How we invented new ways to teach Japanese • Hacker News Board

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#121

Post by baby » Fri, May 19, 2017, 5:52 PM UTC

xiaomai wrote: post #107

baby wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still wish Duolingo would make a course on Chinese :( Currently my favorite app is "Decipher Chinese". I read one story a day, save words I want to remember and get quizzed on them periodically.

I also use and enjoy Decipher Chinese. Another thing I would recommend is reading the books posted at https://www.reddit.com/r/chinesebookclub/ . It's really difficult at first but I find that reading actual Chinese books (with frequent word lookups in Pleco) has helped me improve my Chinese rapidly. (I don't get through the books in a month... I'm actually only 70% through the first one I picked up several months ag…

The problem with actual book reading is that looking up words is too slow. I really wish there was an application like Decipher Chinese for longer texts, and also a bit better on the translations.

I found this one on the web, but it is pretty limited http://justlearnchinese.com/chinese-reader-for-adult-learner...

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#122

Post by jhpriestley » Fri, May 19, 2017, 6:06 PM UTC

neves wrote: post #99

I've been told by a friend of mine that speaks Japanese that the most difficult aspect is that how you speak changes due the social setting. It's not just the syntax, you must learn how to speak in each different situation. Here is Richard Feynman talking about the same problem: While in Kyoto I tried to learn Japanese with a vengeance. I worked much harder at it, and got to a point where I could go around in taxis a…

I only took a couple courses in japanese, but I'm pretty sure that this quote vastly overstates the difficulty of politeness levels for verbs.

Each verb has different forms for formal/informal/very formal, but they're highly regular. For example "iku" is "go" and "ikimasu" is "go (polite)". "wakaru" is "understand" and "wakarimasu" is "understand (polite)". It's not like you have to learn four forms of each verb, you learn the basic one and then you know the rest. The ultra-formal versions, which are more rarely used, are also regular - they involve the infinitive of the verb plus a conjugated auxiliary verb IIRC, like saying "presume to go", "presume to understand" etc.

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#123

Post by Arnavion » Fri, May 19, 2017, 6:10 PM UTC

jhpriestley wrote: post #122

neves wrote: post #99

I've been told by a friend of mine that speaks Japanese that the most difficult aspect is that how you speak changes due the social setting. It's not just the syntax, you must learn how to speak in each different situation. Here is Richard Feynman talking about the same problem: While in Kyoto I tried to learn Japanese with a vengeance. I worked much harder at it, and got to a point where I could go around in taxis a…

I only took a couple courses in japanese, but I'm pretty sure that this quote vastly overstates the difficulty of politeness levels for verbs. Each verb has different forms for formal/informal/very formal, but they're highly regular. For example "iku" is "go" and "ikimasu" is "go (polite)". "wakaru" is "understand" and "wakarimasu" is "understand (polite)". It's not like you have to learn four forms of each verb, you…

I believe Feynman's quote is not referring to politeness of the "miru" verb but of using different verbs entirely. For example meeting someone is both "au" and "(o)me ni kakaru" with similar difference of formality.

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#124

Post by Nadya » Fri, May 19, 2017, 6:10 PM UTC

jhpriestley wrote: post #122

neves wrote: post #99

I've been told by a friend of mine that speaks Japanese that the most difficult aspect is that how you speak changes due the social setting. It's not just the syntax, you must learn how to speak in each different situation. Here is Richard Feynman talking about the same problem: While in Kyoto I tried to learn Japanese with a vengeance. I worked much harder at it, and got to a point where I could go around in taxis a…

I only took a couple courses in japanese, but I'm pretty sure that this quote vastly overstates the difficulty of politeness levels for verbs. Each verb has different forms for formal/informal/very formal, but they're highly regular. For example "iku" is "go" and "ikimasu" is "go (polite)". "wakaru" is "understand" and "wakarimasu" is "understand (polite)". It's not like you have to learn four forms of each verb, you…

There is Polite Language (丁寧語), Respectful Language (尊敬語), and humble Language (謙譲語).

Compare:

見る -> 見ます -> ご覧になる -> 拝見する

That is a lot different than just learning four different conjugations for 見る - it becomes an entirely different word!

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#125

Post by e15ctr0n » Fri, May 19, 2017, 6:15 PM UTC

GolDDranks wrote: post #33

As the they say in the article, Japanese is classified among the most difficult languages for English speakers by Foreign Service Institute and this is widely cited as a fact. But interestingly, no research data on this was ever published. (The institute presented the facts as based on their internal research, but no methods, results or anything was ever published. Nowadays the original page has disappeared from the…

> Japanese is classified among the most difficult languages for English speakers by Foreign Service Institute

I briefly took Japanese lessons from someone who teaches full time at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center in Monterey, CA. She confirmed Japanese language's status as "most difficult for English speakers". She also said that DLI groups foreign languages into 4 levels based on how difficult they are to learn for English speakers:

Level 1 (Easiest): Spanish

Level 2: German

Level 3: Russian, Hebrew

Level 4: Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Arabic

A more comprehensive listing is here: http://aboutworldlanguages.com/language-difficulty

A hidden gem of a resource that I uncovered at that time: audio + textbook lessons produced by NHK World Radio Japan as part of their 50th anniversary celebrations. These lessons are in 17 languages, so they help those who are not native speakers of English too. http://www.nhk.or.jp/lesson/

