Thora Wrote:

ocircle Wrote:If a random page in the book has more than 5 words you can't understand, the book is too hard for you and you should be reading something easier.

The dope hip hop thread is too hard for me

Confession: I created that thread, but I understand less than a fraction of a percent of any of the lyrics being said in Japanese. After listening to it over and over, I realized that every artist identifies themselves with a number. E.g. Zeebra kicks off his verse with 証言四番, or shougen #4, whatever that's supposed to mean.

The beats are ill, and most of the flows are nice, so it doesn't matter that it's "too advanced."

One thing I've noticed about music in particular is that is structurally quite loose and often poetic in nature combined with being sung it can make words hard to make out, all this combined makes music a tad hard to understand at the best of times.

http://www.antimoon.com/how/input-howmuch.htm?ml

I was looking on antimoon about input=output
I think when people say input=ouput they mean that, let's say you hear a certain situation from things that you are watching. You'll get the "sense" of when to use it in an actually conversation. I do believe practicing speech is necessary to develop a flow of the language. But everyone does need input int the langauge to develop an understanding of it. Because without input, it would be hard to output back things if one didn't hear it often.

ocircle Wrote:There should only be about 10 words you don't understand at most, 5 is ideal. It's the same for when you're picking out a new book to read. If a random page in the book has more than 5 words you can't understand, the book is too hard for you and you should be reading something easier. It's the same for TV shows. If there's more than 5 words in the first 10 minutes that you can't understand, the show is too hard for you.

I don't know why everyone is criticizing these numbers. I just did a lot of research into silent sustained reading in English, and those numbers hold up, for English anyway. Any more than about 5% unknown words turns the act of "reading" into the act of "decoding."

If you don't care about not knowing the meaning of, say, 20% unknown words, and you cruise along anyway, that's great. You have a greater tolerance for not understanding the totality of the meaning.

The value of silent sustained reading is that those who read for pleasure using texts that are at that 95% comprehension level end up with a greater instinct for what constitutes a good sentence, and later they do better at choosing words, chunks, expressions that just feel right to them and their listeners, than textbook readers do.

bodhisamaya Wrote:

Thora Wrote:

hereticalrants Wrote:Uh... ´cause I'm just watching TV while I'm studying and stuff. Haha. And no, it's not dull. I have school, yah know, and I'm still studying the kanji...

My misunderstanding, sorry. I thought you were suggesting osmosis and no study was the way to do it. Good luck with both.

I'm starting to think that students today have more evolved multi-tasking brains. I need to block out distractions when I need to concentrate.

My niece (12) walks, talks, listens to music and texts at the same time. There's even an app which displays what's in front of you as screen background to prevent you from walking into a pole or something. That cracked me up.

Media multitasking doesn't work say researchers

@bodhi - The same time that article was posted on the Internetz and widely reported on by the MSM (takes on angry liberal voice ;p), the links herein also appeared elsewhere: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=3869 (Training can improve multitasking ability)

LaLoche Wrote:

ocircle Wrote:There should only be about 10 words you don't understand at most, 5 is ideal. It's the same for when you're picking out a new book to read. If a random page in the book has more than 5 words you can't understand, the book is too hard for you and you should be reading something easier. It's the same for TV shows. If there's more than 5 words in the first 10 minutes that you can't understand, the show is too hard for you.

I don't know why everyone is criticizing these numbers. I just did a lot of research into silent sustained reading in English, and those numbers hold up, for English anyway. Any more than about 5% unknown words turns the act of "reading" into the act of "decoding."

If you don't care about not knowing the meaning of, say, 20% unknown words, and you cruise along anyway, that's great. You have a greater tolerance for not understanding the totality of the meaning.

The value of silent sustained reading is that those who read for pleasure using texts that are at that 95% comprehension level end up with a greater instinct for what constitutes a good sentence, and later they do better at choosing words, chunks, expressions that just feel right to them and their listeners, than textbook readers do.

I don't know, I'd take the Krashenic aspects of that (regarding input comprehension) with a grain of salt (as an overview link I recently reposted to mentat points out, a big problem with Krashen's i+X is that there's no real quantification to work with), but I do like where SSR people go in general, it reminds me of that book I've referenced a few times about manga literacy/discourse, Reading Japan Cool, where it discusses multiliteracy and suchlike (although the 'decoding' they mention I think is good and necessary, esp. for Japanese).

