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Kuji’s Krazy Log II | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4657 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 601 of 706 20 October 2014 at 8:15am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
A bit like the scary, sword wielding dad in できちゃった結婚 :-) Maybe it is your height or maybe they just don't know whether you are comfortable in Japanese and don't want to cause you unnecessary difficulties? Or maybe your wife is just more outgoing? Mine's the same: always getting into a conversation while I just mumble a little from the sidelines and occasionally make a small contribution. It might be nothing to do with language or being foreign.
My tutor says that, at least at the start or with people you don't know too well, the weather is a good topic (because it's neutral and it's hard to cause offence) and politics is generally bad (for obvious reasons). Maybe you can find some neutral topics (or make a note of what things people talk to your wife about) and mentally prepare some sentences and then join in the conversation next time? Anyway, good luck. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4839 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 602 of 706 20 October 2014 at 8:30am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
kraemder, thanks for the reply!
Yep, believe it or not. All of my friends were at least 6 feet, so it was probably inevitable. :) I used to play basketball with my friends, and if I made an important shot (very rare if I did that), they would start singing the theme song to the old 1980s cartoon: "La la la-la la-laaa..."
It's changing a bit because the Japanese themselves are getting taller and taller - and I have students who are taller than I am, boys and girls - but sometimes if I go into some older buildings, I need to watch my head when I walk through doorways. Even on the train, I find myself looking above the top of doors with no problems. Whenever I go back to the U.S. and rent a car, it's a bit scary to drive, because I've become so accustomed to the smaller Japanese car I have that I feel like I'm going to hit someone with a huge American vehicle - even an economy-sized one. Edited by kujichagulia on 20 October 2014 at 8:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4839 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 603 of 706 20 October 2014 at 8:49am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Yep, exactly like that! :) Hehehe, thanks for the reply.
Ah, I forgot to write this. Yeah, I think that's one important reason. Until they hear otherwise, Japanese people don't think that I can speak Japanese, and they probably do feel that it would cause me inconvenience to just start speaking to me in Japanese. Another reason why I need to start taking the initiative.
It's funny... my wife and I always thought I was the outgoing one out of the two. I always greet my neighbors in the condominium where I live, and I greet people at the fitness club, etc., whereas my wife is sometimes shy to do even that. And yet, people are at ease to strike up conversations with her. One time, we were in the elevator at the condominium with someone who lived on a different floor, someone we had never spoken to before. I greeted her with a "konnichi wa!" She said "konnichi wa! " back to me, then turned to my wife (who had not said a word yet) and started talking about the new garbage restrictions for our building without even glancing at me. Again, my wife and I both had not talked to this woman before. I don't know... maybe I'm too nice?
I've heard the same thing about the weather, so I try to talk about that, although it feels strange when we are both indoors. But I like to have other options ready as well. Joining in conversations... I always feel like it's rude of me to butt in on conversations that don't include me from the start, but it seems that many people have no problems doing that. That's something I need to become more comfortable with. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6589 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 604 of 706 20 October 2014 at 2:38pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I'd think it's called American, not outgoing ;) Did she actually tell you she's too shy to greet people? Could it be that she admires your normal American openness/friendliness and is reluctant to tell you to tone it down a bit? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4839 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 605 of 706 20 October 2014 at 2:54pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Actually, many years ago, my wife told me that she really didn't like talking to people she didn't know, and she didn't do things like greet strangers (which is kind of the opposite of what I see people in Japan do). But nowadays, she's trying to change that. As a matter of fact, we are both trying to work on our social skills. I'm trying to learn how to take the initiative and become better at starting and maintaining conversations in order to get people to talk to me, while my wife is trying to be less anti-social and talk more to people that talk to her, in order to make some friends. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4839 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 606 of 706 22 October 2014 at 4:04am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I want to get back into writing in my target languages. I don't really like to write about events on my own life, but what's stopping me from fictionalizing them?
The big problem for me concerning writing is: paper or electronic? These days I'm more comfortable typing into a word processor than I am writing on paper with a pen or pencil. I can get a lot more writing done on a computer. But I'd be limited to the computer. With paper, I can write anywhere, anytime. But with paper or notebooks, it's a lot harder and heavier to carry around my writings, whereas with computer files, a USB stick is quite easy to carry around. For now, I'm going to do my writings via word processor on a computer. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4839 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 607 of 706 23 October 2014 at 2:26am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I like the multitrack approach to learning languages, but I think I have a problem of trying to do everything when I can't, or when I don't need to. One example is this: it's good for me to read daily news in Japanese, but do I really need to do that in Portuguese at the moment? I already have the Deutsche Welle Futebol radionovela to work through; there's plenty there to keep me busy for a while. Plus the language is closer to my level.
So right now, I'm trying to simplify what I do. Simplicity is the key. :) I'm going to write my current core tasks. That way, in a few weeks, I can look back at this post and see what I've been failing to do. :) JAPANESE * Read, read, read. News articles, Global Voice, GLOSS, books, subtitles... whatever I can get my hands on... in digital form. * Listen to JapanesePod101.com podcasts. * Watch TV (this is pretty easy). Specifically, watch Chibi Maruko-chan and Sazae-san on Sunday evenings. I already do this, but I think it would help me to watch them a bit more intensively, as these are the TV shows that I'm closest to understanding 90% of. However, also watch more TV if possible, and do it extensively. (Yesterday at the gym, while on the elliptical machine, instead of listening to music, I put my headphones in the TV on top of the machine and watched the Kofu-Urawa J-League soccer game. I didn't understand a lot of the commentary, but if something interesting is on TV at that time, I should watch it.) * Write something every day. * Listen to radio on the train (if the reception is good). That should be plenty for me. And if I have time, I'll go ahead and knock out that pesky final chapter of An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese, and then throw the book away (jk). Yeah, I don't have to finish it, but something in me wants to "slay the dragon", if you will. :) Now - and perhaps more importantly, where being simple is concerned - my Portuguese tasks: PORTUGUESE * DLI Portuguese Basic course * Deutsche Welle radionovela - Futebol: mais do que um jogo * PortuguesePod101.com * Write a short, 3-sentence-minimum blurb every day * Try to listen more to online radio and watch online TV/videos extensively That is enough to get reading, writing, listening and speaking practice. I don't expect to always stick to these rules, and they are certainly subject to change, but it helps me every now and then to write down things I want to focus on. Re-evaluation helps me to stay on track. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4839 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 608 of 706 13 November 2014 at 12:53am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I've been unexpectedly busy lately, so I haven't been able to study as much as I'd like. A little bit here, and a little bit there... But what's interesting is that I had a really productive week last week studying on - wait for it - the train.
I'm not exactly sure of the reason why I was able to get a lot of learning done on the train. I think it is a combination of things. To start with, I was able to sit down more than usual. That always helps. But I just felt more comfortable and in the right mood to do some language learning. I didn't feel exhausted, and my brain was active. Coincidentally (or not), last week was also when the weather here in Japan started to cool. That made me wonder if I study better in the fall, winter, and spring than I do in summer. I feel like I do most of my complaining and whining here at HTLAL in the summer. I'll have to go back through my log when I have time to confirm this, but if that is true, well... it puts my struggles into perspective. I might have to adapt how I do my language learning in the summer from now on. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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