Language Journal: April 12th 2019
I'm at a point where I don't really know what to write here, other than knowing that I want to write something.
I'm in a strange place. I'm on the cusp in Japanese of what I think I would call "basic fluency". I still don't understand everything quickly or naturally. But, I am at a point where I can almost understand almost every word in a typical sentence.
Stock phrases. Short simple phrases. Things like that. Those come to me instantly and naturally. I wouldn't say I'm as far along as a child, at least not in terms of basic understanding. And yet, in terms of volume I'm actually closer to a grade schooler in something like Junior High School.
It is really one of the single biggest challenges just being at this level. Knowing that there are aspects of the language that come naturally to a small child and which I will probably still struggle to even get a decent mastery of. But, at the same time, I know more words, can read more and so on.
I watched some travel videos in Japanese last night trying to get some ideas for our future trip. One of the videos was of this mom and her family with the focus primarily being on her young son, or rather, what she did with her son on these trips. And, the first 80% of the video I understood EVERYTHING this woman said. Literally everything. I was even able to read many of the signs in the places that they visited without needing to pause or rewind. And then, the little kid opened his mouth and started talking... and I was lost. And then the mom started talking about other things. And I was still lost.
It would have been nice if these videos had sub-titles. But, I can very much get why they didn't. It was just a very small YouTube channel. Not someone trying to make a living off of it, or sponsored, or a business.
But, it highlighted quite perfectly the level of my Japanese language skills. Travel videos can be quite simple linguistically, with the most "complex" things being the names of places or perhaps the activities they are doing. Otherwise, it is talking about simple activities like buying a ticket, getting on a train, being able to see Fuji, what they're eating and so.
I was excited when the mother climbed up in a play structure with her son and told him that she was too big and that it was more difficult for her to climb and play in those structures. It deviated from the basic travel talk, and I could still follow it.
Another thing about travel videos... or at least about this one. The pace of the talking was not intentionally slow, but also definitely not fast and probably not as fast as the speakers usual pace. And the pronunciation was clear. Which makes sense. You're posting a video online and you probably want people to actually hear what you're saying.
The parts where I got lost could largely be categorized as times when the son was talking. I'm not sure I would have caught everything, but he didn't speak clearly or slowly. And some times toward the end of the video when the mom was talking to her son or to someone else, she also ended up speaking less directly into the mic and a bit faster.
Though, just as with her son, I'm also fairly sure they were using vocab I didn't know.
At this point, I'm largely still trying to figure out where to go from here. The faster and less clear speech is likely something I'll only master with exposure. But, at the same time, it doesn't matter how much exposure I get, if I don't also know what they are actually trying to say.
I don't want to burn myself out, but I think I'm slowly reaching the point where I need to start watching more native material on place like YouTube and trying to find dramas, etc...
I'm in a strange place. I'm on the cusp in Japanese of what I think I would call "basic fluency". I still don't understand everything quickly or naturally. But, I am at a point where I can almost understand almost every word in a typical sentence.
Stock phrases. Short simple phrases. Things like that. Those come to me instantly and naturally. I wouldn't say I'm as far along as a child, at least not in terms of basic understanding. And yet, in terms of volume I'm actually closer to a grade schooler in something like Junior High School.
It is really one of the single biggest challenges just being at this level. Knowing that there are aspects of the language that come naturally to a small child and which I will probably still struggle to even get a decent mastery of. But, at the same time, I know more words, can read more and so on.
I watched some travel videos in Japanese last night trying to get some ideas for our future trip. One of the videos was of this mom and her family with the focus primarily being on her young son, or rather, what she did with her son on these trips. And, the first 80% of the video I understood EVERYTHING this woman said. Literally everything. I was even able to read many of the signs in the places that they visited without needing to pause or rewind. And then, the little kid opened his mouth and started talking... and I was lost. And then the mom started talking about other things. And I was still lost.
It would have been nice if these videos had sub-titles. But, I can very much get why they didn't. It was just a very small YouTube channel. Not someone trying to make a living off of it, or sponsored, or a business.
But, it highlighted quite perfectly the level of my Japanese language skills. Travel videos can be quite simple linguistically, with the most "complex" things being the names of places or perhaps the activities they are doing. Otherwise, it is talking about simple activities like buying a ticket, getting on a train, being able to see Fuji, what they're eating and so.
I was excited when the mother climbed up in a play structure with her son and told him that she was too big and that it was more difficult for her to climb and play in those structures. It deviated from the basic travel talk, and I could still follow it.
Another thing about travel videos... or at least about this one. The pace of the talking was not intentionally slow, but also definitely not fast and probably not as fast as the speakers usual pace. And the pronunciation was clear. Which makes sense. You're posting a video online and you probably want people to actually hear what you're saying.
The parts where I got lost could largely be categorized as times when the son was talking. I'm not sure I would have caught everything, but he didn't speak clearly or slowly. And some times toward the end of the video when the mom was talking to her son or to someone else, she also ended up speaking less directly into the mic and a bit faster.
Though, just as with her son, I'm also fairly sure they were using vocab I didn't know.
At this point, I'm largely still trying to figure out where to go from here. The faster and less clear speech is likely something I'll only master with exposure. But, at the same time, it doesn't matter how much exposure I get, if I don't also know what they are actually trying to say.
I don't want to burn myself out, but I think I'm slowly reaching the point where I need to start watching more native material on place like YouTube and trying to find dramas, etc...
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