Nihongojouzu

All Japanese All The Time

Sorry for the post paucity - I have translating coming out of my ears. Here is something to keep you going in the meantime - All Japanese All The Time - the blog of a fellow styling himself Khatzumoto, whose learning approach focuses on three basic techniques:

1. Learn how to write the 2000 or so basic use kanji (yep - Heisig time)
2. Learn to read by learning words/kanji in context, ie in SENTENCES, using spaced repetition
3. Do EVERYTHING in Japanese ALL THE TIME.

I think Khatzumoto's approach to maximising and repeating input is spot on, and when I think of my halcyon days as a JET, with no cable, no Amazon Japan, no Google, and no other gaijin, I was fortunate enough to have, and make use of, the "all Japanese all the time" environment. Although I picked up speaking and listening to a decent level, I definitely didn't apply myself as well as Khatzumoto, whose approach is not only characterised by sheer dedication but also by wit and refreshing honesty. Reading AJAAT will not only give you some great tools for learning Japanese, it will give you a gentle kick in the arse and make you WANT to learn:

No one is saying you’re going to be amazing at it on your first day, or even your first month or even your first year. But you know what? The surest way to fail is to quit doing it. If you can’t skate, or program, or speak a language, it’s not because a supernatural white ball of gas in outer space doesn’t want you to. It’s not because of your parents — leave them out of it. And it’s not because of the task itself — don’t be a wusspot. It’s because you haven’t done it enough.

A lot of times we say someone is “good” at something. I think this is inaccurate. It would be more correct to say she is “accustomed” to it. We don’t get good at something so much as we get used to it. So, I’m not “good” at Japanese, I’m just accustomed to it. I’ve seen those kanji before, I’ve heard those words arranged in that sequence before, I’ve seen that sentence pattern a zillion times. When you’re “bad” at something, it’s not so much that you’re bad at it as it is that you aren’t used to it. And the way to get used to it — to get good at it — is simply to do more of it.

 

Harvey of JapanNewbie: Learner Stories

I found  today's interviewee via his blog, JapanNewbie, which I discovered way back in 2004 and have read on and off since then. Amusing, informative and something many blogs are not - enthusiastic. Late last year I noticed Harvey had another blog - this one geared to learning Japanese. I was intrigued. I emailed, found out that Harvey was currently enrolled at the IUC in Yokohama and knew that I had to interview him, if only to get the inside story on that esteemed  establishment of Japanese learning legend. But enough of me rambling - let's hear the pearls of wisdom from today's guest (who amazingly is NOT an ex-JET!)

Let's start the ball rolling - name, rank and serial number:

Harvey of JapanNewbie.com, and Japan Ads blog.

What's your background? (How long have you been studying Japanese?）

I have been studying Japanese since my first year in high school in the US. That makes a total of more than 10 years with the Japanese language... Time flies.

Anyway...

I continued studying throughout university, and spent one year abroad at Nanzan University in Nagoya before graduating. After graduating, I came to Japan to work. I did the suit thing for four years in an environment where I had to use Japanese daily. I am now studying at an intensive Japanese program in Yokohama called IUC (Inter-University Center for Japanese Studies).

Why did you start learning Japanese (and not say, French)?

It was a process of elimination really.

Jake Dunlap: Learner Stories

After much procrastination on my part (most of this interview was conducted at the end of last year) I have finally produced a new Learner Story interview. Every now and then I get an email asking about how one goes about becoming a translator. To those people I say "You are in luck!" -  today's guest is translator Jake Dunlap, who has kindly offered to reveal the secret to becoming proficient enough to translate highly technical documents and interpret for lawyers. Jake has not only reached a very high level of proficiency he has done it by the ripe old age of only 26. And for anyone who has every wondered what level of Japanese you need to become a CIR, and indeed, what a CIR does - read on (yes - another JET Programme alumnus!).

Name and occupation?
Jake Dunlap, translator.

What's your background? (How long have you been studying Japanese?)
I started formally studying Japanese when I entered high school at age 13, and continued on to major in Japanese Language and Literature in college, so my total experience with the language comes out to about 13 years.  Of course, I haven't really put much formal study in since I graduated from college, but my first post-grad job (Coordinator for International Relations on the JET Programme) and my current job both required a high level of Japanese ability, so I was forced to study in those capacities as well.

Kaoru (Coal) MIKI - Learner Stories

I first came across today's interviewee while doing background reading for my post on the Apple Mac/PC ads. Courtesy of Coal's blog, Offering Booze to a Deity in Kowloon, I found out the names of the Rahmens, the two Japanese comedians who play the Mac/PC roles. Then the New Years Mac ad came out and the copy floating around on YouTube had English subtitles, courtesy of ......Coal! I read up about him, discovered he was a translator, worked in the games industry and had featured on the cover of Newsweek in his capacity as a newly naturalised Japanese citizen. Most interview-worthy I thought, but would he be willing to share his tale? I got in touch and Coal was extremely generous with his time, as the length of the interview attests. Coal was also adamant that he couldn't reveal too much about his freelance project, and he didn't - but anyone who does the smallest bit of Google/YouTube research will soon have their hands on the sushi video he refers to. Coincidentally, like last week's interviewee, Jon Cockle, Coal is also a JET Programme alumnus.

Name and occupation?

Kaoru MIKI (神酒 九龍- hence the blog name), formerly Colin Restall which I still use professionally. I'm currently working in the games industry.

What's your background? (How long have you been studying Japanese?)

