@Taishi: I've thought the same as well, but I do feel that practicing output to early isn't much use unless you're doing specific excersises to drill what you've already learned. As a beginner I tried writing entries on Lang-8, and I ended up spending a lot of time without any noticeable gains. I had to look up so many words that I couldn't even read my entries back after I'd written them. This is an extreme example of the kind of reaching beyond your Japanese knowledge that I think Nadiatims is trying to discourage.

@Ice cream: I still disagree with you about what Nadiatims thinks, and even how best to interpret the passages you quoted, so maybe it's best that I just wait for her to explain herself and instead focus on defending my own views. I think you missed the bit where I said it in my previous post, so to be clear I'll say it again: I do think output requires practice.

"There's no good reason not to practice the Japanese that you already understand passively"

Except for the fact that it takes time to do that. If you want to learn to output then go ahead, but if you don't have any use for it then I think it's fine to put it off. I'm not saying you shouldn't practice what you understand passively, I'm saying you shouldn't force output if it means you're regularly trying to use things you don't have a good passive understanding of, like I did when I first started learning.

"The two most common pieces of advice for new writers go hand in hand. You have to write a lot, and read a lot.(it really makes no difference that the piece of advice to write a lot is for advanced language users. Both pieces of advice are.)"

I agree. I should have been clearer because my point was that even after you reach a really high level, at which you can reasonably expect to understand pretty much anything that comes your way, you still need a lot more input. If you understand less then obviously you need even more input.

I think it's important to realise that being able to understand a word or grammar point is really just the beginning, even in terms of passive ability. Failing to see this is why I put off reading for so long; I thought that if I read paragraph and it didn't contain anything new, I hadn't learned anything, but the truth is that reading that paragraph reinforces and deepens my understanding of all the grammar and vocabulary it contains, increasing the fluency, accuracy and quality of that understanding and making it easier for me to learn to use that grammar and vocabulary myself. Definitely time well spent, and the difference between trying to learn to output using grammar you've only studied, and trying to learn to use it after you've gotten used to reading/hearing it, is huge.

My point about the recommendation for output being for advanced language users was that it didn't contradict the idea that you should wait until you have a good passive understanding before attempting to learn to output, because it was aimed at people who already had a very good passive understanding. I definitely wasn't saying that you don't need to practice output.

"Of all the things i've done in Japanese, the thing that's had the most impact on outputting is *shock* outputting."

Of course, but I bet it didn't improve beyond you're passive ability did it? Saying that to be able to express yourself well you first need a high level of understanding in no way implies you don't need to practice outputting what you've learned to understand.

@Kudokupo: I think I missed your point earlier.

kudokupo Wrote:Yeah I realize with enough input, output will come, but it often seems like I'll have to wait until I'm able to read and understand almost anything, read a ton of it, and then finally it'll move to output. When there's still several unknown words everywhere, reading is too slow to get enough input for that natural output to come. Isn't there a way to get reasonably good at output without waiting so long? Also that still requires random output practice, which I want to do, but after getting some sort of foundation in output so it's not so discouraging.

What do you mean by reasonably good? If you just want to be able to get your point across then you definitely don't need to understand almost everything because it's usually possible to express things in a much simpler manner than you will find in native materials. Just read enough to internalise the basics.

If you're concerned about the quality of your writing then it is going to take a long time to get good.

I don't know how much we are disagreeing, Splatted. Honestly, i don't think those passages i quoted from nadiatims could be any more unambiguous. If she meant something different, she needs to say something different.

No, of course you can't output more than you know passively, i don't know anyone who would claim that you can do that, or should be trying to. I'm also not trying to say that everyone should systematically practise output. In fact, i'm not trying to say that anyone should be doing anything at all, all i'm doing is objecting to the idea that every learner will suddenly find Japanese spilling out of their mouth at some magical level of understanding, and that if they don't find Japanese spilling out of their mouth, they obviously haven't attained said magical level.

So yeah, I'm not trying to have an argument or anything, just stating that people shouldn't continue to state that "everyone should do X" when "X" may have worked for them, but they've been told by multiple other people that it isn't working out so great in their case.

With the rest of your points... yeah, i'm really not sure we disgree at all, because your arguments are perfectly reasonable. It basically comes down to, yes, a good passive understanding is a prerequisite, and because of that, spending an awful lot of time doing inputting is going to be necessary. Again, i'm not trying to undermine the importance of input, only stating that input alone just isn't enough for some people.

Whether or not you can happily leave output and it not be too harmful is something i really don't know. I think it might be better if you don't wait too long after you have a good passive understanding (by "good", i mean not translating in your head, it just means what it means), because at least psychologically, it becomes more and more of an insurmountable task to begin outputting the more Japanese you understand passively, and the more you understand just how many options there are to say anything. It's way more frustrating to be starting baby talking after 3 years of learning Japanese than it would have been at 3 months.

With the other skills, you put in a load of hard work to start with, and then you can sort of drift along picking things up after that. I imagine speaking is similar... once you have a good deal of sentence structures in your active knowledge that you can produce when you need them, it will be far less taxing mentally to start changing things up and playing with the language and being able to express things in more interesting ways. If someone wants to get to that point by doing systematic excersises rather than through having excrutiating conversations with strangers, i don't see a problem with it...

