jettyke Wrote:Yeah, I kind of doubt that it will be possible to be actively native-level fluent in more than 3-4 languages anyway...

Can't tell, but after Japanese, Mandarin will follow up here as well, and then I'd be, hang on, bi, tri, quad, pentalingual?? wtf

I've been lurking on this forum for about a month now but haven't posted. I have read a bit about your progress and so fourth, ta.

Interestingly about your statement of "fluency" starting from 1-2 years, then going from 3 years to 5 years. Firstly, there obviously is no clear definition of fluency. Even if you try to define it, its quite difficult and debatable. I'd be interested in hearing your definition of fluency.

How I see it is, you'd probably realise, that from the beginning, you and many others, including myself have said, "I will be fluent in 18 months/2 years/whatever." Then when you reach that point, you have met that goal of fluency in the definition you set 20 months ago. I'm assuming your goal or definition of fluency 20 months ago was to be able to watch Bleach in Japanese. Now 20 months later, I'm assuming you can do that with ease.

Furthermore, your definition of fluency has changed to something much more deeper and you set your next set of goals for the next 3 years. Chances are by then, that goal and definition of fluency will change further more to something even more advanced. In this sense, none of us will ever reach "fluency" and we can't say that we are "fluent. However, we will definitely have something to so for it. Khat's didn't "achieve fluency" in 18 months. He simply got a job in Japan 18 months into his study. It's not like his Japanese skills went from not fluent to fluent in the day got the job from the day before.

Anyway, besides the point, congratulations on your achievements in 20 months time. This has been a great motivation for me to push further along in my Japanese studies.

I may be stating the obvious here but what Ive come to realize is that when you start out learning Japanese you move at fairly slow pace as is to be expected. Your pace picks up as you continue to study regularly but there comes a point, for me it seemed to happen a few months ago, at about the year and a half point where kanji start to completely lose their connection to the keyword you have assigned them in RTK and you actually see them as the sound they are meant to represent, in other words you see kanji how Japanese see kanji. As this happens to more and more kanji your ability to pick up new words increases exponentially since you are no longer battling the double-headed dragon of recognition & reading, it just becomes recognition. It is at this point where I think your Japanese really picks up the pace. It helps you out in all areas, reading, writing and speaking. Now, when Im not sure if Im using the right word when I speak I am able to quickly sound it out and the kanji appears in my minds eye and I know if Im using the right one. Like I said Ive only gotten to this point about a month ago after studying everyday for a year and a half and I do have a long way to go but what Im trying to say is if youve gotten this far in 2 years its not necessarily going to take you another 2 years to reach X goal, it could happen even quicker.

I hope that made sense. Keep up the good work.

Tori-kun Wrote:

jettyke Wrote:Yeah, I kind of doubt that it will be possible to be actively native-level fluent in more than 3-4 languages anyway...

Can't tell, but after Japanese, Mandarin will follow up here as well, and then I'd be, hang on, bi, tri, quad, pentalingual?? wtf

lol. Well 3 languages is enough for me. Anything out this won't be complete proficiency in all 4 skills in a language

DevvaR Wrote:I've been lurking on this forum for about a month now but haven't posted. I have read a bit about your progress and so fourth, ta.

Interestingly about your statement of "fluency" starting from 1-2 years, then going from 3 years to 5 years. Firstly, there obviously is no clear definition of fluency. Even if you try to define it, its quite difficult and debatable. I'd be interested in hearing your definition of fluency.

How I see it is, you'd probably realise, that from the beginning, you and many others, including myself have said, "I will be fluent in 18 months/2 years/whatever." Then when you reach that point, you have met that goal of fluency in the definition you set 20 months ago. I'm assuming your goal or definition of fluency 20 months ago was to be able to watch Bleach in Japanese. Now 20 months later, I'm assuming you can do that with ease.

Furthermore, your definition of fluency has changed to something much more deeper and you set your next set of goals for the next 3 years. Chances are by then, that goal and definition of fluency will change further more to something even more advanced. In this sense, none of us will ever reach "fluency" and we can't say that we are "fluent. However, we will definitely have something to so for it. Khat's didn't "achieve fluency" in 18 months. He simply got a job in Japan 18 months into his study. It's not like his Japanese skills went from not fluent to fluent in the day got the job from the day before.