I actually don't recall exactly when I started studying, but it must have been about twelve or thirteen years ago.  Study had been running hot and cold for about five years before I moved here, so I was fairly conversationally fluent when I stepped off the plane in 1999 but probably could have been better.

You came over on JET - how did your language progress from the JET Programme through to working in the games industry? And how did you make the switch?

The first couple of years on JET were as a one-shot ALT (Assistant Language Teacher) which I didn't get on with at all, though I did get plenty of desk time to cram kanji and vocab into my eyes. Additionally I got to do sporadic visits to elementary schools where the kids and teachers seemed happier if I just gave a presentation about my country in their language as the kids seemed to learn more that way. That kind of public speaking is a good way of putting your language skills where your mouth is, so it was often necessary to learn new keywords depending on what I was presenting, and sometimes I'd completely fail to communicate what I wanted to (judged by complete lack of reaction) so I'd just rework those bits and try again at the next school. When one presentation is mastered, I'd get more adventurous. That was a good experience in that regard.

For the third year I was able to transfer to the baptism by fire kencho* CIR (Coordinator for International Relations) position, which was so busy I had very little time to study but constant translation and interpretation requests, being guest speaker at seminars and general busy office life gave the language skills a real boost.

The current job I just sort of wandered into - it was advertised on the company's home page, I applied and got it. I think they were content by the way I carried myself at the interview that I was capable of doing the job, but that was probably thanks again to the many elementary school visits I did - the first fifteen minutes is always sat making awkward small talk alone with the principal, which I eventually had down to a fine art, making such confrontations a walk in the park. It's amazing how much positive energy you can pull from the discomfort of others caused by your presence as a supposed inferior. Worked wonders when I was introduced to my (now) father-in-law too!

Why did you start learning Japanese (and not say, French)?

My interest in Japan and learning the language came from a combination of a pre-existing fascination with pictographs, and anime starting to appear on video rental shelves in Britain. As such, I actually started studying kanji before bothering to learn how to speak, mostly using basic self made flashcards with the kanji on one side and meaning on the other, which I'd drill. I had about one hundred and fifty odd under my belt before realising that this knowledge by itself was near worthless. It was a good introduction to the writing though, and certainly helped me get over the sort of kanjiphobia a lot of new learners face.

Learning the spoken language was initially inspired by trying to figure out what was being said in cartoons, but my interest in that waned rapidly (i.e. became fluency for fluency's sake) when I started meeting real people that spoke the language properly and didn't mind helping me learn. In practice, this is a lot less easy than it sounds in the outskirts of London where Japanese speakers are few and far between. With a little detective work though, it wasn't too hard to find out which central London pubs were frequented by language students on a Friday night, and then it was just a case of going there week after week shopping for anybody Japanese that wasn't really serious about English study. They were in absolute abundance! Were the shoe on the other foot, I'd probably really hate people like me!

Tell us about any classes/formal schooling you have had (if any)

I've never had a formal lesson (unless you count the pre-JET orientation - I don't). I found that I knew my own linguistic weaknesses and priorities best, so studying by myself just seemed the most efficient method. Also I didn't have any money.

Being purely self-schooled probably only works well for the very highly motivated. In the earlier days I think I would have made quicker progress if I had somebody to properly explain the basics.  Other than that though, if you're serious about the language, the teacher should be little more than a stick and carrot. Too many people end up relying on their classes too heavily, doing only minimal study by themselves, if at all.

What books - textbooks or otherwise have you found useful?

I found early on that having a good grammar book was essential. I gave the book away years back now and don't remember the name unfortunately, but it was only very basic and I'm sure there are lots like it. It gave a really firm grounding in the basics. For kanji study, I found Kanji & Kana by Hadamitzky and Spahn (Tuttle) to be a constant source of helpful information, and likewise the Kanji Power Handbook for the JLPT (ALC). The one I most used though was a former Monbusho approved school textbook called 漢字練習辞典¸ by 新学社 that has all the joyo-kanji broken down by year in the order that kids learn them, right up to the first year of high school. I can't put my finger on it, but the book just seems to contain so much taken for granted information that you wouldn't find in books aimed at foreign learners. Also as it's Monbusho approved, it's officially infallible. The kanji are displayed properly, and if you follow it to the letter you will develop good writing skills. For general study and help, these days I rely a lot on JEDict, SPACE ALC, Jim Breen's WWWJDIC and manythings.org (particularly the newspaper vocabulary tests). My study habits haven't really adapted that well yet to the broadband revolution though yet.

Unfortunately, there are also a good deal of resources I have found to be utterly useless. Audio-lingual methods such as Linguaphone, which is just your basic listen - repeat methodology is great for pronunciation and rhythm but will give you no practical footing at all. The 実力アップ！これで大丈夫！€ JLPT prep books are also next to useless - they introduce long lists of obscure and easily confused grammar points most of which never appear on the corresponding test in the form of a question, and then fail to expand on them sufficiently to be of any help. They can occasionally be a handy reference when trying to crack some odd grammar you found in a newspaper, but not as textbooks or prep aids. Also I'd swear at rather than by the Heisig kanji learning methods. Some people think it's great of course, but the problem is you have to learn all the Joyo kanji by their meanings using somebody else's mnemonics before you can start on the readings, which means a heck of a lot of legwork with no sense of improvement - being able to identify that a bus is going to a thousand houses tea shop won't help you get to your job interview in Sengenjaya. Besides, if you're motivated enough to go through all that, then you'll probably find traditional study methods with homemade flashcards to be much more efficient. Put a kanji on one side, and the reading with related vocabulary you *already know* and a simple English meaning on the other, drill, rinse, turnover, repeat, but use in conjunction with other reading and writing practice.

