sorry meant kigi! why is it not kiki?

This is the problem I have with the site; if you don't properly explain something, or link to a resource that explains it, then just leave it out. For this example, you can just link to the rule of Rendaku wikipedia and say it's not important for a beginner to learn.

Having all these half-facts stuffed in there makes it cluttered and confusing for a newb like me. Other than that though, good job - it's an impressive resource.

"Boku is often used by weaker guys"

This one was funny. A lot of men use boku that I guarantee you no one would think are weak. Older men and younger boys tend to use boku while ore tends to be used by the junior high/high school up to about 40 or so age range (though, of course, there is no hard and fast rule). It would be quite weird for me to hear my 70 year old father-in-law use ore or, conversely, for my 32 year old husband to use boku

If it was often associated with weakness why would any man volunartily call himself boku? I don't know many men who would want to be seen as weak.

It's not that it's associated with weakness. It's just that it's inherently humble (the character itself means servant or something (eg. chinese 公仆 public servant (仆＝僕)). Good little boys are taught to say ぼく. Whereas 俺 is more assertive, the flipside of which is that it may appear arrogant/rude in certain situations (eg at the workplace or with elders) so requires some discretion with it's use. Some (but not all) women find it childish/mama's boyish if their boyfriends use ぼく.

I would agree with nadiatims. Boku is really just more formal than ore. Come to think of it my 29 and 36 year old brothers-in-law (my husband's sisters' husbands) always use boku with us and I think it would be seen as quite crass if they used ore with their parents-in-law.

And my husband is not buff, haughty or a smart-ass. He is kind but is not weak and he uses ore.

tylerdevlin wrote:

imabi wrote:

You do have to admit that no 16 year old would have started and committed two years to something that I have. I think the project is novel. In fact, I am going to start teaching it in a club at my school to people. In preparation, I have been trying to get words out I think they don't know. So, even mentioning a word like homonym is pushing it.

Because we wouldn't want to risk confusing your intellectual inferiors, now would we?

There's plenty of 16 year olds who start and commit to something. Take a look around you and actually get to know the people in your school... you'll find that soooo many of them have talents and skills that they've worked extremely hard to learn. Not all of them are "academic", some will have worked equally hard at theatre, or singing, or painting, or other arts, some of them will have skill in mechanics, or building things, or caring for young children, and some of them will have donated their time to various charities, etcetc.

What you're doing is good, but it's by no means outstanding, even for a 17 year old. In academic terms, i've met plenty of 16 year olds who do great things academically... and honestly, who can explain things and take advice a lot better than you can, which puts them way ahead of you. I think once you get to university, you're going to meet quite a few of them.

I thought you might be interested in looking at this site: http://everyday-nihongo.blogspot.com/se … -results=7

This was made by a guy your age (though he's now at university studying ridiculous amounts of languages). It was his final year project, and he ran a class in high school for 6 months to teach Japanese to other students.
Now, i'm not saying you should use exactly the same style as he does, but you can see how he makes the material interesting, and explains it in a very clear way so that any beginner can understand. It's a good read!!

***
About the 僕, yeah, it's humbleness, not weakness. Even those guys who use 俺 will switch to 僕 when talking to someone above them. You don't hear someone use 俺 with their boss / parents in law / head teacher, etc very often at all (at least on TV, but i heard 僕 even more often in real life).

Last edited by IceCream (2011 December 17, 2:05 am)

Oh, I'm 18 now. I know that IceCream, think of who made facebook and firefox. I will certainly look at his site. Thank you.

Ya, it was a month ago. Thanks anyways.

I meant want you said yudantaiteki. I didn't think the word weak would have been taken so literally. It is weaker than the word ore as in force. I have since fixed the wording.

