Also on another note. I do watch anime and i can understand 90% of it almost all the time. The other 10% is words that i may not be familiar with. I do think one can learn alot of things from anime, but NEVER rely on it solely as a source to learn japanese. Remeber the Japanese spoken in anime is pretty vulgar. Drama's are the way to go for real japanaese people speaking to one another, or game shows,etc. You will learn way more from that. But there is nothing wrong is watching anime and finding good progress with it. Just don't stick with it. I doubt you want to go to japan and start talking like 御前は馬鹿野郎だ!俺はまだ新の力が!

Reading the rest of the Youtube comments...

1: She's been in Japan for several months when she made that video, and is now doing the typical textbook study.
2: She just passed JLPT3 and is going for her JLPT2 right now.

I doubt the authenticity of using strictly anime for study, but combined with a more academic approach it would get you somewhere. I've definitely had those friends who claim that they understand anime without subtitles, although it's clear that they're just relying on the picture. Maybe that's what she's claiming. Maybe she secretly advocates using subs2srs.

Still, media definitely helps. There's usually a clear divide in pronunciation between those who've been exposed to a lot of media before taking a class, and those who just started with the class. I don't know how to explain it, I don't understand why, and while it's not perfect, it's usually a lot better then starting without media.

I remember reading somewhere that visualize helps with understanding. Obviously one can "guess" what's going on. But if one doesn't have a strong understanding of the central thing that's going. Then can't really count it as understanding. Media helps a lot with developing pronunciation.
As for subs2srs. I want to start using that, but can't configure it right. I'm going to rip the subtitles for 1 litre of tears drama. My japanese friend let me borrow it a long time ago. She lives far away, so don't have the time to return it. I'll hopefully be posting the subtitles soon.

ta12121 Wrote:Also on another note. I do watch anime and i can understand 90% of it almost all the time. The other 10% is words that i may not be familiar with. I do think one can learn alot of things from anime, but NEVER rely on it solely as a source to learn japanese. Remeber the Japanese spoken in anime is pretty vulgar. Drama's are the way to go for real japanaese people speaking to one another, or game shows,etc. You will learn way more from that. But there is nothing wrong is watching anime and finding good progress with it. Just don't stick with it. I doubt you want to go to japan and start talking like 御前は馬鹿野郎だ!俺はまだ新の力が!

Is this alyks or mentat_kgs??

ruiner Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:Also on another note. I do watch anime and i can understand 90% of it almost all the time. The other 10% is words that i may not be familiar with. I do think one can learn alot of things from anime, but NEVER rely on it solely as a source to learn japanese. Remeber the Japanese spoken in anime is pretty vulgar. Drama's are the way to go for real japanaese people speaking to one another, or game shows,etc. You will learn way more from that. But there is nothing wrong is watching anime and finding good progress with it. Just don't stick with it. I doubt you want to go to japan and start talking like 御前は馬鹿野郎だ!俺はまだ新の力が!

Is this alyks or mentat_kgs??

lol. I'm not alyks or mentat_kgs

ta12121 Wrote:I doubt you want to go to japan and start talking like 御前は馬鹿野郎だ!俺はまだ新の力が!

You know, I don't see that being an issue　でちゅ. Nobody ends up talking like that by accident ニャー, unless you just happen to get bitten by a cartoon 吸血鬼。カプっ、ちゅう～

hereticalrants Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:I doubt you want to go to japan and start talking like 御前は馬鹿野郎だ!俺はまだ新の力が!

You know, I don't see that being an issue　でちゅ. Nobody ends up talking like that by accident ニャー, unless you just happen to get bitten by a cartoon 吸血鬼。カプっ、ちゅう～

lol 吸血鬼=bloodsucker
Yea, i don't think anyone would talk to people like they do in anime. But alot of people do joke around with 御前は!　

