yorkii Wrote:sounds rediculous to me. why review from a language that you are not 100% certain of to review another language. this is adding more complexity to the whole process. thus taking longer and being less efficient. dont bring spanish in at all. review from Native to Japanese or Japanese to Japanese.

Do you know this from experience (ever used a foreign language to learn another)? Just curious.

leosmith Wrote:Do you know this from experience (ever used a foreign language to learn another)? Just curious.

no, i don't. thats why is said "Sounds rediculous" rather than "That's rediculous". surely you can do the logistics and realise that it seems to be a waste of time and effort, unless of course you are looking to get both languages up to the same level, but then it still seems absurd (to me)

edit: it just seems like an inefficient way if you looking to progress in the language. For me, THINKING in the language is the best way to fluency. not needing ANY foreign language for help. let alone one that is not your native language and thus requiring more thought.

yorkii Wrote:surely you can do the logistics and realise that it seems to be a waste of time and effort

I can't, because I haven't tried it. I've found that a lot language theory that sounds logical in practice isn't true. Maybe it's just due to different learning styles, who knows. That's why I like to experiment with different methods.

I asked Piitaa, because I think he's using one foreign language to learn another, and I'm curious about his experiences.

leosmith Wrote:

yorkii Wrote:sounds rediculous to me. why review from a language that you are not 100% certain of to review another language. this is adding more complexity to the whole process. thus taking longer and being less efficient. dont bring spanish in at all. review from Native to Japanese or Japanese to Japanese.

Do you know this from experience (ever used a foreign language to learn another)? Just curious.

What's the big deal about it? The need to access a language through another language only exists at the very initial stage when you just grab whatever you can find, anyway... Speaking of Asian languages, I have accessed Japanese through English, French and Russian sources but only do Japanese-Japanese now (with an occasional exception of in-depth grammar study for which I prefer to use the famous Basic and Intermediate Dictionaries of J.Grammar). I am currently accessing Chinese through a combination of English, Russian and Japanese sources. This is not a premeditated practice, this is just using anything I can find, really, until such time when I'm able to switch over to exclusively Chinese sources.

Serge Wrote:What's the big deal about it? The need to access a language through another language only exists at the very initial stage when you just grab whatever you can find, anyway... Speaking of Asian languages, I have accessed Japanese through English, French and Russian sources but only do Japanese-Japanese now (with an occasional exception of in-depth grammar study for which I prefer to use the famous Basic and Intermediate Dictionaries of J.Grammar). I am currently accessing Chinese through a combination of English, Russian and Japanese sources. This is not a premeditated practice, this is just using anything I can find, really, until such time when I'm able to switch over to exclusively Chinese sources.

(No big deal, just curious. Thanks for your response.)
In the initial stages, if you had sufficient materials in your mother tongue, would you still access through different languages?

I learn through a different language too and I haven't had any problem at all. My native tongue is french, and yes there's a fair amount of french material about japanese, but it's still easier to find things in english with the internet. The quality is generally higher too, since a lot of the french stuff is just translated from english.

I think the best is to access the language purely from sources in the language itself. In european languages, the grammar is always more or less similar, so you can understand most of the text with just a dictionary (preferably online/electronic) and plenty of time. I brute forced my way through german and english like this, it was just read read read . But of course it can't be immediatly applied to japanese. That's why I learn the kanji first, using keywords - the language doesn't matter, it's the image that's really important, the idea of the meaning. For most of the stories I don't even know if I thought about it in french or english. Once it's done, I'll just read purely in japanese, doing a little grammar from time to time (Tae Kim's guide works well for learning it progressively). And watch TV, listen to radio and songs, for the hearing comprehension.

Basically, I think it's important to have a dictionary in a language you know very well, and maybe an english grammar if you find japanese ones too hard to read, but I don't really see a need for other non-japanese sources. When you say you use sources in X language, do you mean you learned using textbooks in different languages? Or did you just use grammar books?

(Of course, as many people said, everyone has its favorite way to learn, so this isn't a critique of anyone. I'm just curious about other ways that people go.)

leosmith Wrote:I asked Piitaa, because I think he's using one foreign language to learn another, and I'm curious about his experiences.

Indeed English is a second language for me, speaking Dutch natively. The reason I'm using English to study Japanese is, as some others have mentioned, the availability of materials. There is virtually nothing in Dutch. If there were, I would probably have used that, but that's simply not the case.