I also am a big proponent of subvocalization, but integrated into active study with immediate audio feedback. Likewise, you might find this interesting, it discusses a recent meta-analysis that says SSR wasn't effective, looks at why, and recommends a 'scaffolded' SSR approach: http://www.cehs.usu.edu/ecc/images/pdf/p...eading.pdf

Related: Condensed reading... http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...2#pid89552

Personally I think it probably depends on the relative information value of the words, as well as the individual's 'negative capability' and particular goals/strategies, with regards to the #'s of unknowns allowing for optimal reading, in addition to linguistic/orthographic differences...

Maybe now that we've got so many raw Japanese text sources provided by dread pirates, we can develop something that will roughly calculate one's vocabulary via Anki (or some other method of testing/grading vocabulary), and then find and present a paragraph or page that similarly matches that level of vocabulary.

Edit: Here's the two papers referenced at the onset of the above .pdf:

Reconsidering Silent Sustained Reading: An Exploratory Study of Scaffolded Silent Reading
Scaffolded Silent Reading: A Complement to Guided Repeated Oral Reading That Works!

@ ruiner Thanks for the links. Lots of reading to do!
IMHO the scaffolded SSR has its advantages, but gee, it just seems to want to take the fun out of reading by making it all accountable again (conferences with teacher, reading from genres you don't want to read). There's always someone who wants to turn it all back into "work."

hehe, Well, going by that power point series of suggestions (colour coding and 'genre wheel' seem to suggest a guideline-like approach towards influencing reading selections) in the lengthy first .pdf, it looks like they're trying to find a balance, at least. Keep in mind it's targeted towards third graders, etc. (I bet the 'three finger rule' in determining how many unknown items constitutes too high a difficulty level stems from the students not having learned to count to ten yet. j/k)

I mostly just like the idea of applying 'scaffolding' in some sense to adult L2 learners, from a self-study/DIY perspective.

mezbup Wrote:One thing I've noticed about music in particular is that is structurally quite loose and often poetic in nature combined with being sung it can make words hard to make out, all this combined makes music a tad hard to understand at the best of times.

What you on about Music epitomises rigid structure From classical music which is apparently 'pretentious' according to some people (whatever that's supposed to mean anyway) through jazz all the way to pop music (albeit has a much simpler & smaller structure).

Lyrically (perhaps that's what you meant by structurally loose?), music is really simple to grasp especially pop music. Requires no brainer really. That's what makes it all the more fun, they're super easy to memorise. Perhaps you're trying to read too deep into pop music which is the dumbest thing anyone can do, it's like trying to dig deeper inside a 1m deep grave made of reinforced titanium steel backed by 10 tonnes of compressed concrete, you just can't. Poetic verses can be tough I know what you mean here, but it still doesn't prevent you from grasping the basic nuance of a verse.
Once you look the lyrics up you'll understand why a word is pronounced the way it is. I think music helps with pronunciation, it's not like they're elongating the pitch or accent of the word, they're just singing a word ontop of a melody.

Are the backstreet boys pronouncing anything here wrong?

I'm leavin my life in your handdd
People say I'm crazy and that I am blind
Riskin ii-dall in-a-glance

Perfect pronunciation, in a simple memorisable melody. What more could a language learner want/need? If anything, seeing how words can be shifted and matched along to a melody & song helps with pronunciation as it teaches the learner different ways a word can sound.

Here Chihiro lengthens and pauses in between syllables but I still don't see what's wrong with that. It's not like listening to her elongate words to fit the melody will make me burst out in song when I'm talking to someone in Japanese. (It does sometimes, and I may come across as a very strange individual but blame that on the catchy melody!!! )

Thanks for that link! I am very out of the loop about pop culture in the world period, but I really enjoy her music

liosama Wrote:

mezbup Wrote:One thing I've noticed about music in particular is that is structurally quite loose and often poetic in nature combined with being sung it can make words hard to make out, all this combined makes music a tad hard to understand at the best of times.

What you on about Music epitomises rigid structure From classical music which is apparently 'pretentious' according to some people (whatever that's supposed to mean anyway) through jazz all the way to pop music (albeit has a much simpler & smaller structure).

Lyrically (perhaps that's what you meant by structurally loose?), music is really simple to grasp especially pop music. Requires no brainer really. That's what makes it all the more fun, they're super easy to memorise. Perhaps you're trying to read too deep into pop music which is the dumbest thing anyone can do, it's like trying to dig deeper inside a 1m deep grave made of reinforced titanium steel backed by 10 tonnes of compressed concrete, you just can't. Poetic verses can be tough I know what you mean here, but it still doesn't prevent you from grasping the basic nuance of a verse.
Once you look the lyrics up you'll understand why a word is pronounced the way it is. I think music helps with pronunciation, it's not like they're elongating the pitch or accent of the word, they're just singing a word ontop of a melody.