I didn't mean to be harsh. I don't want to give the impression of going around criticizing Japanese learners. It's an extremely difficult language for foreigners to learn, and so few reach any level of skill in it that it's certainly admirable! I only made the 'not impressive' comment because of how people seemed to be using the girl as some sort of idol to aspire towards, when she's not even at JLPT2 level. Thousands of people have passed JLPT2, 1, and reached higher levels after all!

I suppose I just think it's a little unhealthy to study with grandiose ideas like, "fluency in 18 months!" or "learn entirely from anime!" I see a lot of students often get into what I like to call language-learning-depression when they fail to meet their goals because they're set too high.

But whatever method makes someone happy they should use! I just think that if you're really concerned about learning as much as you can as quickly and as well as you can, things like anime should be saved for when it's simply a reinforcement. Understanding one in a thousand words isn't really the most productive use of the time

Edit: Argh!

Aijin Wrote:I didn't mean to be harsh. I don't want to give the impression of going around criticizing Japanese learners. It's an extremely difficult language for foreigners to learn, and so few reach any level of skill in it that it's certainly admirable! I only made the 'not impressive' comment because of how people seemed to be using the girl as some sort of idol to aspire towards, when she's not even at JLPT2 level. Thousands of people have passed JLPT2, 1, and reached higher levels after all!

I suppose I just think it's a little unhealthy to study with grandiose ideas like, "fluency in 18 months!" or "learn entirely from anime!" I see a lot of students often get into what I like to call language-learning-depression when they fail to meet their goals because they're set too high.

But whatever method makes someone happy they should use! I just think that if you're really concerned about learning as much as you can as quickly and as well as you can, things like anime should be saved for when it's simply a reinforcement. Understanding one in a thousand words isn't really the most productive use of the time

Edit: Argh!

I understand what you're saying. It's just good to see someone who at least reached an decent level of spoken japanese. As for learning from anime, well that can't get someone far. As for the 18month fluency thing. I do think it's possible, but it depends on what skills. I think one could reach a very high level of reading+understanding by that time, almost to fluency. But fluency itself is a word that has so many meanings to people. I think every skill can be reached personally. But it would require a large amount of time. Only skill I'm particular worried about is speaking+writing. Not understanding+reading. A lot of people have told me, if you understand a lot all you need to do is practice it out with native speakers in an "unorganized" way. Meaning just keep talking, listening and try to speak back to native speakers. Even if it's incorrect. So once it's incorrect and it becomes correct, you're less likely to make errors in terms of speaking. But to speak, one must understand a lot before being able to reach any high levels of speaking.

Speaking, listening, reading, and writing are all individual skills, which is why many professors will place a focus on each one. I think it'd be a mistake to simply group 'speaking/listening' and 'reading/writing' together with the belief that one will advance the other. They are related, yes, but there is a very fine distinction: reading and listening are "comprehension", while speaking and writing are "reproduction and creation". Those two skill sets (comprehension and reproduction/creation) really need to both be trained.

To put it simply: the best way to learn to speak is to SPEAK, the best way to learn to write is to WRITE, and the best way to learn to listen and to read it to actually LISTEN and READ.

It's quite common for someone who is born into an environment where their family speaks a different language from the society itself, for the children to develop the skills of understanding that language spoken to them, but being unable to reproduce it themselves since the language they use in school, with their friends, etc, is not the same language their relatives are speaking. They don't train those skills of writing/listening, and so can only comprehend but not reproduce/create with the language.

I suppose you can think of it this way: reading Ulysses doesn't mean you can write Ulysses. Comprehension of someone else's creation, and the ability to create on your own, are different skills. Of course speaking/listening and reading/writing are connected and play off of each other, but they do need to be given attention individually as well.

Also, I would be careful about the idea of 'having to be able to understand a lot before speaking' or 'having to be able to read a lot before writing'. Use what you know. You don't have to know 50,000 words and every piece of Japanese grammar to make beautiful writing, just like a violinist can produce gorgeous music on a cheap violin. If you handed them a Stradivarius of course they're going to sound better, but you sometimes gotta make do with what you have! The same with speaking. Practice what you know! If you only know 20 words even, make sentences with those, put them into practical application so they actually are manifested in reality rather than sitting in a wordbank in your mind.

