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Ways to take advantage of 1/2 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4411 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 1 of 7 05 November 2012 at 2:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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ok, I realize im putting out quite a few threads lately, but please bear with me...
as I mentioned in my last post, I am on a construction team in japan, surrounded most of the time by English speakers, however through out the day I have several opportunities to use my japanese... again this weekend I will be leaving an English environment behind and relying totally on my japanese... I know that having lots of conversations and trying to think as much as possible in the language are beneficial, but beyond that, what are some more tactical ways I can take advantage of the osmosis around me, I dont feel like im getting what I could from conversations alone thank you for any suggestions you have :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5073 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 2 of 7 05 November 2012 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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To my mind, I would learn how to say, "how do you say this in Japanese?" in Japanese and whenever I had an appropriate opportunity, I'd use this phrase. I'd bring a small handheld notepad with me. When the need arises and the question elicits a response, I'd have a small hand held notebook with me and I'd write it down. If possible, and it wouldn't be too inconvenient, I'd ask the Japanese person to write down the Japanese words for me. That would help me remember what I've been told and study it later.
To me, the most important thing is learning what to say and how to say it from natives. You should have some stock phrases down pat. "How do you say x in Japanese?" ("x" being demonstrated by pointing and/or gesturing/pantomiming) "I'm learning Japanese and I'd appreciate your help." "I'm sorry, I don't speak Japanese well." "I've only recently started learning." "Please excuse my poor Japanese but I really want to learn your language." etc. That's how I would take advantage of the opportunity you have. Edited by iguanamon on 05 November 2012 at 3:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4468 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 7 05 November 2012 at 4:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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What you can do is to prepare yourself. How much success you will have depends partly on your level in Japanese, but you can always get a bit more with preparation then without.
Set priorities - what is important for you at the moment? The everyday conversations, small talk, business Japanese? Nothing says you have to overextend yourself and try for it all... Construction business is somewhat predictable - take a moment in the evening and think about the next day. What will be discussed? Can you look up vocabulary in advance? In everyday life, the best you can do is to take advantage of the naturally repeating situations - be it buying newspapers, ordering a dinner etc. Every time you feel that you failed to speak, every time you had to switch to English, find time after the fact to prepare for the same conversation, learn few ready-made phrases and go out the next day and try again :) I find that almost as useful as taking active part in conversation is simply sitting among native speakers and listening to them. If you can, ask your Japanese colleges to be included. I find that laying the cards on the table in advance, saying you will be often listening and not saying much, works very well. Without the pressure to speak, you may end talking much more, and much more freely. Again, I advice everybody in this situation to take 5 minutes in the evening to recap the day. Think about what went well, what went not so well, what you would like to change next time or what you want to learn from this day. You want to filter out the most important, most useful parts. It is very easy either to try to remember all of it and get overwhelmed, or to let the day disappear among all the distractions and not to remember anything. Edited by Majka on 05 November 2012 at 7:11pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5343 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 7 05 November 2012 at 6:10pm | IP Logged | ||
Good idea. When I was first immersed in French, I set aside 15 minutes or so every evening to write a short journal on lang-8. I spent a lot of time writing about things I had tried (and failed) to discuss earlier in the day, and looked up lots of vocabulary online. If the subject came up again the next day, it was a lot easier to discuss! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| NickJS Senior Member United Kingdom flickr.com/photos/sg Joined 4770 days ago 264 posts - 334 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese | Message 5 of 7 05 November 2012 at 9:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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Set yourself some goals for when you go our & work towards accomplishing them whilst out
:). Edited by NickJS on 05 November 2012 at 9:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6393 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 6 of 7 06 November 2012 at 7:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Try thinking of some conversations you're likely to have during the day and write an imaginary dialog or two that you might have. When doing that, you'll come across vocabulary you're going to need and expressions that can be useful. You look these up as you write your imaginary dialog. Then you try to memorize these expressions. Then when it's "sharp" you can try to use them.
Conversation isn't very useful for learning, but it's great for getting used to conversing, that is, formulating your knowledge on the fly and working on your listening comprehension. Mostly this takes care of itself as you're conversing. Don't think that you'll learn a lot of new stuff, though. Conversation is a terrible way to learn new material. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4411 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 7 06 November 2012 at 11:02am | IP Logged | ||
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hey, thanks for the help guys, it seems like the most important advice for me, here is that I should be as prepared as
possible, and while my japanese is no longer totally elementary, Im certainly could get more if I knew more... also (some good news) today, I saw an obvious improvement in the use of my japanese, that is in the ease of speaking, and I can also see I am becoming more accustomed to various grammar patterns that before left me lost in the conversation so hopefully as I look at this thread again over the next few days, my progress will begin to accelerate ^.^ 1 person has voted this message useful |
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