Quote:
Originally Posted by steven
Nyororin, I'm very happy that you came because it seems that you are able to convey what I'm trying to say better than I can.
I've studied linguistics quite a bit and it seems that while people assume that different methods of learning (as in order of things) should be applied to adults and children... but it seems that every time there is a study done on it, the opposite of this tends to become apparent.
So I think that languages, my experience being with Japanese and English, are taught in a very strange order that doesn't seem to make much sense. The order normal people acquire a language in is this: Listening, speaking, reading, writing... with observation being a huge part of listening. It's almost as though people go to great efforts to teach a language in the opposite order than is natural.
I'm not trying to bring down my teachers, as my college teachers explained very clearly that they knew what the natural order of acquiring a language was-- they had to focus more on writing and advanced stuff to comply with all of the 2世人 students who attended the classes.
I think as a teacher, it's hard to justify telling your kids to just listen to language for 2 or 3 years, but that would be the best prerequisit for any language course. Teachers have to have things to grade and that's why they apply writing so early on in my opinion (now I'm talking about non-college level). If you, as a learner, don't have to deal with school, I'd put you at an advantage in that you probably won't get burned out by all the work thrown at you. If that is the case, then I think you'd be better off listening to/watching as much Japanese conversation as you possibly can and your brain will do the rest (in understanding words and being able to figure out where words begin and end). After a lot of listening, I would advise trying to speak. The technology is there, so by all means record yourself and listen & compare your speech to native speech (although this may, too, be a little discouraging at first). After you've got your basics down, then make an attempt at learning how to read/write.
What I don't understand is, is that we have all kinds of technology. Language books are in my opinion so obsolete. I hope that someone will make some kind of 'video book' that has no written language and just focuses on spoken language and its context. Audio tapes alone don't make sense at all, as the context of the language is slimmed down a lot by subtracting the visual aspect to the language. Sometimes I think the schools in my area should show english television shows and stuff like that to elementary school students from first grade and up. Instead of buying all of these bogus books and materials, just give the kids ENGLISH in its pure form... but that's straying even more from the topic.
You guys all seem very adamant about the importance of written langauge. If you had to choose between written or spoken language as being more important, which would you choose? Personally, I think spoken language wins hands down. I wonder how much class time is allocated to spoken vs. written, and what the results of all that is. These are studies that would be nice to have-- although I'm sure they are already out there.
So that's kind of what I'm getting at, people are pushing for kanji learning when there hasn't been nearly enough studying time allocated for actual spoken langauge. I think that early on, focus should be put on cultural differences and spoken language (and by culture, I'm not talking about kimonos and green tea).
So I'm pushing for Kanji to be held back a bit, thus putting stroke order out of the question for beginners. I'd argue that stroke order should be taught simultanously with kanji learning though.
As a side note: I can't tell you how many people I've met who have talked to me about how they're gonna take the JLPT 2 or 3 and how they're cramming kanji for it and what-not. Some of them even come to me for advice. These are people who probably couldn't understand a lick of natural everyday Japanese, and yet they're learning kanji that I've never even seen before. The illeterate, but fluent person you guys are referring to is almost completely me. I can read a little bit but probably couldn't compete with a 2nd grade Japanese student. I may be a little late in starting to study Kanji (I've made many attempts in the past but don't have the attention span), but now I'm seriously starting it. It feels a million times easier to look at a kanji that I'm studying and know the words complete usage in spoken Japanese. I finally feel like "cramming kanji" has a purpose now (with years of studying under my belt now). I have my JLPT practice books that I've barely touched... but I'm gonna go ahead and skip those and just practice from whatever kanji is in the cirriculum for actual Japanese elementary students.
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As for the importance of spoken or written language, if you want to pass JLPT, written language is much more important.
And in fact Japanese is relatively much easier to speak than European languages, though how to say it properly can sometimes be a headache. You may think that once you have achieved the spoken part, then the written part would be easy. But I think the spoken part is the easiest part. You still have a long way to go.
Crunching Kanji for JLPT is necessary. I am Chinese. When I prepared for JLPT 1, I also needed to spend a lot of time on Kanji. And I mean a hell lot of time, because Japanese has so many homonyms and each kanji has at least 2 pronunciations, sometimes up to more than five.
Learning Kanji is in fact like learning the letters. The real words are combination of several Kanji. You may have learned 設 and 計. But when you encounter 設計, I'm sorry, you still need to use the dictionary.