Are the backstreet boys pronouncing anything here wrong?

I'm leavin my life in your handdd
People say I'm crazy and that I am blind
Riskin ii-dall in-a-glance

Perfect pronunciation, in a simple memorisable melody. What more could a language learner want/need? If anything, seeing how words can be shifted and matched along to a melody & song helps with pronunciation as it teaches the learner different ways a word can sound.

Here Chihiro lengthens and pauses in between syllables but I still don't see what's wrong with that. It's not like listening to her elongate words to fit the melody will make me burst out in song when I'm talking to someone in Japanese. (It does sometimes, and I may come across as a very strange individual but blame that on the catchy melody!!! )

And I suppose you can instantly understand every song by Say Anything because music is "simple".

It really depends on the artist and genre as to how simple or complex lyrics are. Lyrics are in no way like conversational language. I think they're an entirely different animal altogether in the same way that novels, newspapers, dramas, anime, REAL LIFE and other such things are all quite different from eachother.

夕陽で朱に染まる　寄せては返す記憶
今日という束の間の永遠だけ此処に刻む

丘から見下ろせば　青い海　春が霞む
桜の並木では花びらと君が笑う

あれがない　これもない
どんな希望も叶えたい欲張り
そんな僕らの足りないものだけそっと包むように
夕凪の最後には優しく揺らぐ風
海岸通りに春が舞う

すれ違うこともはみ出すことも
恐れていないよ
どこにいてもただ願っている

あれがない　これもない
どんな希望も叶えたい欲張り
そんな僕らの足りないものだけそっと包むように
夕凪の最後には優しく揺らぐ風
海岸通りに春が舞う

Don't know about you but I don't know anyone who talks like that in a regular conversation... So i'd forgive a language learner if they said they got lost from time to time trying to understand bits and pieces... heck his accent is also far from clear when he sings and they we're a pretty damn popular band. It's rock not pop as such (which yes, is lot's clearer in pronunciation).

You also have to take into account the fact that our working memory can only house so many chunks of information (they say it's 7 (plus or minus 2)) and and entire verse may consist of several chunks of poetic lines which a language learner probably needs their entire active memory to process the unfamiliar style one line at a time, so by the time they've gotten to the second line the first has disappeared... never mind about the 3rd, 4th and 5th.

It's far easier to understand the songs if you look up the lyrics, work out the vocab you don't know and puzzle out some of the things that may trip you up a little and then listen back to the song. I find once I do this a song becomes much easier to understand, It also makes me realise how UNCLEAR some of the words they say are at times.

I think it's fairly easy to understand even abstract music in your native language because you're ability is extremely high. You're very used to hearing words, making guesses and inferences based on the total sum of what you've heard before. Sure it doesn't take much to understand a run of the mill pop-tune but that's not representative of all the music out there.

mezbup Wrote:It really depends on the artist and genre as to how simple or complex lyrics are. Lyrics are in no way like conversational language. I think they're an entirely different animal altogether in the same way that novels, newspapers, dramas, anime, REAL LIFE and other such things are all quite different from eachother.

Yeah of course. That's because music is music, Anime is anime, and real life is real life. If I find myself talking to an english learner who learnt all their english by watching Friends or Seinfield or even West Wing, I'd call them completely weird and would probably not talk to them because they would be robots memorisng script.

By watching media (here the word encompasses everything) you aren't trying to learn the entire language, rather, learn bits and pieces, be it pronunciation (which is what I argue music can help with) small bits of grammar (which music can help with too), and expressions (where tv shoes and anime will come in). I can't say that I've actually learnt anything helpful from songs, but it has certainly helped with my pronunciation and I plan on breaking down all the Chihiro Onitsuka songs I loved listening to before I started studying Japanese for study purposes so I can make sense of what I sing when I'm at karaoke.

mezbup Wrote:

夕陽で朱に染まる　寄せては返す記憶
今日という束の間の永遠だけ此処に刻む

丘から見下ろせば　青い海　春が霞む
桜の並木では花びらと君が笑う

あれがない　これもない
どんな希望も叶えたい欲張り
そんな僕らの足りないものだけそっと包むように
夕凪の最後には優しく揺らぐ風
海岸通りに春が舞う

すれ違うこともはみ出すことも
恐れていないよ
どこにいてもただ願っている

あれがない　これもない
どんな希望も叶えたい欲張り
そんな僕らの足りないものだけそっと包むように
夕凪の最後には優しく揺らぐ風
海岸通りに春が舞う

Don't know about you but I don't know anyone who talks like that in a regular conversation... So i'd forgive a language learner if they said they got lost from time to time trying to understand bits and pieces... heck his accent is also far from clear when he sings and they we're a pretty damn popular band. It's rock not pop as such (which yes, is lot's clearer in pronunciation).