It's not that I'm doing it to get my mind into a "foreign language" mindset. I just use whatever tools I have, and whatever tool works best. In this case, English. Grammar guides, audio blogs, forums, and especially, EDICT: it's all available in English. And since I've been using English language extensively since grade school, I'm quite comfortable with it. The fact that many videogames, movies and TV series are only available with subtitles or in English actually really helped to learn it.

So, I wouldn't recommend using a language you're not so familiar with to learn another language. I must agree with Yorkii that sounds very inefficient. But if you're fluent in another language and find some good materials available in that language, sure, why not use it.

As far as J-J reviews (as in, Kanji to Hiragana and Japanese definition), that is certainly an interesting option. Though I still have trouble reading dictionary entries, so not quite ready for that yet. But I'm considering doing J-J the other way around once I get that to that level. Meaning active recall from Japanese definition to Kanji/hiragana.

Thanks Ramchip and Piitaa. Very interesting stuff!

leosmith Wrote:In the initial stages, if you had sufficient materials in your mother tongue, would you still access through different languages?

It's a very good question. I would still check everything that is available to me in the languages that I know so I can pick and choose the best material. And in some languages there is virtually nothing to help one access Japanese (like in Dutch).

Ramchip Wrote:When you say you use sources in X language, do you mean you learned using textbooks in different languages? Or did you just use grammar books?

Specifically, 'Le japonais dans la vie quotidienne' in the 'Langues pour tous' series is my favourite textbook of all times as it has very authentic dialogues, extremely useful vocabulary and concise yet comprehensive grammar notes.

Another book I have used is 'Manuel de japonais classique - Initiation au bungo'. Just haven't found anything on bungo in English at the time, although I'm sure Japanese sources on this subject are a-plenty...

Also, some Russian books covering very specific aspects, such as writing letters, or a great book on the history of the Japanese writing system starting with Manyogana and including very detailed explanations on why onyomi varies for the same kanji and what patterns are underlying these variations. There just seem to be no other material that goes into that much detail. Interestingly, this last book seems to have been written by a native Japanese directly in Russian.

For me accessing a broad range of material is a necessity as I have never studied with a teacher and am thus compelled to look for answers to all my questions in books (native speakers without specialist knowledge are not much help, unfortunately).

Serge Wrote:For me accessing a broad range of material is a necessity as I have never studied with a teacher and am thus compelled to look for answers to all my questions in books (native speakers without specialist knowledge are not much help, unfortunately).

If you've never studied with a teacher, what exposure do you get to spoken Japanese? Do you go to Japan often or do you know a lot of Japanese people where you are?

Since I am in the same situation, having only studied by myself, let me give my answer: Too little! Well, apart from audio blogs, tv series or anime of course, that's also spoken Japanese, but not conversation. Also I can't say I know any Japanese yet, there are very few of them around where I live. Incidentally I did meet a Chinese who is also studying Japanese, and we practice speaking sometimes. But that's not much. I hope to get more once I'm able to do a formal Japanese course or internship in Japan...

Serge Wrote:Also, some Russian books covering very specific aspects, such as writing letters, or a great book on the history of the Japanese writing system starting with Manyogana and including very detailed explanations on why onyomi varies for the same kanji and what patterns are underlying these variations. There just seem to be no other material that goes into that much detail. Interestingly, this last book seems to have been written by a native Japanese directly in Russian.

Would you care to provide a reference?

As for me, I have mostly used English materials for the same reason as most ppl -- the quantity and quality of the materials available is much higher than in many other languages. I do use a Russian kanji dictionary program ('yarxi') sometimes though, since the kanji lookup system there is the best i've seen so far. I think there is a shareware English version of it available too.

laxxy Wrote:Would you care to provide a reference?

If that's your cup of tea...

(1) http://www.dom-knigi.ru/book.asp?Art=173...alogID=149
(2) http://www.ozon.ru/context/detail/id/2509617/

As one would expect, some good souls have actually scanned both of the above (and indeed, every other textbook, including Heisig...) and they are out there somewhere, waiting to be downloaded... Should be easy enough to find.

wrightak Wrote:If you've never studied with a teacher, what exposure do you get to spoken Japanese? Do you go to Japan often or do you know a lot of Japanese people where you are?

In fact, I am exposed to it every day - it's just what you choose to make of it... over the past year managed to spend about 1.5 months in Japan and about 3 weeks in China - that with a full time job and all... Looking to relocate to Tokyo from next year, inshallah, that is...