Don't underestimate the reasoning powers of the brain. Not everything has to be taught to be learned. If you expose yourself to enough data the patterns will become clear. I often think of the example of a brick wall. If all you focus on is one brick you will find plenty of details but never see the pattern of how the bricks are stacked or how they are combined to form walls etc unless you step back and take in the bigger picture. Language is better studied at the scale it is actually used that is within a context. One method I got a lot of benefit from is watching Japanese online videos, recording the audio and then looping it on my ipod. When watching the videos, I didn't understand a lot of what I heard but I understood enough because of the imagery. Then listening to it later, I was reminded of the videos and with each pass I was hearing more of the vocabulary I know, accurately guessing new vocabulary, and occasionally checking new words in a dictionary. This method works on the same principle as L-R. You give yourself some context and then let the ears/brain figure out the rest.
For anyone who wants to try this, I recommend たけしの万物創世記 (a great educational show about nature and science with Takeshi Kitano) which you can find on youtube. I've also used this method to watch anime series and then loop the audio.

@Aijin. It may be too early to speculate, but after 8 days of LR (adapted to my style) I am putting the method up there with RtK and the Sentence Method.

The Experiment:
Spend 2 days on each chapter.
DAY 1: readL1, readL2/listenL2, readL1/listenL2
DAY 2: readL2/listenL2, readL1/listenL2

No passive listening, no dictionaries, no looking up things in DJG. I'm relying on Krashen's natural order theory for learning grammah & vocabz.

Stage 1: 7/15-8/17 HP1
Stage 2: 7/18-9/22 HP2
Stage 3: 9/23-11/25 吾輩は猫である

Target result: natural listening - ability to understand 95% of 95% percent of everyday things. (ie. HP3-7, podcasts, etc) I will settle for 90% of 90% as well.

As a side note, I'm going to knock out KiC before the end of the year. Hoping for 3 months (and hoping it won't kill me). So this will skew the test results to all hell.

Quote:But, I do think that you are underestimating the brain's ability to make sense out of context.

If we can all just be patient and wait a few months to have actual evidence this wouldn't be necessary. I've done it before I fail to see why I should scare myself into thinking it won't happen again.

Quote:It's one thing to understand all the grammar and vocabulary being used in situations you're already familiar with, but learning hundreds of grammar points in all their different contexts cannot be achieved through a single resource.

I don't think I'll be getting all my grammar points from one source. I'm not going to use Harry Potter and believe that I've learned Japanese from it.

Quote:if you try listening to a Japanese work you have no previous experience with

I just watched some Anime that my kids wanted to watch... I understood very much of the things of I've recognized from Harry Potter in entirely new situations just a few minutes ago.

Quote:Another problem with regards to vocabulary is that it is based upon the specific material. Harry Potter uses a selective group of words based upon the situations and environments in the story.

I think that Krashen article posted yesterday explains some good points contrary to this.

Quote:If someone truly wants to learn all their vocab and grammar from audiobooks, then my personal suggestion would be to do it with material that is more relevent to daily life so as to be more essential for general understanding of the language.

This is a great point, I would rather start with that material; however, I don't know where to find something like that. I know Harry Potter fairly well, hence my reasoning for starting there myself, it was easy to find.

Quote:A wide variety of types of sources are necessary for full-breadth understanding of a language (even if it's only listening comprehension you want) which would require countless audio books in all genres.

This is silly, does one really have to study vocabulary for subjects they're not familiar with before they can understand them? Once one has the basic structure of a language down and can comprehend most of it, the rest falls into place fairly simply. That's why I'm striving for natural listening.

Aijin please have some patience and wait for the results to come in before we continue this argument. Let me waste my time with Harry Potter noise.

@Aijin
I don't think anyone is proposing just using Harry Potter. It's just a starting point, and one that is easy because the OP is very familiar with the story. Sure there will be a lot of magic related vocabulary but all the core vocabulary that makes up the structure of the language is going to be standard useful Japanese. As for grammar, a book like HP will have description, dialogue, questions, answers, requests, orders, quotes and so on. It will demonstrate how the language handles subject, verb, object, indirect object, tenses etc. If after going through HP1 with L-R method the OP can only recognize say 3000 words, that is still better than using the same time to cram 6000 thousand words out of context or studying grammar to a high level out of context and not getting the massive benefit of hours of focused listening.

Finally finished. Man the last chapter was brutal. Does anyone know of any other novels that have Japanese audio books for them? I have been searching for 20 min, but I can't find another book that has a Japanese audio book for it. I'm looking for something more recent.

take a look in the audiobook thread.

nadiatims Wrote:take a look in the audiobook thread.

The problem is most of the books in there are short, and old. I was hoping I could find something more interesting, but it seems like if I want to continue after HP1 and HP2 then I have to use those books. Thanks for the link.

@digitlhand
I'm finding your updates honest and extraordinarily helpful. Please keep posting, and don't waste your time with fruitless arguments. Those who have tried the method know its value and its place.

sheetz Wrote:Personally I have no real expectations of what my language abilities will be after a couple hundred hours of L-R, but I do think it's an interesting experiment and I'll definitely share my results. I suspect one of the turnoffs people have with it is that the whole idea sounds so easy, but it's far from it. It's a very intense and exhausting method, requiring one's full concentration. Many people, I suspect, will not be up to its demands and give up early on.

