Going back to Japanese school

[Justin]

oooooo Hotlink that, it can be our song of the month.

[kashiyukachan]

You guys are funny lol...
ame no orchestra = life's melody

and yes its from a song
also yes im japanese onna!

some more words for you to get..

1. nihon go deska?
2. ohaio gozaimasu
3. KashiYukachan ga kawaii desu
4. watashi wa ikimasu
5. chiyoto made
6.shizuka ishite
7.sai desu ka?
8. KashiYukachan ga watashi wa tomodachi

and dont cheat lol ^.^

[Musa-Revived]

Eh... I'll just go with the "Kashiyukachan is Uber Cute" thing.

[Justin]

Aug 29, 2008 1:06:17 GMT -5 kashiyukachan said:

You guys are funny lol...
ame no orchestra = life's melody

and yes its from a song
also yes im japanese onna!

some more words for you to get..

1. nihon go deska?
2. ohaio gozaimasu
3. KashiYukachan ga kawaii desu
4. watashi wa ikimasu
5. chiyoto made
6.shizuka ishite
7.sai desu ka?
8. KashiYukachan ga watashi wa tomodachi

and don't cheat lol ^.^

1. Bah the first one... Do you speak Japanese... Thats a wild guess
2. Good morning
3. Kashiyukachan is cool (I think)
4. Im going or here I go
5. Wait a minute or Wait
6. No idea, but again sounds very familiar
7. same as above ha ha
8. Kashiyukachan is my friend... I think thats what it is, but I thought you had to use grammar like Wrydie posted.

[Musa-Revived]

Like I said, it should be "Kashiyukachan is cute"

The 6th is probably "Be quiet"

The 7th is probably " Oh really"

I'm assuming she accidentally used wrong grammar for some of the examples.

Anyway here's the youtube to that ame no orchestra song.



And I've long forgotten how to appreciate Japanese rock... so I'm not commenting on it..

[kashiyukachan]

I am really impressed you guys know well and yes i did some typos...im not perfect! lol

[kyouki]

Japanese is fun to learn, but I will tell you now that I took Japanese classes in college for 3 years (in a traditional class setting), and then 1 more year during graduate school (in a "mentor" type setting where it was just me and the professor) and when I actually moved to Japan I could not communicate at all. Textbook Japanese is a waste of time in my opinion.

If you use that kind of Japanese in Japan, you know, IT IS RAINING, DO YOU LIKE SUSHI, I WENT TO THE STORE WITH JOE most Japanese people will tell you "SUGOI!!!" or "NIHONGO JOUZU!!!" but they mean it in the same way you might when you look at a little kid's drawing of a box with legs and tell him, "Wow! That's really good!" Or maybe when your pet dog shakes hands and you tell it, "Good boy!"

The best thing you can do for Japanese is learn it like you learned your first language. Talk to people a lot, write letters, write emails, read comics and books and watch TV and movies and stuff.

Kids learn languages so fast because they really want to learn them. Kids want to communicate and haven't matured to the point yet where they fear sounding stupid. This is also why girls tend to be better at languages than boys... girls love to talk, boys try to hard to look cool.

If you are really serious about learning Japanese, try to use it everyday.

[Justin]

Ha Ha I do, and my girlfriend thinks I am a total wierdo. Some one cuts me off and I say "Nani!! Kisama!!" and she just rolls her eyes.

[SkyeWelse]

ganbatte Justin-san,
がんばってJustinさん、
Goodluck Justin,

watashi mo nihongo no gakusei desu.
私も日本語の学生です。
I am also a student of the Japanese language.

nihongo wa tottemo muzukashii demo tottemo tanoshii desu!
に本後はとってもむずかしいでもとてもたのしいです！
The Japanese language is very difficult, but very fun!

-SkyeWelse

[kashiyukachan]

Another thing some people forget when they go to japan.... In tokyo the kids today talk different lingo than say outer prefectures. Lower island regions also have different dialect than say north areas....