Following off that analogy of a word bank: don't let the money just sit there in the bank, spend it all! That's why in language classes you're constantly reading, writing, listening, and speaking with what you know. As that knowledge increases you'll be able to do more, but in the mean time you're only going to perfect and truly be able to wield what you already know if you're putting it into regular use, y'know? Don't think that you have to be at a certain level before doing any of those things, just do whatever you can at your skill level. If you can't write novels yet, write short stories. If you can't write short stories, write little paragraph descriptions, or just dialogue. If that's too hard, then just do simple poems or basic sentences.

To get to the top you gotta start at the bottom after all!

Aijin, you are wrong.

In English you don't need 50.000 words to write, but you need at least 20.000 word families.
For instance, this article discusses that you need at least 5.000 word families to read _graded readers_:
http://www.nflrc.hawaii.edu/rfl/PastIssu...2hirsh.pdf

For Japanese I can't cite any scientific sources but it seems to be more.

Aijin Wrote:That's why in language classes you're constantly reading, writing, listening, and speaking with what you know.

Actually that's why classes don't work as well as they could. You waste your time with useless activities.

That's what Krashen is all about. Speaking and Writing are the tip of the Iceberg called language.
This is his book, available on-line:
http://www.sdkrashen.com/Principles_and_...index.html

Aijin Wrote:You don't have to know 50,000 words and every piece of Japanese grammar to make beautiful writing, just like a violinist can produce gorgeous music on a cheap violin. If you handed them a Stradivarius of course they're going to sound better, but you sometimes gotta make do with what you have!

Actually you don't need to learn any grammar at all. At least not in the sense of memorizing the rules. But you do need them internalized trough tons of practice: by understanding them in the context of the language.

The way you point the example of the violinist is a fallacy. Anyone that plays an instrument should know. For a long time you don't create your own music, you play other people's music. It takes a long time to be able compose on your own.

It is the same with language. You don't create it at first. You understand.

Interesting posts. You have to start small to go bigger. But it makes sense, all skills do need to be trained. But it is obvious that one needs to know at least some basic information to use.

Aijin Wrote:I see some people citing that learning from media is how they developed their first language in childhood. Acquisition of a first language as a child, and a second language as an adult are completely different neurological processes and aren't really applicable to each other.

I should have mentioned that earlier...

Aijin Wrote:If I ask them what やめて means, they can tell me instantly, but they have no underlying understanding of the grammar. They don't know what the verb itself is, what conjugation it's in, how to create that conjugation, etc. All they've developed is this basic correlation of what they hear, and what they see as the English translation.

Me, I got a basic gist on the conjugation of "yamete", mainly because two of the girls from Doki Majo Plus say "yameru" instead of a form of "yamete" (I already know that plain-politness verbs end in "ru".), so I figured that "te" gives a command.
Even so, this is just one case, and I may be wrong.
The point that I am trying to make is that thoughful exposure can help you with different areas of grammar.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Aijin, you are wrong.

Language learning isn't a multiple choice exam, I don't think there is really a "right" or "wrong".

Quote:In English you don't need 50.000 words to write, but you need at least 20.000 word families.

You need 20,000 words to write with 20,000 words. What is 'needed' is entirely dependent upon what you're trying to convey. In my post I talked about all the different levels of writing. To express, "Hi, my name is Aijin!" I only require five words. If those five words are all I know, then I put them into practical use. I don't just sit and wait for tens of thousands to amass in order to reach some critical mass of words just to be able to write. That's silly. How much you need is dependent upon what you are expressing.

When learning in a classroom, for example, let's say you learn 15 words in the first chapter. Okay. You write what you can with those fifteen words. Then the next chapter you learn another 15. Now you have 30 words to wield. As you progress, the more you are able to express. But by putting those words into practice, you're going to remember them much, much better. Learning is a step by step practice.