Hm...IceCream, sometimes the advice here makes no sense, and at times even you were wrong. When I respond, I am defensive when I feel that the other person was wrong. There isn't anything wrong with that in my opinion. Think of what Inny Jan said. That made no sense. Especially when someone right after her can point sections where the bar is potentially too high. Then there were the comments about my English.There are plenty of posts here and everywhere online where people could make a list of inconsistencies. I don't even know why that had to take up 5 pages of this thread. It's also hard when one person wants one thing, I change it. Then, one person wants it another way, I change it. Then, I'm in a circle and don't know what to do. From your advice, I took out a lot of the unnecessary notes in Lesson 5, but then that left some areas open to ambiguous interpretation. Sometimes it's hard to draw the line. Would you agree on this?

My work isn't outstanding?

My school isn't that large. There are a few very intelligent individuals here. But, I'm the only one there whose forte is foreign language.

Last edited by imabi (2011 December 17, 11:14 am)

Whine? I'm sorry but I don't know what you are talking about. There will always be haters.

It's good work, for sure!! It's on it's way (i was more referring to the 17 year old thing in general about "outstanding"... there's plenty of 17 year olds who really excel at their particular interests).

Yes, some advice you get is going to be bad. But there's tons of people in this thread who've given you (at least what i think) is great advice!! Yudantaiteki, Nadiatims, Aphasiac, Buonaparte, etcetc. have made detailed and helpful posts for you.

But your response is usually to make excuses and explain things away, to say that people aren't reading it properly, or that you already meant what they said, or that you found that explanation / sentence somewhere else so it's correct, or that Tae Kim doesn't have it. And i think you're missing a lot of really good advice that way.

If someone's bringing up a point, it's because it's not explained clearly enough on the page, or because there's a better way of explaining it, or because what you've written isn't a very good example of Japanese (even if you found it, there may be more representative examples it'd be better to use to avoid confusion), or just that it would be helpful to have it there.

Anyway, you really don't need to read that kind of advice as an attack on you, or your intelligence, or your site, or anything else like that, because it's not!! Pretty much everything in the world has room for improvement. So, really, you should approach constructive criticism as dispassionately as you can, and not take it personally. I know & completely understand it's hard sometimes, but it's well worth trying to remember that.

Because, in the end, people really view you as more thoughtful and intelligent if you can understand and respond to constructive criticism well, not less!!! And you will learn a ton of stuff that you might not have thought of on your own.

Anyway, thanks for adding in those links!!!

... i think i've used up my preaching quota for the next 3 months now

beeeeeep. wrong answer.

You just made a bunch of excuses again. (remember the golden rule: if someone's read it incorrectly, you've usually written it incorrectly).

To accept a comment nicely, you say, "Thankyou. That's good advice. 頑張ります！" k?

Last edited by IceCream (2011 December 17, 11:40 am)

Hello imabi!

Congratulations on your big project, it's very impressive. It's good that you're getting some advice here, I think it's useful. By now you probably can't follow all the advice, so I suppose you will have to follow your own feeling.

It's difficult to know how to pitch something that is aimed at people you don't know. I try to write as if the audience knows and understands very little. That's why I think I sound like an idiot most of the time! But at least I know I'm probably being understood. It's good that you're working with some real live people - it may give you some ideas about what's successful and what is less successful. The main thing is you have put the material up there; you can always fine-tune the approach whenever you want (if you do want). 

I think that your lessons (speaking of your descriptions and so on, as criticised above) can seem a little abstruse - when compared with the rest of the internet. Is that really a problem? I think not. "LOL"

As for complaints about your English, I am aghast. The astute, the strong, the weak, the halt, the lame, the stupid, the magnificent. The idiotic, the pointless, the useless. It's English! Though again, it may be confusing for those who are not used to it. However if this includes your learners, then you may need to take action.

You are the boss of your Learning Center! It's good that you're listening to the advice here, when it is sensible, but ultimately you should do what you feel is right, and most of all see if your material is producing/helping to produce Japanese speakers at a rate that you're happy with.

Edit: I think Ice Cream's last two replies are good. Obey!

One of the most difficult things is knowing how other people think.

Last edited by mizunooto (2011 December 17, 12:35 pm)