[kyouki]

Aug 30, 2008 0:38:09 GMT -5 Wyrdwad said:

I actually disagree with kyouki, to a point. Textbook Japanese is EXTREMELY useful... as a jumping point. You can't JUST learn Japanese from a textbook... but a couple years of classroom training will go a LONG way toward learning the language. Sure, it takes actually speaking and using it in your day-to-day life to REALLY learn it... but getting as much as you can out of classes and textbooks will ultimately mean you can learn it A LOT FASTER once you're in real-life situations, since you'll have a firm foundation in grammar and basic language structure to fall back on.

-Tom

Maybe I overstated it by saying textbook Japanese is useless. However, I think depending on the person, you can get everything you'd get out of a typical Japanese class by just buying an intro textbook and putting some time into it. Japanese grammar is pretty straight-forward as you know, it doesn't take much to get the basics down.

However, most Japanese classes teach you nonsense Japanese. No one in Japan is walking around talking like WATASHI WA AMERKAJIN DESU. WATASHI WA SUSHI GA SUKI DESU, right?. The longer you stick around in a Japanese class the more this stuff gets hammered into your mind, and the bigger a shock it will be when you have to actually talk to someone in real Japanese.

I'd say once you understand sentence structure and the basics of tense modification, etc, it's time to look at other methods of study.

The biggest problem with classroom language instruction is that you are learning translation, not conversation or even comprehension. And this is why my reading ability in Japanese is light years ahead of my speaking ability. In the classroom you sit there and translate sentences back and forth and are tested on your ability to write down the English equivalent of a Japanese word.

However, having said all that there may be some Japanese classes out there that actually focus on conversation, and my criticisms do not apply to those. I am mainly talking about your standard high school/college level class.

[Justin]

I remember in the classes I took, we had to converse with each other, everything we already learned. When you are done all 4 years you are expected to give a speech, entirely in Japanese, too the entire school. There is always break, and you can only speak Japanese to the teachers, or to the snack lady, whereas if you dont know something you usually had to say "wakaranai", and then you would get the literal English description on how to ask for that in Japanese.

[Skeletore has a boner]

One tip for learning Japanese and it concerns Kanji.

IGNORE everything they teach you about kanji and buy this series of 3 books and study hard with them 1hour a day-ish and you'll be fluent in Kanji in about a year or less.

www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kanji-Vol-Complete-Characters/dp/0824831659/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220466100&sr=8-1

Traditional language classes do not teach you how to learn language properly, I'm a cognative linguist and the principles in that book series is sound for mastering kanji quickly beause it exploits brain menomics to form an image relationship with each one that you won't get via rote memorization.

[Red Hairdo]

Sept 3, 2008 13:26:04 GMT -5 Skeletore has a boner said:

One tip for learning Japanese and it concerns Kanji.

IGNORE everything they teach you about kanji and buy this series of 3 books and study hard with them 1hour a day-ish and you'll be fluent in Kanji in about a year or less.

www.amazon.com/Remembering-Kanji-Vol-Complete-Characters/dp/0824831659/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1220466100&sr=8-1

Traditional language classes do not teach you how to learn language properly, I'm a cognative linguist and the principles in that book series is sound for mastering kanji quickly beause it exploits brain menomics to form an image relationship with each one that you won't get via rote memorization.

I can't find the ISBN from that book! Otherwise I'd order it from a certain local store...

[Musa-Revived]

Hmm, sounds like how the Chinese teach Chinese to their young, though in more detail. Probably informative to non-native writers. It probably teaches you the origins of each element, radical of the kanji by associating it with it's original semblance to its representation of nature. For example, the word "ki" that means "wood" or "tree", is derived from an archaic kanji that looks like a tree with its crown and trunk and through the ages evolved to its current shape.

So you memorize these simple radicals and associate them with their intended meanings and start formulating compounds because the more basic kanjis with 2 or more radicals are formed by linking each radical via connecting their meanings in a chain of events. For example, the word "Otoko" for man, is made up of the radicals "Ta" for Field, and "Chikara" for Strength. It means that "Men are the strength in the Fields because that's their job, tending to the fields".

