danieldesu wrote:

Many words can be learned without context, especially ones where the meaning is the same among many languages (i.e. [...] colors [...]).

Yeah, I talk about blue traffic lights all the time :-)

Garland, you asked for any corrections, so I feel obligated to provide one now...  I wouldn't have said anything if you hadn't asked.  You used 'expect' instead of 'except'.  I've mistyped that one myself, and I'm a native speaker, so I don't know if it was a real mistake or not.  Other than that, your English is great.

And thanks for the motivation FF8 story.  I don't have the tenacity to use the AJATT method, but it's always nice to know that stuff works.

As for learning out of context...  I play a game called Slime Forest Adventure that was written with the sole purpose of teaching Kana, Kanji and vocab.  Prior to this game, I watched years and years of anime, and picked up a few words here and there.  I also went through Pimsleur from start to finish.

I'm about 3/5 of the way through the vocab in SFA and I'm starting to recognize words from it while watching anime quite often.  It's very heartening and gives me motivation.

I'm not saying context isn't important.  I'm saying that context doesn't have to come first.  If you've already got the basic meaning in your head when you find it in context, it's a -lot- easier to deal with how the word is used.

Garland wrote:

the fact that the Japanese have a loan word for orange, or khaki (I suppose they didn't have any name for the colour before, so they just borrowed it from english)

Little bit off topic, but I can't resist. 'khaki' in English is a loan word too -- we borrowed it from Persian (where it meant 'dusty') in the 19th century. And (as you might guess from the fact the orange tree isn't native to Britain) 'orange' as a colour is an import too -- the OED's first known use of it to describe a colour is 16thC. The word's history goes from Sanskrit through Persian, Arabic, Italian and French before reaching English, presumably mirroring the path taken by imports of the fruit itself...

Wikipedia's article on colour naming includes a discussion of Berlin & Kay's colour hierarchy; this seems to correspond fairly well with the distinctions in Japanese colour word usage (compare the adjectival forms, eg  白いシャツ vs 黄色いシャツ vs オレンジ色のシャツ ).

Ok, I guess I wasn't clear about the color thing... What I meant was that the group of words of colors are always used in the same way, so you really don't have to learn them in context.  If you can say "purple cat," you can probably also say "khaki cat" without ever seeing it.

phauna,
I think that if you get enough input, those common words will be pretty natural to you.  However, the not-so-common words don't come quite so easily, and unless you get A LOT of input, then learning them by context is very difficult.  That is why I think learning those 5-10% ahead of time is much more efficient.  And while you are at it, why not just learn the other 90% ahead of time too if you can?

Garland,
I don't want to spend two years learning a language either, that is why I think so hard about ways to make it more efficient.

pm215,
Interesting stuff about the origin of those words.  I think etymology is fascinating.  In fact, certain words that are essential among all cultures sometimes have roots so far back that the word is still similar in many languages.  The word "fire" in English is almost identical to the Thai word for "fire" (fai)

Learning vocab without context has its limitations. It may help you understand words you come across while reading, but it doesn't tell you how to use the word yourself. I've occasionally used Japanese words I learnt from vocab lists (万国 and 紛紛 are the ones I remember) and flummoxed Japanese people because they couldn't figure out what I meant, because I used the word in the completely wrong context.

I've been using AJATT for a while now since I first read about it here. It's going all right but I''m finding there's a limit to how much I can learn with it. If I add more than ten sentences a day, it gets too hard and I start making too many mistakes. Also if the sentences include more than a couple of new words/readings a day, again it gets too difficult. The rest has to be usage examples of words I already know and practice of grammatical constructs, but like I said, you need to learn words in context so you know how to use them correctly.

Talk of trying to learn like a hundred word a day sounds impossible. Has anyone here actually succeeded in doing that?

Why not try something that combines context learning and vocab learning?
This is what I like to do:
Read something interesting in Japanese.
Write down all the words you didn't know with definitions.
Study the words(you can put them in an SRS too).
Reread the context. It'll be a lot easier now in two ways; you'll be reading it a second time, which is always easier, and you'll know all the words this time. You could even just move on and hope the words will reappear.

You get the benefit of learning by context, with speed of learning single words. I think SRSing random sentences is kind of boring, and reviewing sentences takes longer than reviewing words.
The problem I have with learning lots of words without context is that you don't know how to use them, you might not really get the meaning, it's dry, and it's harder to remember. I still do it sometimes, but getting the words from context is a lot better.

yukamina wrote:

You get the benefit of learning by context, with speed of learning single words. I think SRSing random sentences is kind of boring, and reviewing sentences takes longer than reviewing words.

You're supposed to be selective about your mining. See: http://www.alljapaneseallthetime.com/bl … tences-how

Just memorizing long lists of vocabulary is an unnecessary step. Because when you mine sentences you're learning Japanese, not vocabulary. Vocabulary comes in as a secondary priority because learning how to use what you do know is far more important.

