You will only feel dumb if you make yourself feel dumb.

Exactly, which is why I chose to not to read them. I personally wouldn’t suggest it for that (very biased) reason, but like I also said, its better to try everything to see what works or not.

I would rather read something that is more intrinsically or potentially interesting to me, and make an effort to read it or learn from it rather than using something that isn’t. I always put myself in a situation where I bite off more than I can chew but then after awhile, it just all falls together. Its all the same “Japanese” anyway, just that one is a little bit harder than another. Either way, whether your start with a children’s book or start with your interests, at the basic level, you will still suck either way.

Also either way, I never really thought that translating wasn’t that good of a method to learn with anyways.

I am in my 30′s having taught English as a second language in a school of higher learning.

You have experience with TESOL? Was it with the JET program? If not, where did you teach? I may have a lot of questions to ask you.

(Has the quote option disappeared?)

-Missing

You are correct that you should have a go with everything and see if it works. He already had a go at more complicated things and it wasn’t working for him, so trying everything should include something more basic.

As far as my ESL/TESOL stuff, I taught it in the US. I was contemplating JET at one point, but wound up going to AUS instead and got married…

Bbvoncrumb- I strongly disagree with the whole the language is the language thing. If you can speak English as a native you still can’t just decide to open a book on particle physics and expect to understand it, as there is a ton of jargon (aka words you don’t know) that you have to understand first before having any hope of understanding the text.

If it didn’t help to learn basic stuff first, we wouldn’t have so many Japanese books that basically contain the exact same content, eg: Introductions; This, That, Over there; Telling Time; Times of the Year; How Much Something is; Counting Objects; Coming and Going, etc

We’d just jump right in to cool stuff like anime and manga, which as far as the introduction threads go seems to be the starting motivation of 90% of the board. Why bother with simple sentences when we could just jump right into complex compound sentences? Because most people need a solid base to start with so they can build on it. Which is exactly why Koichi has built TF the way he has.

Some people are very natural language learners, and thus don’t need much of a base to build on, this probably describes you two, but most people aren’t like that. Unless they can achieve full immersion, the basics can take a long time to process and absorb.

Hey wanted to translate something, but the Kanji were holding him back, as it was too difficult, thus something in Kana should be as challenging, but more manageable.  It’s also more likely to contain a lot of words he already knows, so he should have basic comprehension of some level, which will reinforce what he does know, and allow him to see it constructed in a more natural environment, instead of random sentences or short conversations about the same thing that you see in every textbook: The weather, taking a trip, riding in a cab, etc.

If it still doesn’t work for him, as Manga obviously wasn’t, then he should scrap it and move on, but as Missing said, he should definitely have a go at everything and see how it works out first.

＾いやいやお前のやり方は違うんだよ。

ヘイさん、俺は分かるか？分かるか分からないかどうでもいいけど。

本日は何がしたの？笑。冗談だけど、答えるな、たぶん一人でトイレに泣いたでしょ？心細い。。。

教えないでくれないか？興味が無いから。

told.

。。。

。。。

知ってる。 ただ妨げることだ。

• This reply was modified 12 years, 3 months ago by  .

Ahaha Im fkn dieing. I cry erytime I see it.

inb4 multiple edits from Hashi and I go back to being bored as fk.