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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4845 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 9 of 76 18 July 2012 at 8:42am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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@Brun Ugle - Thank you for the comments. They are very encouraging. I'm glad someone else went through something similar. I'm not alone!!! :)
I'm sure that my dislike of the Japanese language is just a phase I'm going through now, probably something other intermediate learners have gone through. I'm sure that once I get over this current hump, make some progress, and move on to reading novels and other things, I'll fall in love with the language all over again. Thanks for the suggestions about self-talk. I think that, instead of aiming for complete perfection, I should learn how to say things like "I mean..." (いや失礼 pops into my mind) and use that in my self-talk. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4845 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 10 of 76 18 July 2012 at 8:55am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Overall, I would rate myself a B1 at best, and A2 at worst. For my level, reading and writing are my strengths. I can't read a newspaper, but children's books are no problem, aside from unknown vocabulary. I know all the readings for, and can write from memory, roughly 300 kanji, and I can recognize more than that. My listening skills are not as good as my reading and writing skills, although much better than my speaking skills. It's a bit tough to gauge my listening level, because I work with a lot of hyojungo materials, but the Japanese I hear in everyday life is Kansai-ben. Perhaps if I went to Tokyo, I could judge my listening a lot better. I can understand 30-40% of the dramas I see on TV. Speaking is the big problem. I'm completely slow when trying to form sentences. I recently switched to using sentences in Mnemosyne to help with this. Oh, vocabulary is another big problem as well. My grammar is solidly intermediate, but my vocabulary level is much lower than that, probably A2.
That's a good idea. I'm hoping the reader I ordered will help provide that. I'm also looking for some manga with furigana, and without big robots and girls with purple hair, big eyes and miniscule mouths.
Another great idea. I'm sure she could tolerate 5 minutes of my Japanese every now and then. :) As for intensive immersion, it sounds nice, but unfortunately I am unable to do it in the foreseeable future. But I think a little studying a day, with speaking practice and consistency, will lead to progress. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4531 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 11 of 76 18 July 2012 at 10:09am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I can certainly see some similarities between your situation and my own. I lived on and off in Germany for a few years, and have been married to a German for the last seven years, but my German never passed a pretty basic level, probably for similar reasons to yourself.
Over the last couple of months I have finally started working on it more intensively and have been making good progress. Of course, German is a lot easier to learn for an English speaker than Japanese, but you sound like you have a better grasp of the language than me. One thing I have realized is that I can do most/all the basic learning here in London; I think it's a bit of a myth that having a partner fluent in your target language, or living within the country helps that much. I wrote this blog post yesterday for a friend who is trying to learn German, perhaps it will help: http://diary.radiant-flux.net/2012/07/deutsch-lernen/ Of course, what works for me won't necessarily be good for you; and I am sure there are lots here who would disagree with much of what I say. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 76 18 July 2012 at 12:15pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yeah, it's hard to change the default language of a relationship. My wife is a native French speaker. We live in the US, and we spoke English at home for 10 years. My French was maybe A2+ with some B1 skills. One day in February, we decided to switch. The first several weeks were pretty agonizing for both of us—speaking a new language is like starting a new sport. You need to build physical skills, mental skills and endurance. And you sacrifice a lot of your ability to communicate. But after several weeks, things got a lot better. My French is now semi-fluent— sometimes I can produce it completely spontaneously, other times I need to think for a few seconds first. And after 4 months and some serious study, I passed a B2 exam. So I made more progress in 4 months than in the preceding 3 years. I'm now a semi-functional adult in French, though I still have to make an effort. Some advice for anybody who wants to start speaking their spouse's language at home, either full-time or part-time: 1) Explain to your spouse that you feel kinda lousy about your L2 skills, and you feel embarassed and frustrated that you can't speak the local language / language of their family / whatever. 2) Ask them to set aside some time when you can speak your L2 together. 3) Acknowledge that this is a huge favor—your spouse will need to override a little switch in their head that controls the default language of the relationship, and this is really hard for most people. And then they will need to put up with broken L2, a spouse who sounds like a toddler, and occasionally painful miscommunication. I think (3) here is really important. You're asking for a huge favor, for very serious reasons that you laid out in (1). This is not something that your spouse "should" do, but a very real and weighty sacrifice, and a major gift to you. Anyway, I can't tell you what's right for you (or your wife). But maybe there's a place for some Japanese in your relationship, either now or in the long run. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4531 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 13 of 76 18 July 2012 at 12:58pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I think speaking with your spouse is one path towards language fluency, and is probably very useful in the later stages of learning, but I don't think it's essential. If you lived in Japan/French speaking Quebec/Germany alone you would presumably still work towards fluency without a partner, even though some of your interactions (say at work) would still be in English. The really big switch/breakthrough for me was to stop thinking that talking to my wife in my L2 was necessary or even that important to learning. Learning German is solely my responsibility. Stating it like that makes it sound obvious I know, but if you make it a precondition of learning that your spouse has to act as a full-time (or even part-time) language teacher, and give up on your relationship at some level for six months or a year, you are certainly making it their problem too. As my German gets better I talk more with her, but at this point that's incidental for my learning. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4676 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German | Message 14 of 76 18 July 2012 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
If I may say something, it seems to me that you have more time than you think: you live in Japan, there's absolutely no way you only have 2h30 of time to spend on Japanese:when you go to the gym you can surely listen to Japanese during that time. I've listened to Chinese music, German audiobooks etc, and it really helps. I would suggest that this also applies when to your cooking time... perhaps not eating, as you may want to share that with your wife. Perhaps you don't really want to have your ears busy during these activities, but if you really want to learn the language, somehow you'll have not only to make the most of the time you have, but also to create time! Most people who think they don't have time simply don't realize that time is everywhere and that you simply need to take it. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4845 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 15 of 76 18 July 2012 at 2:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
First of all, thank you everyone for your wonderful input. It has been very, very encouraging and uplifting and helpful.
I love that blog post! I'm especially interested in that viewpoint of concentrating on input, not output. I started Self-Talk and a lot of diary writing only this week, precisely because I thought I needed more output. But with my vocabulary being as low as it is, I probably do need to concentrate more on input. That's probably why Self-Talk is so frustrating in the first place. Besides, that's one thing my wife would gladly want me to do with her every night: watch all her favorite dramas with her. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4845 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 16 of 76 18 July 2012 at 2:23pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks, emk and patrickwilken, for your comments. Knowing my wife, I tend to lean towards patrickwilken's thinking on this matter. My wife is a wonderful and caring person. But some people are built to deal with listening to my Japanese, and some aren't. My wife is in that latter category... at least until my Japanese is respectful. It's not that she doesn't care. She is my number one cheerleader, always encouraging me to keep at it.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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