夜色ブログ

. . . even if slightly retarded.

Previous methodology

On and off for the last 150 days or so, I've been reading various material and committing the many words yet unknown to memory. While this was having the effect of boosting my vocabularly significantly — I've probably remembered somewhere in the vicinity of 2500 words using this technique since I started — it has left me without the ability to correctly use the words and form correct sentences in general.

Problems with the previous methodology

• Words were being learnt without proper context. Despite being of the opinion that you should have read or heard at least twenty, and preferably more, sentences containing a new word before using it, I was not taking my own advice to heart.
• Words were being learnt. When naturally speaking a language, unless carefully constructing a speech or paper, people speak in phrases and sentences, only substituting the occasional word; they don't assemble sentences from a library of words and grammatical rules. When's the last time you considered diction when speaking with your friends? (I don't count here; my native English can be odd at times.)
• The source of words was excessively literary. While using novels and historical texts will no doubt be useful in the future, learning words like 漆黒 (sikkoku, the black colour of a lacquer tree), 血祭り (timaturi, killing an enemy in order to raise moral), and 慟哭 (doukoku, wailing in overwhelming saddness) wasn't exactly proving particularly useful. It also doesn't help that Japanese written and spoken language differ far, far more than in English.

Switching approaches

Last night, I finally updated my methodology to something much more reasonable. Instead of committing words to memory, I will review sentences and phrases on a regular basis. I intend to maintain a minimum average review rate of 100 per day, with a influx of fifty new phrases per day. At this rate, it will take 200 days to build a collection of 10000 sentences, which I think should create a good basis, assuming I choose my sentences carefully (as if that will happen). Ten thousand is a nice round number, it's one of the base numbers in Japanese, 万 (man).

Considerations

I had a number of reasons in the past that I used as excuses to delay updating my approach.

• Where am I going to find natural sentences? Speech in Japanese television seems to differ from the everyday norm about as much as listning to Ice-T in Canada and the States differs from everyday English. There is of course some more natural speech, but selection is somewhat limited. Being paraniod, I was probably overly cautious about my input sources. In the end, listening to a Japanese Ice-T is probably more natural than foreigner textbook Japanese (see my future rants on teaching Japanese to foreigners).
• Japanese television is queer. Maybe I'll elaborate on this another time. Don't get me wrong; I quite enjoy some of it, but I'm not sure whether I enjoy it because of the content, or simply because it's in Japanese.
• How will I know what they're saying? Of course, just having a constant stream of television programming isn't going to work since I can't distinguish what they're saying have the time. Fortunately, courtesy of Khatzumoto, I was introduced to a wonderful website, どらま・のーと (Drama Note). The creators of this website write partial transcripts of Japanese television shows!
• I didn't want to abandon my previous method. As a human, I naturally oppose change to some degree, especially when it implies that I've been doing something the wrong way.

Conclusion

No, wait, it's too early for a conclusion; I just started yesterday. I'll probably let you all know how it's going later.

While I am not the most avid fan of the current system of formal education in general, since I am presently learning Japanese, second-language education (of Japanese in particular) will be my focus for this series of rants.

Flawed assumptions of second-language educators

• Foreigners are in some way less intelligent than native speakers or
  Foreigners should be taught different terminology than native speakers.

  This assumption is never stated outright, but it is fairly evidently an underlying belief of material created for foreign language education. In Japanese, there are Japanese terms for the parts of the Japanese language. In particular there are terms that Japanese children learn to describe their own language. E.g. 1 verb types,

  • 一段動詞：itidan verbs
  • 五段動詞：godan verbs
  • 変格動詞：irregular verbs

  However, as a rule, when taught to foreigners, special terms are used. "Group I, II, and III", "〜う verbs, 〜る verbs", etc. The invention of some of these terms can be credited to a bitchwoman by the name of Eleanor Jorden. Notice how Japanese her name is?

