emphasis..

Not all JP girls want a cute little gaijin pet Mine actually wanted me to switch to more masculine speech so I started using 俺 instead of 僕 among other things.

TaylorSan Wrote:Do you think self taught mining sentence method can lead to a mishmash of dialect/regional sounding language?

My Japanese is a hybrid of various dialects, and I don't feel the need to reduce my accent. Maybe if I were a salesperson, I'd learn the local accent so I could sound more friendly and give a we-are-folks impression. If I wanted to be an actor or a news anchor, I'd learn the standard Japanese. But then again, I was born in Osaka. People from this area are notorious for not speaking the standard Japanese when they are supposed to.

I'm guessing lots of input will eventually teaches you speech levels/language registers/dialects/gender difference/whatever. But if you want to speak like an "educated" adult, I think you have to resort to the boring traditional learning to polish your honorifics and some artificial grammar. Native Japanese speakers also learn the finest points at school, and many adults take courses if your job requires you to speak properly. It's not uncommon new employees who just graduated from university take language/business manner classes, too.

The point is you probably shouldn't learn the artificial part of natural language before you intuitively learn the natural part from real input. Artificial vitamins/medicines are good for your health, but they shouldn't be the main diet. The same goes for the language. Prescriptive grammar may be essential for linguistics, but learners are supposed to absorb language from natural sources, I think. It's just you may need steroids to speak uber-honorifics and stuff as an educated adult.

I think if you say, "XXX is bad because it teaches me bad Japanese," then it just means you're not taking enough input. If I understand it correctly, the beauty of immersion is your brain infers from a lot of other materials that XXX uses bad language so that you can enjoy its idiosyncratic language. If one kind of material keep breaking your language balance, maybe it means you're the kind of person who speaks like that. It doesn't seem to be a problem to me. I don't think I have to pretend to be what I am not just because I'm speaking a foreign language.

I wanted to write about the two "j" sounds and how grammar works with them in my native mind, but I already spent tons of space... Ugh!

Great. Thank you for the responses. It resonates with my outlook. My interests in Japanese are more of the history/sociology/literature and not so much focused on manga etc. (but still very cool stuff!) I do hope to reach a level where I can naturally laugh at J comedy (and rock my own J-wit). I'm using Jpod101 to mine sentences for now, just to get a base, and will do university courses starting in the fall (while leading a double life as a self studier). Eventually I plan on SRSing the News (not my favorite but I think a valuable source), dorama's and novels. I am interested in mining Soseki and Mishima-would you give these works the green light for teaching me language that is usefull in the modern age? I realize they are from different eras. Perhaps reading liturature from Soseki and progressing through time to contemporary writings (or vise versa) to get a feel for it all.

It will be roughly 2-3 years before I can go to Japan, so I figure I will be in decent shape by then, if I am steady and use a dynamic approach with quality SRS materials. I'm looking at it with this time table and a goal of being well rounded. I am not looking to sprint my way to "fluency" before I go type thing. I'll be as good at Japanese as I possibly can, and hopefully not in the "studied for years in a uni and can't have a real conversation" archetype. But efficiency is important, and as such I'm asking around now rather then 6 months from now. When you know very little, it can be tricky to pick good sorces (I'm probably over thinking this- sorry).

-Oh I'm hijacking this thread (self indulgent bastard!)- apologies everyone (just want a few answers while I have your attention magamo/Javik7- hehehe) - I promise to stop!

I am noticing that pronunciation of syllables does differ person to person. I imagine cities like Tokyo have Nihonjin moving there from all over Japan, so no two people will sound exactly the same. And J youth is always switching things up!

TaylorSan Wrote:Do you think self taught mining sentence method can lead to a mishmash of dialect/regional sounding language?

From what I learned through my process of "mining" so far, you don't use the language that you review using your SRS but rather the language you are listening to all the time. At least in my case the SRS is a tool to understand stuff passively, not to use it actively.
For example there are hardly any sentences that use Kansaiben in my deck - maybe five or six. Yet, because I enjoy Japanese comedy shows.. a lot.. I started to use some Kansaiben expressions in daily life, especially when I'm angry or complaining about something (probably thanks to Jinnai Tomonori and Matsumoto Hitoshi...). On the other hand, there are quite some sentences in Touhokuben but I never actually used one of those expressions in real life.

TaylorSan Wrote:Great... ...!

I'm not sure how far 2-3 years can take you, but your strategy does look good. I venture a guess that classes don't hurt your Japanese as long as you're aware of their limitations. Immersion based learning is probably much more efficient and crucial, but grammar works as crutches at least for beginners. You have to learn it sooner or later anyway. If I didn't go to school, my Japanese was atrocious. If I didn't learn English grammar in Japan, my English was way stupider.

