I want to learn more about advanced topics.

I'd rather pay than go to your site for that though.

Now that it has been apparently established that I'm crazy/hateful, we can dig deeper into the bigger mystery; why are we against you?

Why, you only looked at two pages and you are acting that way? I just don't get why you would say or feel that way, especially since I haven't come to Finland and personally met you. We don't even know each other.

Besides, I would rather you email me and tell me what you don't like and give solutions. If you don't like how it's set up, that is totally fine. Quite frankly, I think you would benefit from reading the advanced and or intermediate section simply because of the exposure to grammar topics you may not have seen before.

You are right, I looked at the links you posted and wasn't impressed. This is not the first time I visit your site though.

Your attitude handled the rest. The fact that you don't understand is...sad. People don't judge only based on what you say. More important is how you say it.

The fact is that we don't need you.

You are incredibly defensive and your constant editing of your own posts makes you come off as some sort of a manic person. Take it as an insult or criticism, I don't give a damn but when everyone but you think like this it should be time for some self-reflection.

What's a manic? I change my comments because I have ADD and my mind is as scattered as anyone can believe.

What would you do if someone told you to shut down your work? I definitely don't like being told that it's horrible, and I'm sure you've made some things that you would be as equally upset about.

You may not need my site, but a lot of people do and thank me for it everyday. I love Japanese, and it's why I started. I was hoping that when I saw this thread starting that people had that same heart in mind, but I'm not so sure about that.

Anyways, God bless and have a nice day.

It's a tough decision but you really don't seem like a person doing this for the community.

Your number one priority should be to make sure that the people actually making use of your contents find them easy to comprehend and logical in structure among other things. If they don't find it as such they don't, and that is a bad sign because your whole site relies on the assumption that other people use it (and the fact is that we don't need to use it if we find it lacking). That said it absolutely doesn't matter what excuses you make to invalidate their opinion, justified or unjustified. What you think is irrelevant. You may love Japanese, but that doesn't mean you are fit to teach others about the subject.

You truly have some kind-hearted friends.

For the most part, people have said it was easy to understand. But, it is certainly not for every age group. It's not lacking in material. I am quite aware that it needs a face change to make it appealing. The visual aspect is extremely lacking, and I'm slowly trying to change that. I think adding pictures make the sentences come to life. It's why I'm wanting to add them everywhere hopefully.

The diction is probably a turn off, but my reasoning for using such terms is for a good purpose later on the road. If I define it, I think it's fair game.

Anyways, it's nice talking to you.

My goal this month is to when I click on a page, I make it easier. Since I'll be making a lot of clicks, it will look very different and hopefully less lacking by January 31st.

I'm not sure if I'm using a mobile version of your site but the pics don't seem to line up properly with the text in my version.

They do on a pc. I've noticed that some don't line up perfectly on tablets, but I have no idea what they are doing to users of smart phones or regular phones. Regular phones should have a complete different text version only

I can't display Japanese at the moment, so I didn't really bother reading them, but the pages you linked to definitely look a lot better. I get the impression you're trying to be more polite as well. Even if just for for selfish reasons, don't get frustrated and give up on that since it will make it a lot easier to get what you want.

Imabi,
would you mind describing in as much detail as possible how and in what order you learnt/acquired
pronunciation,
listening comprehension,
kanji?

And one question about your site.
How can I be sure that your Japanese example sentences and their English translations are correct?

Two small suggestions, when I view your site there's some stuff in the title that I assume shouldn't be there. I took a screenshot. Second, you should probably have image credits somewhere, otherwise people will think you took the images, without having permission to use them.

To bokesenou: i think you are talking about the bakemoji. This is due to the Japanese text in the title and header and conflicts with script and my site builder. I know the provider is trying to change this, but it may be months till they fix that.

As for the pictures, the link from where they come from is easily accessible by hovering over the picture, and clicking them sends you to where they are from. And, I think if its on google images that you can copy and paste so long you give the url, which can also be seen when you print the lessons.

To buonaparte: Neither was started and completed at a different time. I spent some time learning pronunciation and hundreds of characters before i moved on to learning the language itself. Readings of Kanji and their meanings which I studied for the first few months gave me a lot of vocabulary, and i was fortunate to be taught how to pronounce the language at the beginning of my studies. I am much better at listening than I was three years ago. I talk at great lengths with my Japanese friend at the time and there is no problem. There is usually Japanese on while we talk, so it is a completely Japanese environment.

I learned Kanji rapidly, and I probably know around 3500+ with one to ten added a week. I dont think it is practical to tell what I have done for all these years, but you can get the picture that I am just pretty good at it. I have spent around five to six hours studying it for four years. If you calculate this, it is plenty to reach the proficiency required to discuss what i do on my site.

My translations are as close as possible to the original diction, give or take some that should be translated idiomatically to make sense. My sentences are based off largely on what i find in reading materials and dictionary entries, which often get a lot of examples to base examples off of, especially when you are trying to show particular pattern(s).

I constantly proofread my site, but I normally dont see anything terribly wrong. At times there may be a mistake in romanization, kana, or a letter here and there in English or punctuation problems, but once they are found they are changed. For the classical lessons the text and translations are never deviant from any other given text. The explanations tend to be the only thing that differs.

A wrong Japanese sentence is quite obvious to me. Normally a word is used like english, or the syntax is used like English. These two things are normally what I see with people i help. My Japanese friend has never corrected to me, even though we talk for great lengths at a time. I promise you that my examples are correct. They may be humorous and at time unpractical to say, but you do also have to continuously make things fun, or else the grammar just makes it too boring to continue.