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#126

Post by csa » Fri, May 19, 2017, 6:30 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #98

GolDDranks wrote: post #35

I shameless self-plug: As a successful Japanese learner (and since then, a Japanese teacher and recently a software engineer in a Japanese company), I was interviewed recently about learning Japanese: https://www.koipun.com/blog/learning-japanese-by-listening-a... Why should you possibly be interested: because not only did I learn Japanese and taught it, I also did a fair part of reading about the research on languag…

From what you say in that article about the importance of listening to language used in context, you might be interested in a method of language learning called TPR (Total Physical Response). I've written about it before here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13910080 It's been super effective for me at learning vocabulary and grammar (in context), and I much prefer that method over things like flashcards, Anki,…

TPR has its strengths and weaknesses:

1. It requires a healthy ego. Some people feel like it's childish since it is more like playing games than language learning. Other folks don't like making mistakes all the time.

2. It is great for languages that do not already have documented grammars and/or dictionaries. I believe the Summer Institute of Linguistics uses this method in some areas.

3. It naturally caps out in utility at around CEFR A2 / ACTFL intermediate. While many Americans call this level of proficiency "fluent", it really just scratches the surface of a language.

Regardless, I'm glad you found this method and that it works for you. Congrats!

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#127

Post by GolDDranks » Fri, May 19, 2017, 6:39 PM UTC

pmoriarty wrote: post #98

GolDDranks wrote: post #35

I shameless self-plug: As a successful Japanese learner (and since then, a Japanese teacher and recently a software engineer in a Japanese company), I was interviewed recently about learning Japanese: https://www.koipun.com/blog/learning-japanese-by-listening-a... Why should you possibly be interested: because not only did I learn Japanese and taught it, I also did a fair part of reading about the research on languag…

From what you say in that article about the importance of listening to language used in context, you might be interested in a method of language learning called TPR (Total Physical Response). I've written about it before here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13910080 It's been super effective for me at learning vocabulary and grammar (in context), and I much prefer that method over things like flashcards, Anki,…

I know about Total Physical Response and I think that it has all the elements that good (beginner level) language teaching should have. Sadly, I haven't had a chance to participate any TPR sessions in any language.

Btw. there's another good teaching method, which has a confusingly similar acronym: TPRS – Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling.

Then there's "task-based teaching".

They all share some basic features: parsing input for meaning, context-dependence, concreteness, communicating to achieve some extralinguistic purpose instead of just "demonstrating/exemplifying this and that feature of the language", having a strong aural component and so on. This isn't by coincidence.

I think that language teachers should in general acquaint themselves more with the concurrent research results. Knowing the basic principles of how brain learns languages gives teacher the expertise to assess, tweak and choose teaching methods. Not to say that the researchers know everything about it either, but they certainly know a lot more than 50 years ago, yet I feel that much of the teachers' knowledge and preferred teaching methods are decades behind.

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#128

Post by kmicklas » Fri, May 19, 2017, 7:04 PM UTC

accountyaccount wrote: post #86

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.

I'm not sure how Polish could be considered that hard for English speakers. The writing system is completely phonetic, there are a ton of cognates (more so than other Slavic languages I think because of its proximity to Western Europe), and the ways of phrasing things are definitely more similar than your average non-Indo-European language. OTOH, I've heard the other Slavic languages have simpler grammar with fewer exceptions.

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#129

Post by scelerat » Fri, May 19, 2017, 7:07 PM UTC

Huh, I've just started learning Japanese after spending several weeks there and looking forward to visiting many more times, and I would never characterize it as especially difficult. There are some challenges, but nothing mind-blowing.

The kana and kanji may seem intimidating, but identifying fragments and context through repetition has been more rewarding and entertaining than frustrating.

I understand there are many subtleties, but after having hung around some native speakers for a while and hearing the patterns and starting to pick up on pronunciation, rhythmic patterns and key words, conversation topics start to become intelligible and communication possible.

Re: How we invented new ways to teach Japanese

#130

Post by khedoros1 » Fri, May 19, 2017, 7:11 PM UTC

shawnps wrote: post #27

OriginalPenguin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are correct that it's like learning anything else. If you put the time in and are motivated and go about it the right way you can learn it. But it's still "the most difficult language to learn". So it's worth taking that difficulty into account. For example one can learn Spanish, Swedish and Vietnamese in around the same amount of time it would take to learn Japanese.

What about Chinese? As someone who's learning Japanese already, Chinese looks more difficult to me. To me it seems very subjective, some people will be better at learning one language vs. another.

From the contact I've had with (Mandarin) Chinese, the basic grammar has the same word order as English. You have to teach yourself to interpret tones as lexical information, instead of just emphasis/emotion/flow. You need to learn more characters in Chinese than in Japanese for equivalent proficiency. Deeper into the language, there are more "two birds, one stone" kind of metaphors that are widely used (basically, cultural points that you need to learn, even if you understand the literal meanings of the constituent words).

Those are a mixture of my impressions, and the opinions of friends who speak the language (both learned and native). Overall, I think the most difficult part of mastering Chinese and Japanese is the same: Lack of shared cultural context, if you come from an English-speaking or European country.