Re: successful language learners -- the little details

From: Joshua A. Reyer (reyer_at_benchsumo.zzn.com)
Date: 10/09/04 

Date: Sat, 09 Oct 2004 09:53:23 -0500

Justin Wilson wrote:

> The main challenge I'm facing at this point is that when I try to do
> reps while showering, the screen gets all fogged up. I haven't found a
> good solution for this yet. Tips ?
>
> -Justin

Put the damn PDA down and sing a song in Japanese.

I don't know if you've noticed, but many successful language learners on
the group are trying to tell you that your method is rigid and
impractical. What you need to do is,

a) learn the basic grammatical forms
b) use them
c) use them some more
d) use them some more
e) learn intermediate grammatical forms
f) repeat steps b-d
g) learn advanced grammatical forms
h) repeat step f

For reading,

a) learn hiragana
b) learn katakana
c) learn some basic kanji from any number of basic kanji books
d) read
e) repeat step d
f) repeat step e

For writing

a) master reading
b) keep a handwritten journal

Here's the thing, Justin. Doing reps is not learning the language.
Doing reps is the warm-up, the groundwork, laying a basic foundation.
It prepares you for the *real* language learning, which *always*
involves interaction with someone else, in the case of speaking, or some
real piece of written work, in the case of reading and writing.

For four years, I took college courses in Japanese. These courses did
not teach me how to speak Japanese, because at the end of the four years
I could not really speak Japanese. I had to go to Japan for that. You
are in Japan, so the last thing you want to do is waste the opportunity.
  You don't need to study more than an hour a night, maybe two.
Anything more than that and you're not going to be learning anyway;
that's not how the human brain is set up. 50 minutes is about the
absolute limit the brain can take input on a certain subject; after that
it simply expunges the new information from the short term memory rather
than storing it in the long term. A much better plan for studying is to
put in 30 minutes on, say, grammatical forms, and then 30 minutes on
vocab, and then *do something else*. Watch TV, play a Japanese video
game, get out of the house. Do something completely different from
language drills.

If you have a basic grounding in grammar, read articles from the sports
dailies. If you have spare time you want to put to Japanese learning
use, make it *practical* learning, not drills. You could memorize an
entire dictionary, but it won't do you any good if you don't train your
brain in retrieval. And you won't understand people because if you
don't train your ear for hearing natural speed Japanese. And your
pronunciation won't be any good if you don't hear things pronounced
naturally. The reason people are unsuccessful language learners is not
lack of reps, it's lack of use. So study a little at night, and then
live the language you are trying to learn.

Josh Reyer

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