Anyway, besides the point, congratulations on your achievements in 20 months time. This has been a great motivation for me to push further along in my Japanese studies.

I get what your saying. Basically, I set a goal for myself back in the beginning to be able to read Japanese and understand it. So far I've accomplished those to an advanced level, maybe not fluent but advanced for sure. My goal for when I reached two years was fluency, but what exactly is fluency? Personally I like to break each skill into different categories. So I rate each skill differently. Here are my levels: novice,beginner,intermediate,proficient,advanced,fluency and native-level fluency. Personally for reading/listening I'd rate myself at an advanced level but speaking/writing are only intermediate at best. So it needs a lot of work. But personally I believe native-level fluency is what you can do like natives your age can do. So this will definitely differ for most people. I used to think khatz got fluent in 18 months or even native-level fluent. But even he said he only reached fluency. So I do have an idea of when I will reach those. What I like to do nowadays is simple: set goals and be able to do them eventually. Watching the anime Bleach is easy now, I have no problems understanding it. Same with anime. I can watch animes like rurouni kenshin and understand it 100% now. I remember watching that around the 10month point and it gave me headaches but now it's easy. I believe we just need to set goals and keep accomplishing them and before we know it we will know 3000+ kanji in writing/reading be able to speak fluently and understand perfectly. We just need to keep learning and keep going

dusmar84 Wrote:I may be stating the obvious here but what Ive come to realize is that when you start out learning Japanese you move at fairly slow pace as is to be expected. Your pace picks up as you continue to study regularly but there comes a point, for me it seemed to happen a few months ago, at about the year and a half point where kanji start to completely lose their connection to the keyword you have assigned them in RTK and you actually see them as the sound they are meant to represent, in other words you see kanji how Japanese see kanji. As this happens to more and more kanji your ability to pick up new words increases exponentially since you are no longer battling the double-headed dragon of recognition & reading, it just becomes recognition. It is at this point where I think your Japanese really picks up the pace. It helps you out in all areas, reading, writing and speaking. Now, when Im not sure if Im using the right word when I speak I am able to quickly sound it out and the kanji appears in my minds eye and I know if Im using the right one. Like I said Ive only gotten to this point about a month ago after studying everyday for a year and a half and I do have a long way to go but what Im trying to say is if youve gotten this far in 2 years its not necessarily going to take you another 2 years to reach X goal, it could happen even quicker.

I hope that made sense. Keep up the good work.

It makes sense, since you know more than you did back in the beginner. So even though I have set 3-5 years as a goal for complete fluency, it could happen sooner or later. It all comes down to the person and spending the time. Actually for me it was the opposite, I did so much in the beginning and slowed down as I kept getting farther. But now I'm going slow because I need to get another computer(laptop this time around, so I can actively get back to studying a lot. But that will happen before I go back to school this fall)

The more I think about it, the less I worry about it. I know I can do this now, there is no questioning that (at least for me I think). We just get used to Japanese as we keep learning and learning. Until the point of no return (we can't stop and if we did, we'd come right back up). So I just need to keep changing how I study(finding new ways) and head into territory that I still struggle with. Then and only then will I reach my goals within the next few years

ta12121 Wrote:I believe we just need to set goals and keep accomplishing them and before we know it we will know 3000+ kanji in writing/reading be able to speak fluently and understand perfectly. We just need to keep learning and keep going

Why? What for?

jettyke Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:I believe we just need to set goals and keep accomplishing them and before we know it we will know 3000+ kanji in writing/reading be able to speak fluently and understand perfectly. We just need to keep learning and keep going

Why? What for?

My goal for Japanese in terms of kanji is 4000 max. I doubt I'd bother learning anything past that. So in terms of kanji kentei, I'm aiming for pre-level 1 and the one that tests for common 2000 kanji as well. I'd say it will take you 1 year to be able to write 2000+ kanji from memory if you use the srs correctly. Reading I'm comfortable with(just need to keep learning,maintaining and working on my pronunciation)

Hi,

how did you get all those stats? They are very useful! Are you using a special anki plugin?

