@Tobberoth

Hmm... I'm guessing it'd take 10 years of immersion if you want to speak like a 10 year old without SRSing. So I use it to shorten this by putting "experience" into SRS. I didn't do this when I started sentence mining though. I don't know if this is working well either.

And I still often realize that my comprehension/understanding of some words, phrases, and their usages was totally wrong. This also happens in Japanese, though... It really sucks. But I guess it's inevitable.

@IceCream

Thanks a lot! Ha ha. Some of the errors (or all of them?) are really stupid!

magamo Wrote:@Tobberoth

Hmm... I'm guessing it'd take 10 years of immersion if you want to speak like a 10 year old without SRSing. So I use it to shorten this by putting "experience" into SRS. I didn't do this when I started sentence mining though. I don't know if this is working well either.

And I still often realize that my comprehension/understanding of some words, phrases, and their usages was totally wrong. This also happens in Japanese, though... It really sucks. But I guess it's inevitable.

10 years of immersion sounds like a lot to me. Remember, most people don't use SRS and there's tons of people who have gotten fluent fast. Simply living in a country, if you're determined, usually gets you to decent fluency in 5 years or so, without special techniques (as long as you actually study of course, just sitting around will get you nowhere).

I personally tried to do what you did before (use SRS to get exposed to things, hoping to start using them myself) but I eventually realized it doesn't work. You will always remember the sentence or card when it comes up, but you won't see it enough and in varied situations. I think it might be hoping for too much. The SRS can definitely help you learn what words mean and how they fit in sentences, and that alone is taking a HUGE load of someones shoulders... but I still think REAL exposure and usage is needed to internalize broader concepts. Will having it in an SRS too help with this process? Maybe... but again, the question is whether it's worth it. I tried it and found I didn't think so, maybe you will come to a different conclusion. Just sharing my own experience.

Tobberoth Wrote:10 years of immersion sounds like a lot to me. Remember, most people don't use SRS and there's tons of people who have gotten fluent fast. Simply living in a country, if you're determined, usually gets you to decent fluency in 5 years or so, without special techniques (as long as you actually study of course, just sitting around will get you nowhere).

I personally tried to do what you did before (use SRS to get exposed to things, hoping to start using them myself) but I eventually realized it doesn't work. You will always remember the sentence or card when it comes up, but you won't see it enough and in varied situations. I think it might be hoping for too much. The SRS can definitely help you learn what words mean and how they fit in sentences, and that alone is taking a HUGE load of someones shoulders... but I still think REAL exposure and usage is needed to internalize broader concepts. Will having it in an SRS too help with this process? Maybe... but again, the question is whether it's worth it. I tried it and found I didn't think so, maybe you will come to a different conclusion. Just sharing my own experience.

Interesting. I also think exposure should be the main means, but I just thought SRS could reduce the amount of exposure I need to internalize a new language. But maybe I was wrong.

I don't use SRS hardcore anymore because real immersion is more important to me. But sometimes, I just feel I'll never be able to catch up with, say, a 10 year old if I keep immersing myself into real stuff...

I know a woman who speaks Japanese just like your average native speaker. Her English is way better than mine. And her mother tongue is Chinese. No one would imagine she's not a Japanese, but she says that her English is way better and that both her foreign languages pale in comparison to her Chinese.

magamo Wrote:I also think exposure should be the main means, but I just thought SRS could reduce the amount of exposure I need to internalize a new language.

"the SRS... ...exposure I needed..."
I had to stop and think about what SRS stood for when IceCream pointed this out, but I believe you do need some sort of article in there (picked "the" since there's kind of only one that we use). Also, though "need" sounds okay here, I thought "needed" sounded better. I can't pick out the grammar rule here; it's just a feeling.

magamo Wrote:I don't use SRS hardcore anymore because real immersion is more important to me.

"...use the SRS..."
Or alternatively, in informal English, sometimes people will turn "SRS" into a verb even though it doesn't make sense when it's not an acronym.

magamo Wrote:No one would imagine she's not a Japanese, but she says that her English is way better and that both her foreign languages pale in comparison to her Chinese.