Of course you can drill nothing but vocabulary until you've reached into the tens of thousands of words, then choose to launch yourself straight into much more complex writing, but you won't be able to wield those words with nearly as much precision and familiarity as if you had been using them all along, does that make sense?

Brilliant authors don't pop out of the womb writing majestic prose. Their writing skills are developed slowly over time.

I am not saying that gaining a high level of comprehension before moving to the creation stage is invalid, perhaps that's where you're misunderstanding me? Whatever works for you as a person best you should utilize. If you find that amassing skills in reading and listening comprehension work best for developing your own writing and speaking skills, then wonderful! We all learn differently.

I am just saying that writing and speaking as you learn to read and listen works very well. I am not sure how you can deny that when so many language programs produce stunning results :\ I've met many Americans in various graduate programs here who speak and write Japanese absolutely brilliantly, and they developed those skills over their lifetime. Whatever works for you works for you, but I've seen this work wonderfully in classrooms, where you can see the gradual progression of these skills first hand from year to year. I've yet to really see anyone who just focused entirely on comprehension before speaking/writing. But like I said, whatever works for you works for you!

mentat_kgs just gave me a flashback to 1999. Well, 2009 when we used to argue about this grammar/Krashen stuff. I also wrote a comment making fun of that video a while back. I thought it was funny how gullible people are with claims over the Internet about methods/materials used, time spent, cheat sheets, editing, etc. Whatever inspiration people get from it, it's all them, not what illusory validation they project via anecdotal evidence X.

First Krashen is not anecdotal evidence. It is a perfectly valid scientific theory. Of course it is not math, where you can prove some things once and for all, but you need to do more than call it anecdotal to make it invalid.

Aijin Wrote:Brilliant authors don't pop out of the womb writing majestic prose. Their writing skills are developed slowly over time.

Yes, they start to speak with 1 year of age. Babies only say "mama" typically around 4-5 months. Well developed speech can take until 4 years old to develop.
As for writing, generally it only happens after 4 years old.

See, all these brilliant authors only started to write when they already could speak the language very well.

Aijin Wrote:Of course you can drill nothing but vocabulary until you've reached into the tens of thousands of words

This is a straw man. Nobody is doing that. We are not talking about drilling vocabulary here. We are talking about reading and listening the language in its natural form. In context. Please, next time use a valid statement when you try to make a critic.

Aijin Wrote:I don't just sit and wait for tens of thousands to amass in order to reach some critical mass of words just to be able to write. That's silly. How much you need is dependent upon what you are expressing.

It is not silly. It is perfect sound. What is silly is to waste time writing silly, uninteresting statements when you could be learning something more useful.
The silent period is crucial. It is accepted in language learning long before Krashen.

If you really want to learn more about second language learning, check this book:
http://tinyurl.com/o5tjvb

It is a very interesting survey that puts everything that is scientific consensus in one place.

mentat, We've discussed this all up and down the forum, with someone making a blanket statement and then others rejecting it and saying it's not quite that hard and fast a rule (or rather not a rule at all and definitely not something you should passively follow because a guru says so), but if you're interested in learning about things like the silent period, you should look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_lang...cquisition - From there you can see that there are many views.

See also: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=2491

This being the key site: http://www.timothyjpmason.com/WebPages/L...Review.htm

mentat_kgs Wrote:If you really want to learn more about second language learning, check this book:
http://tinyurl.com/o5tjvb
It is a very interesting survey that puts everything that is scientific consensus in one place.

That`s the funniest part. Do you really believe Aijin needs to learn more about second language learning?

@ruiner,
Ehe, I guess I learned my lesson.
But the book I sent the link is a much more complete overview of the problem.
It is not only about Krashen. It analyses all modern history of second language learning, from the beginning of the last century. The part III of the book is all about production. Check the name of the chapter 15: "Lexical access in Bilingual Production".

