alexseanchai | (no subject)

Dear Living Language book: y u lie to me? 'Cause I know for a fact that 'watashi' is not the equivalent of 'I' in English, because there are lots of first-person pronouns in Japanese and only one in English, and telling me that 'watashi' = 'I' flattens out a lot of the meaning entailed in using 'watashi' instead of 'boku' or 'ore' or whatever.

I realize lesson one may not be the place to get into these fine distinctions, but.

Also Japanese the Manga Way romaji uses macrons to indicate long vowels and Living Language romaji doubles vowels to indicate long vowels ("Tōkyō" vs "Tookyoo") and neither of those is how I've picked it up from fandom and this frustrates me. Also insert gripe about having to memorize kana, and about a lot of the writing being up-down right-left instead of left-right up-down. And I'm pretty sure this whole paragraph comes from a place of [something] supremacy (not sure if the something is 'white' or 'American' or 'European-origin' though), which only frustrates me more.

ETA: Oh. I figured out what irritates me so about having to learn kana. I have been reading since I was three, my parents tell me. I do not remember being three. As far as I'm concerned, I have always known how to read...and if I actually want to learn Japanese, I have to learn to read all over again with no idea how I accomplished this feat the first time.

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You're looking for "English language supremacy", I think.

The way I learned kana was a combination of reading and writing mostly. I assume that at least the Living Language book offers writing opportunities? I remember a little of learning to read when I was younger. Some of it was tracing over the letter while saying the sound, so I'd memorise and associate the shape with the sound. Some of it was getting words with pictures, so I'd know what the combination means. With second language acquisition, it was largely whole (if very easy) sentences for me to copy and grammar to apply. I don't know if that's helpful knowledge, but maybe? I hope it's useful anyway.

And yes lesson one is not the place to get into those distinctions. Secondary language acquisition does things like that on purpose to make sure students have the tools they need to learn and understand the nuance.

For example: ESL invariably starts off teaching tenses one at a time. You never start students off with, say, "This is the difference between the present perfect simple and the past simple" because, chances are, the students lack the tools and the insight to understand the rules you're teaching.

So you start them off with the basics and when they can apply those rules properly (most of the time), you nuance them. Another good example is the use of 'always'. A lot of the ESL books I've seen teach present and past simple as "These are things that happen 'always', 'never' or 'regularly'. When you see these words or words that mean the same things, you need to use these tenses". It's a good rule for someone just starting to learn English because it's solid and easy to remember.

But! Then students come to the present perfect with its lovely sentences like "He has always wanted to be a teacher" and we have to teach them that, actually, it doesn't quite work the way you learned, but we've used it for long enough that you've probably developed a good enough sense of English grammar that the nuance won't be too big of a problem.

Sounds like the book takes a similar approach to Japanese first-person pronouns. It's annoying when you already understand the nuance and are further along with your studies than who the lesson is aimed at, but even so. That's roughly how second language acquisition books work: start with the general equivalents and work towards the nuance. (All the while trying to make sense to as many people as possible.)

It's not perfect (so not perfect) and can still lead to students making mistakes and errors, but we do need to offer students a starting point that'll help them develop a sense for the language. ^_^

Yeah, I guess.

There is a reading and writing booklet that comes with the set, which is apparently meant for writing in, yes. Though there being so many kana, the booklet only gives space to practice the kana and twenty kanji. Plus a few blank pages at the end.

Okay. I guess that makes sense. And I don't understand the nuance, not really, I just know it's there.

*offers biscuits* At least you're aware it's a thing even if you don't necessarily have a name for it and try to acknowledge it as existing? That's more than a lot of people do.

Ouch. That really doesn't sound like a lot of space. Are they entirely blank or do they have squares like in this notebook?

*ruffles hair* I'm sorry I didn't know how to make it clearer. You knit, I think? I think I remember you talking about knitting projects you were working on. If you do, perhaps try to think of it as similar to learning how to knit. People usually start off with something easy to learn the basics of the craft and then gradually move on to more difficult patterns and stitching, don't they? Second language teaching is a little like that: you start people off with the basics and then gradually make it more difficult.

Mmm... If you decide to look it up elsewhere, I recommend keeping it as passive knowledge for the time being. The (admittedly few) English sites I've seen tend to gloss over the grammatical nuances of pronouns in general as well as ignore the fact that Japanese pronouns aren't used quite the same as English pronouns.

Nod.

Six practice squares per glyph, which is not terribly much space, yes. I suppose I could graph paper or something to practice further.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense about starting easy.

Graph paper would definitely work, yes. ^_^ It's not necessary as you can practice on blank sheets too, but it helps and makes things easier. Whatever paper you end up using, I recommend boxing things off in groups of four like the notebook I linked you does, though. It's not a massive thing for kana studying (and you're supposed to switch to drawing them in the smaller squares after a while), but it'll be extremely helpful when you move on to the more complex kanji. (Also, because I found it whilst rummaging around the internet earlier, kanji dictionary!)

Much time ago, at University, I heard someone say that learning Japanese was meant to make the language acquirer sound like a middle-aged woman. Which is apparently sufficiently polite as to not cause issues, but did gloss over, at least at the beginning, the plethora of possible pronouns.

*nod*

Two questions:
Is Japanese the first non-English language you've tried to learn?
You don't remember being three?

Four years of high school Latin, one semester of college Spanish. These were easy. But then I did not have to relearn the Roman alphabet in order to comprehend them. (And I've gone and forgot most of my Spanish and probably most of my Latin anyway.)

No, I don't. Why do you ask?

I was asking because I can remember being younger than that and so was curious.