Of course that's a very simplistic example and requires some memory and imagination. It's probably effective for the simpler kanji when some actually make sense, but many complex ones may not be that straightforward. Usually, it falls back to rote memorization once you get the "hang" of recognizing the simple ones.

And to be honest, after a while, it's just bothersome to remember such learning and most native chinese / japanese will forget it and go by writing practice. But then, that's because they have a lifetime to do so, so it's a little different from non-native learning.

[kyouki]

I wrote a review of the Heisig book on Amazon, and here it is:

"I don't quite understand the purpose of this book.

As mentioned in other reviews you will not learn how to pronounce and characters, nor will you actually learn the meanings of the characters... instead you will learn "keywords": single word meanings. Kanji often mean several things depending upon what comes before them or after them, so this keyword system is a little lacking.

Assuming you can get through the course with total retention (which is extremely difficult and time-consuming), you will have the ability to think "exquisite" and then draw the character for "exquisite." That's great, except the character can also mean "strange" in certain situations. Likewise, you will be able to see the kanji "myou" and will sort of know the meaning ("exquisite"). However, you might feel like you wasted your time when you read "...myou ni omou" and think the meaning is "to think something exquisite" when in fact the meaning is "to think something strange." This will be the extent of your ability.

So now with the understanding that you will basically be illiterate after finishing this book, what is the value of this course?

I guess you could impress people at parties by telling them you know Japanese/Chinese characters. You could probably read their tattoos, or possibly read those Chinese calligraphy things they sell at motivational stores ("That sign says 'love'!").

Having said that, how is the system? Unfortunately, the system is not great.

The keyword system is basically memorizing mnemonics based on smaller keywords ("primitives"). For example "koh" which means "thick" is a combination of "cliff," "sun," and "child." So Heisig will tell you a story such as "A child was left under a cliff with the sun beating down on him. This made him as THICK headed as his parents."

That's one of the more logical ones. Sometimes his "primitives" have meanings other than their true meanings. Some of these are based on Japanese etymology, sometimes he makes them up.

So you get the following problem:

"shou" (nitrate) is composed of "stone" and "resemblance"... two keywords introduced in the same chapter as the character for "nitrate." However, Heisig thought this combination awkward to come up with a story about, so he changes the meaning of "resemblance" to "a moon giving off sparks" and thus the story becomes something like "When you pour NITRATE on a STONE you get SPARKS."

There are far too many of these for this to be considered any kind of system or course.

Furthermore, Heisig tends to group kanji together by primitive. Not a bad idea, but unless you are constantly drilling yourself on the previous chapters as you go along, you will tend to use this as a crutch. For example, if one chapter introduces "stone" as a primitive when you are testing yourself on this chapter it's easy to remember the mnemonic (and thus think you've retained the knowledge) because you are thinking, "Hmm... this was the "stone" chapter... so "stone" must be somewhere in here..."). So in other words, you get a bit of a false sense of mastery/progress.

I figure most people will start the course, think "this is so logical" and happily continue along. However, the sheer number of primitives, many with both a real meaning and a "within another kanji- sometimes" meaning, and the extremely tortured mnemonics will very quickly bury someone who isn't willing to study long, hard, and well.

And again, after all this hard work, you'll essentially be able to do nothing with your new knowledge.

However, one good thing about the book is that it teaches you that there is a (weak) method to the madness of kanji. There are plenty of kanji that are completely logical and make sense once you read the radicals therein. So for that I give this book 2 stars."

---

My main complaint (besides the lack of readings/vocab/proper meanings) is that the system is only sort of grounded in reality. He makes up meanings for radicals that are not historically accurate. That can hurt your comprehension of kanji. If you study the actual etymology of kanji, you will understand why there are so many exceptions (mostly, because radicals were chosen not only for meaning but also for phonetic reasons). Heisig does not go into any detail on this, so when a radical which was chosen for phonetic reasons appears, he changes the meaning to "help" you understand the kanji. So it's almost worthless! He creates this logical system where every radical has a succinct meaning, but then the radical will have some other meaning in this particular kanji because it didn't fit into his system!