  Last week I spoke with one of our teachers about why these terms are used. Her response was that the Japanese terms may be considered too difficult and confusing. I then asked her when Japanese children learned the Japanese terms for them. She replied that they learned the terms early in elementary school. !!!?? So terms that grade school children learn are supposedly too difficult for a bunch of foreigners, most of whom have university degrees? Even the students in the highest-level class at the language school I attend don't learn the native terms.

  If you go up to an average Japanese person on the street, in the grocery store, or elsewhere and ask a question about "Group I" verbs, the response approximates, "What the fuck is a group I verb?" (And yes, I've tried this with multiple people; albeit, not random people I haven't talked with before, just random Japanese people I happen to be speaking with otherwise.)

  Please note that I in no way blame the teachers for this system. They're simply teaching as they've been taught to teach. It doesn't appear they're given much liberty to question the system either.

  If is was just the three main types of verbs that had odd labels applied for the sake of the foreign language learner, I'd be happy to overlook this small issue; however, this mentality permeates virtually all of the educational material.

  Again, if these terms were just for the sake of learning the language, I might be able to accept the foreign terms. It is reasonable to assume that someone who has learned a language and chooses to live in a place where that language is the primary language, he will soon start using native dictionaries. (In fact, I recommend using native dictionaries as early as possible.) However, without knowledge of the native terms, many of the explanation will not make sense. E.g., partially translated entry of one sense for 付く (tuku) from the 大辞泉 (Daijisen dictionary):

  ［動カ五（四）］
  ９ （when attached to the 連用形 of other verbs) exphasises the strength or ferocity of the condition or action

  The two words I left untranslated are words that someone who has just graduated from an instituition for educating foreigners will not know. On the other hand, a Japanese elementary school student will.

  Is it any wonder that many foreign speakers of Japanese speak a gaijin (foreigner) dialect of sorts?

• We musn't teach the poor foreigners Japanese the way we actually usually speak it.

  This issue may well extend to the education of native speakers as well. It did to a slight degree when I was learning English, but certainly not to this degree. Often textbooks for foreigners are created with an agenda outside of teaching the language. They're usually intended to supposedly prepare the student for tourist or business situations.

  This is insufficient and leads to unnatural use. Language education is a priori a general subject matter. It covers virtually all other subject matters: you talk with children in a langauge, you talk with your business partner in a language, with your friends, you think in a language, . . . When learning English, I didn't learn business English, English for geeks, English for teaching children, or English for tourists to Canada. It was simply general English. Any specific terminology that I needed I acquired in context. Second-language education should be the same way.

  To pick on an example that I've brought up once of twice before, we learned one of the uses of the particle し (si) to indicate similarity, reason, and hint at a conclusion a few weeks ago. Most example sentences from the textbook are in the form 「・・・（し、）・・・し、それに、・・・から。」 or 「・・・し、・・・し、…。それで、・・・」. We were also corrected in class when we didn't use one of the above forms. When I read this textbook for the first time eight months ago or so, this struck me as odd, so I've been listening for し used in conversation and looking for it in text. In the last month, I've seen and heard し being used (with the above meaning) somewhere in the vicinity of 100 times. Two of these times were in the same form as the example sentences. Although perhaps not quite as damning, even the examples in the three native dictionaries I've looked in don't use these forms. I've even gone over past books I've read looking for other places that use this form.

  I don't suspect that the forms indicated in the textbook and classroom are in any way incorrect; but, it's very apparent that these forms are not used very much, especially in comparison to other forms most of which don't appear in the textbook.

  So, . . . why teach foreigner's this form? Mentioning it as a passing note seems far more appropriate. It's like teaching foreigners to make compound predicates with "and", then having the following examples:

  • Dick ran to the store and bought candy and brought them back home.
  • Jane ran up the hill and fetched a pail of water and gave it to Dick.
  • Spot likes Jane and likes Dick and dislikes Suzy.

  All the above examples are grammatically correct, but sound terrible. Yes, I'm exagerating a good bit, but my point is that the textbooks often teach awkward language and, more critically, overlook its actual use.

  This is one of the reasons that I believe strongly that you need to hear a word used many times by a native in a natural, id est, outside of the classroom, context before trying to use it yourself.