The three month itch

[chard]

It's three months into the Japanese language course at the Naganuma School, and I'm in crisis, and not sure how to proceed.

I first came to Japan in 2001. Before I came I spent a couple of months of mornings studying Japanese from An Introduction to Modern Japanese. When I arrived I took a three week course at the YMCA in Tokyo. After that I

Comments

[espresso_addict]

I am not able to hold up a conversation with anyone, because they would have to wait 30 or 40 seconds for me to form a sentence. Similarly, when listening, it takes me about 30 seconds to understand the first sentence, by which time I have missed everything else they were saying.I suspect your problem isn't unusual. I learned French & German at school; with a heavily grammar-based course I was consistently top of my class. In both cases, however, I completely failed to hold any real conversations when I got to France or Germany because I couldn't process the words at anything approaching natural speaking speed. From your posts it sounds like the memory burden is far higher in Japanese

[chard]

Yes, a number of the other students have expressed similar frustrations. We have a mailing list for our programme on which there is a parallel converstaion going on to this thread on my LJ. However, we've heard that in the past people have tried and failed to get things changed at the school.

Swap off-curriculum kanji study for immersion

[nickbarnes]

From your previous reports, I have the impression that you're spending several hours each day doing off-curriculum kanji study, and that you're doing very well at it. I suggest that you reduce the intensity of that for a month or two, and use the time to get the immersion you need. Presumably if you reduce the number of new kanji going in at the top of your memory system, you will see a steady reduction of the revision time spent with your rings.

How much of your 14-hour study day is dedicated to assigned school work (including classes)? How much is off-curriculum study? Remember that right now, immersion is of more value to your language acquisition than anything else.

It seems plausible to me that a month or two of daily immersion will be plenty to switch your brain into Japanese mode, where it will then remain if you choose to switch that time back into kanji training.

Re: Swap off-curriculum kanji study for immersion

[chard]

I have not been studying any new kanji for the past month or more. I occasionally add a few extras beyond what is necessary for school in order to learn how to write something that I don't already know, but this is of the order of a few a day, and it takes almost no extra time.

Most of my time is spent building vocabulary. At first I was adding more vocabulary than was needed by the school, but that also stopped some time ago. Now I am just adding the vocabulary from the classes.

The same goes for grammar points.

So basically, there has been no off-curriculum study for some time.

The question is how much of the current study can I cut and still keep up with the curriculum.

Actual immersion is not an option, of course. I can try to arrange to spend time speaking Japanese, which is what I'm going to try.

[anonymous]

You make it plain that your 2001 experience was far more valuable for learning conversational Japanese. Presumably because it was heavy on interactive language use? You need to find an hour or so a day and it needs to be interactive

[marhol]

It is I.