Asriel Wrote:DON'T:
Compare yourselves with others.

There's a group of friends I have, and we all studied in Japan last year (although at different universities). We came back, and it seems like their conversation skills and active vocab increased more than me. It became almost intimidating to talk to them. Don't let that kind of thing get in your way -- don't be afraid to be mistakes, make a fool of yourself.

Learning the language is your own journey, and if you let your pride get in the way of your using it, you'll never improve.

*I still have problems with this when talking to certain people.

true. Don't try to compare yourself to others as there will be always people who are better than you(not me). Your progress is noticeable by yourself. Just keep setting goals for yourself and you'll get to where you want in no time.

Don't:

...put off study
...copy decks (It helps me to make them myself)
...take Japanese classes or do anything with Rosetta Stone
...wait until your "fluent" to buy books/mags etc
...underestimate vocabulary (learn something new everyday)
...use pronouns unless you ABSOLUTELY have to (I had bad experience with 彼女)
...write in kanji just because you can
...be arrogant when you get corrections
...fear Japanese (newspapers to conversations)
...don't be passive with your study (be active!)

... Some of those are obvious but whatever.

gyuujuice Wrote:Don't:

...put off study
...copy decks (It helps me to make them myself)
...take Japanese classes or do anything with Rosetta Stone
...wait until your "fluent" to buy books/mags etc
...don't underestimate vocabulary (learn something new everyday)
...use pronouns unless you ABSOLUTELY have to (I had bad experience with 彼女)
...write in kanji just because you can
...be arrogant when you get corrections
...fear Japanese (newspapers to conversations)
...don't be passive with your study (be active!)

... Some of those are obvious but whatever.

good advice.

nadiatims Wrote:listen to music

How can listening to music be bad?

fakewookie Wrote:

nadiatims Wrote:listen to music

How can listening to music be bad?

Not sure, but when listening to music get the transcripts then srs/listen to them a lot and your set.

yeah I should clarify. It's not bad. Just that as a beginner you'll get more out of listening to things such as recordings of anime/tv/documentaries/podcasts/youtube videos etc you've watched or audiobooks (with translations) you've read through etc. For complete beginners, courses like pimsleur, teacher yourself and so on will also teach you more. Don't expect to spontaneously start understanding the lyrics to songs as there's too little context to figure out the meaning unless, as Ta said you get the lyrics. But even then the medium is not as conductive to language learning as audio books and so on imo.

nadiatims Wrote:yeah I should clarify. It's not bad. Just that as a beginner you'll get more out of listening to things such as recordings of anime/tv/documentaries/podcasts/youtube videos etc you've watched or audiobooks (with translations) you've read through etc. For complete beginners, courses like pimsleur, teacher yourself and so on will also teach you more. Don't expect to spontaneously start understanding the lyrics to songs as there's too little context to figure out the meaning unless, as Ta said you get the lyrics. But even then the medium is not as conductive to language learning as audio books and so on imo.

Definitely doing beginner-related things,i.e. grammar,basic textbooks,pimsleur is definitely a must. It's best to master the basics. Watching anime,videos,movies,etc. Will all come in due time. But mastering the basics is a necessary step in achieving greater language skills.

gyuujuice Wrote:Don't:
...don't be passive with your study (be active!)

Yeah I don't know if you mean exactly this point, but I frequently made excuses like "Oh, I'll do this thing in Japanese (so It's okay to do it!)...but I hope that the words and grammar will stick somehow magically, I don't want to make a conscious effort."

No...NO NO NO!!!

First of all no words will stick magically, you're not a some kind of a word magnet for it to happen.
Making a small conscious effort to learn something will result in much better result than just "hoping".
........
The best way that I have found to make learning unnoticeable, unconscious and almost magical is to make yourself become so interested in learning the words that you just forget that you're learning!

All comes down to positive motivation and a decent enough method.

gyuujuice Wrote:Don't:
...don't be passive with your study (be active!)

This seems to be the red thread running through this thread. If we were to vote for the worst "don't" this would be a good candidate.

Make an effort to process what goes in or it won't stick. AJATT won't save you.

Don't come on so strongly to that Japanese girl from classes without realising she's not single in an attempt to get a girlfriend to practice with.

shinsen Wrote:

jettyke Wrote:What are the most important mistakes that you made?

Assume that I could acquire the language through listening and watching massive amounts of Japanese radio and TV.

What happens is you reach a point where you understand enough to get by and after that your "noise filter" kicks in. See, there is this filter inside your head that just filters out most of the words you don't know. This allows you to concentrate on what you know and follow the speaker. But, you can hear a word a thousand times and completely ignore it. Now when you actually make an effort to "learn" a new word, suddenly you start hearing it all the time, because it can now pass through your noise filter.

So yes, listen and watch, but cook it before you eat it or it will just pass through your system with little effect.

