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I know there are still a lot of topics that I can write about, because I have a list of posts that TKE readers requested. ^ ^ So today’s topic is how I learned English (1). It’s about what it’s like for the Japanese to learn English, rather than how I learned it. (It continues to a next post in which I am sharing how I learned English. )
It’s been years since I started to use English at work, but I still have to conclude that it is very difficult for the Japanese in general to be capable of communicating in English freely. As you already know, we don’t use alphabet when we write in Japanese. Romaji (romanized Japanese words) is used only for convenience, but don’t misunderstand it’s not a proper way. Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji are the letters we use and and none of them look like alphabet.
But learning alphabet is not a big deal compared with learning Kanji. ^ ^; We’ve already learned it when we learned Romaji at an elementary school. I think what puzzles us most is how English sounds. Well English grammar is also completely different from Japanese one. So there’s no doubt we get confused with English grammar. But our education system somehow stresses reading, writing, grammar and memorizing words and idioms more than listening and speaking. Thus many students are left without being able to understand what’s spoken in English properly, while at the same time they remember some very difficult English words that are not normally used in a daily conversation. ^ ^;;
It goes back to my 13 years old when I was a first grade at a jr. highschool. That’s the time English education started. I never learned English before then. Our English education, although I don’t know how it is today, was so useless!! The first sentence we learned was “This is a pen.” So what? It’s as you see. (lol) It’d be a lot more useful if it started as “How are you?”.
*English grammar vs Japanese grammar*
It was shocking to know how English grammar was completely different from Japanese one. Over here with Japanese, a sentence goes like this: subjective + (adjective) object + verb.
For example, I ate one of the apples in the morning that I found on the dining table. In Japanese it goes like this way, I in the morning that I found on the dining table one of the apples ate. (私は朝、食卓の上にあったリンゴを１つ食べた。）This sounds like this: Watashi wa asa syokutaku no ue ni atta ringo wo hitotsu tabeta. *This Japanese sounds unclear if there was only one apple on the table or a couple of apples were there but only one is picked up.
You see you’ll never know where the sentence is directed. It could be finished with negative form as “tabenakatta” (I didn’t eat) after all you hear the whole sentence! Or it could be “kodomo ni ageta” (gave it a child). You will also see that there’s no distinction between singular and plural (there are some times, depending on the noun though) because apple(s) is just “ringo” whether it’s singular or plural. So I have to say I have difficulties with this singular/plural notion when I use English.
I think English – Japanese translation is hard because the translator has to remember the verb at early stage when it’s spoken in English but remember it to use at the very last part of Japanese translation. lol
Another thing that made me suffer for months was the difference of “Be”-type of verb and all the other type of verbs. Somehow I had really hard time to understand the difference of these two! My English grade was so bad and I could not catch up with the class because of confusion between these sentences when I was 13.
For example: “I am not a teacher.” (We are taught it’s BE-type of verb.) while “I do not teach math.” (We are taught it’s general verb.) I didn’t get why we don’t say “I do not a teacher.” or “I am not teach math.”
I went so clueless without getting the concept of “Be”-type of verb and all the other general verbs that I went so depressed and I hated English then. I’m poor at math but I had no other time that English suffered me so much. I think it was only because of our way of teaching that didn’t match my type. Once I started to listen to radio English program, my English grade surged and before I knew, English has become my most favorite subject along with Japanese. ^ ^;
Because I want to avoid the same mistake, I don’t think too much of theory when I’m learning Spanish now.
*English pronunciation and intonation*
English pronunciation is a big headache to us Japanese. I wonder how easy it was if our first foreign language was Spanish, Italian or Portuguese. Now I am learning Spanish by myself and the happiest thing was that I can clearly hear what’s spoken when I watch Spanish drama! This means a lot to me, even if I don’t understand what that means. I can simply write down in Katakana as my ears have just cought. Then I can simply convert them into Spanish words.
For example: “No te vayas! Espera!” My ears can catch it as “ノーテバヤス！ エスペラ！” even if I didn’t know what this means in Spanish. I think Japanese and Spanish pronunciation is very similar. But as for English, I had really hard time for dictation. English has a strong intonation, compared with Japanese, especially standard Japanese spoken in Tokyo. (Kansai-ben, Japanese dialect spoken in Osaka and nearby areas has much more intonation. So I think they get used to English smoother than Tokyoites) This confused me a lot. Sometimes some English words sound connected or differently when they are spoken.
I truly enjoy learning Spanish now. (Gracias por ayuda de amigas, puedo entender espanol mas!)
In terms of grammar, although its conjugating verbs is confusing, English knowledge is definitely a plus. I can simply relate some sentences with English.