What resources other than books have you found useful?

Electronic dictionaries are getting very good these days, though I still find their contents lacking when compared to regular paper dictionaries. You get some machines with like forty-two different dictionaries in them, but I would be happy to have one that has just three really good, expansive dictionaries. I say three though as you need an English-Japanese, Japanese-English and a good Japanese-Japanese dictionary. On second thoughts, add a Nelsons kanji dictionary to it and make it four! It's all the additional dictionaries on season related greetings for letter writing, English idioms, world cuisine and bird watching I can do without. There's also a lot of good  online resources which I mentioned in the last question.

What I found really useful in the earlier days was a newspaper subscription - specifically the Asahi Shogakusei Shimbun. The writing was a little bit simplified but still newspaperish, and the readings for all the kanji were added in furigana. Getting that delivered daily cost about 1500 per month, and just reading two or three articles daily making notes of the vocabulary and any grammatical forms I didn't know improved my reading exponentially within a couple of months. Adult newspapers sadly are too much of a pain to read which is a shame - the articles are not generally interesting, and they put way too many numbers in using kansuuji €€[Chinese characters which express numbers - Ed.]. It's not enough to say in the first sentence that a concert was held at a local high school, they have to say that it's the eighteenth annual concert held  on the twelfth of November two thousand and six and attended by one thousand and sixty five spectators, an increase of seven percent over last year's turnout of nine hundred and ninety six and fourteen percent over the annual average of nine hundred and thirty four, earning proceeds of three million seven hundred and twenty seven thousand five hundred yen, according to principle Kohei Yamasaki (fifty two).  Using kansuuji, the numbers alone take about up about 80% of the sentence. Reading it is a lot of effort with very little to show for it. Online news is much less so, but again tends to be simplified a lot as reading a monitor is harder on the eyes than reading a paper.  I'm still on the lookout for a good reading source.

Where do you work and what do you do?

I'm working for a very well known games company, predominantly producing game software manuals for the US and EU markets. Sometimes this is interpretative translation work, more commonly though writing from scratch with a mountain of out of date production documents in Japanese, and a yet to be localised unstable ROM that is head splittingly hard to play, as reference material.

"interpretative translation work" - do you mean interpreting or non-chokuyaku (word-for-word)  translating?

It's non-chokuyaku translation as requirements and traditions are different between regions. I always find the Japanese manuals would rather say a hundred words when two will suffice. I've also been doing a lot of freelance work for a small movie production company localising scripts and captions etc so they can showcase their work outside Japan (a direct result of the sushi-gate incident - more on that if you think anybody would care).

Can you expand more on your freelance work, in a little more detail. For example how does one go about putting English subtitles on a Japanese video - do you just watch it again and again and take notes?  :-)

Sometimes it works out that way, but when it's a professional request I normally have the benefit of a script too. I actually find it easier to read through the script and put my translations under it, and then read it while watching the film to make sure it fits. There are other issues involved with subtitling such as timing them to the speech naturally and the actual mechanics of adding them to a film clip, but I only have to worry about those if I'm doing it illegally for my own amusement. The Apple commercials up on YouTube are one example, as are two news reports called "Otaku from USA" that I knocked up on request last year.

Scripting voiceover work is a lot more fun as you can stray from the original a lot more, and you get to be the boss while they're actually recording them, making changes as you go along, and hanging around with famous people.

There's other random translation stuff too - I translated and photoshopped together a fearmongering manga about human rights abuses back in June for Debito's site, and just recently I've been working on the English text for a business website which has been proving quite lucrative. Getting the paying work is normally a case of being in the right place or knowing the right people, but it certainly helps to showcase your work.

And anything with gate on the end sounds good - what was the sushigate incident?

In a nutshell, sushigate was when I found this humorous short film on sushi etiquette on a DVD and thought it would be a great idea to subtitle it so a few mates could enjoy it. Expecting its appeal to be limited to the relatively small group of people that had experienced life in Japan, I was shocked to see it turn up on Google Video and YouTube multiple times over complete with my subtitles, and about a million blogs linking to them. To cut a longer story short and skipping over the several months of abject terror I faced at the prospect of having my arse sued off, the producers found a way to track me down and were like "we don't know what you put in those subtitles, but they obviously hit the mark. How'd you like to work with us on future projects?" The rest is history or hasn't finished happening yet so I have to keep shtum, but that was basically a catalyst that provided a steady flow of the funner kind of work.

How much Japanese do you use at work?

Not as much as I would like. Meetings and other official communications are all in Japanese (except when dealing with overseas offices), but speaking is rare because nobody likes each other. It's not uncommon for me to work for days on end without speaking or hearing a single word. It's enough to drive one quite mad I tell you.

As someone who has just moved into freelance and works from a home office I can empathise, but are you really saying there is no chatting around the water cooler? Is this particular to your office?

It really is that bad, but it seems to be limited to the specific office I work in. No idea why. At departmental 納会š [end of year meeting] I just wander off and hang out with a bunch of folk from a different office as they're a lot more fun.

Do you have a personal routine for studying?

At the moment, no. I've been resting on my laurels this year, putting my energy into other things like the freelance projects I mentioned earlier, buying a house and getting married. A study routine is on my January to-do list I promise!

