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Kuji’s Krazy Log II | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Ezy Ryder Diglot Senior Member Poland youtube.com/user/Kat Joined 4339 days ago 284 posts - 387 votes  Speaks: Polish*, English Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 585 of 706 14 October 2014 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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You're not alone. I also don't particularly enjoy learning, I'm also not learning for the fun of
learning, but rather for the fun of knowing a language. It kinda reminds me of the "language - a means or an end?" thread, except that it's learning, and not language. That is not to say there are no fun moments in learning. I do enjoy passing every thousand of words learnt, and I do enjoy seeing how the language becomes more clear. Though these moments are somewhat few and far in between... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4837 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 586 of 706 14 October 2014 at 2:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes, that's how I feel. I do have fun moments when learning, such as when I learn all the words of an article I'm reading, then go back and read it and enjoy it. It depends on the article, of course. But it doesn't happen enough for me to call learning fun. My goal from here out is to try to be patient when learning a language, and also to try to take positives from my daily learning. For example, Wow, I learned 10 new words and phrases today. I really improved my Japanese today. It was a good day. Focusing on those small daily accomplishments may make learning more interesting. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6587 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 587 of 706 14 October 2014 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I've noticed that your examples of "useful but not fun" always involve intensive reading. Maybe it's time to cut down on it? Unless you have a clear deadline, efficient but not fun methods aren't worth it. I tend to compare them to unhealthy diets that make one lose weight but damage the health in the process.
As for comparing yourself to native speakers, I wonder whether AJATT has to do with that. It's true that developing a L2 personality and trying to "become" Japanese (etc) can boost your learning, but that's not for everyone. As a Gemini, this comes naturally to me, and football helps a lot, of course. Maybe it would be easier for you to belong to a specific group of Japanese speakers? Makes me remember iguanamon's suggestion of joining an amateur sports team. You can master specific situations first and move on from there. Edited by Serpent on 14 October 2014 at 5:00pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5156 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 588 of 706 14 October 2014 at 9:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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You're not the only one. I used to ejoy the process of discovering how the grammar of a language works, but after few languages different from each other it starts to get predictable. I like the result more than the process. What I've been able to read and watch in French since I learned it, all that culture that opened up to me, is much more interesting that the process of learning French.
4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6587 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 589 of 706 14 October 2014 at 10:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Same here, after Finnish and Latin I don't enjoy grammar much anymore. They are so logical :)
Also no worries, I didn't take it personally about not needing languages. I just think that for most people a subjective need also counts as learning for fun, especially if the books etc are available in translation. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4837 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 590 of 706 15 October 2014 at 3:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||
I do other activities, but yeah, I do intensive reading for learning new words and phrases, especially for Japanese. It's a really easy activity to prepare. Just download an article on my Android Walkman and a dictionary app, and I'm good to go. I can do it anywhere, anytime. And it's free. I'm not limited to a computer; I can read it on my Android, and if that doesn't work I can always print it on paper. Videos... I either have to watch it on the computer (and I don't always have time to sit in front of the computer), or I have to download it and make sure it's playable on my Android, and even then if I come across unknown words, it's harder to look them up in the dictionary, unless I have the script or subtitles, then I have to search for those.... you know, it gets really complicated. But - more to the point - I used examples of intensive reading because, for me, that is learning, not the extensive stuff. Extensive is fun; intensive is learning. That is my mindset. I watch a lot of Japanese TV, and most of the time I don't bother looking up words in the dictionary. A lot of what I watch is fun and interesting, but I don't see it as learning. I see learning as making the unknown known. When people say that learning languages is fun, are they talking about the activities themselves, or making the unknown words known? Watching Japanese TV is fun. Reading interesting stories or articles in Japanese is fun. Looking up unknown Japanese words and grammar and characters? That's never fun, no matter what I try to do. But if I am going to improve my Japanese, I'm going to have to eventually make the unknown known - deadline or no deadline. There is no getting around that. So I just need to put my head down and do it. I don't feel like I'm doing too much intensive reading. I do roughly 20 minutes of intensive reading for Japanese a day. I watch at least an hour of Japanese TV every day, plus I have random Japanese conversations with students or teachers at school or at the fitness club I go to. So I have a small amount of intensive study a day. If I cut that out, it might be less stressful, but my Japanese would become stagnant, unless I pull out my dictionary while watching TV or talking to people, which would be awkward and it would make those activities less fun.
As a Taurus, it certainly does not come naturally to me. :) But yeah, I think I was trying to develop an L2 personality, but not because of AJATT. In fact, at this point in time, I kind of despise AJATT. I find Khatz to be highly annoying sometimes. I think I was trying to "become" Japanese for other reasons. I think I had hopes of fitting in here in Japan in a way that I can't possibly do. I feel like Japanese people in Japan take one look at me and see that I'm different from them, different skin color, etc., and they think, There's no way I can relate to him like I can a Japanese person. I felt like if I could speak Japanese like them and understand the culture like them, then that would reduce the social distance between us, and I wouldn't be such an outcast. Looking at it now, that was probably too much pressure to put on myself. I probably just need to accept the fact that I'm going to be different from almost everybody here, and go from there, and then maybe my approach to learning Japanese will be different.
I befriended a guy at the fitness club I go to, and for five minutes he rides the same train in the morning that I do, so we chat. He wants me to go with him to play tennis with friends on some Thursday nights. What gives me pause is that I would probably spend time speaking English with them. The guy is very interested in improving his English, and although I do get some Japanese in here and there, we spend some time speaking English. I might just have to accept that I need to speak English in order to speak Japanese with them if I go play tennis. I had this ideal of spending time with people that will only speak Japanese to me, but that ideal probably doesn't exist. I think most Japanese people who would spend time with me are interested in speaking English to some degree, and that is understandable, so a sort of exchange is probably the way to go. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4837 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 591 of 706 15 October 2014 at 3:07am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yeah, that is my thought process as well. I enjoy the Japanese cartoons I watch on Sundays, for example, because now I can understand a lot of it, even the jokes. That is fun, but the process of getting to that point was not much fun. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5156 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 592 of 706 15 October 2014 at 11:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Now I have to disagree, hehe. Intensive reading feels much more interesting than extensive reading, because I can follow the resource closely and understand a lot.
Intensive 'watching' for me equals using double subtitles. Intensive reading usually is parallel reading and pausing for the most obscure words. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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