Discovered it today. 蒼 was the name of the character...XD
Discovered it today. 蒼 was the name of the character...XD
What are your guys' opinion on Mass Immersion Approach(MIA) by MattVsJapan? He seems to make a lot of great points but I don't know if I like the idea of studying nothing but kanji at the beginning...
What are your guys' opinion on Mass Immersion Approach(MIA) by MattVsJapan? He seems to make a lot of great points but I don't know if I like the idea of studying nothing but kanji at the beginning...
I must have misunderstood because I read this on the Balanced Path Overview page:...Huh? I don't think that's what Matt advocates at all, at least currently. Have you checked his website?
Ahh, gotcha. My mistake. The wording tripped me up because the step saying to learn the Kanji didn't say ongoing and this: "Once you've learned kana and completed Recognition RTK, you're ready to start studying the language formally. In MIA, this takes the form of basic grammar and basic vocab." Sorry if I'm coming off the wrong way, I just want to be clear why I thought what I thought initially.Yeah, you start immersing in native content from day one. Also, in the beginning, you do lazy kanji which is barely studying kanji (basically try to recognize a basic meaning from that specific kanji using mnemonics, and if you can't recall a few times, just give up on that Kanji) and practice grammar and vocabulary from Tae Kim/Genki/whatever.
Yeah, you start immersing in native content from day one. Also, in the beginning, you do lazy kanji which is barely studying kanji (basically try to recognize a basic meaning from that specific kanji using mnemonics, and if you can't recall a few times, just give up on that Kanji) and practice grammar and vocabulary from Tae Kim/Genki/whatever.
Speaking of immersing oneself in japanese, is there an equivalent of resetera in japan? can anyone recommend forums that are similar to the two main forums of this site?
Someone extremely strong or powerful. Quite literally "1 against 1,000."
I wish. The closest thing you can find to a popular video game forum in Japan is 2ch, which became 5ch a couple years ago, but even that's pretty different... And also, I don't know if it's something about the site or the region I'm trying to access it from, but isn't it completely broken? Most boards I try to go to just plain don't work. Like, i get blank pages and error messages. I've never actually been able to browse 5ch.
Online forums - let alone decent forums - are a dying breed all over the internet, but they're deader than dead in Japan. To my knowledge anyway.
5ch is also hot garbage from what I've read on it. Like, the quality of the content is more similar to 4 chan's than to resetera's lol
5ch is also hot garbage from what I've read on it. Like, the quality of the content is more similar to 4 chan's than to resetera's lol
2ちゃんや5ちゃんは専用のブラウザ使わないと使い物にならなよ。I wish. The closest thing you can find to a popular video game forum in Japan is 2ch, which became 5ch a couple years ago, but even that's pretty different... And also, I don't know if it's something about the site or the region I'm trying to access it from, but isn't it completely broken? Most boards I try to go to just plain don't work. Like, i get blank pages and error messages. I've never actually been able to browse 5ch.
Online forums - let alone decent forums - are a dying breed all over the internet, but they're deader than dead in Japan. To my knowledge anyway.
正しくは一騎当千だよ。一人の騎馬兵が千人に対応できる-->有能
2ちゃんや5ちゃんは専用のブラウザ使わないと使い物にならなよ。
一般的なことを話題にしているスレッドは酷いことが多いけど個別の事柄を扱っているスレッドはトピックかなり深くまで掘り下げられていることが多いと思う。
正しくは一騎当千だよ。一人の騎馬兵が千人に対応できる-->有能
現代戦では騎馬兵が活躍する場はないので一機当千のがしっくりくるかもしれないけど。
Yeah, as Gachipin pointed out, the actual original phrase is 一騎当千. I'm guessing this is Gundamn Musou? It must be a play on words (or Kanji) since Gundam and mechs, etc. can be referred to/counted as 機体.
I'm about to sign an internship contract for this summer, so it looks like I'll be able to do what I wanted next year :D
I'll do the internship until mid Feb, come back and finish my PhD around April and then self study Japanese full time for the rest of the year while doing a couple of hours of tutoring each week to avoid spending too much of my savings.
The goal is to achieve basic fluency by the end of next year.
I've been stagnating so hard for the past few months, I'm really looking forward to being able to dedicate myself to learning the language.
Personally, I've found this to not be the case (assuming you meant needle in a haystack...) every time I've used a language exchange app, it seems to me as though when it comes to numbers of English speakers looking to practice Japanese vs. Japanese speakers looking to practice English, it leans way more heavily in our favour. And they almost all seem willing to share a healthy 50/50 time balance of talking either language, which is only fair. I've had to mute the apps because I get so many requests and people really really appreciate the opportunity to practice English. This is for one-on-one chats though, I think some exchange Discords I use for larger conversations lean a bit more towards native English learning Japanese, but regardless it's still a healthy balance that serves both sides.Finding Japanese people to talk to is like looking in a hay stack.