@LazyNomad,
Yes, I think. The more I think I know about this subject the more clueless I get. This subject is of major interest to me. That's the reason I'm making all this fuss.

Aijin, I just wanted to say that I'm in total agreement with your last two posts -- brilliantly said! I was thinking about this very thing last night. It very well may not be the case for other people, but what I learned from the first foreign language I studied was that I'm missing out on opportunities to strengthen my language skills if I wait until some magic moment before working on writing/reading/listening/speaking. I don't want to wait 2 years before starting to listen to authentic material (figuring that I won't be able to understand what I’m listening to anyway; may as well get some basic vocab and grammar done first). I don't want to wait 2-3 years before I attempt to start saying even basic things (because I figure, again, that my knowledge is too inconsequential to say anything much as a beginner).

Just speaking for myself, I've found these things to be skills that need to be trained individually, and the sooner the better, because it's quite challenging. Speaking, etc., is about more than knowing enough vocabulary and grammar; there are other aspects that can only be improved in the doing. Comprehension is an easy example. You may have learned a commendable amount of vocab and grammar, but if you haven't been exposing yourself to the spoken language at native speed, you will still have serious issues with comprehension. It's not just about vocab/grammar; you also need to become accustomed to the sounds of the language and the way it's really spoken by a variety of people at varying speeds. So you have that common scenario where you listen to something, don't understand a word, and then look at a transcript and discover that you technically know every word and understand the meaning of the sentence perfectly (now that you've read it).

Same thing with speaking, or at least for me... I can have a lot of information rattling in my head but to put it all together and have it come out of my mouth on demand is another story. I just think of those times when I’ve tried to say something in a foreign language and have found myself stumped. On the drive back home I'll try to talk about the same thing, and what do you know -- now that I am alone and not on the spot, with time to formulate the sentences and think everything through, I am able to express myself. I knew the words; I knew the grammar. Still, putting it all together on the spot was easier said than done. Some of that can be put down to nerves, but in my case speaking a foreign language at first can be tricky and requires repeated practice before I can really do it fluidly and confidently, regardless of how strong I am in other areas. I think some of it is mental… trying to speak a language you are still learning can make you feel so vulnerable and silly. Even something as simple as introducing yourself can feel strange if it’s the first (or 5th, or 10th) time you’ve had to do it.

On a slightly different note, I think the reason why some people have shied away from speaking is because trying to express yourself in another language can feel like trying to do the impossible if you don't stay within your bounds, so to speak. When you’re put in a situation where you have to express yourself off the cuff and you just plain don’t know how to say any of the things you want to say, you find yourself at a dead end.

I'm taking private lessons in Japanese and in the past my teacher would often encourage me to talk; the problem is that I would find myself trying to talk about the same range of things that I would in English. He would prompt me to talk to him in Japanese. I would say, "I saw a movie yesterday," and he'd ask me to tell him about the movie in Japanese. So here I am trying to give a blow-by-blow synopsis as I would in English. Not going to happen. If he asked me to tell him two things about one of the characters or the movie, no matter how simple or random, or asked me who my favorite character was, or something more pointed and simple, I might be able to cope. Otherwise, I find myself trying to speak about things that I don't have the vocab/grammar for yet -- which can make it seem fruitless and frustrating.

So now, as you say, I am trying to work with what I have. Instead of trying to tackle something that's just too complicated for me as a beginner, I'm trying to take the things I've learned so far and use them. I'm writing simple sentences using expressions I've learned, or the passive tense, or whatever. In the car I'll make up a bunch of sentences using +te ageru, +te morau, +te kureru**, etc. Instead of trying to summarize “The Road” and explain why the father and son are travelling on the road and what they expect to find, I read a story from a simple Japanese reader and summarize *that* to my teacher. My end goal is to be able to talk about anything I would or could in English, but for now, this is where I’m at. I find the experience of speaking much more satisfying when I tackle it that way, though sometimes finding the perfect balance is challenging. As I learn more I will have more to say. Rinse and repeat.

