Tobberoth wrote:
That isn't really output though, you're not creating any Japanese, you're just mimicking it. I'm sure it helps both hearing and pronunciation, but it won't help you with being creative with Japanese since you're not actually producing anything. I could have several audioclips of french sentences and mimic those, it wouldn't mean I can actually speak any french, I would just be copying sounds.
There really isn't a good way to train production with flashcards. You need to write essays, speak to natives etc for it to really get going. Force yourself to use the grammar instead of just hearing and understanding it.
I think it is important not to conflate production and output. For being able to employ grammar properly (at least in the sense of using it grammatically correctly) practicing production by using flashcards is actually sufficient, in my opinion. On the other hand, I consider activities such as writing essays to fall under the category of (true) output. I don't believe it is necessary to practice output to practice production of grammar. The advantage of this is that it is that it is possible to postpone the more complicated issues of production until after developing an ear what is correct and what is not. For example, I think writing essays from day 1 is rather counterproductive. Instead, it is better to wait until you can read essays to learn how to write them correctly. Consider this description of how to read carefully when learning English from antimoon.com:
1. Stop at interesting (not obvious) things: a new word, how a word was used, a grammatical structure, a preposition, an article, a conjunction, the order of words, etc. For example, spend a while to think about the fact that the sentence contains the preposition at, and not on. Perhaps the sentence uses the present perfect tense where you would have expected the past simple. Perhaps the word order is different than in your first language.
2. If the sentence contains a useful phrase, ask yourself: Could you produce a similar phrase yourself? Would you use the right tenses, articles and prepositions? Would you use the right word order?
I think this is good advice for learning Japanese, as well. The problem is that this sort of careful reading is impossible until you have attained a sufficient level. That is why you have to do a lot of memorizing first.
I don't know if this is optimal, but I don't see there being many other options without receiving corrections from a teacher. Just churning out essays riddled with mistakes isn't going to improve output, in my opinion. Of course, with the increased access to native speakers the internet has provided, it may not actually be that hard to find someone to provide corrections.
Last edited by mystes (2008 September 08, 2:44 pm)