For example: Estoy escribiendo una carta para ti. (I’m writing a letter for you.) I know it’s not always that I can relate Spanish with English like this, word by word, but thanks to my English knowledge, I find it much easier to learn Spanish. At the same time, when it comes to listening and speaking, I can relate those experience with Japanese knowledge as mentioned above. I can speak Spanish just like I speak Japanese except for RR or strong R sound, which we find difficult.
Oh speaking of R sound, in Japanese we don’t distinguish R and L sounds. Thus, even if you pronounce a word as Lamen (instead of Ramen) Japanese people will understand. R and L are pronounced mixed…I don’t know if you understand what I mean. ^ ^; So I am not exceptional who suffer from these when I speak or listen English. I often forget some words like these: loyal and royal, for example. My ears cannot catch if it’s R or L very well. Liver could sould like River, Rice could sound like Lice…(a bowl of lice…lol no way!)
This post is getting too long with some basic difference between English and Japanese, and so how the Japanese have to suffer from learning English. Next post will be about how I learned English.
I wonder how English-speakers learning Japanese would feel when they learn Japanese. Any comments?
p.s I’m visiting Singapore and while I’m there, I won’t have time to moderate your comments or read your emails. So please don’t worry if your comment do not appear on TKE or your emails are not replied for days. ^ ^; (I know there are many readers from Singapore but this time I can see only a few friends there and I’ve already fixed my schedule with Apple and only a few more friends. I wanted to avoid a busy trip like last time. Yet it’s getting busy already…-_-;;)
Yay! Apple’s post! She’s sharing a very fun way to learn Japanese. ^ ^
===Apple’s post starts from here===
I’ve been playing a rather interesting PSP game recently!
AKB 1/48: If I Loved an Idol
I’m sure all of you know who AKB48 is. It’s impossible not to know. They are EVERYWHERE!
But just in case you were living in a cave for the past few years, AKB48 is a Japanese female idol group advertised as “idols you can meet”. They have their own performing theater in Akihabara (thus the group name AKB, the short form for Akiba, which is a short form for Akihabara) where fans can see them live everyday. The group is huge and split into 4 teams, Team A, Team K, Team B, and Team 4.
Anyway, I have never really got into the AKB48 craze because I was a fan of Morning Musume! Hahaha! And if you were a fan of Morning Musume like me too, and you compare the looks of AKB48 members with the looks of Morning Musume…(sorry to be shallow again!) don’t you think members of Morning Musume are so much more cuter???
And 48 members are just crazy (actually, even more if you add in Team 4′s members. I have no idea what Team 4 is for, I’m sorry!)! I heard from my friend that they change the members frequently too. I looked at their poster and I couldn’t even find one that I thought was really cute. Many of them also looked like each other. (Fans, please don’t bite me!)
And then…one day, I chanced upon a random Youtube video about this PSP game!
This game was actually released last year (Ok, so I was living in a cave like you too after all. Hahaha!), and it’s a dating fantasy game!!!!
It sure does to me! I’ve always wanted to play a dating simulation game and see how it’s like! And this! You get 48 real-life characters who are very popular idols and…and they all like you and want to be with you! Now, the difficult part is…to choose only one of them!!!
This game is very obviously marketed to their male fans, but what attracted me to this game was to see what the girls would say, and how they would confess their love!
I have to admit there were some highly Moe scenes where what they say and how they say it will make your heart go DOKYUN! I was playing the game and thinking, “Omg…it’s impossible not to fall in love with her if she says such things, right???”
So, girls, if you are interested at all, you can learn such high love techniques from playing this game. Hahaha! Also, for the first time in my life, I could see a girl clearly from a guy’s perspective.
For example, I could see what would make a guy shy, what would make the guy pissed off etc. It’s a very interesting experience! Haha!
Anyway, while playing the game, I was a little bit upset because I could clearly feel who this game is expecting the player to be!!
I was not some handsome, suave, cool guy! I was an otaku who don’t know what purikura machines are, who hesitates to step into an expensive-looking restaurant, who collects anime figurines, who probably don’t have a good sense of style (some of the girls tried to give me an image change), who goes to AKB’s handshake sessions during my free time, who collects their pictures as a hobby…
(Click on picture to learn more about Otakus!)
Sigh!
So uncool!
When I started playing this game, I was so amused and excited. It was definitely interesting to ‘go out’ with a girl and see the various ways they try to make you like her. Also, for students of the Japanese language, this is an excellent way to learn Japanese!
There are subtitles along with the voice of the idol you are going out with. So you can learn lots of Japanese from playing this game.
Obviously, when it’s your turn to respond to what is being said, there is no voice speaking your lines. So, as learners of the Japanese language, it is normal to speak the lines out yourself, right? To practise speaking it. So that was what I did.
