Job Discussion Forums

[sidjameson]

5 years ago my Japanese was at a pretty good conversational level though I couldn't read. It has slipped to the point of being almost nothing as I stopped using it. I was always planning to leave and therefore just kinda stopped.

I am now in the awful position where I tell people I have been here 9 years and have to answer them "chotto dake" when asked the inevitable.

I have decided to give Japan and it's language one final go. Therefore I need a textbook. So as a false beginner does anybody have any recommendation on a text?

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

Genki I, then Genki II, then Intermediate Japanese published by the Japan Times.

Dictionaries of intermediate grammar, particles, and actual dictionaries are also good. You look up words about a particular subject and learn them.

Spend a lot of time watching Japanese television and listening to Japanese radio.

[Sweetsee]

Gives me a headache just thinking about that.

[japanman]

Maybe the only way you can get better is to have lessons, a pretty obvious suggestion but a true one. If you have a lot stored somewhere in your mind, you'll just look at a book and think oh, I know that, oh and I know that too etc. All this without any improvement at all. Find yourself a decent teacher and not a Japanese person with a textbook, which is the most common thing. There is ofcourse a big difference.

[kdynamic]

Get a qualified teacher, and commit to doing lots of work on your own. You'll never make progress if you go about it halfway. I would recommend joining a language school with a solid reputation and getting in as much class hours as you can.

[6810]

In my experience, I had the opportunity to speak Japanese every day all day (I'm married to a Japanese). So my speaking/listening ability improved consistently over time. It also helped that I had Japanese friends with whom I had shared interests - this is a good way of plugging in the vocabulary gaps.

My problem was that after 18 months my reading and writing ability was going nowhere. Once I buckled down and started reading on a daily basis (as tiring as it was) and studying kanji every day, my reading and writing took off and fed into my speaking ability.

The reason I mention this is because:

Without conscious and conscientious effort to sudy, you will get nowhere.

At first I thought it unbelievable that anyone could live in Japan for nine years and not speak eloquent Japanese... but then, given the kinds of contexts foreigners live in, it's no wonder. Many have no incentive to learn.

So, my advice:

1. Talk to your Japanese friends in Japanese. Don't have any? Make some.

2. Learn to read and write. Seriously, it helps, a whole bunch of things start to knit together and make sense. It also helps to aid you in

3. Learning to think in Japanese. Think in Japanese as hard as you can. Compose sentences in your mind as you mimic those around you. Compose alternative sentences with the same meaning. This is a good brain exercise regardless and forces you to play around with grammar in ways you might not usually do and therefore become more proficient.

4. Find a magazine or comic you are interested in, maybe at a kids level, cos it will have furigana and read your @ss off.

5. Wait a minute - you're "going home" right? Never to return? Forget Japanese and do something useful with your time since you will never use it again anyway.

[markle]

Okay here's a thought. Most of us are, or at least pretend to be, language teachers, so it should be possible that we could ask any educated speaker of Japanese to help us learn the language. I mean, by using the same methodologies we (should) use in class we can tailor a program to suit our needs and aims. My own reluctance with spending the heft cost of a language teacher is the fear of getting a very traditional "here's 500 kanji, learn them by next week when we start archaic grammaitcal structures" type of teacher.

[canuck]

[markle]

Um canuck those links are all down, you tube killed them.