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Originally Posted by KyleGoetz
I attended one of the best universities for learning Japanese. I think we'd covered somewhere around 500 by the end of JPN 412L, which was fourth-semester Japanese. It may have been higher, but I don't think it could have been higher than 700 or so.
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Isn't that kind of low? Like Nagoyankee said, that's less than middle schoolers, and those finishing Japanese 412L are full-grown adults (taking into consideration the few choices for internalizing kanji as well as time constrants and the fact that the Japanese kids learn them for years and years and see them every day)
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Having studied with Australians, I have to say that you're wrong. The Americans almost uniformly had better Japanese, whether we were from Kansas or Texas. Interestingly, those from California and Washington (West-coast, most "Asian" of all states) were the weakest of the Americans in my opinion.
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Seriously? Jeez... I make the assumption based on an Australian I knew who was ridiculous at Japanese and had never even been to the country before. He was at my university and of course got all the girls... he was kind of a prick about his Japanese, actually, but still. I know that Japanese is a widely-offered subject down under from at least high school (certainly not in the States), so that's the basis for my assumption. Guess it was wrong!
I'm also blown away that the "asian" states would have the weakest Japanese speakers. There are far more opportunities to actually speak to natives and practice. I know in my state there are probably a total of TEN Japanese. There's about a million "Japanese" restaraunts, but when I was there I'd go in and ask right away if anyone there was Japanese and they'd admit no. Absolutely no place to practice. >_<
@MMM: Yeah, it's like trying to pick up an armful of wet bars of soap sometimes. I can't seem to remember some kanji past the span of ten minutes @_@