Hi,
I was just curious, since most people here, and of course the whole principle of RTK,
AJATT, ect, do/are based on self-learning, where do we stand in comparison to graduate students with a japanese major in a 4-5 year-long course?
I mean, regarding the functional language abilities, say, talking, reading, comprehension, is the knowledge gained by an average student in a 4 year-long japanese major course, equivalent to let's say, JLPT1, or, is it even greater? Beside that, how do universities teach kanji, and grammar / vocab? Just the old rote drilling system, or it depends on the university itself? (I'm talking about only state universities). Does anyone have any relevant experience / inforamtion on this?

It really depends on the university. You can't really answer this question well.

Depends. However I highly doubt most (western) universities aim for JLPT 1 or equivalent.

I would say that my university has a pretty good and large Japanese program (Professors have published several books on Japanese Language Instruction which are also used in other universities).

The requirements here for a Japanese major are 6-7 semesters of language study, which puts you on a Level about equivalent to, or a little bit above, JLPT2. How do I know this? Well, if you pass JLPT2 you are allowed to take Fifth-Year Japanese classes, which are no longer a requirement for the major but can be chosen as electives. It's also possible to tell from the textbooks which are being used. The highest required class uses "Authentic Japanese: Progressing from Intermediate to Advanced", which I would put at at a level around JLPT2. The rest of the required classes then no longer have to do with language, but Japanese Literature, History, etc. These classes do not require high Japanese language skills either, i.e. you don't need to able able to read novels, etc fluently.

That's it for the minimum requirements. Thus, somebody who does the minimum amount and graduates with a Japanese major will be at a level around JLPT2. His/Her speaking might be a little better than those of people who are self-studying because he is forced to speak out in the classroom environment. But of course you could obtan equivalent or better speaking abilities by talking to your Japanese friends, doing a language exchange, visiting Japan, watching lots of Japanese media, etc.

But there are certainly people who are very motivated about learning Japanese and thus take fifth-year Japanese classes as their electives. I doubt that even then they will be on a level equivalent to JLPT1 though.

As for teaching methods, Kanji and Vocabulary are not taught in the classroom. Since every courses is accompanied by a book, you are responsible for learning the appropriate Kanji/Words covered in the weeks lesson. How you do it is up to you. The classes focus on some grammar explanations (using the textbook), answering questions and partner/conversation exercises (from the book).

Smackle Wrote:It really depends on the university. You can't really answer this question well.

I hope you are not implying that we should just quit RTK, and AJATT and such, and enroll to a university course, because it's more efficient? Seriously. I just wat to make sure that these are the MOST efficient (=learning the most information in the same amount of time, or learning the same amount of info, in the shortest time duration) methods, ways, that we pursue, to gain (some) japanese proficiency. You can never know. There are smart people teaching at universites who might be using an even more effective way to teach japanese... Because sometimes even RTK seems to take too much time, not to mention falling retention rates, if you (have to) stop reviewing for some time...
So it occured to me that, some unis might be ahead of us aleready, in teaching japanese, that's why my original question...
On a different but not unrelated topic: did it occur to anyone the (maybe dum) question: why do you need to know so much vocab in japanese? Seriously, these numbers are just ridiculous.. 10K for JLPT1 which is advanced, 6K for JLPT2 which is intermediate. As I understand you can't even read a damn newspaper with a knowledge of JLPT2. I'm pretty sure that for example in english, german, spanish, ect. 5000-6000 words is more than enough to be considered advanced. So how come the high number in japanese? It's just too intimidating....more like impossible.
Not to mention that japanese media doesn't seem to use that much of a vocab...I'm confused.

He's not implying anything. He's saying you are comparing thousands of individual self-learning experiences with thousands of universities and asking for a definite answer.

There isn't one.

5000-6000 words probably isn't enough in Western languages either; "to be considered advanced" is a vague phrase, anyone can call themselves advanced or label their class advanced no matter what.

At the university I teach in, the 4 year program would not enable a student to pass JLPT 1. The main reason for this is that we focus on spoken ability much more than reading, so someone who finishes 4th year can give a speech and has a pretty good conversational ability but can't read all that well. The 5th year class addresses this and people who finish 5th year have fairly good speaking and reading.

But as has been pointed out, there's no way to compare since every program and every learner is different. There are people who finish our 4 year program and end up with very little functional Japanese ability, because they didn't study that much and scraped by with C's. On the other hand, there are other dedicated students who reach surprising levels of ability just with the 4-5 years of our program, because they study a lot and do a lot outside of class as well.

