Language Diary: February 2018
OK.
So, what has changed since my last post? Just enough.
My new initiative; writing journal entries purely in Japanese.
Watched some Ted Talks. One suggested that the best path to fluency is to not allow yourself to fall back onto English. The approach the speakers took was total immersion. They would go to a country, and once there, not talk in English at all. And, for the first few weeks things could seem awkward and painful. But by 3 months they seemed to be generally able to converse quite well.
Their suggestion was to find someone, and to only talk in the language you want to learn with that person.
I'm doing things a little differently. I try to do a journal daily on the weekdays. So, I decided to apply that there. And, it is going well. It even feels like I'm progressing stupidly quickly. But, there was a small flaw I noticed. I'm not in Japan, and I don't need to play it safe. And I found I was doing that. By forcing myself to write only in Japanese, what was happening was that I was intentionally constructing VERY simple sentences. And while I would force myself to fill in gaps in vocabulary, it wasn't really pushing me all that far.
So, I sort of broke the rule. I'll write my diary entries in English first. I'll try not to think about whether or not I understand a concept in Japanese and just write. Then, I'll commit myself to translating what I wrote into Japanese in as close an approximation as possible. So, if I have a long complicated sentence, and I can make long complicated sentences in Japanese then I do that rather that allowing myself to break into smaller sentences.
This is just day one of the modified approach. But, it feels really good. I made some sentences, that were for me, both really fun and really hard. Yes, I had to use Google Translate and Jisho.org to help get me there. But, I was able to write a lot more than I expected on my own. And, when I screwed up, I was able to self-repair the sentences in many cases.
Let's be frank. I'm not sure if my sentences are super good. But, I am learning more Japanese and more complex phrases. The hopes are A) they are good enough that a Japanese person could understand them and B) that as I absorb more grammar, I'll be able to follow more in Japanese resources and further improve my own ability.
Honestly, to an extent, (just like every new technique I stumble on) I wish I had been doing this from the beginning.
So, what has changed since my last post? Just enough.
My new initiative; writing journal entries purely in Japanese.
Watched some Ted Talks. One suggested that the best path to fluency is to not allow yourself to fall back onto English. The approach the speakers took was total immersion. They would go to a country, and once there, not talk in English at all. And, for the first few weeks things could seem awkward and painful. But by 3 months they seemed to be generally able to converse quite well.
Their suggestion was to find someone, and to only talk in the language you want to learn with that person.
I'm doing things a little differently. I try to do a journal daily on the weekdays. So, I decided to apply that there. And, it is going well. It even feels like I'm progressing stupidly quickly. But, there was a small flaw I noticed. I'm not in Japan, and I don't need to play it safe. And I found I was doing that. By forcing myself to write only in Japanese, what was happening was that I was intentionally constructing VERY simple sentences. And while I would force myself to fill in gaps in vocabulary, it wasn't really pushing me all that far.
So, I sort of broke the rule. I'll write my diary entries in English first. I'll try not to think about whether or not I understand a concept in Japanese and just write. Then, I'll commit myself to translating what I wrote into Japanese in as close an approximation as possible. So, if I have a long complicated sentence, and I can make long complicated sentences in Japanese then I do that rather that allowing myself to break into smaller sentences.
This is just day one of the modified approach. But, it feels really good. I made some sentences, that were for me, both really fun and really hard. Yes, I had to use Google Translate and Jisho.org to help get me there. But, I was able to write a lot more than I expected on my own. And, when I screwed up, I was able to self-repair the sentences in many cases.
Let's be frank. I'm not sure if my sentences are super good. But, I am learning more Japanese and more complex phrases. The hopes are A) they are good enough that a Japanese person could understand them and B) that as I absorb more grammar, I'll be able to follow more in Japanese resources and further improve my own ability.
Honestly, to an extent, (just like every new technique I stumble on) I wish I had been doing this from the beginning.
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