The whole point of doing RTK is because the kanji are insanely difficult to remember. If I could just jump in a read lots of Japanese and pick up on the kanji, I would. But with vocabulary you can do that. Because vocabulary is so easy to learn, you don't have to worry about it and can focus on speaking the Japanese.

But the big thing is that we don't want to be tied to a dictionary after, so we learn the words beforehand. But you still have to look up kanji, kanji compounds, kanji readings, and weird words like みどり that you can't understand if you just memorize.

If you really want more detailed arguments against memorizing straight vocab, just take the anti-Heisig arguments. It's the same thing except without the advantages of doing RTK that outweighs the disadvantages.

Yeah, I also don't really like the idea mining sentences from KO or KIC or Tanuki. At most I'll support getting sentences from a textbook like Japanese for Everyone to get past the absolute beginner level.

yukamina wrote:

That's why I suggested getting the words from reading. This way, you're still reading Japanese, and when you study the words, you can remember the way they were used.
After a certain point the bulk of language learning is learning vocabulary. Vocabulary isn't as easy as you make it sound, especially with compound words that have unpredictable readings. (Grammar's a different matter. I prefer studying grammar with sentence examples and maybe explanations.)

Sentences = grammar in sentence examples + vocab

A sentence from manga is at the least more interesting then a textbook/example sentences.

Therefore, sentences from text are as effective as what you say, but with less time and are slightly more interesting.

AND: vocabulary is that easy.

Last edited by alyks (2008 August 03, 3:11 pm)

Another thing I should say: it is my personal belief that grammar is the easiest part of learning a language.  I believe that if you know all the words in a sentence, and have seen those words before enough to really understand their meaning, then the meaning of the sentence will PROBABLY be clear with a basic knowledge of grammar.  However, you could understand all the grammar there is, but still have trouble understanding a sentence if you don't know the meaning of the words.

I don't believe you should start using words that you haven't ever heard or seen used before, so that is not a valid argument against my theory.  I think that getting used to how a word is used by seeing it in sentences is how you will ultimately feel comfortable using the word.  However, I am saying that the over-reliance on sentences to provide vocab is SLOW, boring, and not fun, especially if you are trying to enjoy some reading material.

What I am seeing is that people have become extremely reliant on their sentences, so much that they reject the idea that learning word lists has any value whatsoever.  I am challenging that notion.

If we follow your theory, we're still going to be attached to a dictionary and reading will still be slow. Then we also won't understand the grammar.

Think about it this way.
Hour and a half - two hours reading through a Japanese text putting in sentences and learning grammar and vocab. At least two new vocab items from a sentence. At fifty sentences, that's at least 100 new vocab words. While going through and actually reading something.

Or

Same amount of time straight learning 100 vocab items. Ignoring all the disadvantages to this.

You make it seam like if we do your method, we can immediately go and read text with ease, but it doesn't work that way, because we'll still won't understand grammar. You can understand all the words in the sentences but still be completely lost on what the sentences mean. Many people will attest to this.

danieldesu wrote:

pm215 wrote:

danieldesu wrote:

Many words can be learned without context, especially ones where the meaning is the same among many languages (i.e. [...] colors [...]).

Yeah, I talk about blue traffic lights all the time :-)

To be fair, 青 does NOT mean "green" just because the traffic lights are different colors.

It's not that the traffic lights are different colors (since they're not) so much as it is a relic of ancient Japanese that's still around today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ao_(color)

Although, it is a fun bit of trivia that all traffic lights are actually a mix of blue and green so that color-blind people don't have any trouble with them.

Ok, I think I am getting what you are saying.  No, I do not believe that learning vocabulary from sentences is a bad method.  In fact, it is what I have been using for the past 8 months or so.  Also, certain words probably cannot be learned without sentences (わけ) comes to mind.

All else equal, of course having a sentence will give you more.  But my thought is that there are pros and cons to sentences:

Pros:
* contextual information: where does the word go in a sentence, do you usually see the word with another word, what situation would you use this word as opposed to another similar word, etc.
* learning grammar (although I still think grammar is one of the quickest things to come for someone who reads a lot, so at a certain point, this benefit is not that great)

Cons:
* It is slow: I think harvesting 50 sentences each with 2 unknown words, and learning those words as you do it takes more time than learning 100 words in isolation, especially if the words in isolation are systematically laid out.  Much like learning kanji in isolation, I think the time benefits are there (we disagree here)
* Putting them in the SRS, and studying them later takes longer, plus you lose the contextual info around that sentence: I like what yukamina said, where he would rather reread a story than study sentences out of that story.

Right now I am testing different methods of learning vocabulary.  I am not always having success with the "word that sounds like another word" thing, which really slows me down, so I am exploring other methods.  I am starting to think that maybe having groups of words laid out in a systematic manner, maybe with clever stories linking them, is the best way to go.  Much like RTK, someone can say "learn the kanji using memory techniques," and some people will be able to do it, but probably most will find it faster to just use the book.