Raschaverak Wrote:On a different but not unrelated topic: did it occur to anyone the (maybe dum) question: why do you need to know so much vocab in japanese? Seriously, these numbers are just ridiculous.. 10K for JLPT1 which is advanced, 6K for JLPT2 which is intermediate. As I understand you can't even read a damn newspaper with a knowledge of JLPT2. I'm pretty sure that for example in english, german, spanish, ect. 5000-6000 words is more than enough to be considered advanced. So how come the high number in japanese? It's just too intimidating....more like impossible.
Not to mention that japanese media doesn't seem to use that much of a vocab...I'm confused.

Take a look at how often words are related to each other. With many Kanji come several words that are very similar in meaning. The differences among those can include things like transitivity (intransitive vs. transitive verbs) or word type such verbs vs. nouns. I doubt that these are counted as separate words in other languages. Another thing to consider is politeness. While other languages certainly have more formal and less formals words for similar concepts, the amount of those words won't even come close to the amount in Japanese. That's simply a result of the underlying culture.

Also, in terms of leaning so much vocabulary, knowing the Kanji and related forms makes learning new words much easier than in other languages. 6000-10000 is really not that much.

Just on a side note, this paper answers the question of how many words a necessary for the TOEFL/TOEIC and other English tests: http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~chujo/data/6..._Chujo.pdf

Ironically, it's from universities in Japan.

Raschaverak Wrote:

Smackle Wrote:It really depends on the university. You can't really answer this question well.

I hope you are not implying that we should just quit RTK, and AJATT and such, and enroll to a university course, because it's more efficient? Seriously. I just wat to make sure that these are the MOST efficient (=learning the most information in the same amount of time, or learning the same amount of info, in the shortest time duration) methods, ways, that we pursue, to gain (some) japanese proficiency. You can never know. There are smart people teaching at universites who might be using an even more effective way to teach japanese... Because sometimes even RTK seems to take too much time, not to mention falling retention rates, if you (have to) stop reviewing for some time...
So it occured to me that, some unis might be ahead of us aleready, in teaching japanese, that's why my original question...
On a different but not unrelated topic: did it occur to anyone the (maybe dum) question: why do you need to know so much vocab in japanese? Seriously, these numbers are just ridiculous.. 10K for JLPT1 which is advanced, 6K for JLPT2 which is intermediate. As I understand you can't even read a damn newspaper with a knowledge of JLPT2. I'm pretty sure that for example in english, german, spanish, ect. 5000-6000 words is more than enough to be considered advanced. So how come the high number in japanese? It's just too intimidating....more like impossible.
Not to mention that japanese media doesn't seem to use that much of a vocab...I'm confused.

10,000 doesn't sound that much to me. Think about it, you have to know a lot of vocab to be able to understand and read a lot of japanese text. Same with english. JLPT level 1 is 10,000 vocab and 2042 kanji. JLPT level 1 isn't really considered to be really high. I mean it won't necessarily mean fluency. advanced yes, but fluency is another thing.

If you're wondering why you need to know a lot of vocab compared to other languages. Is because Japanese is a high-context language. Have you noticed when watching japanese news or talk-shows, why they have subtitles almost everywhere. It's because the language itself uses a high-level of different contexts. I'm sure you know 1 type of kanji readings can have multiple kanjis, which can have different meanings for each one. Example: 　 感じ　　漢字　　監事　 =かんじ (all have the same readings, but different context of words. Which leads to different contexts for different meanings and what you're trying to convey.)

TV doesn't have captions because people can't understand spoken Japanese. (There are no captions in real life bee tee dubz.)

The most intriguing method I've come across being taught at a university was at 東京外言語大学　(aka TUFS). Some friends of mine (日本人） went here to study German, and in their German classes the instructor would lecture on a current events news topic or other German culture related topic and give out vocab sheets and other material to help them learn. The idea is similar to the self study methods practiced here of course, simultaneously learning grammar, vocab while using readers and native source material.

I'm curious if this method is used in the US at all. Of course, this class was one of the more advanced classes so I don't know how their lower level classes looked. The problem in the US with language teaching seems to be every student is pretty much a beginner at the freshman level. The only language learning experience a student has likely had is some high school classes.

ta12121 Wrote:Have you noticed when watching japanese news or talk-shows, why they have subtitles almost everywhere. It's because the language itself uses a high-level of different contexts.