The second book goes over the actual readings of the characters, but why not learn the readings the first time around? Besides I have found that learning both the meaning and reading at the same time helps retention. When I can open a book and see a character and read AND understand it, I remember it more easily that one I have a vague understanding of but can't read at all.

There are books out there that teach both meaning and reading, and I recommend these over Heisig:

There is a textbook series for preparing for the JLPT tests, and there is a vocab/kanji book for each level. The level 4 and 3 books are in English, the level 2 and 1 books are in Japanese. The title is "Nihongo Nouryoku Shiken Kanji Tango Drill Jituryoku Up!" The book organizes kanji by several useful categories, such as kanji that contain the same radical, kanji that sound the same, etc.

Another good series of books is Essential Kanji 1110 (two volumes). These take the most common 1110 kanji you will see in daily life in Japan and group them in some interesting ways. For example, kanji used in economic terms, or kanji used in politics, etc.

Plenty of vocab and even example sentences are included in either of the books above. This is important because it helps to reinforce the kanji by seeing them in sentences, and maybe more importantly gives you an idea of how to correctly use the word in its proper context.

If you are interested in how kanji came to have their meanings, the best book on this topic is Henshall's "A Guide to Remembering Japanese Characters" which is a very scholarly look at the subject. Every general use kanji is included and Henshall goes into some amazing detail on how the characters developed and got their modern meanings. He throws in some mnemonics if you are the type of person that can make use of them (I can't). But unlike Heisig he includes all the readings for the characters, as well as 3 or so compounds using each character (key to understanding kanji).

[Justin]

From all the advice I have gotten here, I am almost rethinking taking classes. I have very good English-Japanese dictionaries, and do understand sentence structure enough. Honestly, its the kanji that I get stumped with so I may just pick up those books!!

[Skeletore has a boner]

My main complaint (besides the lack of readings/vocab/proper meanings) is that the system is only sort of grounded in reality. He makes up meanings for radicals that are not historically accurate. That can hurt your comprehension of kanji. If you study the actual etymology of kanji, you will understand why there are so many exceptions (mostly, because radicals were chosen not only for meaning but also for phonetic reasons). Heisig does not go into any detail on this, so when a radical which was chosen for phonetic reasons appears, he changes the meaning to "help" you understand the kanji. So it's almost worthless! He creates this logical system where every radical has a succinct meaning, but then the radical will have some other meaning in this particular kanji because it didn't fit into his system!

The second book goes over the actual readings of the characters, but why not learn the readings the first time around? Besides I have found that learning both the meaning and reading at the same time helps retention. When I can open a book and see a character and read AND understand it, I remember it more easily that one I have a vague understanding of but can't read at all.

Just snipped a small bit but responding to the entirety.

The purpose of the books going into 2-3 volumes is the ability to layer information. This is a completely sound mnemonic principle.

If you try to learn the writing, reading, pronounciation and memorization of a character at the same time you are introducing yourself to sensory over-load. If you can succeed doing it like this you are an *exception* and should congratulate yourself on having far superior memory than 99.9% of the world.

This method relies on layering small bits of information onto each character over time. You start with a vague meaning and a symbolic representation and eventually amend grammar, real meaning, context, and pronounciation. Cognitive linguistics recognizes the fact that it is easier to add information to things you already know than it is to learn it all at once.

This is simply how the brain works, everything you know is a series of association with something you already know, and once you have a solid grasp of the basics it's easier to remember most of the advanced information you'll add to it.

I understand at the end of your post you say this method simply doesn't work for you, that does not mean it's flawed. Like anything involving humans it doesn't apply to every single person, but you can see the response to his books is overwhelmingly positive.

[kyouki]

Have the books worked for you? If I could hear from someone (other than faceless Amazon reviewers) for whom the system worked it might be worth revisiting. Maybe I could jump in on the second kanji book since the first one was a little bit beneath my level.

[kyouki]

Well, I dunno how our levels compare but I am semifluent and the book was useless for me. I prefer to learn it the way Japanese people do I guess... works for me.