What kind of goals would be on this putative routine?

That's a tricky one as getting level 1 when I did really messed up my motivation. There's always the kanji kentei I suppose. The real goal is just to be less awkward. Vague I know, but English is still my dominant language by a long shot and it would be nice to be as fluent as that.

Major achievement in Japanese?

I got 77% in JLPT level 2 one year after scraping through level 3, having been in the country less than eighteen months. I was surprised. Four years later I borderline passed level 1 without any test specific  study, and honestly found the result a little disappointing. I had hoped that it would motivate me to study harder the next year, and didn't seriously consider that I might actually pass. Also since passing level 2, I'd always thought that by the time I get level 1 my Japanese would be much better than it really was. Perception is funny that way, I've come to find.

The one I'd really have been proud of was when I was asked to interpret for the German team during the 2002 World Cup. More specifically, to take care of their communicative needs for the period of their stay in my CIR jurisdiction. Hailing from Britain, there would have been a certain pub hero status if I was able to abuse my position to pull off pranks on prominent team members. Sadly, my supervisor at the time took "YES YES YES YES YES I'LL DO IT" to mean "give me a couple of weeks to think about it" and they ended up asking somebody else, who totally messed it up.

Most embarrassing Japanese faux pas?

I've certainly made some royal linguistic cock-ups over the years, but aside from chatting up young ladies while their boyfriends are standing nearby, getting caught out while pretending not to speak English to random leeches, and foolishly using the wrong stroke order for the kanji 右 (which of course is noticeably different from its counterpart 左), I wouldn't particularly classify any of them as either faux pas-ish or embarrassing.

On the other hand there was this time during the World Cup in 2002. I'd dropped by the local Irish Bar just after an England match had finished to see if there was any atmosphere left (there wasn't), and the owner comes running over saying he was glad I was there because TV reporters are coming and they need somebody English that can speak Japanese to introduce pub culture. This was for a daytime show to be aired the following week. I agreed, but got into constant arguments with the director who had their own preconceived agenda about what constitutes British pub life, and I was determined that the report would be at least reasonably accurate. So two hours later and after about five pints of complementary Guinness, I was pretty pleased with what we'd done and went my merry way. The next week when I actually saw the programme though, it became clear that the director had continued to harbour a pretty serious grudge for all the trouble I caused her, as all the parts where I made long intelligent sounding monologues had been replaced by photo montages and a professional voice over giving the same information, and for the remaining footage they used the takes that made me look like the worst kind of lecherous drunken unintelligible foreign lout the TV station had ever filmed. There's probably a lesson in there somewhere.

What advice to people starting out learning Japanese?

Ignoring the usual motivational stuff about figuring out exactly why you need to learn and then targeting towards that, I would say the best advice is to get a good grammar book. Courses such as Japanese for Busy People, not to mention regular lessons, tend to focus on themes introducing relevant grammar as they go along, but they're no substitute for a proper structured explanation of the rudiments. You need to master word order, basic particle usage, verb & adjective stems and endings, and the "ru" (casual) verb form before even attempting to tackle anything else. Avoid using "masu" until you're comfortable with "ru" as it only uses one verb stem and you need to learn them all.

If you were starting out starting studying Japanese from zero again what would you do differently?

If circumstances allowed, I would definitely try to get some proper school time in on location. I've found that people who studied full time non-language related subjects using a foreign language, even for as little as six months end up with a much higher level of fluency much quicker than via any other method. This goes for university study right down to elementary level.

So what, for example, would you study?

I wouldn't mind getting into filmmaking, or something similarly creative, but more realistically I'd either go for an engineering related topic or a psychological field. Those are all poles apart aren't they? It's unlikely to happen though, what with the mortgage and all.

What advice to people who want to move from intermediate to higher-level proficiency?

I'm still trying to figure that out myself, but I'm sure any such attempts that don't involve intimate knowledge of the full Joyo-kanji set are probably a waste of time.

One thing I can tell you for a fact though is that translating the innards of text heavy adventure games INTO Japanese is guaranteed to freak your face off and give you really weird frustrated nightmares on the rare occasions you're able to sleep, while having little to no effect on overall fluency. Avoid like the plague.

Top 5 tips for studying Japanese.

1) Language learning requires a combination of bulk learning and practical application. Japanese is particularly heavy on the bulk learning early on, so get basic grammar and vocabulary, hiragana, katakana, and a few hundred kanji engraved onto your brain as your first major priority.

2) If you're the sort who bores easily, find about 5 different study strategies and rotate them once every month or so.

3) Be as arrogant as necessary when first trying to gain fluency (to fend off language leeches and getting people to speak to you properly rather than in single syllable keyword grunts). It won't win you any friends, but who needs friends when you can speak Japanese!

4) If you have digital cable, you can probably get subtitles for most TV dramas etc. Likewise Japanese subtitles are available on a lot of DVDs. They can be handy in a pinch, but ultimately a set back when you end up relying on them. Try to avoid using them as much as possible.

5) Don't confuse the ability to engage in fluent small talk in a native sounding accent with actual linguistic competence. They're largely unrelated, and it's entirely possible to achieve a very high level without ever "fooling" anybody.

What other languages do you speak?

Just English and Japanese I'm afraid. And about 1 week's worth of French from high school.

Is language a skill, in other words is Chomsky full of crap?

