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Japanese explained to programmers

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Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#2
Honestly its really tiring to see people promoting the rote-learning of Kanji.

Not only do most Kanji rote-learning resources not take into account aspects such as compound words, but also its just the wrong way to learn Japanese full stop.

No language learning works well if you are continuously translating it back into your native tongue. You need to learn to think in the language you are learning, that is the only way you are going to gain any sort of fluency. Just knowing that X translates to Y is not going to help you, even if you memorise the whole dictionary.

You might get away with translating back into your native tongue with a Western language, but you won't with Japanese.

With Japanese there's no escaping learning the grammar and other aspects. It's just your choice if your want to do it the hard way (textbook theory) or the harder way (immersion via graded readers, conversations with patient natives, or anything else similar).

All the time and effort people put into rote-learning Japanese Kanji should really be expended learning Japanese in a more holistic way.

Otherwise you might as well just buy one of those books with set-phrases such as "where's the toilet".

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#3

Honestly its really tiring to see people promoting the rote-learning of Kanji. Not only do most Kanji rote-learning resources not take into account aspects such as compound words, but also its just the wrong way to learn Japanese full stop. No language learning works well if you are continuously translating it back into your native tongue. You need to learn to think in the language you are learning, that is the only…

> With Japanese there's no escaping learning the grammar

Learned Polish recently. It's the same. But people do try the supposedly easy way of learning it "without studying the grammar".

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#4

Honestly its really tiring to see people promoting the rote-learning of Kanji. Not only do most Kanji rote-learning resources not take into account aspects such as compound words, but also its just the wrong way to learn Japanese full stop. No language learning works well if you are continuously translating it back into your native tongue. You need to learn to think in the language you are learning, that is the only…

While I agree with your sentiment, I do not believe the author tried to "promote rote-learning" here -- they just presented a nice little analogy between Japanese and programming constructs.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#5

Honestly its really tiring to see people promoting the rote-learning of Kanji. Not only do most Kanji rote-learning resources not take into account aspects such as compound words, but also its just the wrong way to learn Japanese full stop. No language learning works well if you are continuously translating it back into your native tongue. You need to learn to think in the language you are learning, that is the only…

I tried learning it with Duolingo and was disappointed to see it was just trying to teach me characters via rote-memorization... gave up after a 10-day streak

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#6

Honestly its really tiring to see people promoting the rote-learning of Kanji. Not only do most Kanji rote-learning resources not take into account aspects such as compound words, but also its just the wrong way to learn Japanese full stop. No language learning works well if you are continuously translating it back into your native tongue. You need to learn to think in the language you are learning, that is the only…

Who are you responding to? TFA doesn't discuss learning methods at all, let alone "promoting the rote-learning of Kanji".

Is it just the mention of WaniKani? Personally I don't like WK either, but the author barely mentioned it in passing, and says nothing at all about the stuff you're criticizing.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#7

Honestly its really tiring to see people promoting the rote-learning of Kanji. Not only do most Kanji rote-learning resources not take into account aspects such as compound words, but also its just the wrong way to learn Japanese full stop. No language learning works well if you are continuously translating it back into your native tongue. You need to learn to think in the language you are learning, that is the only…

Yes! And I would insist that learning how the language works is easier, even if it might seem more intimidating at first.

If you just want to get by for your holidays, sure just learn to translate with Duolingo. But if want to speak the language, you will just lose time.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#8

Honestly its really tiring to see people promoting the rote-learning of Kanji. Not only do most Kanji rote-learning resources not take into account aspects such as compound words, but also its just the wrong way to learn Japanese full stop. No language learning works well if you are continuously translating it back into your native tongue. You need to learn to think in the language you are learning, that is the only…

I mean it's probably the best way to get some basic proficiency in a language or any skill, teach you enough to become familiar with the language and give you the confidence to move to the next level.

Rote learning and gamified approaches like duolingo have a low barrier to entry; buying a textbook, enrolling in a class or living in the country for a year are much higher and the latter two are prohibitively expensive and time-consuming for casual learners.

Re: Japanese explained to programmers

#9
Just a nitpick but the particle “ha”/“は” is not really used to set the subject but the topic or context. The topic or context can often be the subject but it’s an important subtlety. The particle to set the subject is “ga”/“が”.
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