock. Way to keep the positive energy flowing I'm still on kanji, of course, but I know what you mean about your english suffering. I was studying French very seriously for about two years and I would honestly take maybe 2-3 minutes to firmly root myself back into English after reading a French novel or magazine.

That was pretty entertaining. I can sympathize in a very limited way: I sometimes find myself coming out with some peculiar sounding "Japanese English" phrases and then catching myself and thinking "why the hell did I just say that"? I attribute it to hearing too much learner English and involuntarily internalizing it. Of course, now that I want a specific example of such an instance I can't come up with one!

As for the comment about English particles not making sense I find this extremely unlikely. Particles in English are extremely limited in their use and most of the time are part of phrasal verbs like "you bring up an interesting point" or "take in everything Heising has to say about Kanji learning" or "I heard about your difficulty with Kanji".

As a native English speaker you are unlikely to confuse these meanings or to substitute the wrong particle like "I am having problems looking down this compound" instead of "I am having problems looking up this compound".

If you are having that kind of problem you are really in trouble!

markal Wrote:As a native English speaker you are unlikely to confuse these meanings or to substitute the wrong particle like "I am having problems looking down this compound" instead of "I am having problems looking up this compound".

If you are having that kind of problem you are really in trouble!

I don't confuse meanings. I over analyze and notice how these words really have none (meaning that is), much like how a drastic trauma or change in people's lives can make them truly notice that the sky is blue. They knew before, but until they had that paradigm shift they never really "knew."

The last three words of the second sentence in my intial post are key. That was right after I finished Heisig and learned the vocab of the story I was shadowing. The combination of listening, reading, and speaking in Japanese for an extended time had an indescribably unique effect on my ability to read and process written English. It was almost like a tire that kept rolling long after the car had stopped. It seemed as though I had regressed (which would explain why I was over analyzing English particles the way I over analyzed the Japanese ones).

I was not a seasoned Japanese vet (and I'm still not even close). The most Japanese I knew was the stuff that anyone who's ever watched a subbed anime could pick up on. You know.... hon, daijoubu, korosu, ke, kenchana, mianhe, chesonghamnida... wait a second...

sethg Wrote:kazelee, you rock. Way to keep the positive energy flowing smile I'm still on kanji, of course, but I know what you mean about your english suffering. I was studying French very seriously for about two years and I would honestly take maybe 2-3 minutes to firmly root myself back into English after reading a French novel or magazine.

*takes hat off*

*nods*

I find it pretty strange that people are questioning that Kazelee is having the experience he is having. We are all different in how we process multilingually, just cuz he is experiencing a phenomenon you didn't, why should that create doubt?

Two language blocking experiences I've had (yup, really, I'm not making it up!):

1. Since I have been studying Japanese intensively, I cannot produce Spanish AT ALL -- it comes out in Japanese, even though my comprehension of Spanish seems unaffected. No blockage with producing French or Dutch, my other languages.
2. During my first immersion experience, in a Dutch boarding school at age 11, I started having problems accessing English after three months. Not with reading, but with comprehension of spoken language. An American TV show would come on and for the first 5 minutes I couldn't understand a thing -- it was total gibberish. Then a switch would flip and suddenly I could understand again, as normal. During this period I was also dreaming exclusively in Dutch.

Harrow Wrote:Since I have been studying Japanese intensively, I cannot produce Spanish AT ALL -- it comes out in Japanese, even though my comprehension of Spanish seems unaffected.

Same thing happens to me with French. I'm guessing it's because I spend so much more time studying Japanese than I do French.

Like you said, everyone processes multilingualism differently. One thing I've noticed with myself is "Japanese English" coming out - some sentences I say in English don't sound right the first time, and I have to correct myself because I was using Japanese sentence structure and grammar rules.