"No one would imagine she's not Japanese, ..."
Using "a" works too, but this is just how I like to say it. You don't have to consider this last one absolute or anything.

I had to stop and consider whether my corrections were really right or not a lot. It's really amazing I'd have to be so nitpicky with a non-native speaker.

Thanks, Smackle!

I always thought SRS was Space(d) Re-whatchamacallit Software, and I saw "SRS" as some kind of mass noun. I guess I would have used "the" if I was picturing Anki in my mind. Obviously I need more input.

As for "a Japanese," I think it's kind of interesting because I also think it's strange. At first the sentence was like "..she was a native Japanese speaker...," and I thought it was redundant. So I deleted "native" and "speaker," and got the sentence. I really don't know why I feel "I'm a Japanese" is a little strange. Both "I'm Japanese" and "I'm a Japanese guy" are ok to me. Is there any grammar rule behind this? Or am I just plain wrong?

Anyway, articles are really difficult to the Japanese.

Oh, I was thinking SRS was Spaced Repetition System. If I was wrong about that, then I was also wrong about you needing an article.

I don't know if it's wrong or not. It just felt smoother when I read it without "a". I've heard people use "a" before and you can certainly hear it with other nationalities. For instance, "A German stopped me on the street and asked me some questions." would sound natural. For some reason using it with Chinese, Japanese, or nationalities like that sound a bit odd to me. It's less of a rule and more of a "what my friends and I would say" thing.

Yeah, you don't need the before SRS since it stands for Spaced Repetition Software.

A Japanese is incorrect though, it would need to be a Japanese person. I don't know about any specific grammar, but I'm guessing it's like when Japanese structures requires a noun... For example... "何が一番好きだったの？" "京都を尋ねたこと". You can't simply say 京都を尋ねた, 好き demands a noun. (Of couse, Japanese IS still a noun in English... but it's an adjective as well. In this case, I'm guessing it acts as an adjective. You can't say "I'm a happy" either and that, IMO, gives the same feeling of incorrectness.)

ああ、日本語でも書き込まないとダメですよね。

私はSRSは頭文字略語 (I didn't know the Japanese equivalent of "initialism" and had to look it up in my E-J dictionary...) としてしか見ていなかったので、それが何の略なのか考えたことがありませんでした。

国籍を表す単語とそれにつく冠詞については、えー、私の足りないおつむではお手上げです。なんで変に聞こえるのかよくわかりません。JapaneseもChiniseも両方単複同型ですので、もしかするとそれかな？AmericanやMexicanはどうなるんだろう。

I just realized I better post bilingually.

I was seeing SRS as an initialism, not an acronym. So I really didn't care what it stood for.

About the nationalities and articles, it doesn't seem my stupid brain can sort it out. I don't know if "I'm a Japanese" is wrong, but it sure sounds a little odd. The only thing I noticed is that neither Japanese nor Chinese changes its form when you say it in plural. So, how about "I'm an American" and "I'm a Mexican"?

"I'm an American" and "I'm a Mexican" are both common phrases you can hear any day of the week. Again, a lot of it is imagining what a native speaker would be more likely to say or not. I don't know if any of us on this forum know the exact rule behind this off the top of our heads.

magamo Wrote:ああ、日本語でも書き込まないとダメですよね。

私はSRSは頭文字略語 (I didn't know the Japanese equivalent of "initialism" and had to look it up in my E-J dictionary...) としてしか見ていなかったので、それが何の略なのか考えたことがありませんでした。

国籍を表す単語とそれにつく冠詞については、えー、私の足りないおつむではお手上げです。なんで変に聞こえるのかよくわかりません。JapaneseもChiniseも両方単複同型ですので、もしかするとそれかな？AmericanやMexicanはどうなるんだろう。

I just realized I better post bilingually.

I was seeing SRS as an initialism, not an acronym. So I really didn't care what it stood for.

About the nationalities and articles, it doesn't seem my stupid brain can sort it out. I don't know if "I'm a Japanese" is wrong, but it sure sounds a little odd. The only thing I noticed is that neither Japanese nor Chinese changes its form when you say it in plural. So, how about "I'm an American" and "I'm a Mexican"?

