What do you do in order to get rid of your mistakes?

When someone corrected me ( eg. on Lang-8 ) I've always just looked at the mistakes, and tried to pay attention when and how people use these things is real speech. Sometimes this works, but just now I noticed that it most of the time it doesn't. ^^;

Since I always say that I want a strict correction, I thought of putting those sentences in anki, but obviously that wouldn't be good for various reasons. Googling for sentences with similar patters would be another option. So... how do you handle this?

I'm only doing input for the time being so I don't have that problem

Ignore them.
Then learn a few more thousand correct, interesting sentences, spend a little more time listening and reading. Then, your mistakes will go away.
Btw, who are you in lang-8?
Anyone else in lang-8?
I'm mentat there too.

I'm with mentat on this one. Learn one or two correct example sentence if necessary (SRS) and go read a book.

Agrees.

It's like a baby. They understand so much more before they actually speak, and when they do they make many mistakes. Well not mistakes exactly, but they say things like "up birdy" meaning "Look at the birdy up there!". It's not even a mistake when you think about it, since it is understood and achieves its purpose.

Anyway, like a baby you have two levels. Your ability to produce grammatical sentences (which includes you ability to feel if a sentence is grammatical or not) and your ability to interpret sentences you hear and read. Increasing your receptive abilities will drag your productive abilities along with them. Although I think there is such a thing as speaking and writing skill, which is somewhat seperate. You can't expect to never utter a phrase and suddenly speak like a poet if you get a mountain of input.

thermal Wrote:Agrees.

It's like a baby. They understand so much more before they actually speak, and when they do they make many mistakes. Well not mistakes exactly, but they say things like "up birdy" meaning "Look at the birdy up there!". It's not even a mistake when you think about it, since it is understood and achieves its purpose.

Kids do makes tons of mistakes. They say things liked "I eated" "she doos" (instead of she does) "I no do that". "Are you having blue eyes?" A native speaker can't learn their language without making a bunch of mistakes, and we can't learn a foreign language without doing so either. And like a kid, you probably have to be corrected on the same mistake many times before it will stick so I wouldn't worry too much if you keep making the same mistakes. You'll get it when you get it.

One good thing to take from kids is that they don't feel totally embarassed and stupid and stress that they're "never going to get it right" if they make a mistake. They just kind of shrug and say, "Hmm. So that's it, huh?" and move on. The other day my nephew wanted a grape and he pointed at the grapes and said "ebi". His parents looked at him and said "huh?" and he said "ebi" again and they said "ebi nai yo" so he pointed at the grapes and said "ebi" and his mom said "ebi ja nai. budo da yo" and she gave him a grape. He looked at her, got that it was called budo and that was the end of it.

thank you very much everyone, that was a big help : D

So... doing this with the attitude of a child, not thinking much of mistakes, but getting more and more input and having people correct you would probably solve everything over time; with the main point on getting input.

When I think about it, this must be kind of how I learned English as well.


@mentat
I'm happy_stars over there, feel free to add me. :] ( I can't find you, somehow... )

Also don't worry too much about getting your mistakes corrected. I personally don't believe that having our grammatical mistakes corrected can directly help us. Unless you have all the grammar in your head and are spitting out sentences like a computer (not a long term solution). The good thing about having your mistakes corrected, is you then notice when other people say it correctly and eventually you just start saying it correctly. Even if no-one points out your mistake, it's hard to say 東京を行きます。after hearing it said correctly 50 times.

mentat_kgs Wrote:Ignore them.
Then learn a few more thousand correct, interesting sentences, spend a little more time listening and reading. Then, your mistakes will go away.
Btw, who are you in lang-8?
Anyone else in lang-8?
I'm mentat there too.

Ooh! I'm bombpersons on lang-8 too =D I need to post more on there, I keep forgetting =(

*edit*
I can't find you on lang-8, searching for mentat comes up with nothing... =( I want more friends *cries*

I'm on lang-8 as drivers but all I post is stuff like "I can write 900 kanji but my Japanese isn't skillful. I'm going to study Japanese later and I'll write a lot more then." It's a lot of fun cheating and practicing early once in a while, or something like that. I have a lot of fun correcting people's English for them though. It's addicting. Sometimes they come back and ask questions about why I corrected something, and I don't really know how to explain it. In your native language you know rules but you don't even know that you know (you know?). The sentence was: He asked if it was OK for him to visit her house and show her the products. The question was, why is it "for him" instead of "for her." Because "him" is the subject of the infinitive phrase "him to visit..." but I had to search through grammar websites to figure out that it says that you use the objective case "him" instead of "he." I kind of feel like I'm not really helping them because if they sit around thinking "oh this is the subject of an infinitive phrase so I have to use the objective case" their head is going to explode just trying to write a sentence. She's probably doing it right though, paying attention to the details of what she's reading. In this case she was just confused by the "OK for him" part thinking it meant "OK with him."

Short version: Read stuff and pay attention to the details.

Google is the best corrector!

If you know how to use it properly.

woah, awesome, seems like a lot of people here are on lang-8 as well : D

It's definitely much fun to correct other peoples entries. And you get to know a lot about different cultures... as well as stuff you never thought much about. I remember someone writing about different behavior on public toilets in different countries, eg.

Grammar is really difficult though, I know nothing about German grammar although it's my mother tongue.