I have to do the same with some English rock songs too. There's nothing wrong with reading lyrics as you listen to music, I do it all the time. Especially with hip-hop, since even in English I miss some words or insert an incorrect word (or sometimes notice an incorrect word used). But I still don't see why listening to AKFG won't help with pronunciation. You would already know how some of those words sound normally, so hearing him say 今日という束の間の永遠だけ此処に刻む in some muddled way won't ***** up your original pronunciation, and just because we (as language learners) have to read the lyrics along with the music doesn't make things 'worse' there's nothing else we can do. It strengthens the 'start-stop' relationship and would be helpful in letting you see where words start and stop when listening to Japanese. I'm still not convinced on how that wouldn't help your understanding of Japanese.

mezbup Wrote:You also have to take into account the fact that our working memory can only house so many chunks of information (they say it's 7 (plus or minus 2)) and and entire verse may consist of several chunks of poetic lines which a language learner probably needs their entire active memory to process the unfamiliar style one line at a time, so by the time they've gotten to the second line the first has disappeared... never mind about the 3rd, 4th and 5th.

Why not just memorise it entirely without understanding it? That's what I did as a kid listening to Tupac and Backstreet boys. You think a 6 year old can break down and construct every sentence in pop? No. I memorise music all the time, it's fun and really easy.

mezbup Wrote:It's far easier to understand the songs if you look up the lyrics, work out the vocab you don't know and puzzle out some of the things that may trip you up a little and then listen back to the song. I find once I do this a song becomes much easier to understand, It also makes me realise how UNCLEAR some of the words they say are at times.

You're answering what I said above here I didn't say that you're not allowed to look up the lyrics. Wtf kind of attitude is that. You *have* to look up the lyrics. THat's the whole point, especially since you want to break it down and see what your singer means when she says ”どうか私とワルツを”

mezbup Wrote:I think it's fairly easy to understand even abstract music in your native language because you're ability is extremely high. You're very used to hearing words, making guesses and inferences based on the total sum of what you've heard before. Sure it doesn't take much to understand a run of the mill pop-tune but that's not representative of all the music out there.

Anyway I still think listening to more music helps you learn more words albeit not as fast as reading or whatever will, but you will still learn. I don't know why you try to listen to music without looking at the lyrics. Especially at the level you're at which I'm assuming is at roughly my level. Like I said, even in English music, I regularly look up the lyrics because I generally find it much easier to read along to the music once or twice. I also prefer to watch movies, particularly complex ones with subtitles, does that make me a stupid and incompetent native listener? I hardly think so, And I'm a genius by my standards too

And Aijin I love her too She was the first Jpop singer I came across and is probably the only one I actually like. I bought 2 of her concert dvd's just because I love her so much

her song Rasen was probably on repeat for days when I first heard it

bodhisamaya Wrote:Most todlers access the on-live search engine Momipedia with these keywords an average of 897 times each day:
How come, why, where, what's that, who, when?

Do you have a link to the Momipedia?

liosama Wrote:

mezbup Wrote:It really depends on the artist and genre as to how simple or complex lyrics are. Lyrics are in no way like conversational language. I think they're an entirely different animal altogether in the same way that novels, newspapers, dramas, anime, REAL LIFE and other such things are all quite different from eachother.

Yeah of course. That's because music is music, Anime is anime, and real life is real life. If I find myself talking to an english learner who learnt all their english by watching Friends or Seinfield or even West Wing, I'd call them completely weird and would probably not talk to them because they would be robots memorisng script.

By watching media (here the word encompasses everything) you aren't trying to learn the entire language, rather, learn bits and pieces, be it pronunciation (which is what I argue music can help with) small bits of grammar (which music can help with too), and expressions (where tv shoes and anime will come in). I can't say that I've actually learnt anything helpful from songs, but it has certainly helped with my pronunciation and I plan on breaking down all the Chihiro Onitsuka songs I loved listening to before I started studying Japanese for study purposes so I can make sense of what I sing when I'm at karaoke.

mezbup Wrote:

夕陽で朱に染まる　寄せては返す記憶
今日という束の間の永遠だけ此処に刻む

丘から見下ろせば　青い海　春が霞む
桜の並木では花びらと君が笑う

あれがない　これもない
どんな希望も叶えたい欲張り
そんな僕らの足りないものだけそっと包むように
夕凪の最後には優しく揺らぐ風
海岸通りに春が舞う

すれ違うこともはみ出すことも
恐れていないよ
どこにいてもただ願っている

あれがない　これもない
どんな希望も叶えたい欲張り
そんな僕らの足りないものだけそっと包むように
夕凪の最後には優しく揺らぐ風
海岸通りに春が舞う

Don't know about you but I don't know anyone who talks like that in a regular conversation... So i'd forgive a language learner if they said they got lost from time to time trying to understand bits and pieces... heck his accent is also far from clear when he sings and they we're a pretty damn popular band. It's rock not pop as such (which yes, is lot's clearer in pronunciation).