When it comes to production (speaking, writing), I think it is oftentimes about putting to use what you already know. The more passive aspects (listening, reading) are where I really push myself and go waaay beyond my boundaries, because I find I really learn a lot in the process. Pushing myself beyond my boundaries with production however, especially when it comes to speaking, usually ends up being frustrating and discouraging. That doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t try to speak at all. It just means I won’t be doing a reenactment of my favorite scenes from LOTR in Japanese just yet. (Though admittedly, the whole speaking within my means thing is much easier when I’m alone in my car yapping randomly than when I try to talk with my Japanese tutor. No one says, “But I thought Edward was a vampire? How can he go outside in the daytime?” in my mock Japanese car conversations.)

**I found a really nice explanation of ageru, kureru, and morau here: http://ist-socrates.berkeley.edu/~hasega...verbs.html

Aijin Wrote:Brilliant authors don't pop out of the womb writing majestic prose. Their writing skills are developed slowly over time.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Yes, they start to speak with 1 year of age. Babies only say "mama" typically around 4-5 months. Well developed speech can take until 4 years old to develop.
As for writing, generally it only happens after 4 years old.

See, all these brilliant authors only started to write when they already could speak the language very well.

Are you saying a six years old child has the same writing abilities of a full-fledged adult? And isn't speaking an output skill as well? Surely children don't wait two years before speaking.

While I believe input is crucial to learning a language, people seem to forgot that children do output all the time when learning their own language. Actually, if you live with a young child on a daily basis, you'll very often spot mistakes in their speech. Even when they get a crazy amout of input, sometimes they makes mistakes when speaking (sometimes because of neurological reasons, others because they don't really understand a usage of some word, etc). And by correcting them when they make those mistakes, we help them to make new associations and develop better languages skills. And I believe the same can be said for writing. We all started with the basic "I like dogs. There's a dog in my house." before we could actually do long, beautifully written passages. It's not about "learning dumb phrases", it's about starting from a small pattern to a much bigger one.

Ah, but the main problem we encounter in progessing past, "I like dogs," in our writing is being able to express broad ideas and see the bigger picture.

Those skills can be transfered from our first language, I think.

@mentat - It does look like a good book. His conclusions seem mixed, but Costa describes the processes of lexical access/speech production that seem attuned to other research in the area of semantic/lexical priming, parallel distributed processing, interactive activation, dual-route cascades, blah blah. ;p A lot of the articles I've posted in other threads have been related to this--what sort of information bilingual folks have access to, the dormancy of the 'nonresponse' language, etc. I'm also glad to see Brian MacWhinney has a paper in that book. I think most of his stuff is 'right on the money'.

Another book you might like is: http://books.google.com/books?id=Qw7qj5nXSPUC

Also: http://psyling.psy.cmu.edu/papers/CM-gen...nified.pdf (I'm particularly interested in the notion of 'resonance' in his model [p. 30 of pdf].)

mgbp7 Wrote:No one says, “But I thought Edward was a vampire? How can he go outside in the daytime?” in my mock Japanese car conversations.

Why not? You ARE doing that nonsense in Japanese, aren't you? You'd better not be doing it in English; those books are pretty lousy in the original Meyer-ese.

ta12121 Wrote:lol 吸血鬼=bloodsucker
　

0.0 somebody has been doing their kanji reviews.

Thanks for pointing out what I said.

mentat_kgs Wrote:@LazyNomad,
Yes, I think. The more I think I know about this subject the more clueless I get. This subject is of major interest to me. That's the reason I'm making all this fuss.

I see your point, but learning about the language learning is not the same as to learn a language. It`s like you are saying to Aijin to learn how to run marathon, when she is already crossing the finish line. Probably, with more theoretical knowledge she could ran faster along the same track, but in the end it`s all about motivation and training.