Uh, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the subtitles are more for emphasis of an important (or amusing) point, or to highlight something on a variety show when half a dozen タレント are talking over the top of each other I can't see how it could be for context, because most of the things that come up in the subtitles I could understand without it, so I'd seriously doubt native speakers would be having trouble...

With regard to the OP's question, there's no 'standard' in tertiary-level Japanese teaching; it varies between institutions. At both my undergrad and postgrad universities, there were ten 'levels' of Japanese study, each representing a semester. As we complete equivalent degrees in a shorter timeframe than our North American counterparts (B Arts, B Science, B Commerce are three year degrees), there's no way you'd complete all ten levels before you graduated. So someone coming in 'fresh' at absolute beginner level (Japanese 1) would probably only make it to Level 6, which I think is somewhere either side of the old JLPT2. If you came in having done standard-level high school Japanese, you'd enter at Japanese 3 and finish at 8, and 'extension' (advanced) high school Japanese could start you at, say, Japanese 5 and finish at 10 (which I think was JLPT1-ish).

As ThomasB an yudantaiteki mentioned, speaking/listening and reading/writing are the point of difference. After 12 months self-study, I could read and write at a higher level than most students commencing Japanese 3, but could barely speak (whereas they could hold basic conversations). It threw my Japanese conversation exchange partners for a loop when we met - "how can you write like an adult, but speak like a toddler?!" A couple of months of drilling with the somewhat controversial Japanese: The Spoken Language and I seem to be sorting this out. The drill tapes are my surrogate university Japanese classes (only without annoying classmates slowing the lesson down with stupid questions ).

@theBryan: my teachers used that method in high school and university French classes in the 90s and 00s. I thought it was pretty standard practice? Do courses still exist where you learn 100% from a textbook? :O

Raschaverak Wrote:I hope you are not implying that we should just quit RTK, and AJATT and such, and enroll to a university course, because it's more efficient?

You know what the most efficient way to learn a language is? Finding what works for you and enjoying yourself. For some people 3-5 years of guided university study is the most efficient way, as they'd drift aimlessly on their own. As to self study, there's a thousand ways to skin that cat - just look at that thread about users' study methods. There's no one perfect route. I assume you know that already, though. At least, I hope you do...

I'm currently majoring in Japanese, and let me tell you: the only thing it did for me was "get me started."

I went into college thinking "hell, why NOT take Japanese classes?" so I took them simply on a whim. Then I decided I would take them until I graduated. Then I decided a major was simple, and I had nothing to lose by majoring in it.

The best thing about the classes was the community surrounding it. Especially after the first year. It was like having this forum (motivated people, helping each other, no real over-the-top anime people) in person. If there's one thing that I am most grateful for from my classes, it's definitely the people I met, and the motivation they gave me/each other. Of course, this could be specific to my school/personal situation.

How did they teach?
First year: Genki 1 and 2. They try to make discussions interactive and fun. They don't want to bore you.
2nd year: An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese: Similar to 1st year, except that discussions are more fact-based, and you can't use your imagination as much.
eg. First year is about learning a grammar point, so you could say whatever ridiculous thing you wanted, whereas 2nd year was about answering questions about the text you read using the grammar point.
3+4th year: Read/watch native materials. Talk about it. It's like a regular class, and it's boring. They expect you to speak pretty well, but it's really probably only borderline JLPT 2, depending on how active you were in class.

Best advice:
Take the classes, but use it as a resource, not the source of learning. They're fun (maybe), teachers can answer your questions (even when not related to class), and it keeps you on track studying when you feel like slacking.

auxetoiles Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:Have you noticed when watching japanese news or talk-shows, why they have subtitles almost everywhere. It's because the language itself uses a high-level of different contexts.

Uh, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the subtitles are more for emphasis of an important (or amusing) point, or to highlight something on a variety show when half a dozen タレント are talking over the top of each other I can't see how it could be for context, because most of the things that come up in the subtitles I could understand without it, so I'd seriously doubt native speakers would be having trouble...

With regard to the OP's question, there's no 'standard' in tertiary-level Japanese teaching; it varies between institutions. At both my undergrad and postgrad universities, there were ten 'levels' of Japanese study, each representing a semester. As we complete equivalent degrees in a shorter timeframe than our North American counterparts (B Arts, B Science, B Commerce are three year degrees), there's no way you'd complete all ten levels before you graduated. So someone coming in 'fresh' at absolute beginner level (Japanese 1) would probably only make it to Level 6, which I think is somewhere either side of the old JLPT2. If you came in having done standard-level high school Japanese, you'd enter at Japanese 3 and finish at 8, and 'extension' (advanced) high school Japanese could start you at, say, Japanese 5 and finish at 10 (which I think was JLPT1-ish).