I have to do the same with some English rock songs too. There's nothing wrong with reading lyrics as you listen to music, I do it all the time. Especially with hip-hop, since even in English I miss some words or insert an incorrect word (or sometimes notice an incorrect word used). But I still don't see why listening to AKFG won't help with pronunciation. You would already know how some of those words sound normally, so hearing him say 今日という束の間の永遠だけ此処に刻む in some muddled way won't ***** up your original pronunciation, and just because we (as language learners) have to read the lyrics along with the music doesn't make things 'worse' there's nothing else we can do. It strengthens the 'start-stop' relationship and would be helpful in letting you see where words start and stop when listening to Japanese. I'm still not convinced on how that wouldn't help your understanding of Japanese.

mezbup Wrote:You also have to take into account the fact that our working memory can only house so many chunks of information (they say it's 7 (plus or minus 2)) and and entire verse may consist of several chunks of poetic lines which a language learner probably needs their entire active memory to process the unfamiliar style one line at a time, so by the time they've gotten to the second line the first has disappeared... never mind about the 3rd, 4th and 5th.

Why not just memorise it entirely without understanding it? That's what I did as a kid listening to Tupac and Backstreet boys. You think a 6 year old can break down and construct every sentence in pop? No. I memorise music all the time, it's fun and really easy.

mezbup Wrote:It's far easier to understand the songs if you look up the lyrics, work out the vocab you don't know and puzzle out some of the things that may trip you up a little and then listen back to the song. I find once I do this a song becomes much easier to understand, It also makes me realise how UNCLEAR some of the words they say are at times.

You're answering what I said above here I didn't say that you're not allowed to look up the lyrics. Wtf kind of attitude is that. You *have* to look up the lyrics. THat's the whole point, especially since you want to break it down and see what your singer means when she says ”どうか私とワルツを”

mezbup Wrote:I think it's fairly easy to understand even abstract music in your native language because you're ability is extremely high. You're very used to hearing words, making guesses and inferences based on the total sum of what you've heard before. Sure it doesn't take much to understand a run of the mill pop-tune but that's not representative of all the music out there.

Anyway I still think listening to more music helps you learn more words albeit not as fast as reading or whatever will, but you will still learn. I don't know why you try to listen to music without looking at the lyrics. Especially at the level you're at which I'm assuming is at roughly my level. Like I said, even in English music, I regularly look up the lyrics because I generally find it much easier to read along to the music once or twice. I also prefer to watch movies, particularly complex ones with subtitles, does that make me a stupid and incompetent native listener? I hardly think so, And I'm a genius by my standards too

And Aijin I love her too She was the first Jpop singer I came across and is probably the only one I actually like. I bought 2 of her concert dvd's just because I love her so much

her song Rasen was probably on repeat for days when I first heard it

I actually do tend to memorise who verses and sing along with them despite not completely clicking to what they mean and it's a pretty epic experience when you figure it out and have one of those moments. No, it definitely won't hurt your pronunciation... My whole point was I think songs are actually fairly difficult to understand until you're quite a high level. The opinion is from the point of hearing a song for the first time and understanding 99% of it.

Perhaps you missed my post here: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...0#pid92400

I think reading the lyrics is 不可欠だよ. You can gain a tonne of interesting and semi-rare vocab that way. I think using such a method is a great way for music lovers to turn something they listen to on a regular basis into "comprehensible input".

Music at times is so hard to understand. It's completely different in terms of regular speech (well in certain ways). A lot of the common words people know, becomes stretched for emphasis and attractiveness. (But with the subtitles, yea you can definitely follow along and understand it. Same applies to english at times. Some songs are just hard to understand)

Personally I treat Japanese music as more of a 'reduced listening' exercise.

http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...1#pid66571

Also as 'null media': http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?p...8#pid38868

When considering the linguistic elements, I mean.

Aijin Wrote:Thanks for that link! I am very out of the loop about pop culture in the world period, but I really enjoy her music

Do you like Kudo Reiko? Her voice always makes me want to cry with bittersweet happiness for no apparent reason. Music-wise her releases are very sparse, so perhaps not to the taste of many.