Having read the "Survey, where are you at ?" post, it was interesting to see people's different levels and approaches. I don't think anybody fits into my situation though and I wouldn't mind some advice. People who were in my poition and managed to get out of it are obviously the best. My situation is as follows, I passed the JLPT 3 a couple of years ago and have been floating in between level 3 and 2 ever since. The sight of those JLPT 2 word lists just depresses me and I just can't sit down and learn words like that. I've tried this mining thing with anki but I find that loads of cards pile up every day and still nothing sticks. I want to learn Japanese for the simple reasons that my girlfriend is Japanese, her family can't speak any English and I want to make real (normal) friends in Japan and not the English speaking lot. My main problem is that I have absolutely no interest in the langauge at all. I can't stand j-drama, TV , music etc. Japanese is purely a tool for my life and I find that if it's only a tool, it becomes a real struggle.

Anyway, i've almost finished RTK 1, so I hope this will help me to remember vocab in the written form. If I can get to remember words, i'll be fine. Passive exposure doesn't do much for me you see. I worked at a Japanese elementary school for three years and that is real exposure. I can talk to kids but that's not much good. Just having Japanese radio in the background does nothing for me, it may as well be in Swahilli. I always make excuses about why I have this problem with remembering vocab. but i think I am just making excuses and that is becoming a self-fullfilling prophecy.

Was anyone else in my situation? Any advice?

Why are you in Japan if you have no interest in the language or culture?

harhol Wrote:Why are you in Japan if you have no interest in the language or culture?

This.

Sounds to me like you're in the wrong country. Learning a language takes a lot of motivation and determination. I think you will have a big problem learning it well, regardless of techniques, if you don't enjoy it.

I absolutely love living in Japan, I have a house by the river in Kyoto, I love going to small concerts in and around Kyoto etc, the summer festivals in kyoto are fantastic. I am also interested in the culture on a daily level, more of a social-psychological understanding of what makes people tick. everything is fine regarding daily life. It's just the language the is the problem, tricky to explain.

I think you're going to have to find something you enjoy. You say you have no interest in J dramas, music, and everything, and I understand that. However, Japan is a decently sized place with a rather large population and an appropriately sized entertainment industry. Just because it's in a certain language doesn't mean it all fits into a single mold. So branch out, and search for something that you do enjoy. I have no suggestions for this other than to try everything until things start to jump out at you.
Just, it's important to remember that almost all entertainment is thoroughly unenjoyable to any given individual - House has been the only broadcast English 'drama' that I've enjoyed in... the length of time House has been broadcast. Before that, I just didn't like anything. I'm sure I consume less than a tenth of a percent of all American entertainment materials (and that's being ridiculously generous), let alone all English materials. You really have to scour to find things you like.

And then there's everything else. Get some cookbooks, cook. Have an interest in history? Japan has history books about Japanese history with information you probably couldn't find in English. Like sports? Watch Japanese Baseball. Watch Sumo. Get a book on the social-psychological aspect of the Japanese people and what makes them tick Read wikipedia.

There's so much to choose from.

My guess is that you need to force yourself to move outside of your comfort zone. Do you surround yourself with people who only speak English to you, visit only English internet forums, and read only English books, magazines, and newspapers? Is your computer operating system in Japanese or English?

You don't have to be interested in Japanese language per se, but for the interests you do have you should try to incorporate Japanese into them as much as possible. For example, I enjoy traveling and so I purchased Japanese guidebooks for the places I wish to visit. When you first wean yourself off English media it'll be tough, but if you stick with it it'll get better.

@harhol: Don't confuse pop-culture with culture. It's only one aspect. I certainly don't watch dorama/anime/jp-tv or read manga either. (I do love indie JP music though)

If you don't enjoy the language itself and the learning process you're probably doomed though.

You are unique here! I think most here love some form of Japanese entertainment, which is why we're here.

I think all of us through school or work have had to force ourselves through some learning material that bored the holy hell out of us. I felt that way every time I picked up a new underwriting manual.

You've already passed JLPT 3, which is more than most on this forum. You can't be BAD at Japanese. If you're one who can do insane amounts of energy in short bursts, then give yourself 1 month to go buck wild and learn a set amount of material (what material is up to you). It'll be miserable, like swallowing bad medicine, but you'll be done before you know it. Then you can chill for a while, and tackle another batch of Japanese material in a short period of time. Short bursts for low motivation. I think that's the ticket.

I don't know if that would work for you, but I did that for RTK1 and finished in 2 months. It wasn't fun, but hey - now I know 2042 kanji with a 95-98% retention! And that's pretty cool!

Have you tried smart.fm? Good way to beef up on your vocab. The bells-and-whistles and the social learning aspect may help hold your attention.

I have an attention deficit problem myself, but that doesn't mean I can't....

Hey Jarvik, I was wondering if you had some suggestions for good Indie music / movies / dramas. I haven't found much in the way of good music. JMovies are usually good though. (Not that I want to derail this thread or anything).

When I first came to the states, I read like 200 mountain bike magazines, and that helped a lot. I didn't read it because I wanted to learn English, I just loved riding bikes. And I talked to people at shops and rode with some riding buddies, went riding trips with them, etc. and my English just naturally improved.

Like some people already said, find something you DO want to do. Making friends is hard when you don't speak the language, but generally people don't mind having somebody who doesn't speak good when they are doing something they love, so just go out there and find something you want to do. How can anybody be motivated to learn something you don't use?

yukkuri_kame Wrote:Have you tried smart.fm? Good way to beef up on your vocab. The bells-and-whistles and the social learning aspect may help hold your attention.

