I don't live in japan.

I asked a japanese friend to have language exchange together. Something like 90 min (japanese) + 90 min (english or estonian). She said that one other common friend would like to participate too and of course I agreed.

There would be me learning japanese + 2 japanese women, who would like to learn english and/or estonian.

I'm thinking that is it good or bad that there's two of them? What are the pros and cons?

What cons could there be? The more the merrier -- particularly those of the women type. ;P

I do not think that there should be any problems with you learning Japanese from them, since more conversation partners=more feedback. As for you teaching them both English/Estonian, as long as the women are at about the same level and as long as they have the same goals you will do fine. But if there is a huge difference, then approaching them separately would be a better idea.

vonPeterhof Wrote:I do not think that there should be any problems with you learning Japanese from them, since more conversation partners=more feedback. As for you teaching them both English/Estonian, as long as the women are at about the same level and as long as they have the same goals you will do fine. But if there is a huge difference, then approaching them separately would be a better idea.

x2

There's a chance that they might differ on the best way to say something in Japanese, and you might end up more confused than before. But I don't that that'll be a big issue. You should go for it.

battlehymnz Wrote:There's a chance that they might differ on the best way to say something in Japanese, and you might end up more confused than before.

I would consider this a plus. If they are in agreement, then you can be fairly certain that what they are saying is correct. If they disagree on something, this should give you a signal that there are some subtleties and nuances that you should investigate on your own, perhaps by asking about them on this forum.

-So we finally had the lesson.

We went to our Korean friends' restaurant the 3 of us.
We spoke japanese for an hour since we met, and then 1 hour of english...
and one of my friends turned up unexpectedly during the english time, so we all spoke in english together ...I made a lot of jokes in english to reinforce something new and it was fun so the japanese liked it.

As to the japanese part...I told them in the beginning that my main priorities are
1) talking faster
2) Having better pronunciation
3) them correcting my mistakes ( at which point I could feel that they got a bit uneasy when I mentioned it
...Probably because:
1) Our conversations are to fast to correct all the mistakes or
2) I make too many mistakes (which scares me)

Results:

* They corrected me only when I asked the especially, and maybe 30% of those times I didn't understand what they were trying to say...and I just nodded, because I didn't want them to use their dictionaries or tell the english equivalent.
* They didn't help with pronunciation unless I asked
*Most of the time when we talked, I was the one talking... my speech maybe got a bit faster, but their talk participated only in about 20% of the whole conversation, which is strange...perhaps they know that my vocab is too small to understand their talk so they don't speak much OR they're using only simple talk, which they know I can understand( this makes me think about how to improve when they mostly use simple vocab that I know.
...basically it was as if one of our usual days when we're hanging out together. They weren't trying to teach me so much. The whole thing was my idea...maybe that's why I did most of the talk in english and japanese and brought out all kinds of topics.

I think it was a success, as they asked me to have a lesson already this week
I'm trying to correct their mistakes and help with vocabulary and conjugation as much as I can, but their part seems a bit inactive, maybe because I taught them english with my ideas after we already had had the japanese part.

The idea of having the lesson with the 3 of us was good, because it was more interesting, and when I was eating I could listen to them talking to each other, so I didn't waste time when eating.

On the other hand they are perhaps not very frank about my weaknesses, pronunciation and mistakes, as the talk is less personal because it's 3 of us ...and it becomes a group-talk.

The bad part about there being 2 of them is that as their english is VEERY SLOW then when one is talking and anwsering to my question the other person becomes bored i think.

SORRY FOR SO MUCH TALK!

jettyke Wrote:The idea of having the lesson with the 3 of us was good, because it was more interesting, and when I was eating I could listen to them talking to each other, so I didn't waste time when eating.

:lol:

Hey, so it turned out nice.
Yes, two people face-to-face is probably better in terms of involvement (correcting and such -- but it formalizes the setting too much). But you kept it fluid, so that's probably the best achievement. Congratulations.

jettyke Wrote:On the other hand they are perhaps not very frank about my weaknesses, pronunciation and mistakes, as the talk is less personal because it's 3 of us ...and it becomes a group-talk.