Agree with this, I'm almost asleep after 30 mins... maybe because I've been using it to send me to sleep for the last 3 months ><

mafried Wrote:I don't think anyone takes the original L-R poster seriously

sheetz Wrote:I always found the L-R method's originator to be thoroughly entertaining and I thought it was pretty obvious that his/her occasional outrageous statements were meant to get under the skin of some of the more pompous individuals who post over there. His/her exchanges with the LingQ founder were classic.

Oh, I can see the entertainment value. And she's a huge fan of sheetz, so she has some good sense. The intentional taunts were fairly obvious, but it was all the rest of it that gave me pause. To a degree that (combined with parts I knew to be crap), I couldn't help but question the veracity and validity of much of the rest. Which becomes relevant if folks are quoting it as authority and basing certain decisions on it. (Especially when the protocol gets separated from the source.)

Quote:I suspect one of the turnoffs people have with it is that the whole idea sounds so easy, but it's far from it. It's a very intense and exhausting method, requiring one's full concentration. Many people, I suspect, will not be up to its demands and give up early on.

Yeah, a few commented that it was too difficult to maintain their concentrate for long or it was just too boring repeating the same material over and over (especially when they couldn't understand it). I'd have guessed most would predict that, though. Luckily, I think audio-listening is easier and more enjoyable for intermediate learners (who I believe will get more bang for their buck).

@digitlhand please keep posting updates and keep your spirits up by steering clear of the fruitless arguments - many people will always be resistant to non-traditional ways of approaching learning. Show them results

@Lyulf well done for getting through the whole book already - nice work. Like others have said, I'm finding it exhausting after about half an hour trying to do this - it takes a lot of concentration and even if I don't want to, my mind is analysing the text the whole time. Guess I just need more practise, and possibly to choose a better time than late at night to try it.

This has probably been asked before, but... how long is the Harry Potter audio book?

1st book 10 hours
2nd book 11.5 hours

Maybe someone can find more audiobooks narrated by 江守徹氏 I really enjoy his voice acting and would listen to anything else he's read.

I found this site... looks like there is an endless amount of audio available here once natural listening is achieved.

http://homepage2.nifty.com/to-saga/roudoku2.htm

Also you can just use movies with JP subtitles. I've been alternating between alice and wonderland and 24. ha ha. big contrast.

Only issue for 24 is they have 2 different translators. It looks like one for the audio and one for the subtitles. げ。。。The good thing is I know when the translation is different.

Gosh, I would love to find something like Hemingway or Faulkner in Japanese audio. I don't mind the HP book because the method is intriguing to work with, but I really don't care for the story -that- much. Everyone says the first book is the most dull compared to the others, so hopefully that changes... But if anyone finds a good modern literature resource, hook me up please (I'm primarily interested in "western" lit, as that's what I know best, but am totally open to pursuing Japanese -- audio books of Murakami's stuff and the like).

I'm going to head down to the Kinokuniya book store today to see what sort of audio books they have...

k.

Kinokuniya doesn't carry any audiobooks... I've checked their website and been to the one in Los Angeles a few times. The best they could do was order what I needed if I had the ISBN number.

Are any of Hemmingways books translated into Japanese? If they are no longer under copyright can we record our own audio of the Japanese translation and share it? I have someone that will record audio for me.

What isn't translated into Japanese? LOL

One blogger who might be asked to help record is the person who runs Japanese Classical Literature at Bedtime. She says about herself: "I enjoy reading aloud, and at the same time, hope to make Japanese classical literature audiobooks as well as modern ones available to the world for free."

digitlhand, that link is in the list of audiobooks thread. I've spent countless hours scouring the net and everything I've found is listed there.

Hemingway's books are definitely translated into Japanese. Searching for アーネスト ヘミングウェイ on amazon or google gives relevant results.

Not sure about copyright information though.

sheetz Wrote:What isn't translated into Japanese? LOL

One blogger who might be asked to help record is the person who runs Japanese Classical Literature at Bedtime. She says about herself: "I enjoy reading aloud, and at the same time, hope to make Japanese classical literature audiobooks as well as modern ones available to the world for free."

digitlhand, that link is in the list of audiobooks thread. I've spent countless hours scouring the net and everything I've found is listed there.

Thanks sheetz, I didn't look before I posted, sorry.

Could anyone tell me if "The Host" by Stephenie Meyer has been translated into Japanese? I know many people hate her vampire series but "The Host" is a really decent adult novel. 98% of the vocabulary in there is normal day to day stuff. It would be about 30 hours worth of audio. ISBN number would be awesome >_<

ISBN:9784797345506

The Costa Mesa Kinokuniya has the translated ザ・ホスト in stock.

Aijin Wrote:ISBN:9784797345506

The Costa Mesa Kinokuniya has the translated ザ・ホスト in stock.

Thanks @Aijin, I'll see if I can pick it up tonight or tomorrow. I appreciate the help.