Not really sure I understand the question. If I recall, Chomsky's assertion was that our brains contain a sort of dedicated grammar processor, and language acquisition is "simply" a case of learning a specific set of parameters i.e. which grammatical rules apply for the language in question. I don't see how that would make it any less a skill. Attaining a reasonable level of competency even in your native language, requires many years of pretty dedicated training with a lot of trial and error, and even as adults it's a lot of work at times to get a seemingly simple sentence just right. Then there are the additional issues of pronunciation and delivery (which are largely behaviorist issues), vocabulary and expressions, reading and writing, none of which would be enhanced by the presence of such an innate grammatical knowledge.

I guess it's like learning the piano. Technically, everything needed to produce every possible sound a piano can make is right there in front of you from day one, in the form of eighty-eight keys (and two or three peddles). The pianist in a sense has an "innate knowledge" of those eighty-eight sounds. The skill comes in determining which sounds to make at any given time, how to use your hands to build expression into the playing, how to read music etc.

*kencho = Prefectural government

Thanks for your time Coal and good luck in the entertainment industry!

Coal can be contacted via his blog, or by email.

Learner Stories: Jon Yongfook Cockle

A lot of people who come to Japan on the JET Programme wonder what the hell they are going to do for a living if they decide to stick around after their contract finishes. When I speak on this issue at JET conferences I normally point out, and only half tongue-in-cheek, that for those who don't speak Japanese the options are usually (a) teaching English at an eikaiwa (b) teaching English at a university (c) teaching English at a private school or (d) hostessing. But I also add that if you knuckle down and learn the lingo, and use your spare time wisely to develop skills which make you employable, Japan can be your oyster. And then I offer a few examples - like the guy who after only four years in Japan became director of his very own web startup in Tokyo. That's what the subject of today's Learner Story, former JET Jon Yongfook Cockle, did. As a director of jonkenpon.com Jon is one of the chaps responsible for Haikuplanet, and his Food and Tech blog Yongfook.com always draws a healthy crowd. So how did Jon acquire the Japanese skills to make this possible? Let's find out.

1. Name and occupation?

Name: Jon Cockle
Official job title: Corporate Planning (at a Japanese investment bank)
Unofficial job title: Director of jonkenpon.com

2. What is your background? (How long have you been studying Japanese?)

Came to Japan via JET in 2002 with zero Japanese.  Did JET for 2.5 years.  Actually study-studied Japanese for maybe a year in that time.

3. Why did you start learning Japanese (and not say, French)?

See above!  For obvious reasons, learning Japanese whilst in the darkest depths of the inaka is - as I'm sure you and your readers will know - an essential survival skill.  That and, I quite like languages in general and Japanese has this reputation of being one of the most challenging.

4. Tell us about any Japanese language classes/formal schooling you have had (if any).

No formal schooling.  I think I did those JET language correspondence courses for a bit before I got bored...

5. What books - textbooks or otherwise have you found useful?

When I got here I immediately read a very thin grammar book (I can't remember - and don't think it particularly matters - which one) cover to cover and over and over (it was one of the few books I brought with me).  I had mostly memorised it within a couple of weeks. I think that was absolutely vital to my advancement in the language - whilst other people were trying to remember the word for "plate" or "cat", I was already able to understand past / future / present-progressive tense.  Of course, it was all textbook-forms which aren't necessarily used in everyday language, but it was an enormous help in being able to express myself early on, no matter how clumsily.

6. What resources other than books have you found useful?

For a while I carried round an electronic dictionary and religiously pounded words / kanji in that I wanted to look up.  That was great for vocab.  Other than that, preparing for the JLPT 2kyu exam with those monotonous multiple choice question books actually helped me a lot. You do the same thing so many times over and over that eventually it just sticks.

7. Where do you work and what do you do?

I work for an investment bank in Tokyo, in corporate planning.  It is my job to supervise the company's online assets and implement new strategies related to the web.

8. How much Japanese do you use at work?

I use Japanese about 70% of the time.  Depends who I'm talking to. Some of my colleagues have excellent English and want to practice, which I have no problem with.  Other times it might be easier (especially in a group situation) to speak Japanese.

For example I might have a meeting with a client or someone who wants to work with us, and in that meeting I will have to explain what it is we can do for them, why they should be paying more attention to their web strategies, and outline the kind of opportunities that are available and that are easily adaptable to their existing business strategy - on the web.  There are two sides to the kind of Japanese that I have to speak - business and technical.  The technical side has a lot more jargony gairaigo in it so that's a little easier on my brain.

As for working for a Japanese company, I think it's crucial that you have a good grounding in reading too.  There will be a lot of text for you to digest - emails, endless forms, reports, etc etc.  Reading Japanese emails and knowing the appropriate way to respond makes for a much smoother ride at the beginning of your working for a Japanese company.  I just kind of learnt as I went along, but I know that at the start I made a lot of mistakes and that I was quite a rude (unintentionally) little git via email thanks to my brusque, inaka-fied language skills.

9. Do you have a personal routine for studying?

I don't really study anymore, which is a true shame and something I want to resolve.  Saying that, however, I think I'm just one of thosepeople who is gets more out of just listening and speaking.  I'm continually listening to conversations and making a mental note of expressions or how something tends to be said this way in one situation and another way in a different situation.  I guess I regard "being mindful" as studying, in a way.  I don't really have time for personal study at this point in my life.

10. Major achievement in Japanese?

I can only think of tiny, personal achievements.  I remember how satisfying it felt to read a comic or something and actually understand the joke or the context - and laughing.  That's a great feeling.