Oh, by the way, about JSL--besides the text of the conversation and drills, the textbooks are actually mostly very long grammar explanations as well as explanations of specific phrases. In my mind JSL ties with the the three grammar dictionaries as the best grammar resources on the market. (I also have a special place in my heart for Jay Rubin's "Making Sense of Japanese", which actually quotes JSL multiple times)

However, a lot of people don't like longer grammar explanations and are therefore turned off by JSL. Personally, I used JSL first and then eventually did Genki 2 in Japan, but hated how over-simplified the Genki 2 explanations were. I liked JSL a lot and I think I would be a much better speaker if I had finished them (I basically did 1.8 of the three volumes). It was definitely my favorite learning resource in my 6-or-so years of Japanese learning, including resources like RTK and Anki.

JSL would probably also be frustrating for people on this forum who have spent so long learning the writing system. Because it is a text about spoken language, there is no need for Japanese script and the explanations and conversations in the book are written using romaji.

It's also difficult to use outside of a class.

Yeah, My interest in JSL mostly stems from hearing very positive things about the depth and clarity of the grammar explanations. Copies exist at my library so I'll probably go check them out now that the audio resources have been pointed out online (I glanced at the JSL books before I knew much Japanese [years ago] but ditched them because the library didn't have any of the audio to go along with it).

kudokupo Wrote:...So I was wondering if there was a better way to move all of these sentence structures from passive to active, so it's possible to practice without struggling, constantly referencing grammar guides thinking "ok...how could I possibly say this in Japanese." Also I really don't like starting with English and translating because Japanese people just say things differently, and if I don't know how it's conveyed in Japanese it's frustrating. Whenever I make attempts at that it's almost certainly incorrect. So what I want is a systematic way to master grammar patterns, so I can use them with confidence. Does anybody know how I could do that?

I have 3 suggestions:

The first, assuming that you don't live in Japan, is to have short dialogues with yourself everyday. For example, "What are you doing?" "I'm brushing my teeth" "Yes, I can see that. What I meant is 'Why are you doing it outside?'" etc. RECORD these dialogues. Later, pick a section, transcribe it and then upload it to Lang-8.

The second thing is to use a list like this one: http://www.kobejournal.com/Nihongo/00%20...20file.htm It does something that most grammar lists don't, it groups phrases by their function, which I think makes it a great reference when practicing output. I made a version that uses kana/kanji instead of romaji which I'll upload later, if there is interest.

Finally, take a look at this book: "Real Japanese". It follows a young girl's acquisition of Japanese from her first phrases to about age 2 and a half. It is a daily journal and clearly illustrates that the foundation of Japanese thought is plain-form Japanese. Maybe you too will find it enlightening/useful.

Oniichan Wrote:The second thing is to use a list like this one: http://www.kobejournal.com/Nihongo/00%20...20file.htm It does something that most grammar lists don't, it groups phrases by their function, which I think makes it a great reference when practicing output. I made a version that uses kana/kanji instead of romaji which I'll upload later, if there is interest.

Please do so. I am very interested.

Oniichan Wrote:Finally, take a look at this book: "Real Japanese". It follows a young girl's acquisition of Japanese from her first phrases to about age 2 and a half. It is a daily journal and clearly illustrates that the foundation of Japanese thought is plain-form Japanese. Maybe you too will find it enlightening/useful.

A finger pointed in the right direction would be much appreciated.

yes, please give us a link to the kanji version^^

Hashiriya Wrote:yes, please give us a link to the kanji version^^

Well, I typed too soon... I don't have access to that file at the moment as it is on a pc in another country. BUT, I do have a pdf version that I created using OpenOffice Calc back when I created a KANA version. That I'll happily post now. Obviously, it was more useful as a spreadsheet but, I hope it will suffice for now.

I'll upload to mediafire in a second and post a link in this message.

EDIT: Does mediafire require signing up now? I can't find the link to upload on their site. Are there any alternatives?

EDIT2: Here is the link: http://www.mediafire.com/view/?2nyiahtr6w964mg The new mediafire may place a limit on downloads. I'll try googledocs in a moment.

Would anyone be interested in helping to restore it to a spreadsheet form and later with adding common kanji? I'm not comfortable having hardware shipped to this country (sketchy PS) and it's not accessible to anyone in Japan or I would have the file sent.

With a little collaboration, it should be easy enough to do and a useful resource to the community (I'm kicking myself for forgetting to share the final version earlier.) Live and learn.

I'll gladly help. Let me know when it's up on GoogleDocs, and I'll help ASAP. We can probably just call off turns in this thread, e.g. first person who posts says "I'll do #1-20", next does 21-40, then the next does 41-60, and so forth.

Great! Thanks for your help.

I converted the pdf to text and pasted it back into a spreadsheet, but it is a bit of a mess at the moment. Also, I'm finding Google docs to be a bit of a pain to work with when copying and pasting cells; so I'm going to clean it up first in Calc, then upload it to googledocs. I'll add a column for kanji and one for comments. Give me about an hour.

Here is the link to Google doc. EDIT: Link temporarily removed.

The converted document is a bigger mess than I thought so I've decided to upload each section as a new sheet. So far I've added the 'table of contents' and section '0'.

Anyone interested in contributing, just click on the link, select a section and begin adding kanji versions to the 'Expression' column where appropriate and any notes to the 'comment' column. Thanks for your help!

If you have problems accessing or editing the doc, please use this thread to communicate them.

IceCream Wrote:I don't know how much we are disagreeing, Splatted.

Yeah it looks like we're not. Sorry if I came off as argumentative; I probably shouldn't post in the middle of the night...