Thanks to both of you for the questions, and I hope my answers helped.

imabi Wrote:My Japanese friend has never corrected to me, even though we talk for great lengths at a time.

That doesn't mean anything; nobody corrects every mistake the other person makes.

If anything we talk about different dialects and classical Japanese. まあ、まだ信じられないようっすね。どうでもいい。

imabi Wrote:I am sure I know much more Japanese than you do. I spend a lot of time with Japanese everyday.

Stuff like this, is the reason your posts are met with so much hostility.

Especially as there's plenty of people on this site who do know more Japanese than you (myself not included).

Perhaps if your Japanese is already so good you might want to spend some more time learning about the culture too? Because humility in Japan is an important virtue, if you ever plan on living there a "holier than thou" attitude won't get you far, no matter how talented you are.

That said, I don't think your site is bad, and if your true motive in making this website really is just to help people learn then that's commendable. And hey, you're young... plenty of time to learn from your mistakes.

Culture is inseparable from the language bakuchiku. Humility is truly important, but as for that situation there was no need in my eyes at that time to be such. I am never rude to my Japanese friend...ほれてしまったから。I think if we were all speaking in Japanese here, I don't think the standard politeness level would be in the honorific realm. No Japanese スレ normally is.

Experience and age is overrated anyways. At a level playing for 18 year olds, I think I stand pretty well. And so, I made my site to get people at that level with me. I just added pictures to Lesson 11, and it really looks cool. I get to use pictures to get more feel to Japan as a lot of pictures are of Japan.

That comment came from a rash reaction to a comment that implied I knew nothing of Japanese nor were around it. I know I have a lot to learn about how to respond to all sorts of things, but you would at least admit that some of that stuff is unfair? It's like saying since the Washington Memorial has a crack on it, it's an ugly building.

Anyways, thanks for the comment and I know you mean well.

I do agree that some of it is unfair, but I guess this is just one of those situations where you'd get more respect by rising above it.

And I'm not saying you shouldn't be proud of your accomplishments either.

Just don't boast too much about it, it makes those of us who are older than you and not at the same level feel bad

Very true. I'm sure you'll get there yourself too. Maybe you can find a lot of good from what I've made.

There's a saying that 'life isn't fair', and so putting aside whether it's fair or not fair... when you set yourself up as a public website (or any published work or publically available product), then people feel free to throw absolutely blunt criticism and offhanded judgements at you. Anyone can express any opinion that they want about you and your site (well, insofar as it reflects your qualifications) and that's generally accepted.

You cannot, however, when you are the author / representative / public face, respond with any sort of attack on the qualifications of a private individual without it being unseemly.

Imagine that you're the owner/manager of a new supermarket, and there you are in the town square giving a promotional speech... how do you react to people throwing out questions or even statements that are critical and insulting? Do you jump off your podium and start shouting in their face that they don't have a right to talk to you that way... ? That you are better than they are at identifying and handling exotic produce?

Would you shop at a market that was managed by such a person?

You don't have to run a public web site, with its own domain name, and apparently aspiring to reach professional quality - you could have put it up as a "my educational blog, this is just my opinions on stuff that's useful to learn" and be on a different level of public criticism, or you could not have it up at all.

However, having it up as you do now, puts you in a place where there is a double standard in the behavior expected of you and that of people expressing their views on your website.

While I do understand what you are understanding, I do think there is a difference between the internet and real life situations.

As far as the supermarket, since the economy is so bad, if the place has good deals, I'm shopping there.

Qualifications is overrated anyways. There are plenty of teachers at my school with certificates and the qualifications but are loathed by their students.

Double standards are everywhere; it's kind of the saw of the real world. Although I would rather those things not happen, I do know that I'm going to have to control how I act whenever it happens again.

Thank you for your comment and have a nice day.

Yah! If I get just 34 more hits, I'll have had my first 1000 hits for 2012. This makes me happy. I do thank this site for giving me this gift.

imabi Wrote:While I do understand what you are understanding, I do think there is a difference between the internet and real life situations.

I think you're mistaken here. There is still a matter of public-private appearance. If you had a personal blog, or were just making forum posts, you could act however you want, and it would just reflect on you. However, if you have a website published as a service to the public, then whatever you put out as a representative of that reflects not only on you, but on your site as a whole -- the same way the owner of a supermarket would.

Quote:As far as the supermarket, since the economy is so bad, if the place has good deals, I'm shopping there.

People are boycotting GoDaddy because of their support for SOPA. Sure they're cheap, but people don't agree with the opinions of their higher-ups, and are reacting accordingly. Same would happen with the supermarket.

Quote:Qualifications is overrated anyways. There are plenty of teachers at my school with certificates and the qualifications but are loathed by their students.

I'm not arguing that qualifications are overrated, but they do give a little bit more credibility than saying "I'm sure I know a lot more than you," or "Yeah well, my Japanese friends never correct me!"

In the real world, it's definitely not about experience or ability, it's about appearance. You've got to make things appear attractive to people, and responding with angry impulsive knee-jerk reactions, people aren't going to respond very positively.

I see what you mean. I don't know what Godaddy or SOPA are; oh well. If they're supporting something bad, they should be boycotted. Well, I am going to hopefully get some sort of teaching certificate in late 2012 or early 2013, so that will help. I think I get better at what I do each day. Ya, I tend to have a lot of knee-jerk reactions. It's a character flaw of mine. It's just something I have to work on.

imabi Wrote:As for the pictures, the link from where they come from is easily accessible by hovering over the picture, and clicking them sends you to where they are from. And, I think if its on google images that you can copy and paste so long you give the url, which can also be seen when you print the lessons.

Absolutely not.

Hmm...they haven't been showing. This is strange. I need to fix that.