I have an attention deficit problem myself, but that doesn't mean I can't....

Yeah, smart it up. Lazy man's learning that smart.fm be.

Transparent_Aluminium Wrote:I haven't found much in the way of good music.

You can't go wrong with Supercar, Number Girl and Melt Banana.


oh and Asian Kung-Fu Generation are also popular with the kids these days but I don't really like them.

I think you just have to keep at it dude, everything is tough, boring, and bullshit when you start off but it gets fun after a while. There's nothing more I can add to that :\

One of the best ways to get motivated is to see results from your studies. If you think that you are getting somewhere, you'll continue. You need to study something that will directly impact your life - i suggest srsing a phrase book or something that you can start to use right away. This really helped me. There was a thread about a shadowing one http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=1943 awhile back - key being that you need immediate results from what you put in. Heisig is a strategy for the long term, perhaps you should focus on the present if that doesnt interest you.

Without a grasp of the language its really hard to get past a superficial level with most Japanese people and cultural things here. If you actually have meaningful interest, you'll make the effort.

truthfully there are a million ways to learn a foreign language, the key being to keep doing what ever you are doing.

kazelee Wrote:Yeah, smart it up. Lazy man's learning that smart.fm be.

They say Necessity is the Mother of Invention, and indeed she may be, but I know for a fact that Laziness is the Father.

Cheers for the bits of advice there. The funny thing is, is that my life involves almost 90% Japanese already. I speak to my girlfriend in Japanese, nobody in my local area speaks English to me etc. When I go out out with my girlfrind's mates, we don't speak any English but I struggle so much to join in and my responses are only 20% of what I feel I want to say. It's just purely a matter of vocab development on an active level. I don't live in a gaijin bubble at all, it's just that the langauge itself doesn't interest me in the slightest. I think i'll just have to get my head down when i've finished RTK 1 and see how the vocab development goes. As I said , I have JLPT 3 already , so i often think i'm tough on myself. It's just that my plateaux has been long and tediously irritating.

As for finding something in Japan that I like and can get involved with, I already am. This being north-Indian classical music. i play the flute and i'm friends with many musicians all over Japan. But the problem still remains....

So, apart from this mining idea.Does anybody have any tips for vocab memorisation? the system that linkword langauges uses can only be applied to the first 1000 or so words and falls apart after that I think.

All you need is sentences in an SRS system such as Anki. You CAN use mnemonics if you want, but it's really not needed.

Your future in-laws can't speak English and you can't speak their language? Sweeeet!!

bodhisamaya Wrote:Your future in-laws can't speak English and you can't speak their language? Sweeeet!!

Heh, I'm in the same boat. My girlfriend is Korean but we speak Japanese. I know like... 10-20 sentences in Korean

bodhisamaya Wrote:Your future in-laws can't speak English and you can't speak their language? Sweeeet!!

Well, I can speak a bit of their language. I've got a vocab of around 2000 and all JLPT 3 grammar etc. It's just that making that jump up to the JLPT 2 area is something that is doing my head in a bit. I have the exposure and the world around me, just some lock in my head is proving an obstacle.

I should start the mining thing after i've finished RTK. I've got "A Japanese Reader" by Roy Andrew Miller and "Breaking into Japanese Litereature" by Giles Murray to get started on. From having a look through, both appear excellent sources. After that, ill go through "Buddha" by Tezuka Osamu, I'm not a manga fan at all but I read this in English and 70% of it was very good.

Have you tried shadowing?
https://www.whiterabbitpress.com/product...ctid=16500

Kyoto is my favorite part of Japan and I love 鴨川 at night. If it weren't for the horrific summers in the Kansai area I would already be back and making it my permanent home.

Glad you like the place, it can get a bit hot in the summer, but a few beers by the river at night soon solves that. I live in the north of the city, best place i've lived in Japan. I've lived in two places in Osaka and three places in Kyoto and the area now is by far the best i've seen. It's just near where the two rivers meet, place called demachiyanagi.

kyotokanji, I can relate. I had no interest in Japanese media (hadn't been exposed to any) and had no interest in the language, but I needed to learn it for my studies and for work. You can do it! ... just keep your eyes on the prize. Imagine how it will improve your relationships, will enable you participate fully in conversations and might even introduce some new passions (film? essays? literature?)

Not every minute of training or practicing is fun for athletes or musicians (as you know). We can derive joy from the sense of progress towards a goal. As they say, the ability to defer gratification is a part of emotional maturity. [AJATT heresy, I know ] So (as others have said) do what you can to make it interesting, set milestones for yourself and don't lose sight of why you want to learn Japanese!

As for vocab:

Here's what worked for me. From time to time I had to quickly learn vocab used in a particular area or industry. After trying various methods, I discovered that learning words aurally was by far the most effective. When I later learned the readings for those words, they seemed to stick immediately. In a sense, the linked sound & meaning created a placeholder in my brain - an immediately useful one b/c I could use the word in conversation. This might appeal to you while your reading skills catch up.

One temporary disadvantage of the RTK + reading approach is that we tend to break down words into individual kanji meaning and sounds as we grapple with words. When we read, we rely on the visual information more than pronunciation. Reading is obviously more convenient for self-studiers, but for me listening was more effective. It seems like the recommended smart.fm content in anki might be a good way to go about getting aural exposure to concentrated vocab. (I didn't have access to such tools, so I hired a tutor to assemble photos, etc. and drill me on vocab - ie no English. Old skool indeed.)

You might try classic films or documentaries on topics that you want to learn vocab for. Good luck!