Home › Forums › The Japanese Language › Practing the grammar
This topic contains 56 replies, has 10 voices, and was last updated by hey 12 years, 4 months ago.
-
AuthorPosts
-
August 14, 2012 at 10:44 am #34426
LOL
“Make myself feel dumb” I think is the most important bit of what you wrote there. You will only feel dumb if you make yourself feel dumb.
I am in my 30′s having taught English as a second language in a school of higher learning. I don’t feel dumb at all reading a child’s book in a language that I haven’t learned. Just the same as I don’t feel dumb learning words like This, That, Me, and My. You have to start somewhere. If you try to bite off more than you can chew, even if you don’t feel dumb, it’s still not going to help as much as practicing things that you can actually handle and process efficiently.
Yeah children’s books may seem silly, but personally I’d rather have the satisfaction of being able to solidly read one in 15-30 mins, than taking two days to translate a few pages of a Manga.
If you can’t translate a children’s book, it’s kinda silly expecting to be able to translate Manga or newspapers as an efficient tool of learning the language. If you can easily translate a children’s book, then it truly is beneath you, and you should be moving on to more difficult subject matter.
I would feel more dumb passing up a learning resource just because I thought it was beneath me somehow.
-hey
As for the Kana and no spaces thing, I can see how that could be a problem. However, if you finish all the seasons in TF, you should then know enough words to be able to tell the difference just by looking at the sentences, identifying the particles, verbs, and any other words you are already familiar with and just filling in the blanks, so to speak.
As far as finding them goes, once again I’d check with your local library. If they don’t have them they should still be able to order some in I would imagine. If not just look up some lists of them online and see if you can order them from Amazon or another outlet.
-Cheers
August 14, 2012 at 10:52 am #34430I hadn’t thought about the inter-library loan system. That’s a good idea. I’ll check that out.
Oddly enough I’ve had no luck with Amazon turning up Japanese children’s books. I suspect it’s because I don’t know if any actual books to look for. I think most of my search results always end up returning things like “Teach yourself Japanese!”
Based on what you’re describing then I might just not be ready to actually do translation for study.
August 14, 2012 at 11:25 am #34434Hey Hey, heres the amazon link you want; http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=3201081
I was surprised to see some of those books (The Hungry Caterpillar, which I read in, I dunno ~ages ago). And Harry Potter in furigana, I’m getting that. [Edit: even if I do wind up reading a dictionary more than the actual book XD]
And google also churned this up; http://nihongo-dekimasu.blogspot.co.uk/2009/04/children-stories-ebook.html
- This reply was modified 12 years, 4 months ago by Astralfox.
August 14, 2012 at 11:47 am #34440You 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.
August 14, 2012 at 1:23 pm #34444
AnonymousIts all the same “Japanese” anyway, just that one is a little bit harder than another.
This. I don’t know why people categorize “easy” and “hard” Japanese. It’s all just Japanese. Look at it that way more and trust me and missing, you will improve, AND get to enjoy what you learn.
August 14, 2012 at 3:31 pm #34453@Astralfox – Sweet thanks Astralfox, I’m checking it out now.
August 14, 2012 at 3:33 pm #34454@Missing & @BVC – Thanks for the additional thoughts. I’m getting conflicting advice on this, so I’ll go with Missing’s default advice, and try both and see what works best for me.
August 14, 2012 at 7:34 pm #34471(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.
August 15, 2012 at 4:00 am #34478ヘイさん!
私はわかりますか?
今日はなにをしましたか?
教えてください!
If you use google translate, I’ll kill you.
August 15, 2012 at 4:18 am #34479
Anonymous^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.
August 15, 2012 at 4:25 am #34480August 15, 2012 at 4:29 am #34482
Anonymous。。。
。。。
知ってる。 ただ妨げることだ。
- This reply was modified 12 years, 4 months ago by .
August 15, 2012 at 4:34 am #34484
Anonymous日本語で初コピーぺースター作った今。笑
August 15, 2012 at 4:46 am #34487
AnonymousAhaha Im fkn dieing. I cry erytime I see it.
inb4 multiple edits from Hashi and I go back to being bored as fk.
August 15, 2012 at 6:40 am #34488Thomas Fullerton said:
ヘイさん!
Hey-san!私はわかりますか?
I understand?今日はなにをしましたか?
Today, what did you do?教えてください!
(This uses some grammar I haven’t seen yet, but it looks like a polite way to say something about teaching.)—
Did you intent to say “あなたは分かりますか?” or am I misunderstanding?
-
AuthorPosts
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.