11. Most embarrassing Japanese faux pas?

Can't really remember one off the top of my head, but I'm always making dumb little mistakes.  Most of the time I quickly manage to correct myself though :)

12. What advice to people starting out learning Japanese?

Everyone has their own method of learning but make sure you practice as much as you can. Even speaking on your own, in the shower - it's all very well having studied bucketloads knowing exactly what you want to say but if you haven't practiced speaking (and some of you may disagree with this) your mouth just won't be physically used to creating the sounds and you can be just as likely to make mistakes as someone who hasn't studied as much as you, but has been speaking lots.

13. If you were starting out starting studying Japanese from zero again what would you do differently?

Probably practice writing more kanji.  My writing is atrocious.

14. What advice for people who want to move from intermediate to higher-level proficiency?

I'm definitely not at "higher-level" yet, but I would start taking the language more seriously and outside of the context of chitchat / the classroom / your hobbies etc.  For example, pick up a Japanese business newspaper.  Or watch the business news in English and attempt to translate it to yourself in Japanese.  I think the easiest way to increase proficiency is to change your surroundings.  For example, to increase my proficiency from zero to conversational I moved from England to Japan...to increase it from conversational to business I moved to corporate Tokyo...

15. Top 5 tips for studying Japanese.

1) speak
2) study grammar! (we know it's boring)
3) listen to conversations around you, like a kind of silent word-ninja
4) do something with Japanese people/friends that is extra-curricular or outside of your daily grind.
5) speak

16. What other languages do you speak?

A little French.  Bits and bobs of Cantonese.

17. Is language a skill?

I think true fluency in a second (or third etc) language is a skill. I think attaining a comfortable level of ability with any language is something that most people can innnately handle if they put their mind to it, aren't opposed to being a little extroverted and practise often.

Cheers,
Jon

Postscript: For an account of how Jon actually made the leap from countryside Assistant Language Teacher to Tokyo web engineer take a look at his lengthy post on getting a non-teaching job in Japan after JET, on the infamous BigDaikon forum.

Learner Stories: Tae Kim of nihongo.3yen.com

I want to expand on the idea of Learner Stories and provide a series of articles, or rather case studies, of people who have reached a high level of proficiency in Japanese. Why?  To make people depressed over how much better those high achievers are? No - the exact opposite. I want to highlight language learning role-models so that people reading this blog, anyone from Japanese learning neophytes to veterans, can learn and benefit from other peoples' experiences. While it is trite to say "The only way to get better at Japanese is by using Japanese" it is also very true. True but oh-so-very dry. Bone dry. I think that reading about exactly how people achieved high levels of proficiency puts meat on the bones of this truism.

Reading the accounts of people with high proficiency in Japanese will:

1. Show you what levels of achievement are possible. (Adults can achieve near-native fluency!)
2. Expose you to new techniques, or ways of thinking about Japanese. Anyone who reads Tae Kim's account below has no excuse for saying (cue whiney voice) "but you have to live in Japan to get good at Japanese!" 
3. Give you a motivational kick in the arse - "Wow - compared to A-san I am a lazy bastard - maybe I should get up 30 minutes earlier each day and study."
4. Inspire you. There will always be people better than you - so don't let it get you down - let it pick you up.

Today's subject is the author of the intuitive and richly informative A Japanese Guide to Japanese Grammar, and the man behind Nihongo.3yen.com, Tae Kim.

Let's start the ball rolling - name, rank and serial number:
Tae Kim. Tae is my first name. Kim is my last.

Where do you hail from?
I was born in Korea and moved to the States when I was six. After that I moved around a bunch, mostly around the East Coast.

How long have you been studying Japanese?
I started at the beginning of my sophomore year in college, which was the Fall of 2000. My goodness, over 5 years have passed already!

Why did you start learning Japanese (and not say, French)?
Strangely enough, it was to fulfill my second language graduation requirement. Spanish totally killed me in High School (all those irregular verb conjugations!) so I was more interested in Asian Languages. It was either Chinese or Japanese and I thought I liked how Japanese sounded better.

Tell us about any classes/formal schooling you have had.
3 years in college including a term of study at Waseda.

What books - textbooks or otherwise have you found useful?
I started out with the Nakama textbook for my class. I also read "An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese" during my summer vacation. It was better than Nakama but the grammar explanations were not very good. The textbooks were better than nothing but I have yet to find a really good textbook that I can truly recommend. I haven't really looked at teaching materials since then.

What resources other than books have you found useful?
Jim Breen's EDICT dictionary was indispensible for my studies for a long time. I probably looked up over thousands of words on it. Nowadays there are all sorts of cool online resources, which is kind of unfair to us old folk. In any case, a good dictionary is essential (and also totally unavailable in US bookstores). I now use a Casio EX-word electronic dictionary. Other than that, finding material that is interesting and not unreasonably difficult for your level is important.

Where do you work/what do you do?
I am working in HR at Hitachi developing HR web applications.

How much Japanese do you use at work?
Everybody I work with is Japanese so I do all the development work in Japanese such as writing/reading specs, writing bug reports, etc. Unfortunately, any task that involves English usually comes to me because I'm the only native English speaker in our department.

Do you have a personal routine for studying?
Not so much nowadays. When I was really gung ho studying Japanese, I made Japanese as much a part of my life as possible. Fortunately, a lot of students from Japan were studying at my school so I made a lot of Japanese friends, got involved in the Japanese club activities and asked a lot of questions. Eventually, it came to the point where I just naturally spent at least an hour speaking Japanese every day due to the environment I managed to create for myself. I also tinkered with Japanese on the computer a lot such as installing the Japanese version of IE. I also tried to read as much Japanese as I could. I probably used the EDICT dictionary almost every day. In short, I tried to surround myself in a Japanese environment even though I wasn't in Japan.

