Ever since I read "How to Learn Any Language" I've stopped taking classes...I've been memorizing kanji, mnemosyne, and watching television (local Japanese programming.)
As a teacher, I'm pretty swamped with obligations but summer is around the corner and I was wondering what people thought about learning from classes vs. independent study.

for me, it helps immensely. My only suggestion is to find a japanese tutor to meet every week or so. And use that time to test phrases, vocab that you learned via independent study.

The last class I took was over a year ago. It just so happened that the other student in the class convinced me to give Heisig a go!

While I see independent study as much more important than attending classes, I find it interesting to meet other learners and hear (face to face) about how they learn. Can be good for motivation; it's sociable; and you may pick up something from the "grammar you cover".

Being in Japan, I get plenty of opportunity to speak Japanese but if I was back home, I would definitely go in for some conversation exchange to try and keep some kind of speaking ability.

You have to make sure you find a class full of people who actually want to learn the language. Sitting in a room with 25 people who are there to fulfill some graduation requirement is a huge waste of time.

Tutors are good as access to a native speaker is invaluable.

taijuando Wrote:Ever since I read "How to Learn Any Language"

I love that book! It's a bit behind the times in some ways, but it's a fun read, and really opened my mind up on how to learn languages. I tried to follow his multi-attack approach, but failed because it involves reading actual literature from the beginning. That failure, my attempts to conquer kanji by just writing them out, got me to go find RTK1, so it was a good thing in the end.

Anyway, self-learning is great. The only thing I use a tutor for is conversation. I've "learned" my last 3 languages this way. Good luck!

Thanks for all the comments. So far my study of Japanese has been unstructured. The only thing that is structured is using this site and methodically going through onyumi pronunciations using Heisig card box. It's how I've been "treading water" until I get more time this summer. I guess I could methodically go through a textbook and balance it with movies and conversation and pimsleur etc, but I wonder. I think I need to figure out how to get to Japan for a while. The last class I took wasn't great. We did drill after drill, but I think the instructor was getting burnt out. How much do tutors in Japan usually charge?

If you're willing to teach English, you can try getting a language exchange partner. You teach them English. They teach you Japanese. That way, neither of you would have to pay money.

Or something else you can do is not get a tutor at all and just go out, talk to people and experiment. Come up with your own theories(or read about them) and test them out on people. It would fit your unstructured approach very well.

The most I have paid for a 1 hour one-to-one (edit) private Japanese language class is 1,500 yen. I'm in the countryside as opposed to Tokyo. Also going to language schools is well expensive compared to privates. I paid something like 80,000 yen for 20 * 1.5 hour lessons at Meugro Language Center.

what makes a good tutor for you? I'm in the states now and would like to find a tutor. It's NYC and it shouldn't be so hard but i'm wondering about people's experiences.

Maybe a long shot, but if you're looking for a language exchange partner, there's a bulletin board outside the East Asian languages department office at Columbia (116th street campus, in Kent Hall) where people sometimes post requests for language exchange partners. Might be worth a look if you're in the area.

Good lord. If you're in New York, definitely go here:
http://japanese.meetup.com/19/

It's the largest Japanese Language Meetup Group in the world!
Tons of people who are interested in Japanese. Lots of
native Japanese.

And if you're only interested in the poontang, then
there's a lot of that too.....

I've found that in order to improve speaking ability, classes are essential. If you're in Japan then this may not be the case but otherwise there's not really any other way. Individual study is great for learning kanji, reading, listening and generally absorbing Japanese but if you're going to produce it then you need someone to interact with.

I used to think that tutors were better but after a great deal of experience in large and small classes, I changed my mind a while ago. Speaking one-to-one with someone for an hour is something that's a little bit uncomfortable even in English (for me) and the amount of exercises and activities you can do is quite limited. A larger class has a much wider range of possibilities eg. teamwork, competitive activities, much more potential to share different view points/ideas etc. Also, Japanese teachers in large classes tend to know what they're doing but tutors can sometimes just sit there and chat with you, without knowing much about how to teach. The best thing I've found about large classes is that you can make lots of new friends.

Of course, like uberstuber said, the motivation of your classmates is very important. I spent a year and a half in a language school in Tokyo and it was the best thing for my Japanese. The bad thing about studying in a large class outside Japan is that everyone has a common language other than Japanese. When the class is over, it's pretty awkward to continue speaking in Japanese to classmates.

I've actually had many Japanese tutors for a few years now. 90% are ill-prepared, but when you finally meet someone who knows how to teach, it's really great.

The thing you have to be careful of is that YOU have to play a more active role. You can't expect to sit there and have someone teach you Japanese. You have to be the one teaching yourself Japanese. Your tutor is just there to facilitate your learning and guide you. That means you have to constantly push yourself and ask many questions. Not only asking questions, but knowing how to ask the right questions.

For example, I've had situations where you asked the tutor a grammar question and they say "I don't know. That's just the way it is". When that happens, ask them "can you give a sentence where this grammar is often used AND can you give me an example where it would sound strange". And then you'll compare them in your mind and come to your own conclusions. That's one of the great things about having a tutor. It allows you to experiment without competing with 20 other people for attention.

Another problem with classroom Japanese is that the students speak Japanese in a very non-Japanese kind of way. I've just seen too many students apply American logic to Japanese grammar and the results can be really strange. Grammatically, the sentences may be correct. But no Japanese person would ever speak like that.

