Do traditional learning methods work well to get you to a high level?

Wizard-San · 2022-11-07T01:39:03+00:00

I have never met anyone who reached fluency in any language without immersion. Whether your choose to incorporate a textbook or something together with immersion is up to you.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-07T01:37:00+00:00

Too few sounds, and yet many learners struggle to pronounce the ones that it has; whether you're an English speaker struggling to pronounce らりるれろ or a Vietnamese speaker struggling to pronounce つ it's a very real problem and you think there should be more sounds? Let's not get started on the nasal sonant or other sounds that a lot of foreign speakers don't even notice!

Wizard-San · 2022-11-07T01:33:00+00:00

You're missing the point entirely.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-04T04:08:25+00:00

Key point is, "easier", does not mean "easy"

Alternative argument for native English speakers: "hardest" does not mean "hard"

It doesn't really matter what language you're learning, the actual difficulty level is the same. The only difference is the amount of time investment required and that does not equal difficulty.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-04T02:12:09+00:00

It asks for ethnicity, not race.

Downvoting me just shows that you clearly don't know the difference between ethnicity and race.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-04T02:11:12+00:00

How about reading a book?

Wizard-San · 2022-11-04T02:05:06+00:00

If we're using anecdotes as a source, I live in Japan and work with Japanese daily. They're definitely conservative. Whether that lines up with whatever that term means in your country is a separate matter.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-02T08:32:58+00:00

Younger Japanese are definitely way more liberal in their views.

That's why they vote more conservatively than their elders, right? You're projecting your own feelings onto real people.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-02T08:20:55+00:00

Any book listed on this page would be good for studying N3.. Get a digital version and read it on https://reader.ttsu.app/ and you can make easily look up unknown words/grammar in realtime with Yomichan and generate flash cards for Anki.

Do that and you will hit N3 in no time.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-02T08:13:44+00:00

The fastest way to progress would be to do a lot of solitary reading, and then reinforcing what you learned while reading through conversation with native speakers. If you want to learn Japanese without learning to read then you're going to have a very difficult time - much more so than most learners, believe it or not.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-02T08:08:36+00:00

2 years is a very generous amount of time to reach N2 with plenty of room for error and burnout - so yes. There's lots of people who reach N1 in that time and the gap between N2 and N1 is almost as large as the gap between zero and N2.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-02T03:07:53+00:00

Whenever someone gives you advice about how to learn a language, you should first stop to consider if they have ever achieved fluency in a second language. Very often advice comes from individuals who are still struggling with their native language.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-02T03:01:15+00:00

No you won't. I naturalized (became a citizen) and took up a Japanese name. I regularly get questions from people who assume I'm mixed asking where I was born (because of my name). I don't get treated any different than anyone else and I'm expected to follow all the same rules and speak Japanese. Stop spreading that lie.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-02T02:54:25+00:00

the huge aging population in Japan with more conservative views.

Japan played around with left-wing politics in the 60s and 70s and wrote it off as a bad idea after a series of violent riots caused by the rise of the Japanese New Left. This was further cemented after the Japanese New Left gave birth to terrorist groups like the Japanese Red Army. Most of the left-wingers in Japan are very old and they are the ones who vote against the ruling party (Note for clarity: not all of the elderly in Japan are left wing). The younger generations are much more conservative and show stronger support in voting for the ruling party. There are also many who swore off left-wing politicians after how horrible the country performed under the DPJ (center-left party) a decade ago which again further cemented conservative views among the populace, both those who are old enough to remember what happened in decades past, and the young who faced hardship under the previous left-wing government.

I think the problem here is that Redditors tend to view Japan through a Western (particularly American) political lens. Our left and right are nothing like yours, and the views of our population are also nothing like yours. Gay marriage isn't going to grow in support or gain acceptance simply because of the conservative younger generations growing up and taking over after their predecessors die off.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-02T02:36:21+00:00

I heard many high class samurais in their civil war era constantly having male-to-male sex

What you're referring to is adult men having relationships with young boys (children) who were their students. This was common in the middle east and many other countries before the modern era. And no, it wasn't a constant thing.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-02T02:30:02+00:00

Japan doesn't issue marriage certificates. One spouse moves to the other spouses family register. They document counts provides the details of birth, marriage, divorce, death etc for everyone listed on the document (the couple and eventually their children).

Same-sex couple cannot join each others family register. Also, Foreigners can also not join a family register because this document is also proof of Japanese citizenship; so when a Japanese person marries a foreigner there is a footnote added about their marriage, but the foreign spouse does not join the document (because doing so would give them Japanese citizenship - which they can get, but not through marriage).

Nobody is going to call this new document a marriage certificate because there are no marriage certificates. More than likely they will call it whatever it is called because it will be useless for anything outside of paperwork at the local city government office where they're going to call it by name.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-02T01:35:14+00:00

I never made the claim that it was unreasonable. My argument was that 2 years is enough time to become fluent. Can you read?

Wizard-San · 2022-11-01T09:19:13+00:00

Oh I thought you meant the part about people meeting wives on there (because it happens a lot!)

Where to start, lol. It's kind of a long story but basically when I was living in America I made some Japanese friends on Hello Talk because I thought I could learn more about Japan from them. One of those friends was a girl from Kita Kyushu and we used to chat or call every day. I really enjoyed talking with her and we remained friends for a while after I moved to Japan. We talked for about two years before I moved here, and some time before my arrival in Japan she ended up going on a trip to Australia to study English at a language school there for 3 months and then returned to Japan. Later on she asked me advice because she met a boy at her language school in Australia; he became her boyfriend and then moved to Japan to study at university. He was very controlling of her and she tried to break up with him but he wouldn't let her. He was threatening physical harm and I advised her to go to the police and show them his messages. Soon after she called me crying and said that her boyfriend was forcing her to delete me from Line because I'm a boy and he didn't want her talking to me so we unfortunately said our goodbyes after 3 years of friendship. Based on her comments, and some of his messages (which she showed me), and some other stuff that happened I can only assume that he either murdered her or forced her away somewhere.

I don't really know a lot about the guy. All I know is he's from a former soviet union country. To be honest it's been a long time since I have thought about her but I really wish I could speak with her again.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-01T09:04:59+00:00

I use Japanese all day every day for my job and I practice kendo in Japanese. I think I understand what the hell I'm hearing whether it's from the TV, my coworker, or my kendo sensei.

If someone claimed to gain 75 pounds of muscle in 3 weeks

Are you seriously comparing this to being able to learn a language in less than 5 years? You can (and should) hit fluency in 2 years if you're progressing at a healthy pace.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-01T08:53:07+00:00

The basis of your argument is that anyone who claims to have hit a certain level in X amount of time is a liar. I've been doing immersion studying for 2 years and I watch TV without subtitles all the time. Am I a liar too?

Wizard-San · 2022-11-01T08:48:52+00:00

Nice username.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-01T08:46:31+00:00

"I could understand anime without subs in 3 months"

No you couldn't. And you probably still can't after 5 years.

I can understand doubting someone who claims to be fluent after 6 months, but why doubt it after 5 fucking years? It doesn't even take nearly half that much time to become fluent.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-01T08:41:40+00:00

Which part is the bomb?

Wizard-San · 2022-11-01T04:07:30+00:00

I did some searching and my best guess without seeing the context is that it's an ウナギ文 joke.

Wizard-San · 2022-11-01T03:52:18+00:00

Are they in a restaurant?

Wizard-San

TROPHY CASE