Learning a new language?
Community Forums/General Help/Learning a new language?
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| Hi. I've already tried learning this language (japanese) before with private classes. The problem is that I tend to accumulate material but due to lack of discipline I don't go study it. And you can only go so far with just what you assimilate from classes. I need study habits that are more rewarding so I keep my interest - not only for learning this new language but for all other subjects in life, such as university etc. I'd appreciate any educational advice and any habits you recommend for the best learning experience, especially if you had to learn a foreign language. |
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| Try Rosetta Stone. GREAT Program! :D WELL worth the money! :) |
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| I have a handy hint for learning any foreign language. It's never failed me on my many far-flung travels. My secret is, point! Point at things you want and speak loudly in English, resorting to shouting if need be. If that still doesn't work then pretend you're playing charades - i guarantee you'll get your point across. Eventually. |
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| I have a handy hint for learning any foreign language. It's never failed me on my many far-flung travels. You don't have to travel far far away to do that. Some times it's the only way to do it in this country. In most cases a couple of fingers can say a lot. My secret is, point! Point at things you want and speak loudly in English, resorting to shouting if need be. If that still doesn't work then pretend you're playing charades - i guarantee you'll get your point across. Eventually. |
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| Japanese is hard to learn - lots of stuff to memorize, and completely different alphabets (Katakana, Hiragana, Kanji...) I bet learning russian and similar languages with completely different 'letters' are as tough - although japanese has so many variations, it's a nightmare. I've learned english a long time ago, and I can understand - and with some struggle - even write in spanish. Most languages have pretty similar terms - so once you get the 'hang' of it, it's just a matter of learning new words and their meaning. |
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| I bet learning russian and similar languages with completely different 'letters' are as tough Cyrillic only has 33 letters in modern Russian... you can learn that in an afternoon. In fact, some character sets, ,e.g. Korean Hangul, are actually simpler than Roman letters once you know how they work (Hangul has only 24 "logically designed" letters, not even upper or lower case... although some publications do still use Hanja as well). As for the original question... You cannot learn a language by reading alone, in my opinion. As far as I see it, "study material" should always be a secondary asset that you use to fuel up on words, rules, and in this case, kanji, which you can then use creatively in some fashion. That means finding some friends to talk and write to, and at least one native speaker who can steer you back to correctness when you go wrong. Or, preferably, some good ol' total immersion. Certainly for me this is the key to all things: skills (speaking, writing, programming) are to be used. If you're not at a level where you can use them for real, you set up a "safe testing" environment, where you can use them at a reduced level, until you are. The other thing is that unstructured rote memorisation does not work, so don't expect to have much recall if all you do is look at lists of words and/or kanji. The best this will do is give you a short-term recall of the individual words (or a long-term recall of the whole list, which serves no purpose) - you then need to apply the knowledge while it is fresh, to give it some kind of context in which it can sit (and to repeat this until you no longer need the original association-list memory). The basic-level memorisation techniques will vary from person to person and are usually general-purpose. Another useful technique is to be able to build your knowledge in layers, combining multiple elements into a single new fact to reduce the complexity of the new item to remember (see here, here). Kanji are an obvious example of this: individual brush strokes are easy to learn. Once you can see brush strokes, you no longer need to process "implementation details" like the angles and lengths of lines within the character as a whole. Strokes form "radicals"; the simplified breakdown of radicals into strokes makes them easier to learn than by shape-memorisation alone; and then more complex characters can be learned by seeing them as combinations of radicals rather than a large number of strokes or a ridiculously complex mess of shapes and angles. In English this might be akin to recognising standard prefixes and suffixes more quickly than actually bothering to mentally spell them out, even when seeing a word for the first time. But the principle applies to all things: you can learn to recognise standard sentence fragments and their idiomatic meanings in much the same way. Uh... </babble> Last edited 2012 |
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| Thanks for the posts. Certainly for me this is the key to all things: skills (speaking, writing, programming) are to be used. If you're not at a level where you can use them for real, you set up a "safe testing" environment, where you can use them at a reduced level, until you are. you then need to apply the knowledge while it is fresh, to give it some kind of context in which it can sit (and to repeat this until you no longer need the original association-list memory). The basic-level memorisation techniques will vary from person to person and are usually general-purpose. I agree. These are very good concepts. Part of my study material is vocabulary lists, in the form of 'japanese -> english' words. I deduce a way of applying what you said would mean making original sentences with these words, with them being in prominence and in different contexts (so as to be more valuable than simply rewriting the word again and again as a list). |
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| @gfk in countries where tourist are welcome, may people speak or at least know some words in english and if you "point" or say something in english or not it's more or less the same. People who depend of tourist want's to understand you and takes all it's time to try to. The problem is to try to communicate with people that seen us as tourist don't want to communicate a little. Aside of what i said, it's the best technique i could remember that worked to me. Gestures are almost Universal. Agree with shasha in many aspects, it's very important to have someone to talk to, but, i supose you have the same problem, isn't the same the UK english and the American english. For me, sometimes is imposible to understand a Spanish speaker from Spain, from Central America and for a neighbor country here in south america. regards Juan |
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| @gfk I was only joking. in countries where tourist are welcome, may people speak or at least know some words in english and if you "point" or say something in english or not it's more or less the same. People who depend of tourist want's to understand you and takes all it's time to try to. The problem is to try to communicate with people that seen us as tourist don't want to communicate a little. |
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| :) |
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| I saw an in depth talk on the Duolingo project somewhere. It apparently has a really positive success rate due to the use of interesting and engaging content, and it also helps to translate the web into other languages. It's still in beta at the moment, but might be worth checking out. |
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| It is worth checking out, thanks. Unfortunately they don't have 'japanese' language yet - I hope they do eventually. |
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| I got Rosetta Stone Italiano for Christmas, and I recommend it. Seems like it's working. |
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