Ah, that explains why when I started shadowing TV, I could hear much much more. Thanks for that. Good point.

DO:

-RTK1 (and finish!)
-Learn vocab that is actually useful
-Listen, Read, Watch Japanese...that I ENJOY!
-More output

DON'T:

-Rely soley on SRS
-Make learning Japanese a chore

Hmm, what worked for me might not work for everyone, I guess I'll write what I would say to me when I was just starting Japanese if I could.

DON'T:

-Continue to take classes if they make you feel like an idiot who will never read Japanese at an adult level (and rarely teach kanji, or correct student's accents because of that attitude). Japanese people/teachers have never had to learn the language themselves at adulthood, and a lot of them can get caught up in teaching nihonjiron. It's not you, it's them (I would say don't take classes altogether, but they apparently do work for some people, and I probably would have taken them anyway out of curiosity, even if they were emotional scarring).

-Think you need to like dramas. I've met a lot of Japanese language learners who like dramas (though of course I've met some very nice drama fans as well) who look down on anyone who likes anime or video games (although I only really am a fan of the former, unless visual novels count, but gamers are fun to hang out with). Don't pay attention to these people if you like the above. Be proud of what you like, just know that watching too much of any one type of media (including dramas) will made your Japanese less well rounded and versatile, so vary it up a bit (maybe movies, podcasts, etc), but don't stop liking what you love, or think you have to like something because of others. It will only demotivate you. It took a while to just accept that dramas weren't for me after trying to get into them. It's OK if you don't like them, and if any drama fans snub you, ignore them.

-Listen to your friends who start to think you're crazy to learn Japanese/do RTK/avoid stuff in English. Likely they've never learned another language, and if they have, they're probably not very devoted.

DO:

-Find a study method that plays to your strengths, and is interesting. If I could do things over, I would have first done RTK (I only discovered it later), and then plunged into native media with a dictionary and A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, which I partially did. Decoding manga was (with the English translation by my side) a lot of fun to me and I learned a lot of words that way in the beginning, but I suppose it would only work for someone who has the patience and loves what they're reading enough to work through it. Those decoding sessions were a lot more fun than when I started reading textbooks, I thought most textbooks were too dumbed down for me to keep an interest in them (though I would have loved Japanese for Everyone if I had known about it then), and a lot of them mainly taught with romaji (I wanted to read "real" Japanese).

-Think that as long as something is fun, and is in Japanese, it's all good.

-Use kokugo dictionaries as soon as you can. I stayed using Edict for way too long.
And on the same note, stop using Rikaichan when you move to kokugo dictionaries. Lingoes or Stardict can provide similar functionality, and can be used with kokugo dictionaries.

-Find someone who will support you on your language learning journey, if you can.

I don't get why people say don't take classes, taking classes while In Japan has helped my listening loads. Ok back in England they were a bit haphazard but defiantly all Japanese classes in Japan being forced to speak and listen constantly has been nothing but a benefit to me.

1. Don't do RTK and then stop and forget it all, pretty much means all that I did was a total waste of time, because I stopped reviewing not long after I completed it... dumb error.
2. Talk more, don't be shy... for the next 6 months I will be trying to correct this one.

1. Don't do RTK and then stop and forget it all, pretty much means all that I did was a total waste of time, because I stopped reviewing not long after I completed it... dumb error

^ This! I am going to have to redo RTK now but at least I remember 60-70%. XD

gyuujuice Wrote:1. Don't do RTK and then stop and forget it all, pretty much means all that I did was a total waste of time, because I stopped reviewing not long after I completed it... dumb error

^ This! I am going to have to redo RTK now but at least I remember 60-70%. XD

technically your never suppose to stop srs RTK. Otherwise you'll forget a lot of it.

In terms of srsing, I don't think I'll stop ever. I mean if it only takes me 1 hr everyday, then it's worth the time(all my decks I mean)

I've mentioned it somewhere else in the forums before, but don't forget to backup. Backup is a nice car they say, and you'll wish you have that car the day you lose your decks or something.

paasan Wrote:I've mentioned it somewhere else in the forums before, but don't forget to backup. Backup is a nice car they say, and you'll wish you have that car the day you lose your decks or something.

Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes. That's why I'm finishing RTK the second time now.

Don't get so worked up about study methods that you spend more time arguing about them on English Language forums than you do studying Japanese. (Or at least if you're going to do it, do it in Japanese!)

You're never going to get it perfect, so make mistakes and learn from them.

Don't spend so much time on the forums that you neglect your studies. (Walk away from the computer now!)

Ask yourself every now and then, "How is this helping me with my Japanese?"

Listen, Listen, Listen. Get one of those smartyphones and fill it full of Japanese. Look at the podcast thread, and plunder it.

