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.

Threaded | Flat

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. ^_^

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.

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