I'm about to sign an internship contract for this summer, so it looks like I'll be able to do what I wanted next year :D
I'll do the internship until mid Feb, come back and finish my PhD around April and then self study Japanese full time for the rest of the year while doing a couple of hours of tutoring each week to avoid spending too much of my savings.
The goal is to achieve basic fluency by the end of next year.
I've been stagnating so hard for the past few months, I'm really looking forward to being able to dedicate myself to learning the language.
I wish. The closest thing you can find to a popular video game forum in Japan is 2ch, which became 5ch a couple years ago, but even that's pretty different... And also, I don't know if it's something about the site or the region I'm trying to access it from, but isn't it completely broken? Most boards I try to go to just plain don't work. Like, i get blank pages and error messages. I've never actually been able to browse 5ch.
Online forums - let alone decent forums - are a dying breed all over the internet, but they're deader than dead in Japan. To my knowledge anyway.
Personally, I've found this to not be the case (assuming you meant needle in a haystack...) every time I've used a language exchange app, it seems to me as though when it comes to numbers of English speakers looking to practice Japanese vs. Japanese speakers looking to practice English, it leans way more heavily in our favour. And they almost all seem willing to share a healthy 50/50 time balance of talking either language, which is only fair. I've had to mute the apps because I get so many requests and people really really appreciate the opportunity to practice English. This is for one-on-one chats though, I think some exchange Discords I use for larger conversations lean a bit more towards native English learning Japanese, but regardless it's still a healthy balance that serves both sides.
Awesome to hear. If you truly can dedicate most of your time to JP, and depending on how far you are along the journey, reaching basic fluency by the end of next year is totally feasible, so good luck!... Just don't be a lazy dumb dumb like me. I find that it's hard to truly go all-immersion over months at a time without burning out after a while, but honestly, this is probably because I struggle to find content that really interests me in Japanese. You shouldn't have that problem :).
Thanks Kilrogg! Yeah I'll do my best to get as much immersion as possible. There are lots of things I find interesting (and I have barely read any novels in the language so there's a whole aspect of Japanese pop culture I have barely even touched) so hopefully it works out haha. I can already understand a decent amount, so I think spending almost a year on the language should take me to a good level if I can keep it up.
いやだ、ハイパローンさんと会うチャンスがないになった。残念だけど、いい仕事を持ったと思うから、おめでとう。
Fuck i hope that makes sense. When you don't output often you get way less confident :<
There isn't an official WaniKani app for iOS, right?
Is there a good alternative?
If I may give my unsolicited opinion (everyone loves an unsolicited opinion): whatever you're using Cure Dolly for, I hope it's not pronunciation. Their accent is absolutely terrible. Their advice seems otherwise fine I suppose, though still kind of stuck in the traditional mold of intellectually breaking down the language - despite their claims of uniqueness. And I don't like the fact that they don't give any credentials whatsoever (unless I haven't looked hard enough - happy to be proven wrong). I don't mean university degrees and such, but just some recordings or writings or context isn't too much too ask. Especially when you have a Patreon.
But hey, I'm a bit biased, since I know for a fact that they're the antithesis of MIA/MattvsJapan in a number of respects, and I very much think Matt's approach is, by and large, good. In fact, every time Cure Dolly refers to "other immersionists" or "people who talk about pitch accent" in their content, you can be sure they're talking about Matt. They don't have much consideration for accent in general, because it's cute to have a foreign accent and people will still understand you and blahblahblah, but it kinda grinds my gears to be honest. People will understand you, but 1) only if your accent isn't too terrible, 2) listening to a foreign accent over a long stretch of time gets mentally tiring after a while, 3) consciously or unconsciously, we do tend to treat people a bit differently if they have a poor accent. Kinda like they're children. People should strive for a good accent. Maybe not a perfect accent, because that takes a lot of time and dedication (and/or a good ear) and you'll experience diminishing returns after a point, but a good accent will help you be more accepted, and it's easier on the ears and the brain of the listener. IMO, Cure Dolly's Japanese accent isn't at a level where it could be considered good enough yet. From what I've heard of it anyway, because it's surprisingly difficult to find recordings of them actually speaking Japanese at length.
So yeah, I'm a big hater I guess :p, but tl;dr: don't listen to their advice for pronunciation and accent. Rest is whatever. Not a huge fan, still too much leaning on traditional conscious learning of the language for my taste, but I don't know their content enough to comment beyond that.
Ymmv, I've made some real life Japanese friends thanks to Twitter. Randomly followed some accounts tweeting about bands I dig.Finding Japanese people to talk to is like looking in a hay stack.
speaking of classical, I'm still slowly ploughing through 響け!ユーフォニアム and I recently learned that a bassoon is called a ファゴット which is, you know, derived from Italian so it's not that weird... but it's still weird.
Learnt about 110 words, it's not that much, but I'm pretty proud of it anyways.
I think I'll start with WaniKani when I'm done with the second chapter of Genki 1.
Regarding Cure Dolly, indeed the way that robotic voice speaks/pronounces japanese is not in par with what I find on wanikani (male and female voices) or JapanPod101 (real japanese speaking).
