日本語一筋 [JP]
Posted: Fri May 27, 2016 4:29 am
I wouldn't consider myself the best at learning languages. I've had some good luck and I've put in the hours, so I've managed to reach a respectable level in French and gotten much further in my Japanese studies than I could have ever hoped. I've even learned to read Spanish, Portuguese, Italian and Catalan to varying levels and dabbled, with modest success, in Mandarin and other languages. And yet, I can't shake the feeling that I'm not any good at learning languages. That I don't have what it takes.
This feeling stems not from some incapacity to learn a foreign language, as my experience is to the contrary, but rather from the fact that I have failed to evolve significantly as a learner since I first started as an autodidact. I have remained the same learner I was 8 years, at least intellectually, and I don't think this bodes well for my future endeavours in language learning.
I'm convinced that a major difference between top performers in any domain and everyone else lies in the way that the top performers think and approach problems. I've seen it and heard it a million times before: top polyglots don't seem to do anything different from a regular student. They might have a few tricks up their sleeves, but they often use the same techniques/methods as the rest of us. Yet they seem to get more out of those tools than the rest. Some might chalk their success up to genetic luck, and I'm sure that does play a role, but I think that another part of it is that their minds are simply more active when they're "studying". They engage every text or conversation in such a way that they retain more linguistic information than others. I feel that this is what I should be shooting for.
I'm not embarrassed to admit it: I'm a very passive person in mostly everything I do. I'm not proud of it, but it's who I've been since high school. It's quite boring, but it's also easy, especially since I seem to get by when I put in the minimum effort required to do so. In that way, it's a bit of a vicious cycle.
However! I will no longer stand for such apathy! Progress must be made! Things need to be done!
I have been back into Japanese since about mid-March, and in a big way. I've been on and off studying Japanese since I was 14, and I'm nowhere near as good as I could have been had I actually put effort into what I was doing. I passed the N1 4 years ago, can watch some anime without subtitles, and can get by reading manga and novels, but I am still far from an acceptable level of comprehension (at least in my books).
Since earlier this year, however, Japanese has become part of my daily routine. I read manga and watch anime sans subtitles almost every day in my free time. And I do it quite intensively. I pause for every unknown word or phrase, foggy phrasing, or linguistic quirk, rereading or listening until the mystery has been solved and then I continue along my merry way. A 20 minute episode of anime can end up taking 2 hours depending on the quantity of unknown vocabulary (I really do take my time), but other times I'll breeze through them in no time. The point is that I'm engaged and I'm actively trying to learn and retain what I come across. Something I can't claim to have done much before. What's incredible about all this is that I actually enjoy consuming media this way. I remember the stories better and have a more in-depth understanding of what's going on. It's fun to pay attention.
I've also abandoned SRS. Now I only use my noggin to learn vocabulary and I feel I remember much more.
So that's about where I'm at. I'm currently watching あんハピ♪, クレーンゲール, ふらいんぐうぃっち, はいふり, 迷家, パンでPeace!, Re:ゼロ, 聖戦ケルベロス, and 宇宙パトロールルル子, and I just finished reading through 聲の形 and am now planning on checking out the manga 僕街 for those who might be interested.
This feeling stems not from some incapacity to learn a foreign language, as my experience is to the contrary, but rather from the fact that I have failed to evolve significantly as a learner since I first started as an autodidact. I have remained the same learner I was 8 years, at least intellectually, and I don't think this bodes well for my future endeavours in language learning.
I'm convinced that a major difference between top performers in any domain and everyone else lies in the way that the top performers think and approach problems. I've seen it and heard it a million times before: top polyglots don't seem to do anything different from a regular student. They might have a few tricks up their sleeves, but they often use the same techniques/methods as the rest of us. Yet they seem to get more out of those tools than the rest. Some might chalk their success up to genetic luck, and I'm sure that does play a role, but I think that another part of it is that their minds are simply more active when they're "studying". They engage every text or conversation in such a way that they retain more linguistic information than others. I feel that this is what I should be shooting for.
I'm not embarrassed to admit it: I'm a very passive person in mostly everything I do. I'm not proud of it, but it's who I've been since high school. It's quite boring, but it's also easy, especially since I seem to get by when I put in the minimum effort required to do so. In that way, it's a bit of a vicious cycle.
However! I will no longer stand for such apathy! Progress must be made! Things need to be done!
I have been back into Japanese since about mid-March, and in a big way. I've been on and off studying Japanese since I was 14, and I'm nowhere near as good as I could have been had I actually put effort into what I was doing. I passed the N1 4 years ago, can watch some anime without subtitles, and can get by reading manga and novels, but I am still far from an acceptable level of comprehension (at least in my books).
Since earlier this year, however, Japanese has become part of my daily routine. I read manga and watch anime sans subtitles almost every day in my free time. And I do it quite intensively. I pause for every unknown word or phrase, foggy phrasing, or linguistic quirk, rereading or listening until the mystery has been solved and then I continue along my merry way. A 20 minute episode of anime can end up taking 2 hours depending on the quantity of unknown vocabulary (I really do take my time), but other times I'll breeze through them in no time. The point is that I'm engaged and I'm actively trying to learn and retain what I come across. Something I can't claim to have done much before. What's incredible about all this is that I actually enjoy consuming media this way. I remember the stories better and have a more in-depth understanding of what's going on. It's fun to pay attention.
I've also abandoned SRS. Now I only use my noggin to learn vocabulary and I feel I remember much more.
So that's about where I'm at. I'm currently watching あんハピ♪, クレーンゲール, ふらいんぐうぃっち, はいふり, 迷家, パンでPeace!, Re:ゼロ, 聖戦ケルベロス, and 宇宙パトロールルル子, and I just finished reading through 聲の形 and am now planning on checking out the manga 僕街 for those who might be interested.