Anki > Tools > Deck Statistics

ta12121 Wrote:I've met someone who learned mandarin to native-level fluency in 4 years. He even knows more Chinese than a regular native he's age(he's 26).

I really doubt that. He is either unaware of his own ability, is overconfident because he knows a few things that Chinese people don't, or they have oseji in China too and he believes it.

I know a LOT of stuff about Japanese that average natives don't, but it would be silly to say that I'm better than a Japanese native overall.

It's certainly possible to become better at a foreign language compared to a native. I know plenty of foreigners in Japan who's Japanese abilities are flawless. Reading, writing, and speaking, all better than most university graduates.

The part where they get moved down a notch is the understanding of the local culture that takes tens of years to soak up. Specifically things like religion and all the other many tiny cultural details you learn by simply being raised in Japan...

Sure it's possible, but not after four years, most of which was outside the country while (presumably) working.

Also, unless you yourself are better than a native, you cannot really certify someone else as being better than a native. You also cannot trust natives' evaluations due to oseji. An objective and comprehensive test where scores can be compared against the native average is required.

Beating educated adult native level ability would take 10-15 years I'd say, even with modern study techniques. You are up against people that have been learning and using the language their entire lives. You can learn a lot of obscure/obsolete stuff that most natives don't know (which many 2nd language learners do, me included), but having an overall level higher than a native is much harder.

Now if you are comparing against native children or stupid natives, that is different.

kitakitsune Wrote:It's certainly possible to become better at a foreign language compared to a native. I know plenty of foreigners in Japan who's Japanese abilities are flawless. Reading, writing, and speaking, all better than most university graduates.

The part where they get moved down a notch is the understanding of the local culture that takes tens of years to soak up. Specifically things like religion and all the other many tiny cultural details you learn by simply being raised in Japan...

There are definitely people who get better at a foreign language compared to most native college graduates. The most famous example for English is probably Vladimir Nabokov (easily one of the best English writers of the last 100 years). For Japanese you have people like Ian Hideo Levy.

But such people are so so so so so so so so so so (so so so so so) few and far between that they're not worth mentioning, and it's just not a reasonable language goal. Vladimir Nabokov could do it, but he also happened to be something of a genius.

Also, unless your Japanese is nearly flawless, you can't tell whether another person's Japanese is flawless... what exactly are you basing this ridiculous claim on? I've lived in Japan for three years, and have met very few people who have Japanese that I would call nearly flawless. The people who I would say that about have all been living here for more then ten years.

kitakitsune Wrote:I know plenty of foreigners in Japan who's Japanese abilities are flawless. Reading, writing, and speaking, all better than most university graduates.

Of the hundreds of Japanese speaking foreigners I've met here, in Canada, or Korea, I haven't met any with those qualifications. I have met some people better than me overall or in some areas of course, but I still noticed mistakes, hesitations, or times that they couldn't adequately express themselves due to insufficient ability.

How do you know that they are that good?

@Tza:
I'm not overly familiar with Vladimir Nabokov, but wiki says he grew up multilingual, so he doesn't really count as a non-native.

Jarvik7 Wrote:@Tza:
I'm not overly familiar with Vladimir Nabokov, but wiki says he grew up multilingual, so he doesn't really count as a non-native.

I wonder how accurate Wikipedia is here. I've never read a biography or his memoir, but the intros to Pale Fire and The Annotated Lolita talk about his life. He certainly had English training from a young age, but he never lived in an English speaking country until he moved to England when he was 19, and he only lived there for three years. After that he lived for 18 years in Germany and France before finally moving to America and beginning to write books in English.

It's hard to tell what they mean when they say that multiple languages were spoken in his household.

jettyke Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:I believe we just need to set goals and keep accomplishing them and before we know it we will know 3000+ kanji in writing/reading be able to speak fluently and understand perfectly. We just need to keep learning and keep going

Why? What for?