Watch stuff outside of your "genre" every now and then. If you're anime guy, and you hate dramas, then try watching a variety show, or a news show. Watch *something* different. Don't be the guy whose language patterns are heavily influenced by listening to thousands of hours of anime. Same goes for drama watching person: step outside of your genre. Watch Venetia make herb tea or something. (No, on second thought, don't. Her accent is horrible.) But you get the idea.

Japanese TV is more than just dramas and anime. It's got rakugo, sports, science shows, news, documentaries, and people singing enka!

And of course, the wonder of ふろさと一番！

Edit:　Spelling. Ugh.

rich_f Wrote:Japanese TV is more than just dramas and anime. It's got rakugo, sports, science shows, news, documentaries, and people singing enka!

Most of us outside of Japan are limited to what we can download. I haven't seen much in the way of Japanese science shows and such on torrents. Sure, there is KeyholeTV but the horrendous quality just takes all the fun out of it.

shinsen Wrote:Most of us outside of Japan are limited to what we can download. I haven't seen much in the way of Japanese science shows and such on torrents. Sure, there is KeyholeTV but the horrendous quality just takes all the fun out of it.

There's wist.tv if you can stomach the price and the quality.
Better than keyhole, but not necessarily $30 worth. At least you can record things (if you can get their software to work on your computer. 64-bit windows 7 doesn't work).

shinsen Wrote:

rich_f Wrote:Japanese TV is more than just dramas and anime. It's got rakugo, sports, science shows, news, documentaries, and people singing enka!

Most of us outside of Japan are limited to what we can download. I haven't seen much in the way of Japanese science shows and such on torrents. Sure, there is KeyholeTV but the horrendous quality just takes all the fun out of it.

Suiensaa is a nice science show that can be found on d-addicts. It's interesting, and isn't that hard to understand because it's an NHK show aimed at younger audiences.

Bonus: it has AKB48 members in it.

If you're in the US, you can get TV-Japan for ~$25/month or so from Dish, or maybe cheaper through your cable provider, if your cable provider doesn't suck. Standard Def, NHK-ish stuff, and at times dull, but it meets my needs for being a good random assortment. That's 2-3 books a month, or a couple of bad MMOs I wasn't going to play anyway.

And yeah, I get Suiensaa on it, too, if I can remember to watch it. It usually collides with the news, though. Kodomo News is good if you can't understand 大人 news. It even comes with those great dioramas you get a lot on Japanese TV.

You also get the Taiga dramas, if you're into that, and usually 4-5 other drama series/season. Oh, and Gatten. Can't forget that. Fun pop-science. And Keitai O-giri. That's a show where I find that if I can get the jokes without looking anything up, I feel pretty proud of myself. Kawaii TV if you like the fashion-y stuff, plus 2-3 different JPOP shows.

Don't expect to get anime on it, unless you like Anpanman, Conan, and some Tom Sawyer thing they unearthed from the 1970s.

And of course there's Venetia. Can't forget her. She's not anime, but she's popular these days. (I find the show somewhat annoying, but there you go.)

nadiatims Wrote:yeah I should clarify. It's not bad. Just that as a beginner you'll get more out of listening to things such as recordings of anime/tv/documentaries/podcasts/youtube videos etc you've watched or audiobooks (with translations) you've read through etc. For complete beginners, courses like pimsleur, teacher yourself and so on will also teach you more. Don't expect to spontaneously start understanding the lyrics to songs as there's too little context to figure out the meaning unless, as Ta said you get the lyrics. But even then the medium is not as conductive to language learning as audio books and so on imo.

I don't think that music should be underestimated as a source or as reinforcement of vocabulary and grammar. Of course, you need to look up the lyrics to get anything out of it though. The thing about music is that, by its nature, you listen to the songs you like over and over again. Repetition is the key. You end up hearing particular phrases tens or even hundreds of times. I was able to remember the ～かのように grammar from its use in a song called 世界はそれを愛と呼ぶんだぜ, for example. Also, there have been times where I'd learn a word or phrase, and it would somehow sound familiar, and I'd realise that it's in a song I've listened to tonnes of times. So it's easy to remember and builds up your understanding of the song. Today in my unofficial Japanese class I was able to use the phrase 盛者必衰, which I learned from a song. :3

Actually, I remember a time when we covered the word まま in my real Japanese class last year, and we each had to make up a sentence on the spot which used it. I couldn't think of anything, but I was saved by my love of a song called 思い出に出来ない, which has the line 「瞳閉じたまま、波の音を聞いていた」, which I remembered and recited. The teacher was like 「おお、詩的！」

I've learned a decent amount of words from song titles as well. Since musicians want to be creative, they often use unusual or interesting words in their song and album titles. And naturally, you want to know what a song's title means, so you look it up. And it's there in your library forever, so you remember it.

So in summary, having a healthy interest in Japanese music is a good thing (not that you were saying otherwise).