Yeah that's interesting, both American and Mexican works fine... but most other nationalities do not... I'm a Swedish? I'm a French? I'm a German? (which actually sounds quite alright compared to the others, probably correct usage.) I guess the problem is, like you pointed out, plurality. "I'm a Swede" works fine, which "I'm a Japane" would to, if such a word existed.

That reminds me. "I'm a British" doesn't sound natural, but "I'm a Brit" or "I'm a Briton" does. I never noticed the correlation between plurality and this before. It might very well be true.

何度もありがとう。よく考えてみたら、私も日本語の文法あやふやです。なぜきちんと母国語を話せるのか不思議ですよね。

Thanks again. Come to think of it, I don't know Japanese grammar well either. I wonder why I can speak Japanese correctly.

Oh actually, I just realized you can use "the" with those words in some contexts and only when you intend them to be plural. Take for example, "The Japanese stole all of our fish." This sounds natural. It could mean the Japanese army, Japanese government, citizens of Japan, etc. It has more of a meaning of a big collective group. You could use this to mean your Japanese neighbors, but it would be for more of a comical effect there.

Even if it's not used too often, "a Japanese" is correct. Note here Japanese is a both a noun and an adjective:

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Japanese

Also the plural is the same, Japanese. a Japanese = a Japanese person, and the Japanese could be the Japanese people as a whole, or a specific group of Japanese people if that group is being referred to.

It took me forever to find an actual example, and here it is:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/articl...93,00.html

It's from 1942 though, only uses it as a noun in the title itself, and the article itself is... well, a product of its times.

Ah, I finally figured out how to find Japanese used as a noun... search for "A Japanese is" and you get some references. If you Google that, you'll see them.

@Smackle

"It is often said that the Japanese are diligent. I wonder what people think of the Americans."

Like this?

drivers99 Wrote:Ah, I finally figured out how to find Japanese used as a noun... search for "A Japanese is" and you get some references. If you Google that, you'll see them.

I'm guessing half of the results are written by Japanese guys.

drivers99 Wrote:Even if it's not used too often, "a Japanese" is correct.

I had a feeling that was the case. In any case, it's up to your personal preference and what feels right to you. I wouldn't often use "a Japanese" because it doesn't sound as natural to me nor does it really suit the way I express myself.

magamo Wrote:@Smackle

"It is often said that the Japanese are diligent. I wonder what people think of the Americans."

Like this?

Yeah, exactly. I don't know if you made that up or you got it from something, but to me, it sounds like it could have been in a comment on a site or in an article somewhere. That sounds perfectly natural.

Smackle Wrote:Yeah, exactly. I don't know if you made that up or you got it from something, but to me, it sounds like it could have been in a comment on a site or an article somewhere. That sounds perfectly natural.

めがっさ適当に書いただけだよ。

Well, it just came out of my ass.

IceCream Wrote:please don't use "a japanese". it has the connotation of racism in the same way as "a black" does.

日本の英語学習者の間でかなり有名な英和辞典を引いてみたんだけど、国籍を強調するときは"He is a Japanese"と言うと書いてあった。人種差別に繋がるんだとすると、これって洒落にならないような…

Just looked in a very famous E-J dictionary among English learners in Japan. It says that you say "He is a Japanese" when you emphasize his nationality. If it has something to do with racism, this isn't funny at all...

I noticed a lot of learners seem to say 'a Japanese', but it always sounded off to me as well. Just "he is Japanese" sounds better IMO.

I talked about this with someone else before, but except for certain nationalities ("an American/an Australian") it doesn't sound right to use 'a ...' without using a noun referring solely to nationality (a Briton/a Frenchmen/a Spaniard/etc.).

Ah, I think I get it.

the Japanese = the people of Japan,
Japanese (noun, no article)= the language of the Japanese,
Japanese (adjective) = relating to Japan, its language, etc.

