Obviously there is no age limitation of the studying of Japanese and I guess there is a good range of ages amongst the people on this Forum. Personally, I'm coming up fast on 52 and started Japanese in my very late 40s.

However, not surprisingly, a lot of the topics here and the resources available elsewhere on the Internet are created by and/or aimed at students and younger people, and naturally have a focus in that area - student exchange programs, anime, jpop, etc. (which is not to say that geezers like me can't enjoy anime or jpop, of course).

Anyone have any particular thoughts, experiences, resources etc. they might like to share, relating to studying Japanese, for those more advanced in years?

You should cultivate an "Old Man" dialect (「わし」 as your self-reference, 「じゃ」 as your copula, so on and soforth).

Probably more relevant information than your age would be your interests, honestly.

~J

Yeah, I think the answer is the same as always:

Find things you like and do them. If that's not enough, find some stuff you can tolerate and do them, too.

Anime, JPop, Manga, chatting online, audio books, magazines, video games, etc, etc... The list is always the same whoever you are because there is only a finite amount of entertainment out there.

If you still don't know what that is, examine your reason for learning Japanese and you'll find what you like and what goes with it.

I'm 43, started japanese at 42, so I'm not an old fogey yet, and my mid-life crisis won't let me admit to aging anyway ...

To the point: Like any cultural offerings, it's a matter of sifting through to find what you do enjoy. Just as I don't like all English TV programs, or all U.S. pop, I find what I like and focus on that. And just as there are certain programs and books that are more popular among the younger set, there has to be similar preferences for Japanese guys in their 50's. Maybe it's just a matter of tracking a few down and seeing what kinds of things he and his friends enjoy the most.

Some of the highest level students I had teaching English in Japan were over the age of 60 and never started learning until they retired and took it up as a hobby. Age has little to do with abilility to learn a language. It might even be an asset as all of the mental distractions we have as teen-agers and 20-somethings are no longer an issue. I have read that learning a language dramatically reduces the chances of gettting Alzheimer's Disease. The process does something to keep those memory connectors firing.

How about literature?

woodwojr Wrote:You should cultivate an "Old Man" dialect (「わし」 as your self-reference, 「じゃ」 as your copula, so on and soforth).

I love the じじい way to talk! It also has to be high pitched and trembling, a little musical.
The samurai speech is not bad, either.

woodwojr Wrote:You should cultivate an "Old Man" dialect (「わし」 as your self-reference, 「じゃ」 as your copula, so on and soforth).

Hehe. Good idea. I wonder how 先生　will react when I start using わし！

I'm not complaining about lack or resources or anything, I have more stuff to work with than I can manage in my available time (lessons, RTK, Lang-8, Anki, Hiragana times, Manga, JPod101, reading parralel texts etc. etc.). I'm just interested in getting some discussion going from a different perspective.

bodhisamaya Wrote:I have read that learning a language dramatically reduces the chances of gettting Alzheimer's Disease. The process does something to keep those memory connectors firing.

That's good to hear. One issue I do find I have, compared to the others in my class, is that I have real problems remembering vocabulary. It just won't stick. I started doing sentences with Anki recently and I think that is helping (too early to tell for sure), but it's a real problem. I don't recall having this issue when learning German (also started after 40), but then again I live in Germany now, so the immersion has undoubtedly helped.

Well, as we age, we get more and more clutter in our brains, which makes it more difficult for us to remember stuff. Sort of like trying to fit things in an already-cluttered attic.

Of course, that got me jumping 3 steps ahead to contemplating an experiment to see if the same intervals a person in their 20s uses with an SRS are as appropriate as the intervals a person in their 50s should use with an SRS, considering the increased difficulty of memory formation as we age. That is, should the initial intervals be decreased as we age, since short-term memory can be an issue? How about long-term memory? Is it as much of an issue?

And as I'm coming up on the end of my 30s, I'm starting to feel the effects of the clutter build-up in my own brain. Ugh.

There's a really good thread on rapid vocab learning on the forums at how-to-learn-any-language.com:
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/for...p?TID=5307

There was also a thread that covered vocab here:
http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=2262

When it comes to the difficulty of learning japanese vocabulary, know that you're not alone. The difference is that I'm 25

When I learned english, I absorbed vocabulary like a sponge, mainly through reading and watching movies.

When I was learning german, it was slightly more difficult, but I absorbed a good deal of vocabulary.

With Japanese, it seems much more difficult, mainly because of the writing system and the great deal of homophony that takes place (many words having the same prononciation but different meanings). I don't know how the other students in your class work, but if they didn't do Heisig and went the classic way, they are exposed to a lot of words written in kana, which makes learning vocabulary far easier (although the exact meaning of the words might be vaguer for them).

nac_est Wrote:

woodwojr Wrote:You should cultivate an "Old Man" dialect (「わし」 as your self-reference, 「じゃ」 as your copula, so on and soforth).

I love the じじい way to talk! It also has to be high pitched and trembling, a little musical.
The samurai speech is not bad, either.

True じじい speech is low pitched mumbling as if you are very drunk and tired (as true じじい often are), not trembling and high-pitched. For example, one of my ex-bosses who was approaching 80.

I am 61 and I have finished RTK1 and am close to finishing RTK2. It is my opinion that age is just one of many variables associated with learning, and I suspect it is not all that important. For example. while Heisig strongly promotes visual images, my mind is just not that visual. It never has been. I do much better with word associations and stories. This has much more impact on the way I learn than my age.

I would suggest that the strategies we use to learn don't change all that much as we age, but are only refined and tweaked. In fact, age can be an advantage. With age and experience we might have more confidence and better discipline.

The major disadvantage is not so much that we are older as it is circumstance. Our lives are often more complicated. It can be a lot harder to find time to devote to our studies as the responsibilities of work and family intrude. But again, this is not so much age, it is circumstance. A younger person with many responsibilities will be similarly disadvantaged.

So, all you old fogies and geezers... NO EXCUSES!! Just DO IT!!

Jarvik7 Wrote:True じじい speech is low pitched mumbling as if you are very drunk and tired (as true じじい often are), not trembling and high-pitched. For example, one of my ex-bosses who was approaching 80.

I'm sorry, I was describing the type of じじい I have formed in my mind from watching anime, which is the one I like. I wouldn't know how the real version sounds like, since I've never spoken to one such person.

It takes all sorts. The 爺道 which can be spoken of is not the true 爺道.

~J

gilozoaire Wrote:With Japanese, it seems much more difficult, mainly because of the writing system and the great deal of homophony that takes place (many words having the same prononciation but different meanings).

I think it's not just the homophones but the near-homonphones that make it very difficult for me. So many words that use different combinations of i, o and u sounds starting with j, sh and k, with a few tsu's thrown in. Actually I find that I often have more success by remembering how the word looks when written down in hiragana.