I think it's just better to listen to Japanese people talk as much as you can and try to get a sense for how they use Japanese. Even if you don't live near Japanese people, you can always read manga, and watch videos(BitTorrent or youtube).

Something I've been doing lately is watching Youtube videos of Japanese people on the street being interviewed and just copying the way they speak. You'll end up with very natural sounding Japanese.

Kick-starting Your Language Learning is an excellent article, one of a series actually, that suggests how to use a tutor. The reason I provide linkage to this one is that there is a syllabus for vocabulary (4.1.2.1), followed by a syllabus for sentence structures (4.2.2.1). It's generalized to be used for all languages.

I have never taken a single class in Japanese or many other languages that I have managed to master...

so what's your approach serge?

After studying on my own for about three years I have finally got a hard core tutor. A former missionary who's lived in Japan for about 40 years and has teached english and japanese as a hobby for years!

what's your process with your tutor? how did he assess your abilities and how have you progressed? are you using a textbook? how do you balance your sessions with conversation?

taijuando Wrote:so what's your approach serge?

Honestly - I would love to describe my approach but I don't think I have one. My nomadic life certainly helped, as did a degree in linguistics, as did an ability to analyse, absorb and recycle what I hear and see around me in a very efficient way. Although I do believe that having a teacher is a great advantage but not being very punctual I have always preferred having the 'round-the-clock', girlfriendly type of 'teacher'. (I also confess to getting involved in some of these relationships for mainly 'linguistic' reasons...) The other aspect is that I have come to realise that good teachers are few and far between and that it is best to become one's own teacher by solliciting information 'as and when you need it', not when the teacher decides it's time to spoon-feed it to you.

I also believe in beginners' textbooks and don't believe in intermediate/advanced texbooks. For European languages - once you have the basis, it is much more rewarding to go out there and access real-world materials. (Admittedly, the situation with Japanese and Chinese might be slightly different.)

I also believe that Japanese, together with Chinese, might be a case apart. You have to learn how to learn these languages first, before concentrating on actually learning them. So to speak. And this is where a good teacher might play a crucial role. I wasted a lot of time with Japanese at early stages of my study precisely because I assumed it was no different from any other language I knew; became increasingly discouraged and eventually gave up.

Conversely, now I seem to understand much better HOW to learn these languages (for instance: I found out about Heisig, or - in a broader sense - about the radicals and character etymology) and my progress in Japanese and especially (from scratch) in Chinese has been very quick.

So - for the avoidance of doubt - I do believe that a good Teacher is a great asset, whereas most scheduled classes (unless they are on a high level in a specialised linguistic institution) are a less efficient use of time.

As an extreme example, I remember an earlier post by a user of this forum describing how they only started to approach the kanas in their classes after three years (sic!!!) of study.

Learning another language has nothing to do about other people and everything to do with YOU. If you're serious enough to learn, you'll do whatever you can to make use of as many opportunities to better your understanding of a language.

Certainly, your wife didn't marry you to become your tutor. And don't expect any lessons from her either. Japanese wife shouldn't mean "Japanese tutor for life" in the same way that gaijin boyfriend shouldn't mean "English tutor for life".

It's all about how serious you are about putting in the time to learn.

My Japanese is fairly good and I managed to do it without have any real Japanese friends and purely through my computer(dramas,games,manga,etc). I've had Japanese tutors in the past, but only a couple were ever useful.

A mistake that people often make is that people think their tutor will teach them everything while they just passively take everything in. The truth is that the tutor is not really there to teach you, but rather to facilitate your learning and guide you as you discover more about the language on your own. Unless you make a real effort to learn nearly anything the tutor says will go in one ear and out the other.

Not learning Japanese from wife isn't her fault. Japanese just wasn't a top priority for you. You had other things that you prefer to do instead of learning Japanese.

There's nothing shameful about this at all. If you're serious about learning now, then just do whatever you can and don't worry about "the time that you could have used". Don't depend so much on other people and just find your own way. Even your wife has her own life to live.

I actually knew a marriage couple(both are Japanese) from Japan who only spoke English to each other. And their English is better than nearly every Japanese person I've met afterwards! It's because they studied hard and were serious about learning English (especially since neither is a native English speaker!).

of course...don't blame the wife at all...i spend half an hour a day in the morning going over onyumi pronunciations, watch the news in Japanese (usually half an hour), put interesting sentences on to mnemosyne and go over it almost every day, and also go over vis-ed cards....the discussion here of how to actively use a class or a tutor has inspired me....sometimes it helps me to put my money where my mouth is....I'm also trying to learn guitar...I had an okay teacher at an okay price...then I got a teacher who seemed to know more of what he was doing...I taped our lessons and have been replaying them and playing guitar along with the tape and practicing other stuff...you're right the lesson itself doesn't help me play guitar better...it's the practice that I put in between and the information, too.... I like the link on actively using and taping language partners...

Hey fellow teacher,
I decided to go the class route and am enrolled in Japanese 1 at Berkeley for the summer. Boring. Regimented. Boring. The teachers are well qualified, but the method is deadly.
1. Tape a picture on the chalkboard.
2. Introduce a pattern.
3. Practice learning the pattern out of context by rote.
4. Tape another picture on the chalkboard etc.
5. Repeat steps 1-4.
The upside is that I am reviewing. It's just so hard to study consistently on my own. Good luck on the self-study.