Hello everyone, I don't want to be rude, that would be the last thing I would want to o to this community, but I have a question concerning this forum.

Almost all the post are in English. Japanese is rarely used. I understand that there is a huge gap between the levels of students but I think there should be a bit more Japanese such as bilingual forum names and such. Whenever I type in Japanese here I feel slightly awkward, mainly because I am the only one who does so even though there are MANY people more 上手い than I here.

What are your thoughts on this?
(Yes I do realise the irony that my anti-Englush post is in English.)

*hold up flame-sheild*

I usually just skip over your Japanese, myself. I'm glad you incorporate the practice, but I don't want to read other learners' Japanese and I'm not really interested in code-switching per comment so much as quickly skimming posts for information (strats, tools) esp. when I'm taking 'breaks' from Japanese. ;p

Oh so it's difficult to code both Japanese and English? I didn't think of that.

"break"? So it's like AJST (All Japanese Sometimes) I'm just teasing.

Well thank you for your reponse! I won't write my comments in Japanese anymore.
(Except for explanations and such.)

With too many non-natives here and probably very few corrections being thrown around (a probably some false corrections sometimes), it might be more harmful than beneficial. I know people that speak Japanese very fluidly now, but still make mistakes because they practiced often with non-natives who wouldn't correct them (or wouldn't be able to).

So, while a cool idea, I say leave the Japanese writing to lang-8.

Thank you for comment. That makes a lot of sense. I never thought of the harm... I was just thinking it would be a great way to practice. Thanks for the advice!

I've always made an effort to avoid non-native Japanese, and encourage people who ask 'anyone wanna chat on Skype?' to do the same. You'd probably spend at least five times as much time typing a post on here in Japanese, so you're definitely better off using the time for natural exchange with natives through 文字チャット or something.

Thanks for your comment.
It does take longer to write for most people, but I have written many of the same things in Lang-8 so much that it's become habitual. However reading takes at least 3 times to read as English. Your'e right about might as well using that time with natives.

gyuujuice - No, I meant 'code-switching' in the linguistic sense (try Googling it if you are unfamiliar with the term). Loosely. If I'm skimming through English and see a non-native tossing in random words and phrases in Japanese mixed in, to me that's more a bit of gibberish that I would've avoided anyway, so spending even a split second slipping in and out of Japanese for it, I wouldn't want to bother, and especially I wouldn't want to make it a constant thing.

PS - I don't do AJATT. I am a RevTKer. We do what we want.

It's kind of a confusing term because the term "code" is being used with a technical linguistic meaning that isn't readily apparent to non-linguists, particularly since "code" is commonly used for many other meanings as well.

I just took it to mean something similar to the fact that you can't have Ruby code inside a C application. It wouldn't compile.

Nonsense. This is impossible.

lol, I thought most people were familiar with the term "code-switching". Guess I'll be more careful how I use it.

When I want to communicate in Japanese, I do it with natives or at least people who are fluent. I don't like being exposed to non-native Japanese which tends to be filled with errors, especially not in a conversation format since in my experience, communication is what you imprint the most from. I know for a fact that people who aren't fluent speak unnatural Japanese, I definitely do it myself. When I do it with a japanese person, it's alright because I'm going to automatically mimic them and correct it, but in a conversation with a non-native, that's a big no-no.

Like nest0r, I tend to skip your Japanese posts because of this reason.

Tobberoth Wrote:When I want to communicate in Japanese, I do it with natives or at least people who are fluent. I don't like being exposed to non-native Japanese which tends to be filled with errors, especially not in a conversation format since in my experience, communication is what you imprint the most from. I know for a fact that people who aren't fluent speak unnatural Japanese, I definitely do it myself. When I do it with a japanese person, it's alright because I'm going to automatically mimic them and correct it, but in a conversation with a non-native, that's a big no-no.

Like nest0r, I tend to skip your Japanese posts because of this reason.

I agree exactly with Tobberoth.

And I agree exactly with you.

Thank you everyone for your input. ^__^'

It's so easy to make some people change their minds.

Also, not everyone here's learning Japanese, too. Incidentally,

Quote:(Yes I do realise the irony that my anti-Englush post is in English.)

= "By the way, I'm aware of the irony of appearing on TV in order to decry it. So don't bother pointing that out"?

Sebastion, that's interesting since your kanji-avatar is "loyalty". ^__^

donjorge22, right but it depends on where you post. I was referring mainly to the Japanese forum. I didn't quite get your second point. I wrote that so no-one would bother writing what you did. I just knew someone would point it out.

Concern about others not reading your posts should be no reason not to post in Japanese if it is good practice for you. Generally, I don't read a post over ten sentences long, but it would be silly to suggest a Twitter-style forum. If I wasn't so anal about making mistakes to the point it would take me an hour to write one post, I would type them all in English with the Japanese translation following.

IceCream Wrote:i disagree. i think every bit of practise you do makes you a little better. i agree that most of the practise you do should be correctable, but you can also see and correct half of your own mistakes (certainly after a while). As long as you have an open mind towards fixing your own mistakes, and you get a ton of natural reading practise, it really shouldn't matter. People should write japanese here if they feel like it, i think. Half the time, there's too much stuff i don't know how to say in japanese right now, but if i've been doing a ton of japanese reading that day, sometimes i feel like it too...

I think it's fine to write in Japanese if you want to. I'm just saying I won't read it. I'm not afraid of my own mistakes, I'm afraid of others mistakes.

If you want to write Japanese go for it. If I see things on here that are wrong it reinforces the fact it's wrong. Sometimes I'm not sure and then I check it. If it's wrong or right, either way I remember.

I can think of better things to do with my time than read and correct learner-Japanese. I'd rather stick with my current methods of using Japanese materials, or have some system where I can read and correct learner-English as posted by native/fluent Japanese, and then perhaps in turn they can correct my learner-Japanese, in a location devoted to this exchange. Hmm, that would be amazing! ;p I would call it... Lang-7?

gyuujuice Wrote:"break"? So it's like AJST (All Japanese Sometimes)

Yes, actually. That's exactly what most of us a doing...

SammyB Wrote:

gyuujuice Wrote:"break"? So it's like AJST (All Japanese Sometimes)

Yes, actually. That's exactly what most of us a doing...

違いよ

nest0r Wrote:I don't do AJATT. I am a RevTKer. We do what we want.

Hahaha - I like the cut of your jib!