And if I say "He is a Japanese," I sound like I'm sort of thinking he is a specimen of "Japaneses," which means a person who speak that (incomprehensible) language or that (yellow, short, etc) Japanese people. Hmm. I don't know if I made sense, but what I mean is that "a Japanese" implies you're regarding the person as a mere example of "it."

Hmm. I think I hear/read "the Japanese" as a synonym of "the Japanese people" in business news and whatnot, but it might be my imagination. I thought "The American" was fairly common and neutral because I think I've heard it many times. A little googling also showed a bunch of results containing "The Americans are..." But it could be inappropriate in some sensitive situations, I guess.

Although it can be used that way, I don't think using "the Japanese" carries bad cannotations. To me it sounds more like the speaker is presenting something from a distant standing point rather than something really bad.

A few common things that might be heard:
"The Japanese are always ahead of us technology-wise."
"Due to abundant supplies of water, rice became a staple crop for the Japanese."
"In the past, America has gone to war with the Japanese before."
"Lately, it seems the Japanese are suffering from a decreasing birth rate."

I think these are all presented in a neutral, yet distant manner. I think the reason why "the Americans" kind of has a bad feeling about it is because it's pretty a widespread thing to make fun of Americans.

Smackle Wrote:I think the reason why "the Americans" kind of has a bad feeling about it is because it's pretty a widespread thing to make fun of Americans.

はは、アメリカ人に生まれるって大変そう。

それはそうと、日本語で書き込むのまた忘れてたよ…

Ha ha. I wonder what it would be like to be born an American.

Ah, and I forgot to post in Japanese again...

Thanks for the explanation of nationality words and interesting post about language learning. You made a lot of interesting points, but first I'll answer some straightforward questions.

IceCream Wrote:I'm not sure i'm getting the meaning of "mnemonic" here, but it may be because i don't fully understand the word. Do you just mean, a rule that we consider flexible? Like, the rule that you gave for が in the other post? Or do you mean something more like, a mnemonic to help you remember things like "pronoun+いつ+verb-ても+笑っちゃう."= it always makes me laugh?

By "mnemonic," I mean "made up memory hook" of any kind. Any sort of grammar rule that corresponds to a given sentence can be the source of a mnemonic. I'll give an example here.

In one of my earlier posts, I gave an example sentence "I wonder what people think of the Americans," and Smackle said that sounded perfectly natural. I forget when and where I first met this type of sentence, but probably my mnemonic for it was like:

I know how to turn a regular sentence into a question: People think something. -> Do people think something?

And I know that if I use "what," "how," etc., I put it at the beginning of the sentence and leave out the corresponding noun: Do people think something? -> What do people think?

I also kind of know that if I add "I wonder," it seems the first step is canceled: What do people think? -> I wonder what people think.

K. I'll do some reverse engineering here and try decipher "I wonder what people think of the Americans." Obviously this has to be "I wonder" + what-question. The "I wonder" part is ok because I think I know its rough meaning. So what will the what-question part be? According to the grammar rule I know, it should be:

What people think of the Americans -> What do people think of the Americans?

To understand its meaning, I should know the original non-question version. If I turn it back into a standard sentence using the word "something" instead of "what," it'll be:

What do people think of the Americans? -> People think of the Americans...

Hey, where do I put "something"? Is it "People think something of the Americans"? Or "People think of something the Americans"? Possibly "People think of the Americans something"? Ugh, where does "what" come from?! What is the "of" doing there?!

As you can see, this time my horrible grammar knowledge failed me as it often does. But this whole experience works as a good memory hook. The "of" in the sentence really sticks out. I'll never forget the "strange" word order. So it's unlikely not to notice the same sentence structure when I come across it again in real stuff. Every time I run into the same structure, I will deepen, though little by little, my understanding through context. So, eventually the depth of my understanding will catch up with native speakers.

So, "I don't understand how 'I wonder what people think of the Americans' works!!" is the mnemonic, if you will. Of course, if my grammar didn't suck and I could infer a rough meaning from it, then it'll be a very nice mnemonic. But regardless of whether or not I could get the rough idea from grammar, I'll encounter phrases like "What do you think of her?" time and again, and infer the sense naturally. Actually I hear similar sentences so often, I deleted the card for it before the third or forth review; a lot of cards become too obvious very quickly if you immerse yourself into the target language.