And after speaking my line, the idol would respond in her voice as well, so it was like having a real conversation with her. Haha! I was playing this in the living room, and my brother looked at me as though there was something wrong with me, and my friend said, “You look like those typical fanboys imagining that these girls are really really talking to you and being really happy about it.”
Yes I have to admit that I was smiling when I got a good ending date with a particular idol, and swearing/became sad when I responded wrongly and broke a heart of an idol I was going out with. (After you break anyone’s heart, you will not get to ask her out for dates again.)
So, yes, pretty crazy. Haha!
I haven’t really explained how the game works, have I? Sorry! >”<
So the game is like this:
You have a chance to be with any of the AKB48 girls, but you can only choose one. Who will you choose?
Good luck to you. Hahaha!
You are presented with 48 contacts in your phone and you can begin the game by calling one of them to ask them out for a date. (Profiles of each member are given. So if you didn’t know them before, you can study their profiles to better decide who you would love to go out with.)
Once you call up any one of them, you get to go out with them. There are many different places that you will find yourself in: Cafe, shopping street, zakka shop, amusement park, high-class restaurant, park, museum, outside their event venue, their neighborhood, your apartment, aquarium, movie theatre, beach…to name a few.
And each member has their own personality and dialogues so it’s pretty interesting. You get to respond to them by choosing from usually 3 options. You can make them very happy or heartbroken from how you choose to respond.
Oh! She may get angry too! Why you so late!
Finally, one day, one of the members would give a very strong hint that she wants to confess her love to you. You can choose first whether you agree to go to wherever she wants to confess her love at. If you agree to meet her at that place, both of you will be meeting at that place the next day, and there would be a full video of her confessing her love to you (which is very interesting as well! My favorite so far happened at the school rooftop), to which you can accept her love or reject it!
If you accept it, she will be very very happy and she would even give you a hug at the end of the video game and thank you for choosing her!
If you reject, she will be very sad and a sad song (from AKB48 of course!) would be played in the background. Hahaha!
And I take back my words about AKB48 having no cute members! There were indeed very cute members! Here are my favourites after playing this game!
Itano Tomomi is just unbelievable.
I’ve always admired girls who look good in short hair! Mariko Shinoda!
She’s the one who confessed on the school rooftop!!! Sumire Sato!
Are you interested in this game??? Would you want to play it? ^^
I wish there was a game like this marketed towards girls too (I know it exists but I particularly want members of SHINee in the game!! HAHAHA!).
Anyway, have you tried such games before? Recommend nice ones!! Share your game experience!! I’m also aware that such games can become very boring in a short period of time (after all, it’s just talking, talking, talking), but I find it a very fun way to learn natural spoken Japanese!
If you’re a fan of AKB48…let me know who you would love to go out with too! I might have a surprise for you…Haha!
Thank you Apple!
===Kirin’s opinion===
AKB48 has become so successful and popular that I almost forgot the fact that they started from Akihabara with the concept that “idols you can meet” a few years ago. Now they are popular among girls and everywhere in Japan. Their yearly election (popularity contest) is such an exciting event that Japanese entertainment TV programs should not miss. What do you think of AKB48 and their date game? I liked how Apple uses it as a tool to improve her Japanese. Good job, Apple!!
Posted by: kirin on Aug 2nd, 2011 | Filed under: Learn Japanese
I roughly picked up the countries where my readers may be from.
Can you find your country described in kanji below?
But don’t worry, you don’t have to memorize them when you learn Japanese, because usually we describe most of them in katakana, excluding China, Taiwan and North/South Korea.
Even us, the native Japanese speakers don’t know exactly which kanji is for which country but I’d say most of us will understand the one kanji character in parentheses. When we express to visit the U.S for example, we understand it as 渡米 (read as “tobei”); the combination of the kanji that means to go and the one kanji letter that stands for the U.S.A.
How about other countries?
I also picked up the countries you may be from, but unfortunately not all these countries have one kanji that represents itself, like above list. Even if it does, it’s not well known, unfortunately. ^ ^;;
Did you find yours? If not, where are you from? ^ ^
I’ll include a little bit of Japanese for the people who learn it. (Don’t worry I will not make a full-Japanese post. Basically every post should be in English and I can give some Japanese at only some limited part.)
=================
“Did you find the kanji for your country?”
自分の国の漢字はあった？ (to make it formal: 自分の国の漢字はありましたか？）
じぶんのくにのかんじはあった？
jibun no kuni no kanji wa atta?
Posted by: kirin on 
Sep 5th, 2011 | 
Filed under: Learn Japanese, Rambling
(Gracias por ayuda de amigas, puedo entender espanol mas!)
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