As ThomasB an yudantaiteki mentioned, speaking/listening and reading/writing are the point of difference. After 12 months self-study, I could read and write at a higher level than most students commencing Japanese 3, but could barely speak (whereas they could hold basic conversations). It threw my Japanese conversation exchange partners for a loop when we met - "how can you write like an adult, but speak like a toddler?!" A couple of months of drilling with the somewhat controversial Japanese: The Spoken Language and I seem to be sorting this out. The drill tapes are my surrogate university Japanese classes (only without annoying classmates slowing the lesson down with stupid questions ).

@theBryan: my teachers used that method in high school and university French classes in the 90s and 00s. I thought it was pretty standard practice? Do courses still exist where you learn 100% from a textbook? :O

Raschaverak Wrote:I hope you are not implying that we should just quit RTK, and AJATT and such, and enroll to a university course, because it's more efficient?

You know what the most efficient way to learn a language is? Finding what works for you and enjoying yourself. For some people 3-5 years of guided university study is the most efficient way, as they'd drift aimlessly on their own. As to self study, there's a thousand ways to skin that cat - just look at that thread about users' study methods. There's no one perfect route. I assume you know that already, though. At least, I hope you do...

I think you're right on the emphasis part. But in general the language is a high-context one. So many different contexts but I know that's one of the reasons why subtitles are almost everywhere in news.

auxetoiles Wrote:@theBryan: my teachers used that method in high school and university French classes in the 90s and 00s. I thought it was pretty standard practice? Do courses still exist where you learn 100% from a textbook? :O

For beginners level classes I would say yes, many instructors still teach almost exclusively from a textbook like Genki or something similar. Which does make sense, you got to start somewhere I guess.

For me, once I did study abroad, the classes I took at the host uni were taught in Japanese and used a similar discussion approach to get us talking about things using the grammar point we just learned. However, it was all from the textbook and having very little context it felt like everyone was just cranking out fill in the blank sentences. Again though, they were equivalent to sophomore level courses--between JPLT old 3 and 4. Although even the higher level classes (which I should have been in but that's another story) used the same approach only with more difficult texts. So in short yes there are places that unfortunately use an almost entirely textbook approach.

The real question is how do you compare a self study to a university study? Something tells me when you get right down to it, they'll both look the same when you compare actual hours of both STUDY and RECREATIONAL VIEWING/READING/CONVERSATION (I going start using "recreational" instead of "immersion" thanks to a point made by Mike Cash in another forum).

University is likely to stress more conversation and writing, so the students will show that as a strength. Self study (at least the type I see talked about in this forum) seems to stress reading and listening more. When you compare hours in each area, I will wager they'd mesh with abilities.

Guess it's like what was posted above, classes are just a resource: an expensive, inconvenient resource ^_^

Smiley face aside, if a University class is what it takes to get people into Japanese then it's the best thing in the world. If the classes turn people off, then it's the worst. Each person makes that case, not the class.

PS: Met the Japanese professor for the George Washington aircraft carrier in Yokosuka. Ironically, he's from Washington and definitely seems fluent in Japanese to me ie way above my level. If I get a chance, I wouldn't mind getting some insight from him on teaching Sailors and Marines the Japanese language. From the little we talked, he started off self studying but now is going for his doctorate in language study or some such.

Nukemarine Wrote:Guess it's like what was posted above, classes are just a resource: an expensive, inconvenient resource ^_^

This being said, I wouldn't suggest to anyone to major just in Japanese.
It happened to be incredibly convenient for me:
Computer Science Major (science classes) = Need to take Lit Classes
Japanese Major (lit classes) = Need to take Science Classes
Put them together, and it's a puzzle-perfect double major

Not only is it expensive to go to university, but if you're doing it just for Japanese, you are wasting your money. Nobody will care if you have a Japanese degree if you can't actually use the language.
If you are going to university anyway, then I would say go ahead and take the classes (if you're a beginner) if you have room in your schedule.

Asriel Wrote:Not only is it expensive to go to university, but if you're doing it just for Japanese, you are wasting your money. Nobody will care if you have a Japanese degree if you can't actually use the language.

I highly doubt most people would care even if you can actually use the language.

ThomasB Wrote:Just on a side note, this paper answers the question of how many words a necessary for the TOEFL/TOEIC and other English tests: http://www5d.biglobe.ne.jp/~chujo/data/6..._Chujo.pdf

Ironically, it's from universities in Japan.