Well.. I showed the RTK3 book to my girlfriend and she started just shaking her head, since.. nobody uses them, she said, or just so rarely, that they are (almost) unimportant. ta, seriously, don't waste your time with that. 2042 kanji from RTK1 are fairly enough, I think. He, that's the reason I will probably never start with RTK3, but turn that book into an extreme 'lite' version - at the end of my studies.

Jarvik7 Wrote:

kitakitsune Wrote:I know plenty of foreigners in Japan who's Japanese abilities are flawless. Reading, writing, and speaking, all better than most university graduates.

Of the hundreds of Japanese speaking foreigners I've met here, in Canada, or Korea, I haven't met any with those qualifications. I have met some people better than me overall or in some areas of course, but I still noticed mistakes, hesitations, or times that they couldn't adequately express themselves due to insufficient ability.

How do you know that they are that good?

I completely believe that a non-native can become as good or better than a native, especially in specific areas of the language, but I also have to agree that I would highly doubt that someone knows a large number of people like this.

I've been living in Tokyo for almost 9 months now and I'm still waiting to meet my my language learning "senpai", aka a native level Japanese speaking/reading/writing foreigner who reached that level without having to live here for 20 years, or who wasn't raised in a partial Japanese speaking home.

Don't get me wrong I know many people who are EXTREMELY good and that I give tons of respect to for the hard work they've put in, but almost all of them have very noticeable holes when it comes to at least one aspect of the language, at least compared to most natives. The reason I know this is because I'm still not very good (going for N2 next month and definitely going to fail) and yet even I'm capable of picking out their flaws from time to time. The biggest thing to get fooled by is of course speaking. I know several people who to my ear are a Japanese native in terms of speaking, but as mentioned earlier they've also lived here just about as long or longer than they lived in their country of birth. Yet when I fire up Anki on my Iphone and we play around with even N2 vocabulary the "truth" of their total Japanese ability, or lack of, is often revealed.

I suggest networking a bit more.

Just simply go down to one of the US Chamber of Commerce meetings and you'll immediately meet a number of people I am describing.

I'm not trying to be confrontational and I agree that it's possible in the longterm, but how do you know?

Accomplishments and word of mouth.

And I'm getting purdy good at nihongo myself. So I'm an expert.

Better than native in all dimensions of the language, in 4 years? Sure, I know a guy who knows a guy.

Tori-kun Wrote:

jettyke Wrote:

ta12121 Wrote:I believe we just need to set goals and keep accomplishing them and before we know it we will know 3000+ kanji in writing/reading be able to speak fluently and understand perfectly. We just need to keep learning and keep going

Why? What for?

Well.. I showed the RTK3 book to my girlfriend and she started just shaking her head, since.. nobody uses them, she said, or just so rarely, that they are (almost) unimportant. ta, seriously, don't waste your time with that. 2042 kanji from RTK1 are fairly enough, I think. He, that's the reason I will probably never start with RTK3, but turn that book into an extreme 'lite' version - at the end of my studies.

haha. Well I;m not studying per kanji or anything. Just context/vocab. So it's stuff that I will see in context. I'll keep going until I reach that 3000+ kanji mark. But overall, I just need keep going and to keep learning. I actually did RTK3 and I started to delete a lot of the kanji, since it's rare

Jarvik7 Wrote:Sure it's possible, but not after four years, most of which was outside the country while (presumably) working.

Also, unless you yourself are better than a native, you cannot really certify someone else as being better than a native. You also cannot trust natives' evaluations due to oseji. An objective and comprehensive test where scores can be compared against the native average is required.

Beating educated adult native level ability would take 10-15 years I'd say, even with modern study techniques. You are up against people that have been learning and using the language their entire lives. You can learn a lot of obscure/obsolete stuff that most natives don't know (which many 2nd language learners do, me included), but having an overall level higher than a native is much harder.

Now if you are comparing against native children or stupid natives, that is different.

Well it's hard to say what native-level is exactly. I don't want to debate or anything but a lot of the time(if I think in terms of how much years they studied,have been in their jp environment all their lives). Then yes, I'll never be able to get there, but that being said. It comes down to what we want and what were able to do. I guess one could reach near native or native-level. But if I put it in terms of educated native-level(university graduate, got a job in his/her field). Then yea, it will probably take a decade at least.