Of course, I know what the sentence means now. It's already part of my active vocabulary. But, to be honest, I don't know the underlying grammar to this day.

As I already said, I think anything will be a good mnemonic as long as it helps you memorize word order and so on so that you can notice the same structure/word/whatever when you meet it again. Don't you think grammar rules are pretty good for this kind of thing? It doesn't matter if rules are bona fide. It's the same as your made up bizarre stories for kanji aren't necessarily based on genuine etymologies and stuff.

A good mnemonic (or story if you will) for kanji sticks the character in your head and gives a rough idea of what it means at the same time, right? Don't you think grammar gives a good "story" for a sentence?

By the way, I always think using grammar to produce a sentence is as crazy as using your made up story to devise your own kanji compound; grammar taught to foreigners is a dumbed down version of crude rules at best. Apparently advanced, genuine grammar can be used for production, and it's necessary to learn it sooner or later. But I'm of the opinion that it works only when you're already very fluent.

I'll answer other questions in later posts.

IceCream Wrote:When I see a new sentence, I either have the choice of including a translation, or looking up and trying to find a grammar rule to help understand the sentence. Which way do you think has the most value, and why?

My view of translation and language seems to be radically different from yours. So I'll talk about it in detail in the next post, and focus here on the other questions. But a quick answer is that if your definition of "translation" has something to do with grammar, then I'd say that kind of translation isn't very useful. When I translate Japanese/English, I don't exploit grammar. More precisely, I can't. My knowledge of grammar is terrible, English or Japanese.

IceCream Wrote:And, when you studied, did you SRS these grammar rules, or mnemonics, specifically, in the way that some people here SRS Tae Kim?

No. I already knew enough grammar rules, though most of the time they failed to explain a colloquial sentence. But colloquial phrases and idioms are always so colorful the "I don't get it! Rules X and Y don't work here!!" experience is enough to memorize a short sentence.

Here's one of the first cards I created. When I started using SRS, I didn't put any other info, so all cards were very simple.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Front Side] I'm not sure what you're getting at, but that man in the mirror is pretty damn sexy.

What does "you're getting at" mean in this sentence?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Back Side] If you ask someone what they are getting at, you are asking them to explain what they mean, usually because you think that they are being unpleasant or are suggesting something that is untrue.

Illustrative Sentence:
"What are you getting at now?" demanded Rick.
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The actual sentence and the question I put on the front side might have been slightly different. The back side was taken from my E-E dictionary. Other cards were also more or less like this. Explanations and examples on the back sides were often too difficult for me, but I put them nonetheless hoping someday I would be able to understand them. I think I also made cards for "pretty" and "damn" from the same sentence. There might have been one or two cards for grammar points like "*in* the mirror," too. I already deleted all those cards because they're too easy now.

IceCream Wrote:Or did you just put extra information on certain individual cards?

If cards were from audio/video materials, I put some info, but most of the early cards were very simple. I gradually started including surrounding sentences and such.

IceCream Wrote:Do you think that spending time specifically SRSing grammar rules / mnemonics, is helpful?

If I were to learn a new language from scratch, I might SRS a grammar for beginners or a similar textbook. But I think it depends. Some find grammar rules very useful, and some don't. If you can benefit more from grammar than other people, then it might be very good, I think.

EDIT: I forgot to mention this, but I guess you don't need a lot of grammar rules. In my case, advanced sentences and colloquial phrases always remained unexplained. Idioms are intrinsically inexplicable. But somehow I have developed my own version of grammar as I learn sentences, and I made up a lot of original grammar rules. The usage of the/a is an example of my pseud-grammar. I wish I could say I inferred rules through immersion, but I think it's not such a cool thing. It's pretty much the same as made up pseudo-etymological stories for kanji. If you know simple kanji and radicals well, then you can get a better idea of complicated ones. I think it's the same logic.