Well, I am trying learn some Japanese. It seems like the right thing to do. I want my daughter-in-law to feel welcome. Herein is the rub, though ... I feel inept at this activity. I did try to learn some German for my job and I found it to be somewhat natural. I can speak at the survival level and get by on my trips to Germany. So why is Japanese so hard? First, let me say that I am cheap and will not pay for expensive classes. Also, I think I am an aural learner for languages. For German, I took it in high school (did not pay attention very well) and college (learned to read). I only felt better when I used the Pimsleur discs in my car. I really seemed to pick it up. Unfortunately, the depth of this training is pretty shallow, as the Pimsleur system does not go into intermediate language.
Well, I have searched for something similar for Japanese. I tried my son's tapes, but they were too fast and disjointed for my 53 year old brain (which is pretty good in most other things). Then, I bought something from Barnes and Noble that was for the car, but moved way too fast and did not integrate well. I have tried Japanese Podcast 101, and it is really good (even works through levels of politeness and is a progressive system) and I am making slow progress, but here is the key ... slow, really slow, progress. I feel inept and incapable. I can't seem to get the pronunciation right and I have a hard time remembering the phrases, because I am fighting the pronunciation.
I wish I knew the answer, but I will keep trying. I think it is fascinating, but I feel slow. I think it must be old age.
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3 comments:
No doubt it is a difficult language. Even without worrying about reading and writing, the language is still difficult to the native English speaker. There really is no frame of reference as the grammar is S + O +V, the vocabulary is completely different, and there are so many cultural complexities intermixed with the language.
The military classifies it as a level 4 language meaning you need at least two years of training by their instructors before you can do field work with the language. It just takes a lot of time and persistence in the beginning--my intro classes at ODU seemed to move at a dinosaur pace. The fundamentals are critical.
I think you just have to continue plugging at it. The pronunciation should come easier as time goes by. There are only five vowels, and there are few diphthongs as well. In fact I don't know that they can be called diphthongs as you must pronounce each vowel anyway. It is also a phonetic language so you don't have to worry so much about stress and syllables.
I would suggest getting really comfortable with the phonetics. When you learn to write Japanese in the beginning you follow a table of all of the sounds in the language. It is relatively small, not over 50 I believe. If you find some of my textbooks I'm sure you'll find it in the intro or first chapter. Ignore the "kana" system in the table and just focus on the "romaninzed" text that show patterns like this:
a i u e o
ka ki ku ke ko
sa shi su se so
ta chi tsu te to
...
FYI: The lack of many sounds in Japanese is what makes it so difficult for Japanese to learn languages like English or Chinese that have a wider variety of phonetics.
I will try to find some of your old books. I do ok with the aural thing, because it works well with my commute. But I run into things that are not clear and can't figure out where to find them. Example ... what I hear on the CD is "dozo yoroshku" with a long 'o' in the words. I could not find the second word, but I did find the first and I think it is 'spelled' douzo. Then when I listen carefully, I can hear do-u-zo. You are right, it does take time. Having romanicized vocab would be helpful!
Your example of "douzo" actually is a very good point to bring up. It sounds like "doozo" with a long o, but when you write this in Japanese Hiragana (phonetic system) you write it as "do" + "u", which produces a long o sound. That is just how long o is written and the romanization is syllable by syllable. For long i, however, "ii" is used. Go figure. Luckily, however, Japanese doesn't have too many of these irregularities as it is a phonetic language. You can understand their frustration when being presented English with all of its...pleasantries...in regard to pronunciation.
Check out some of my textbooks, such as "Yookoso". I probably have some others I don't remember. If the text is not on my bookshelf, it is probably in the attic with all of my other texts. (Notice how the author chose not to use the "ou" to show a long o sound. Weird!)
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