You might have to give them some guidelines. Having them stop you every time you make a mistake is going to run contrary to your #1 priority, it's socially awkward, and some mistakes just aren't worth the effort. Maybe ask them to correct repeated mistakes (e.g. if someone kept adding だ after an い-adjective), help you with collocations (is that the most natural verb to use with that noun?), or something specific you want to improve on. You could focus on one or two areas each time. It's likely the corrections would actually stick if they were focused like this, too.

Personally, with pronunciation, I'd feel a bit awkward. Even if somebody told me to correct a particular sound, I wouldn't want to stop them and say 'no, it should be...'. Again, focusing makes it a lot easier for them. Maybe read up on some sounds you feel you're having trouble with beforehand and then ask them to check your progress, or try asking where they put their tongue, how they shape their lips etc. It's unlikely they know much about phonology, so I wouldn't expect too much.

Just my opinion of course. I pretty much just go with the flow with my language exchange friends, so I'm not so familiar with a more study-based approach.

1 vs 2 language exchanges are the best.

Especially when you're talking to a husband and wife.
The arguments are really funny sometimes.

With a 1 vs 1 exchange, there is only one conversation going on:
you talking to the other person

In a 1 vs 2 exchange, there are 4 conversations:
you and person #1
you and person #2
person #1 and person #2
you talking to both person #1 and #2 at the same time

From my experience, working off these 4 conversations
is the key to successful 1 vs 2 exchanges.

Recently, I had a 1 vs 2 exchange. The girl brought her sister.
She forgot to mention that it was her TWIN sister....and both
were hot....I was seeing double the whole time... :-p

EratiK Wrote:

jettyke Wrote:The idea of having the lesson with the 3 of us was good, because it was more interesting, and when I was eating I could listen to them talking to each other, so I didn't waste time when eating.

:lol:

Hey, so it turned out nice.
Yes, two people face-to-face is probably better in terms of involvement (correcting and such -- but it formalizes the setting too much). But you kept it fluid, so that's probably the best achievement. Congratulations.

Thanks! I also think that keeping it fluid was important.

Javizy Wrote:Just my opinion of course. I pretty much just go with the flow with my language exchange friends, so I'm not so familiar with a more study-based approach.

Thanks for your opinion, I can say that what you're saying seems right as to my current situation.
I think I should make them concentrate on 1 thing at a time, so that it's easier for them to correct me.

Perhaps speaking faster is an aftereffect of having been talking for long enough and having solid vocab, grammar, pronunciation. Maybe getting my mistakes corrected is more important to concentrate on, because it's harder to do so when simply hanging out or when talking during a party.

chamcham Wrote:1 vs 2 language exchanges are the best.


Recently, I had a 1 vs 2 exchange. The girl brought her sister.
She forgot to mention that it was her TWIN sister....and both
were hot....I was seeing double the whole time... :-p

I assume you'll be doing this again? :p

fyi I had female Japanese roommates for several years before moving here and one of the dangers you face is learning feminine Japanese.

I speak from experience. haha o__O;

So some time has passed, and I'm hoping/going to continue hanging out with one of those people previously mentioned in the first post.

I'm thinking that as I'm using lang-8 to correct my mistakes each time before I'm writing messages to people anyways, then perhaps this would be enough to correct my speaking?

I still don't know whether it's more important to concentrate on having my mistakes or pronunciation corrected while speaking.

Perhaps writing and speaking are so different that it's better to have my mistakes corrected while speaking?

It's just about using the resources I have as smart as I can...

jettyke Wrote:So some time has passed, and I'm hoping/going to continue hanging out with one of those people previously mentioned in the first post.

I'm thinking that as I'm using lang-8 to correct my mistakes each time before I'm writing messages to people anyways, then perhaps this would be enough to correct my speaking?

I still don't know whether it's more important to concentrate on having my mistakes or pronunciation corrected while speaking.

Perhaps writing and speaking are so different that it's better to have my mistakes corrected while speaking?

It's just about using the resources I have as smart as I can...

A one-on-one relationship that works is best. Occasional meetings with more than one native speaker at a time is nice too, though.

As for the amount of correction to request, there is no perfect answer and it's really a matter of personal taste. I'll take as much correction as I can while it not completely interrupting the flow of things. Make sure you reuse anything that got corrected as much as possible to reinforce it.