>Even if no-one points out your mistake, it's hard to say 東京を行きます。after hearing it said correctly 50 times.
thanks, that's a very good point.



thank you everyone! : D

I did the same thing. I found a friend online and we corrected each other's mistakes. I corrected her English and she corrected my Japanese. When I first started, my Japanese was really bad. I could understand a lot of things, but I just wasn't able to construct Japanese sentences other than simple ones. At this time, I had already read Tae Kim for a while and finished it. The problem was I tended to forget all the grammar information even with the SRS. I just wasn't conscious of a lot of things.

So what helped me? I just wrote things. I was really slow in the beginning. I wrote very basic sentences. But after a while I started writing her a page long of Japanese.
This was also the time I started reading books meant for native Japanese speakers. Just remember, you can't write what you don't know. You basically have to just keep on reading. Along the way you will come across certain grammar patterns constantly and you will get used to it.

I think any time you start something, wait like 3months to see your progress. Read a lot. Eventually you will see things pop up over and over again and you will internalize it.

saru_yo Wrote:What do you do in order to get rid of your mistakes?

Try to make many more!

http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/blog/aim-to-fail

Hi Mr Moleman. I'm curious how your AJATT experiment is working for you. I'm not certain, but I think you mentioned an intensive 2-year trial.

Thora Wrote:Hi Mr Moleman. I'm curious how your AJATT experiment is working for you. I'm not certain, but I think you mentioned an intensive 2-year trial.

Actually, this September will be my 16 month mark. I plan on writing about my experiences then . My reading is good, but the speaking skills is still hanging low. Like people say, you get good at what you do the most. What I do the most is read, and what I do least is speak Japanese.

drivers99 Wrote:I'm on lang-8 as drivers but all I post is stuff like "I can write 900 kanji but my Japanese isn't skillful. I'm going to study Japanese later and I'll write a lot more then." It's a lot of fun cheating and practicing early once in a while, or something like that. I have a lot of fun correcting people's English for them though. It's addicting. Sometimes they come back and ask questions about why I corrected something, and I don't really know how to explain it. In your native language you know rules but you don't even know that you know (you know?). The sentence was: He asked if it was OK for him to visit her house and show her the products. The question was, why is it "for him" instead of "for her." Because "him" is the subject of the infinitive phrase "him to visit..." but I had to search through grammar websites to figure out that it says that you use the objective case "him" instead of "he." I kind of feel like I'm not really helping them because if they sit around thinking "oh this is the subject of an infinitive phrase so I have to use the objective case" their head is going to explode just trying to write a sentence. She's probably doing it right though, paying attention to the details of what she's reading. In this case she was just confused by the "OK for him" part thinking it meant "OK with him."

Short version: Read stuff and pay attention to the details.

Isn't that why people should be aware of grammar rules but not actually learn them to heart?

We certainly didnt when learning English.
At no point did my Mum ever say to me, "You can't say that, you must use a conditional clause" or anything remotely similiar.
Hell even now i don't know what it means. I'm dreading reaching those parts in my sentence book.

drivers99 Wrote:Short version: Read stuff and pay attention to the details.

I don't even think you need to pay attention to detail, all you really need is massive exposure. Enough exposure = native feeling = won't make mistakes because it simply feels wrong. Like me, I've not gotten even close to the exposure I need, but I can still feel whether ga or wa should be used in 95% of all cases without being able to explain why, I wouldn't say I've paid any special attention to such details when reading. It simply feels right to use wa in some sentences because I've always seen those sentences use wa, you know?

Quantity over quality when it comes to such things, I guess.

I agree with massive exposure. In Year 10, taking ESL classes I could easily get a C or a B even though English was my first language (don't ask :lol. Anyway, my teacher didn't really concentrate much on me - he told me to stop making my English so colloquial and that I need to make my spelling consistent (choose between American and British (I always used a mix)) and correct my other spelling mistakes.

Anyway, I didn't take it so seriously, back then most my English exposure came from Runescape and iSketch and other online games overrun by 9-13 year olds for the most part (except maybe iSketch - either way, I was 13, so I guess it wasn't too awkward). When I turn 14 my interests changed for the better, I got into politics and history and started reading more Wikipedia articles and newspapers. My C instantly went from an A, and sometimes even A*. My assignments usually used to have 10+ spelling mistakes in them, after that seeing even 2 spelling mistakes in my assignments came as quite a bit of a shock. I also got the hang of more formal forms of English.

I'm all FOR massive, correct, made-for-natives exposure. It really does help.

This is pertinent: http://www.antimoon.com/how/readhow.htm

I haven't really done this.. but feel like I should be doing it.

mr_hans_moleman Wrote:Actually, this September will be my 16 month mark. I plan on writing about my experiences then . My reading is good, but the speaking skills is still hanging low. Like people say, you get good at what you do the most. What I do the most is read, and what I do least is speak Japanese.

It sounds like you've made fantastic progress and you've found a way to get some writing practice with Lang8. Good luck!

Drivers Wrote:Sometimes [ESL learners] come back and ask questions about why I corrected something, and I don't really know how to explain it. In your native language you know rules but you don't even know that you know (you know?). [...] I had to search through grammar websites to figure out [...]

Makes it easier to appreciate what the Japanese members here must go through, doesn't it? I don't even know the English grammar terms Drivers mentioned in his post.

Actually, I don't use that site anymore. Me and my friend just send each other emails back and forth. Btw, post your blog if you can, I would like to read it =)