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Hello everyone, I’m new to Textfugu–just started using it a couple days ago and it’s a great refresher. :)
I’m here to ask about other resources aside from teaching yourself Japanese. I have recently dropped out of college due to the cost, and while I planned on taking all four years of Japanese, I was not able to do so. So right now I have a year of classroom learning under my belt. I am so passionate about becoming fluent someday, and I’m finding it hard to teach myself on my own without the help of a sensei and a class. In my first year, we had used the Genki I workbook and textbook, and this year, we had begun on the second volume of Genki. I still have the books, and I am using them, it’s just hard to learn this way.
So does anybody have any advice on where I can go or what I can do to keep my learning curve in place? I know there are so many resources online but it’s a struggle when I can’t start where I am now instead of going all the way back to the beginning. What I’d really love is to just take a class by itself, but it’s really not offered around here, except at the major universities.
Any assistance would be super awesome. I wanna keep learning! Thanks! :)
I’m also enrolled in a university Japanese course (though I’m doing a diploma, which is only three years). We use Nakama in-class, but I’ve been using Japanese for Busy People for self-study, personally. I also bought the Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, and basically read the thing from cover to cover, using the example sentences as practice by hiding the translation and trying to read them, but I’m not entirely sure of how useful that is as a learning resource – I have the Intermediate book too, but I’ve gotten a bit stalled, because it uses a lot more kanji that I don’t know yet…
I’m sorry to hear you dropped out of college. Aside from taking a class at college, you could get a personal tutor but that could end up being just as expensive or even more.
Taking a class does have it’s advantages, such as, your being taught by a native who can check your progress, your mistakes and explain things personally. You also have others around you who can help and in turn you can help them.
Saying that, self studying can be just as effective and makes up for what taking a class can offer.
I don’t know how far you are knowledge wise, but it’s worth checking through all the TextFugu seasons and seeing how much of it you’ve covered before.
There’s a lot more resources. Too many to name. Tofugu has reviews on the best resources. Check it out http://www.tofugu.com/japanese-resources/.
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This reply was modified 11 years, 7 months ago by
kanjiman8.
Joel–Y’know, that’s really funny that you mentioned that grammar book. I had to check my bookshelf to find that I also have a grammar dictionary. Ha! It’s small enough to carry in my purse, I could read up on it at work and such. But yeah, I have had difficulty with keeping kanji fresh and easy to remember since the middle of second semester. It’s so much, but I remind myself there’s thousands more to learn anyway. Writing them down over and over again only helps me for that very moment.
kanjiman8–Yes, I will definitely have to go through that resource list and see if there’s anything I can use that’s not Lesson 1 material. And the textfugu seasons definitely help me relearn the conjugation formulas I’ve struggled with in the past like て form and short form. So they will definitely be put to use even if I’m past that. Thanks for your input!
Can I ask a question? I understand that you dropped out of college because college is so dam expensive and you want to be fluent in Japanese, but while you are studying Japanese by yourself, will you be trying to pay of the costs of school? And since you dropped out of school, lets say you do become pretty proficient in Japanese – what will you do then?
I kinda see where you’re going, and that was one of the other major reasons why I dropped out. I was doing a DIY major in Japanese and because of that, I wasn’t getting any support through my family or anyone I talked to about it. I started realizing that I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do, and that I was just really passionate about learning as much as I could. So yeah, I will be left with paying off what I’ve racked up in loans, but I’m not entirely sure what I could do with it if I were ever to be fluent. Yes, I want to travel there, yes, I want to learn more about the culture and everything else, but like I said, I’m putting a basic interest before logical thinking over a realistic career. It’s a tough boat I’m in.
Alright, I was just wondering, sorry if it came off as a bit sudden and or personal. I hope you find what you are really interested in and do well with learning Japanese.
Then again, if you pledge allegiance to a certain Japanese idol group, I may be inclined to help you personally……
AnonymousHave you actually seen that anime Missing?
I’m doing self-study exclusively, and here are some bits of advice. Do with it whatever you feel is right.
First, you can’t speak above your listening level, and you can’t write above your reading level. Teachers are always making you write, because they need some kind of assignment to grade. But if you can’t open a children’s book and read it without any help, you won’t be able to write even at the level of a child. You are not ready yet. If you don’t have a teacher giving you assignments, don’t try to write until you can at least think basic thoughts in Japanese. Writing and speaking is mostly imitation of what you have heard and read, and you have to build up your comprehension level first.
Second, when buying learning materials, the Japanese content is where the value is. After you have a basic understanding of how sentences fit together (which I’m guessing you have, because you took a year of classes), it doesn’t make sense to buy anything that has less than 50% Japanese content. You can always just go buy comics and then buy a translation, and that will get you more Japanese for your money than some textbook that has several paragraphs of English for every sentence of Japanese. Similarly, audio programs, podcasts, etc. that have mostly English aren’t the best use of time. You would do better to watch Japanese TV with English subtitles and carefully listen to what people are saying, using the subtitles for reference if you want to quickly “look up” what a word or phrase means.
Third, it doesn’t matter which words you learn, it matters how many words you learn. Classes have you focus on word lists, because they need something to test you on. So the words on this week’s list are judged to be more important for you to learn than the rest of the language. But when you are learning on your own, that doesn’t matter any more. You want to build as much vocabulary as you can, as quickly as possible. So if you are having trouble remembering a word or phrase, don’t spend a bunch of extra time on it. Keep moving. There is no value in drilling a given word to death. It is not more important than all the other words which you can learn by seeing them just a few times.
Finally, learning words in context is more effective than learning them in isolation, because in addition to learning their basic meaning, you get an idea of how they are used. Classes focus on individual words because it’s easier to grade quizzes that way. They give you the word, and you write down the pre-assigned corresponding word. But if you don’t have to worry about that, focus on sentences instead of individual words. In other words, if you are going to do flash cards, I suggest making a sentence deck rather than using a traditional one-word-at-a-time vocabulary deck.
If you want to read a bit more about language self-study, I suggest starting with antimoon.com. It focuses on learning English instead of Japanese, but I think all the ideas are the right ideas. Khatzumoto’s alljapaneseallthetime.com is also good, but I think some of the things he talks about (sleep learning, learning without understanding) are completely bogus. But you can decide that for yourself I guess.
Have you?
That was perhaps the most informative, well written post I have read in a long time. I definitely give you 5 stars. Thanks!!
JKL, this is a very interesting approach! I never really thought of that all like that. Though it makes a lot of sense how classes are structured–I would be at work with a single word repeating in my head and forget what it means, but it was on the ‘list’ of words I had to know. So you’re right, it is definitely better to learn by sentences than by vocabulary. I will definitely have to look into this, as I’m still trying to find the perfect way to keep myself learning. I’ve tried opening up my textbook and I lack the effort cause I know I don’t have a deadline anymore. I’ll keep chugging, though! Thanks for your advice! :)
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This reply was modified 11 years, 7 months ago by
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