Major achievement in Japanese?
Well, I passed into the highest Japanese level for my off-campus study at Waseda after only two years of study. The class was hardcore and I was the only one who had never been to Japan before. I mean some of these kids were practically Japanese! I was like, "Hello? Why are you in this program?"

I also passed 1-kyu for the JLPT last year (first try) but I don't think that's that big of a deal.

Most embarrassing Japanese faux pax?
Nothing that sticks in my mind but I've certainly made tons of mistakes along the way.

Oh,  I recall one partically embarrassing moment when I introduced myself by saying, キムさんです。A classic error.

What advice to people starting out learning Japanese?
Finding a good teacher is probably the most important for people just starting out. Doesn't have to be a professional teacher, just somebody who knows his stuff, can explains things easily, and is geniunly interested in helping you learn.

Also, make learning Japanese as fun as possible. The best way to do this is to find Japanese people you truly enjoy spending time with. If this isn't possible, find material that really interests you whether it's novels, comics,games, art, technology, whatever. Anyway, you should find something that will motivate you to truly enjoy learning Japanese. Also, ask lots of questions and DON'T ARGUE. Just absorb as much information as possible, keep an open mind, and use your own judgement in deciding what is correct. And be HAPPY when somebody corrects you since he or she is giving you an opportunity to improve yourself. I don't care if they correct you every other word or even syllable. Ask for more details, study up, and try again.

Finally, don't think in English. Some English thoughts can never be expressed in Japanese and vice versa. Learn the Japanese way of thinking and forget how you would say it in English. For example, you can't say, "I miss you" in Japanese. You just can't. Get over it and learn to say something else.

What advice to people who want to move from intermediate to advanced proficiency?
I think the first few steps into Japanese are the most difficult. Once you reach intermediate level, it's only a matter of grinding your way through vocab (an endless battle). Find interesting material, read, read, and read some more. And speak with Japanese people as much as possible. And always remember to enjoy yourself!

Top 5 tips for studying Japanese.
1. Meet Japanese people who will speak to you in Japanese or at least to the extent of your abilities.
2. Don't argue, just listen, ask questions, and enjoy being corrected.
3. Read as much as possible with a good dictionary and don't waste time flipping through a paper dictionary if possible.
4. Study kanji on your own along with the vocabulary. Don't wait for your teacher to spoon feed them to you. It will take far too long.
5. Enjoy yourself and include Japanese into your daily life as much as possible.

What other languages do you speak?
Korean (very badly)

Why did you write the Grammar Guide and how long did it take?
I used to hang around the about.com Japanese forum during college. I think I have a little over a thousand posts there. I started the guide because I was tired of answering the same questions over and over. I have been working on the guide on and off for over 4 years now but the bulk of it was written in the first three years I think. You can see a very old and broken version of it here:
http://www.angelfire.com/alt/japaneseguide/

Obviously, it has been greatly improved over the years.

Is language a skill, in other words is Chomsky full of crap?
Language is definitely a skill like riding a bicycle. Think about it, do you speak languages like you do math problems? It's not a cognitive process at all. I don't care how smart you are, without practice, you'll never become good at a language.

Hope that answers your questions.

Cheers
Tae Kim

Thanks Tae!

Tags | learning Japanese | study Japanese | proficiency | language learning

Studying Japanese as an absolute beginner

Think everyone who comes to Japan arrives with at least a rudimentary knowledge of the language? Think again. From Todd, who came to Japan on the JET Programme, an account of what it is like arriving here knowing zero Japanese:

When I arrived in Japan I didn't speak a word.  In fact, when I got picked up from the airport my friend said "konnichiwa" to someone and I had to ask her what it meant.  I didn't have a job at the time, so I usually studied for 3-5 hours a day, but my friend wasn't around for the first two weeks and I was pretty scared to go out too much, so I might have spent 8-10 hours studying for those first weeks.  The first thing I did was to learn katakana and hiragana.  With intense reading, writing, and flash cards, I was able to learn katakana in a day and hiragana in about a day and a half.

Learning Japanese by hitchhiking

Want to discuss some taboo topics? Enjoy the frankness of conversation that comes from chatting to complete strangers? Allison Julian, a JET based in Hokkaido, has some hints on learning Japanese by hitchhiking:

I studied Japanese at high school and uni, and I am currently living and studying in the inaka. By far the best thing for improving my Japanese was hitchhiking.  I know that you mentioned this briefly last year (Alison is referring to my presentation at the 2004 JET Recontracting Conference - Will), but I've done it twice now and noticed a huge difference each time.  This year a friend and I hitched in a big circle, for a total of 6-7 days.  By aiming to travel for enjoyment rather than to cover distance, we met a huge number of different people.  Different backgrounds, different conversations, different dialects, everything.  We also were able to talk about things that are perhaps socially a bit taboo - since we weren't Japanese and our drivers knew they would never see us again after they dropped us off.  We met a yakuza and a male prostitute - talked heaps with both of those guys, and one was really open about his divorce.  An amazing cultural experience.  The best thing was that my friend and I assigned each other a target word that we had to incorporate into the conversation somehow.  These were usually quite obscure, making it a challenge to work into the conversation, and therefore often made for interesting talk.  They included: fertilizer, divorce stats, Mars, take the lid off, plastic surgery, child obesity, artificial insemination, and heaps more.  By the time both of us got this out, we were half an hour into our drive, the driver had opened up, and natural conversation flowed easily. 

