@blackmacros: I agree that it does become less and less. It's just that I think it's harmful to encourage this habit at all, and that it's better to avoid having to reverse the damage it does.

nest0r Wrote:@blackmacros

I don't know, the way I see it, classes/education systems need to be overhauled, and what they provide at present can mostly be duplicated/augmented/replaced with the kinds of resources we self-students are so up-to-date with.

Oh yeah I totally agree that classes/education system needs an overhaul. My Japanese comprehension (reading & listening) is miles ahead of my Indonesian, despite having only studied it for less than a year ( 4 years less than I've studied Indonesian). But I do think classes can produce good output skills. The problem is, they're not worth it just for that lone benefit. Especially when you can get the same (or better) effect just by making an effort to talk to people in your target language.

I don't want this to turn into another classes discussion, but I see classes as a transitioning tool. They cannot cover everything a language consists of, but they are responsible for transitioning you to the point that you can comprehend real world language and learn from it. There are bad classes and there are good classes.

To be frank, if an individual is guided and self-reliant enough, they do not need a class. However, not all individuals can steer themselves in a way that is efficient.

I think it would be good for intermediate students to talk to native speakers, but have the native speakers speak in a simplified yet natural way. (With either less complicated vocabulary or shorter sentences- whatever the learner will understand.) As mentioned before, a good way of correcting learners, when necessary, is to mimic their speech correctly.　You might want to be sure you know the intent of what they're saying though.

A: I walked dog today.
B: You walked a dog today? How did you like it?
A: Walking a dog is fun.

If you can find someone that can do this in a series of many conversations, you're golden. In IceCream's case, I think she might have magamo.

The thing is, I think those who are anti-class, as it were, are more anti-institution/ government controlled curriculum/ rigid top-down format/ obsession with grades/etc. etc. You can keep the exercises, atmosphere, whatever, just transition it/restructure it from an 'unschooled'/'deschooled', perspective, methinks. Some universities do pretty well at that, or they have professors that manage to work around the limitations, but there's so much bloated, necrotic flesh that needs to be cut away, it's ridiculous.

There's also the problem that proper error correction is not really feasible in many classes that advocate production from a very low level. Students will often not detect each other's errors, so they can't correct them, even if they would have otherwise. Teachers, on the other hand, may refrain from error correction out of the belief that by correcting too many errors they would discourage further speaking.

Ice Cream may be the best example of what a person can accomplish in a short time if you give all of your attention to learning Japanese. It makes me want to take a year off from work and do the same. Ten hours a day for one year is the same as two hours a day for five years. If a person has the will power, it seems to be possible.

bodhisamaya Wrote:Ten hours a day for one year is the same as two hours a day for five years.

I don't think it really works that way. You just get diminishing returns after a few hours. Which is also why working on a language a little bit every day seems to work very well compared to trying to cram the same amount of study once a week. I'm also getting more and more convinced that the brain sometimes just needs time to assimilate new knowledge.

Wow if what magamo said doesn't get you motivated theres no helping you! Someday I dream of a Japanese person saying that to me.. apart from the girl part I guess.

I bow to you magamo and your power of motivation.

One thing that might benefit you is to look for "pattern errors"; in other words, mistakes that you keep making over and over again. To confront those sorts of mistakes you might post here and see if you can get a more detailed explanation of the grammar, and another possibility is to memorize some sentences using the pattern -- either the sentences you wrote that were later corrected, or other ones that seem vivid to you. Memorization and mechanical drills can help, but of course those aren't as interesting.

IceCream Wrote:also, guys, honestly, i'm not this kind of learning-monster that you think!!! i'm actually really lazy. I can't think of a time when i've spent 10 hours a day, but if i do, a lot of that time is just watching a drama or something anyway.

You must be some kind of language genius then. There is no way I could have written a long post in less than one year. It has been close to three years now and it still takes me 1~2 hours to write an entry on Lang-8 looking up the most appropriate words and triple checking my grammar.

If you´re having difficulty with some particular uses of particals, how about some Anki cards where you have to fill in the particals?

Just dropping in to say that to actually be able to write things in Japanese in just 10 months, albeit still a bit glittered with mistakes, is amazing.

I remember during my Junior High school, where I first started using English as the language for interaction in the classroom. I would turn in, for my English essays, elaborate stories that usually exceed the limit the teacher set. Like a 700 words narrative composition for a 300-400 word limit essay.

Also, since I was still mostly clueless on how grammar works back then (what word to use with what, which is a set phrase and which is not, is this an idiom or not, metaphor? simile?), I remember getting a LOT of red corrections over my paper. By a lot I mean A LOT, which sometimes gave me embarrassment when my classmates ask to see what I wrote for the assignment. I wrote both pages fully, and both of them have red corrections up and down the paper. I would have no idea why a different tense is used in this regard, how prepositions work with verbs, how would I know set phrases, et cetera.

That was seventh grade. I still have English essays now and then after my first essays, and most of them, too, are contaminated by the dreaded red marks.

By tenth grade my paper was almost flawless. There's only a handful of red ink on my paper. Most of the paper would usually be in black or blue pen I wrote in and that's it.

In fact, I think I progressed so well (if I may say so myself, though that might not be the real case) that I was literally upset when I found out that for my IGCSE I had a B in English.

Fast forward like one or two months after I took the IGCSE, I had to prepare myself for the TOEFL as I'm preparing to study in the States. My preparation was a run-through practice through one of the free sample exams on the internet, and then I played my whole day. I had 112 out of 120 in the iBT. I was only dampened by the speaking part. I had 30/30 for my writing part.

Personal rambling, might sound like bragging, I know, apologies and sorry if it does. Moral of the story that is at least related to the topic, as small as it might be: Just keep at it. いつか出来るもん。

IceCream Wrote:btw, i thought the name you chose for your daughter is really beautiful!!! i think i forgot to comment...

花麗（はなれい）

I've started to write regularly on Lang-8, yet, aside from bringing some mistakes to light, how are others going about improving from their mistakes?

I think it's helping just to force out some written Japanese every day.

Old post, but avoiding doing vocab study as tired.

For people who need to get particles straight, the best (fastest) way for me is pick a particle (usually one of the common [ridiculously complex] ones first が、は、に、で、を) and make 10-20 sentences on Lang-8. Inspect corrections and redo, if needed.