IMHO, Soseki and Mishima are must-read if you're interested in Japanese literature. The Japanese read their works at school, and most Japanese have read at least one or two of their novels. Soseki spawned a bunch of new words such as 価値 and 反射 in the modern Japanese vocabulary. Mishima is definitely one of the best novelists of his era. They may not be the ideal authors to learn contemporary Japanese, but if you like literature, you should read them. I think the best material is the one you want to read.

That said, obviously I'm not the most reliable Japanese when it comes to Japanese literature and language learning. I think quite a few people would say that their Japanese are not the best examples for beginners. So you might want to read simpler, shorter, and more recent ones. If my opinion is worth anything, I recommend Hoshi Shin-ichi (星新一). Most of his works are collections of short stories. His language is modern and simpler, too. I read every work at least 10 times when I was a kid. I literally remembered every word in his works back then! He was also revising his novels to make them sound modern until he passed away in 1997. The readers are mainly grade schoolers, but it doesn't mean adults can't enjoy his novels.

I think your Japanese becomes balanced as you learn the language. My English input is ridiculously lopsided in terms of variety, but I don't talk like lolcats or your average anonymous troll on notorious image boards (I hope I'm right about this...). I'm guessing learners will expand the scope once their improved language skills start helping them understand other materials, and hence eventually types of language they absorb will be balanced out. At least I've never imagined absorbing tons of geeky science stuff and reverse-imported otaku-ish materials would make me interested in AC360 and The New York Times. It's like you make the first step with your foot when you walk. Who would make a step with both feet? I don't think you can walk faster that way.

Then again, I'm no expert on this. Just a random dumb Japanese on the internet.

masaman Wrote:I personally think a foreigner speaking 方言 would be awesome though. But you probably need to live in a region for at least several years, so it isn't very realistic.

I remember a good friend from 大阪 saying to me, "yea you shouldn't learn 'standard correct' Japanese that's so 意味ない, you should learn 方言!

Jarvik7 Wrote:emphasis..

Not all JP girls want a cute little gaijin pet Mine actually wanted me to switch to more masculine speech so I started using 俺 instead of 僕 among other things.

Oh everytime I used 俺 she'd squeek and threaten not to speak to me again.
So I was forced to use あた... err... 僕！
And you can be all on the lookout for it, t seems they have a special skill for it seeping in that Jgirl-talk bit by bit so you won't notice! :O

TaylorSan Wrote:-Oh I'm hijacking this thread (self indulgent bastard!)- apologies everyone (just want a few answers while I have your attention magamo/Javik7- hehehe) - I promise to stop!

NOBODY HIJACKS 俺の THREAD!!

magamo Wrote:Then again, I'm no expert on this. Just a random dumb Japanese on the internet.

I know you are being honest and humble here, but I must say......

No sir.

You one of the few [kana]日本人[/kana] I have seen on these boards (or anywhere) who is familiar with the methods being discussed, and has put them into practice (granted I have only been here for a short while, so there may be others I'm not aware of). And your personal experience with using these methods has reaped rewards, as you have clearly described and proven with very close to native style writing (and I mean VERY CLOSE)! I mean, nobodies a complete impeccable expert when it comes down to it, there are too many variables and personal styles/aptitudes to get preachy. No one can truly quantify this (but we sure do try, perhaps human nature LOL). It's very subjective. But some people are in a position to offer a great degree of quality insight, especially bilinguals, and especially bilinguals who know the SRS first hand (as it pertains so much to the people here....raise your hand if you DON'T use an SRS.....ok Aijin, but you don't need it! LOL).


I think I can speak for others here in saying it is very valuable to get your perspective. Your posts have [kana]価値[/kana]! (new word for me!)



As for listening to my posts.......well I was dumb enough to name myself SAN so that should tell you something........ :o

@Musashi

[kana]今、俺 の[/kana]　THREAD!

Since everything is going Japanese in here, let me point out that the Japanese word for thread is スレ in this context.

ずっと　俺の　スレ！

Musashi Wrote:Oh everytime I used 俺 she'd squeek and threaten not to speak to me again.
So I was forced to use あた... err... 僕！

It sounds like somebody is already a cooked frog.

masaman Wrote:

Musashi Wrote:Oh everytime I used 俺 she'd squeek and threaten not to speak to me again.
So I was forced to use あた... err... 僕！

It sounds like somebody is already a cooked frog.

* Everyday, 10 times out loud, 俺, 俺, 俺...

俺〜〜〜ぇ！

I'm an 俺 guy too- but I live in 九州 where men always use 俺- even my vice princapal.

Kyuushuu- where the men are men and the women are too! (just kidding)