Learning Japanese with Kumon

Kumon is a method of learning established by high school maths teachers Toru Kumon back in 1954. These days you can't walk down the street without tripping over a Kumon franchise. The Kumon method is normally associated with children who need to work on their Japanese or maths skills, but as JET Programme ALT Natalie Cumming explains, even adults can do it!

I live in the inaka, so I don't have access to a bit Japanese language school. So I recently signed up with the local Kumon school to study Japanese. I tried doing the CLAIR book but I didn't like the structure of the textbooks. You may know that the Kumon method is usually aimed at primary school kids, and is a special method where you learn at your own pace. It's famous for the maths course but a lot of the kids at my school study English, and some even French. You listen to a CD, then fill out worksheets. I find the worksheets really great because each new grammatical topic or kanji is laid out really clearly, and you basically work through the sheets, filling in the blanks, for about half an hour a day. As you progress through the levels, the work gets harder, so you're not slowed down by other people in a class, or rushed ahead when you're not ready. You have to get 100% on each worksheet before you can move on, and you correct any mistakes you've made yourself. The downside is there's not really a spoken component - you sometimes to read aloud to an instructor, but you don't have to really converse. Still, if you want to get your grammar up and learn vocab, it's really useful. After only one month I'm understanding heaps more of what goes on around me!

It's also fun because I get to go to class with a bunch of 5-12 year olds, and I'm actually at the same level as them for, say, kanji. It's a thrill for them because they get to come up and use the English they've just learned on me. It's about 8000 yen a month, and you go twice a week. If you decide you want to do the JLPT, or try your hand at a Japanese primary school kanji competition, they help you out with practice materials. I'm going for the ninensei kanji level test next week - ganbarunakucha!

If at first.....

A story from THW, a former CIR (Coordinator for International Relations)

I started learning Japanese in Junior high. My best friend (who was also a CIR) was taking it. I thought it was interesting, so I jumped in too.

My first day of class, the teacher came in speaking nothing but Japanese. I thought it sounded so amazing. She gave us a chart of hiragana, we sang an alphabet song together to get a feeling for what the kana were. I was totally infatuated.

I immediately started bothering the teacher looking for ways to have exposure to Japanese. This teacher was also the dean of the Japanese Concordia Language Villages in Northern Minnesota called Mori-no-ike. I suggested to my friend that we go, and for the next two summers we went to Japanese camp together.

Junior high led to high school, and my best friend and I parted ways going to different schools. His high school had Japanese. Mine didn't have Japanese, but it did have Chinese, so I thought I'd take that since it was, to my 14 year old logic, 'close'. After two years, I realized that it was just a substitute for my interest in Japanese. I started taking Japanese as a high school student at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus. Japanese there was really really hard and so different from the fun days at Mori-no-Ike, but I learned a lot during that time.

Going to college I decided that I liked Japanese enough to major in it. I chose to study abroad at Waseda, but in both college and Waseda, I changed cirriculum so many different times between each system that I ended up repeating a lot of material. It was incredibly frustrating and way too easy. Going back to college after study abroad, I was put in a class that was kind of over my ability level, and for the first time ever I was really struggling in Japanese.

Before becoming a CIR, I was determined to get my Japanese as good as I could expect from myself. I bit the bullet, became an English teacher at a small school in southern Gunma. I had a very limited class schedule with lots of out of office personal time, which left me tons of time to study. One of my advanced students volunteered to be my tutor twice a week, and also many teachers at the school were studying Japanese, so we created a study group. We bought the grammar books for the JLPT, bought the Joyo kanji dictionaries, etc, and we, about 5 of us, studied our hearts out. With my volunteer teacher, I was reading newspapers for the first time with her help, twice a week. More importantly, on my own, I was studying 15 kanji a day to prepare for the 2 kyuu and then the 1 kyuu tests. I missed the 2 kyuu test by 10 points.

Luckily JET dubbed me good enought to be a CIR by that point. But with joining JET and joining the great JET community and being chucked to Miyazaki prefecture all the way from Gunma, I lost my study group and my volunteer Japanese teacher. With only 4 months until the 1 kyuu test, I was studying 50 vocabulary words a day from the list I had printed from online. I did practice listening CD's two weeks before the test everyday, and I felt as ready as I could before we drove up to Fukuoka.

I missed 1 kyuu by quite a bit. It was really hard.

I took my chances and said no to recontracting wanting to come back to Tokyo.

10 years later, after that first infatuation in junior high, language camp at mori-no-ike, Chinese in high school then back to Japanese, frustations in college, intensive personal study, and signing that nerve-racking 'no' on my recontracting form with no JLPT certification, committing myself to joblessness in a few months...I am working as a PR translator at Mitsubishi Electric HQ near Tokyo station.

There's been a lot of ups and certainly a lot of downs, but it's been a fun journey. It feels good to see something come from a simple childhood interest become my career.

TNW

Learner Stories

In preparation for the seminars I will be giving on learning Japanese at this year's JET Programme Re-contracting Conferences in Kobe and Tokyo I have been collecting stories of how people learnt Japanese and I will post them under a new section called Learner Stories. Most of the contributors will be credited but some people asked for anonymity (because for example they thought their study methods made them sound like geeks!). Enjoy.