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How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

making.duolingo.com

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Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#81

Post by aplc0r »

shawnps wrote: post #14

I started learning Japanese around 8 years ago, and I've never been a fan of saying it's "the most difficult language to learn." It's like learning anything else, if you enjoy learning it and are motivated enough, you'll get better. Also I'm surprised when people assume the grammar is difficult - to me, the "flexible grammatical structures" as mentioned in the article are a good thing because it gives you more leeway…

We used Genki I back in high school, and recently I picked it up again. Now I'm through Genki II and can definitely recommend them. They were both updated a few years ago with more contemporary examples and really useful culture notes for each section. Working through the listening comprehension exercises was particularly fulfilling.

The one downside is that they are still meant to be used in a classroom, so there are a lot of exercises that expect you to work in groups or pairs. Of course there are plenty of ways to find a study group online these days.

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#82

Post by fenomas »

panglott wrote: post #58

"To show just how complex this can get, let’s take a simple English phrase – “I love you” – and dissect the many ways in which it can be said in Japanese. Spoiler alert: it’s not such a simple phrase in Japanese. One of our course contributors, Sho, estimated and found that there can actually be as many as 248,026 ways to say “I love you” in Japanese!" These kind statistics are a kind of lie in themselves. You can sa…

> "omae wo aishiteimasu" has a different meaning from "anata ga suki da yo"

That's exactly the point being made - that there are lots of permutations whose individual words mean "I" and "love" and "you", but most of them wouldn't convey what the speaker wants to say, so it can be hard for the learner to choose correctly.

I mean, a set phrase like "I love you" is probably a bad example, since it's more or less idiomatic. But for the general case - a learner wants to say something involving "I" and "you" and a copula - I think the point being made in the article is valid.

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#83

Post by accountyaccount »

sswezey wrote: post #77
wolfgke wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still wish Duolingo would make a course on Chinese :( What kind of Chinese? Mandarin? Linguistically Chinese is not a language, but a family of languages that is united by a (mostly) common writing system. The reason that these Chinese languages are called "dialects" is mostly political. A language geek I know, who taught himself various Chinese dialects and in particular Cantonese up to a very high level told me…

Honestly, when people say they want to learn Chinese, they usually mean Mandarin Chinese. If they don't, they'll probably refer to the specific dialect they'd like to learn. Also, without any Chinese exposure, learning anything other than Mandarin is harder since their are so fewer resources. Calling Mandarin an artificial language is bogus, it is the native dialect around the Beijing area, and that is the reason it…

Being the 'official' language, is this also true for Chinese business — or is that dependent on the dialect of where an office may be located?

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#84

Post by [deleted] »

anomie31 wrote: post #63
apricot13 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its only available on ios at the moment https://incubator.duolingo.com/courses/ja/en/status hideki Japanese beta course available on iOS! 15 hours ago We are thrilled to announce that our Japanese course is now available on iOS. It's coming to Android in a few weeks, and web will be next! Find more details at https://www.duolingo.com/comment/22676285 http://making.duolingo.com/how-we-invented-a-new-way-to-teac... htt…

Any simple reason why it's delayed for Android? Do the devs prefer the ios development environment? Do they have more iphones to test on? Are iphone users prioritized because they have a higher median income?

[deleted]

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#85

Post by accountyaccount »

anomie31 wrote: post #63
apricot13 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its only available on ios at the moment https://incubator.duolingo.com/courses/ja/en/status hideki Japanese beta course available on iOS! 15 hours ago We are thrilled to announce that our Japanese course is now available on iOS. It's coming to Android in a few weeks, and web will be next! Find more details at https://www.duolingo.com/comment/22676285 http://making.duolingo.com/how-we-invented-a-new-way-to-teac... htt…

Any simple reason why it's delayed for Android? Do the devs prefer the ios development environment? Do they have more iphones to test on? Are iphone users prioritized because they have a higher median income?

In my experience iOS users are much more likely to pay for your app. Android apps seem to do better when they're ad supported.

This is anecdotal, so YMMV.

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#86

Post by accountyaccount »

wst_ wrote: post #7

How can you measure which language is most difficult to learn? It is not an universal fact. It depends on many factors. Title is click bait obviously.

I've actually heard that Polish is more difficult to learn. It all seems fairly subjective.

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#87

Post by baby »

accountyaccount wrote: post #83
sswezey wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, when people say they want to learn Chinese, they usually mean Mandarin Chinese. If they don't, they'll probably refer to the specific dialect they'd like to learn. Also, without any Chinese exposure, learning anything other than Mandarin is harder since their are so fewer resources. Calling Mandarin an artificial language is bogus, it is the native dialect around the Beijing area, and that is the reason it…

Being the 'official' language, is this also true for Chinese business — or is that dependent on the dialect of where an office may be located?

I think by law they must speak in Mandarin. Check the law here and grep for "putonghua" http://www.gov.cn/english/laws/2005-09/19/content_64906.htm

If you travel in regions where Mandarin is not as predominant as it usually is, you will often see signs telling you "please speak in mandarin".

The only exception really is Hong Kong.

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#88

Post by JoeDaDude »

netgusto wrote: post #2

Where is the Japanese course on Duolingo ? I can't find it in their language list : https://en.duolingo.com/register ?

From their list of language courses for English speakers [0], it is about 67% developed, so its just not ready yet.

[0] https://www.duolingo.com/courses

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#89

Post by laurieg »

One thing that I notice is missing from most (all?) online language courses is wider context. Not cultural context, but basic grammatical context. Most of them on focus on learning words or sentences.

This is fine for similar languages. When you learn French you can learn that 'the' equals 'le' and 'la' and apply some extra rules to smooth over the differences.

It totally falls down on languages that have less in common. Almost all Japanese natives who speak English struggle with 'the' and 'a'. (this isn't a criticism, just a fact of life). I wonder if part of the problem is that most people learn languages on the sentence level. Read the following sentences:

The man went to the store.

A man went to the store.

Which one is correct? Well, there's certainly nothing grammatically wrong with either, but depending on the situation one or the other could be very misleading, confusing and unnatural. Most people, at least in Japan, learn from textbooks showing examples like this. It tells you absolutely nothing about 'the' and 'a'! So they end up reading huge explanations in their native language and come away thinking 'Wow, foreign languages are hard'.

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#90

Post by wolfgke »

sswezey wrote: post #77
wolfgke wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still wish Duolingo would make a course on Chinese :( What kind of Chinese? Mandarin? Linguistically Chinese is not a language, but a family of languages that is united by a (mostly) common writing system. The reason that these Chinese languages are called "dialects" is mostly political. A language geek I know, who taught himself various Chinese dialects and in particular Cantonese up to a very high level told me…

Honestly, when people say they want to learn Chinese, they usually mean Mandarin Chinese. If they don't, they'll probably refer to the specific dialect they'd like to learn. Also, without any Chinese exposure, learning anything other than Mandarin is harder since their are so fewer resources. Calling Mandarin an artificial language is bogus, it is the native dialect around the Beijing area, and that is the reason it…

> Calling Mandarin an artificial language is bogus, it is the native dialect around the Beijing area,

Read https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mandarin_Chinese&...: Mandarin is a Koiné language (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koin%C3%A9_language) of various Chinese dialects (as I wrote above: What is called "Chinese dialects" is rather "different languages"), which has been standardized "artificially" (just as Zamenhof took words from various European languages and created a new artificial language (Esperanto) out of them).

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