Its really hard to believe that a very small vocabulary would be sufficient to pass these tests. English is my L2, I've done TOEIC and there is just no way 4k vocabulary (or 3k word families) comes close, it's an easy test but not THAT easy. I'm slowly getting there in my Japanese and I still can't understand anything with 95% coverage even if its directed at kids let alone a casual/formal conversation in a business setting.

This could mean three things, either the paper is wrong (and it happens very often for various reasons), Japanese needs more words to achieve comprehension or this last chunk of words I'm going to learn is worth around 60% comprehension

As always with scientific papers they should be taken with a grain of salt, you can write one defending any kind of argument and make it look legit at a glance but that doesn't mean its correct.

I've only taken Japanese 1 at a University, and Japanese 1 and 2 at a community college. At the university, we covered a third of Yookoso! (presumably because my university worked on the quarter system) and at community college, Japanese 1 and 2 finished Genki 1.

I thought that majoring in Japanese teaches you more than just the language. Don't they teach you history and linguistics and culture and such?

At my university, to major in Japanese Language and Literature requires:
8 Semesters Japanese classes total of 34(?) credits
2 Literature classes (pre-modern/modern) total of 6 credits
1 History class total of 3 credits (maybe...?)
1 Dept. Elective, total of 3 credits

So it's a total of 46 credits, the vast majority being the language. My adviser told me that the other classes are basically just "tacked on to make it look academic."

Of course there's all the other stupid requirements to graduate in any major: communication, ethnic studies, science, etc...

I'm minoring in japanese, but my course pretty much sucks. In 3 years we'll finish both Minna no nihongo. It's the only accredited university course where I live (there are only 2, lol).

I have 4 days of classe per week (japanese have twice a week), and 5 tests per week. Japanese is the subject I'd like to study more but it's the one I study less. On the weekeng I study Geography of China and Japan, on monday and tuesday I study chinese (and 30 minutes of japanese) to make sure I know all the text, on wednesday I study geography again and on thursday I study japanese.

I want to use japanese in my professional career, do you think I should do? Continue on this course or learn japanese by myself and go to International relations (or others...)?

I think you should major in whatever you want to do as a career, independent of language. As long as you are fluent in the language no one will care if there is a Japanese major or minor on your degree. On the contrary, it might even be MORE impressive not having a Japanese major/minor and still be fluent in the language. That shows dedication and legitimate interest.

Therefore if you want to go into international relations, that's what I would do.

Raschaverak Wrote:Hi,
I was just curious, since most people here, and of course the whole principle of RTK,
AJATT, ect, do/are based on self-learning, where do we stand in comparison to graduate students with a japanese major in a 4-5 year-long course?
I mean, regarding the functional language abilities, say, talking, reading, comprehension, is the knowledge gained by an average student in a 4 year-long japanese major course, equivalent to let's say, JLPT1, or, is it even greater? Beside that, how do universities teach kanji, and grammar / vocab? Just the old rote drilling system, or it depends on the university itself? (I'm talking about only state universities). Does anyone have any relevant experience / inforamtion on this?

I've taken first and second year Japanese at my state university before I decided to quit all language classes and go the self study route, and I've talked to some people who were taking fourth year Japanese afterwards.
Generally, fourth year Japanese takers were about JLPT 2 level although it may vary from college to college. They use Japanese: The Spoken Language and Japanese: The Written Language (Field edition) at my school. Those books and their teaching style weren't really for me so I dreaded going. Probably the worst part of language class for me was not being able to pick the textbook used... Anyway, as for JWL (and most Japanese textbooks I've seen) they use the route drilling method to learn kanji. JWL seems to only teach the one or two kanji readings that are used in words in the text, and don't seem to tell you there are others out there. And there's a lot of nihonjinron in Japanese classes (about kanji especially). My former teacher said "I'll teach you as few kanji as I can get away with" and the first day she introduced kanji
she went on and on about how difficult they are, and then the whole class began to believe it and fear kanji...and used them as few times as they could get away with.
Reading was rarely brought up in class, and when the teacher made students read aloud from the reading passage, they took so long, even with kanji they were supposed to have learned a few lessons ago, because of lack of practice.
Other major setbacks with Japanese classes I found were most students terrible accents, and every student only wanted to talk in English in breaks and asked questions in English. And if I tried to talk in Japanese, they looked at me as if I wanted to torture them, and answered in English. Studying with other students has it's setbacks.