How not to sound like a textbook

One common affliction of the beginner student of Japanese is that she speaks like a textbook, reproducing written Japanese phrases verbatim in conversation, eg:

私は昨日松山に行きました。　

This is grammatically correct. Say it and you will be understood. But you sound like a textbook. The speaker probably meant to say "I went to Matsuyama yesterday".  If that was the case, then:

昨日松山に行きました。

would do the job. Assuming a conversation between two people there is no need to throw in the 私は　- the person you are talking to knows from context that you are talking about yourself. If it was your cat who went to Matsuyama yesterday then feel free to throw in うちの猫は　because unless you are holding the cat and pointing to it as you speak context does NOT tell the the other person who went.

So at one level the distinction is between the written and spoken word.

But there is also the factor of register. Say you are talking with a peer, a friend, a buddy. 昨日松山に行きました  is way more formal than necessary, and may have the effect of making you sound like you want to maintain some distance from the person you are talking to. At the least you will sound unnatural because your friends will be using the dictionary form/casual form.

昨日松山に行った

or even just：

昨日松山行った

The problem is compounded when answering questions:

Aさん：　　昨日どこに行きましたか？
Bさん：　　私は昨日松山に行きました。

Walking textbook syndrome. Cut the 私は　for a start (see above). And 昨日　- it can go too - you don't need it because it was in the question. You can even lose the に行きました　because that is understood from the question too - all you really need to say is: 松山.

Aさん：　　昨日どこに行きましたか？
Bさん：　　松山。

(Sticklers might want to stick a です　or a でした　on the end as a nod to formality)

I mention this because I am currently enrolled in a course on teaching Japanese and the instructor, a witty and droll woman by the name of Uno Sensei, broached this issue during class the other week. The point arose as Uno Sensei explained one of her fundamental precepts - that teachers should teach from the textbook, and NOT teach the textbook. She gave the example of the verb to give (to another): あげる。　In many textbooks you will find examples like 友達に本をあげます。　Uno Sensei explained that while this was wonderfully correct Japanese it simply was not what people say when they hand a book to a friend. What would people actually say when handing over a gift? A simple どうぞ.

Uno Sensei's point was that a teacher has the responsibility for ensuring that not only do the students learn good, grammatical Japanese but that they also learn how to speak the way Japanese people speak in the real world. She was very clear on the point, telling everyone in the seminar room that it was their responsibility to point out where textbook Japanese and real life Japanese diverge.

We were covering  the topic of time, and how to ask what time someone gets up:
何時に起きますか？

Uno Sensei picked people at random and asked them: 何時に起きますか？
She then had people answer in full sentences like:  ７時に起きます。

Now there is a reason for having students answer in full sentences - it gives them experience in using new phrases and helps them internalise forms through use. But I had to ask - how do you get students to both remember new forms but also speak the way a Japanese person would - the two goals seem mutually exclusive.

Uno Sensei's answer was simple. When addressing the teacher you answer in full sentences, but when talking amongst classmates/friends you should just answer naturally:

先生: 何時に起きますか？
Aさん:  ７時に起きます。

Eさん：　何時に起きますか？
Fさん：　７時。

In this way you associate the teacher with formal answers and class mates with casual Japanese speech, in effect creating separate memory pegs for each kind of Japanese. When it comes to writing something down you should be able to access the more formal speech you used with Sensei, but on a beer-fueled karaoke night of debauchery the casual forms should flow.

Comments

[Durf]

I've wondered at times whether it wouldn't be better to start off JFL learners with dictionary forms of verbs and no particles. Just get them grunting ouf simple sentences: 明日東京行く、私リンゴ食べる. As time goes on fill in the blanks and show them the more polite forms of speech. This is closer to how little kids in Japan learn the ropes, and it seems like a much more natural way to pick up Japanese as a foreign-language learner.

[Paul D]

I think Japanese textbooks for Westerners take the completely wrong approach. Languages like English and French are subject-predicate languages that need many parts in place be grammatical. Japanese is completely different, and just "ikimashita" is usually more appropriate than throwing in all that "watashi-wa" crap. Western language-learning methods are still dominated by Euro-centric language assumptions, though.

All my favourite textbooks are published in Japan, in Japanese only (but often with some exposition in English, Chinese, and Korean).

I agree with Durf that starting with dictionary forms (instead of -masu forms) gives you a better sense of the language. I wouldn't drop particles, though; it takes some time to develop a sense of which particles can be dropped and when.

[Rachael]

Japanese: the Spoken Language (much maligned I'm sure) does start out with -masu forms. BUT, the earlier sentence patterns and conversations learned are things like "wakarimasu ka?". "hai, wakarimasu.". No 'watashi-wa's in sight. I think the first use of wa learned is actually something like 'goruhu simasu ka', 'iie, goruha wa simasen. tenisu simasu.' Or something like that. And I don't think it's till the 4A lesson.