I use it as intuitive visual grammar support when done with my Bunpro/Genki reviews and lessons. Didn't knew about MattvsJappan until you mentioned it, and by the way what is the MIA resource you mentioned before?
I don't know if it's just voice distortion or some kind of affectation for the character, Cure Dolly doesn't seem to speak English natively, let alone Japanese.
If you want to know what actual, real Japanese sounds like (even phonetically), there's a sort of hierarchy:
1. Real, unscripted speech by native speakers
2. Scripted speech by native speakers (such as a speech/conference/presentation, for instance) / YouTube-type vlogs / reality TV (like Terrace House on Netflix) / podcasts
3. Acted speech by native speakers (e.g. Japanese movies and drama)
4. Voice acting, i.e. anime - yes, it's lower than other kinds of acting because it's hyper enunciated to an unrealistic degree, and the way they talk itself doesn't really reflect real speech, but it's still a good resource because it's native Japanese
5. Speech aimed at foreigners (JapanPod 101 for instance, which you mentioned, but also any tape or CD that goes with a language learning textbook, or a native Japanese teacher dumbing down their language so that you understand)
6. Anything said by a non-native speaker (excluding someone who speaks at a near-native level, obviously)
In other words, if you're interested in getting used to real Japanese (be it phonetically or meaning-wise), your best bet is to listen to media aimed at Japanese people, not relying on stuff like JapanesePod 101 forever. I mean, it's alright at the very beginning when you literally don't understand anything, but you should soon graduate to native content, even if you don't understand everything. Have you ever met people who've learned a language for years, with a decent knowledge of vocab, grammar, etc., but the second people talk to them, they barely understand anything? Yeah, that's because they haven't spent enough time with the 'real' language.
Very long story short: MIA is Mass-Immersion Approach, which is a sort of refined version of AJATT (All Japanese All the Time). MIA, as the name implies, is heavily focused on immersing in the language for hours every day over a long period of time in order to achieve true fluency. It heavily draws from the "language acquisition" theory of a linguist named Stephen Krashen, which basically states that language isn't something to be learned consciously through lessons or even practice, but to be acquired unconsciously through massive input (i.e. listening and reading native material), kinda like babies learn languages. Because the human brain is wired to acquire language.
The goal of MIA is to reach a high level of language ability in the shortest amount of time. Among the tools used to optimize the process, the approach teaches you how to use SRS software such as Anki and integrate it into your routine. Lately, Matt has been focusing on improving the Anki experience by developing a series of add-ons and tools that will make the experience of 'mining' native content in the most efficient, streamlined way possible. Immersion still is king obviously, but the tools help you speed up the process. 95% of the content (including the Anki add-ons) is entirely free, so I'd just suggest giving the official website and the MattvsJapan YouTube channel a look if that sounds interesting to you.
(don't know if that counts as a disclaimer, but I'm one of Matt's patrons on Patreon and have spoken with the guy a number of times, so yeah, again, I'm kinda biased, but his experience and outlook reflect mine when it comes to learning English - my second language)
Here's the go-to video for anyone who's interested in Krashen's language acquisition theory:
[EDIT] A key part of all this, as counter-intuitive as it may sound, is not to focus too much on output (i.e. speaking and writing). Speaking will give you confidence and is very satisfying, but it'll make you build habits over time if you start outputting too much too soon. At the beginning of the journey (say, first year?), ideally you'd want to barely output at all. Input is the key.
Ymmv, I've made some real life Japanese friends thanks to Twitter. Randomly followed some accounts tweeting about bands I dig.
Just find and interact with peeps with the same interests.
Thank you very much for this post. I've been farting around with Duolingo and JapanesePod101, and I started the first Genki book and workbook, but progress has been slow. I've knocked out Hiragana and Katakana and then kind of lost it, and now I'm building it back up, along with some Kanji (just today I created a WaniKani account).
I think since I have a fragile baseline of knowledge, MIA would be useful. Since I'm at work, I may load up a live Japanese news stream on youtube to just play through my headphones throughout the day.
Glad it helped.
(also Duolingo is crrrrrrap ;( )
Passive listening all throughout the day is good so yeah, definitely keep it up. That said, active listening (i.e. sitting down and actually focusing on a show, looking up words that jump at you every now and then and making a few flashcards) should definitely be the priority whenever you can do it.
Also, to your first sentence: keep in mind that language acquisition and immersion are an organic, procedural, random process. In other words, the order in which you're going to fill in the holes in your knowledge and comprehension of Japanese is going to be almost completely random. Your brain will pick up words that stand out to it, but they might not be the same words as someone else's brain. Obviously the more common a word, the more likely you are to pick it up before others, but still. That's what makes immersion-based methods kinda feel ineffective at first. By contrast, the traditional way feels like you're making progress of the time because you're studying themes and grammar points comprehensively and consciously in a way that feels like "okay, that's one piece of the puzzle solved". Never feels like that with immersion. It's much more gradual and subtle than traditional study.