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I think a lot of people don't get past the "learn all the characters first" barrier. What would really be useful to them (and me) is an app focused on how peop

by raylad 4y ago

I think a lot of people don't get past the "learn all the characters first" barrier. What would really be useful to them (and me) is an app focused on how people really talk, that teaches actually commonly used phrases as well as grammar and vocabulary. Apps focused on reading often produce people who can read but can't have a conversation. This is one of the main criticisms of the way English is taught in Japan by the way.

timr 4y ago
> I think a lot of people don't get past the "learn all the characters first" barrier. PSA: That's not an actual barrier. It's a borderline useless thing that some significant subset of self-learners seem to do, for reasons I cannot explain. There is no such thing as "learning the characters". You need to learn words and sentences. You can certainly categorize the learning by character (this is how it's done in Japanese language schools), but that's not necessary (or necessarily advisable), and going from that to "I must first learn the characters" is pathological. People get stuck on this because they spend weeks/months/years doing rote memorization, and make no progress toward understanding the actual language. Eventually you get to a place where you can start to infer word meanings from kanji, but that's a lot like using latin roots to infer the meanings of unknown words in English. It's a nice-to-have, not an essential tool, and you'll get there anyway if you simply study words.
- raylad 4y ago
  You misunderstand me. I am actually referring to katakana and hiragana, not kanji. Just having to learn those first will stop a large percentage of people who would otherwise be able to learn to talk reasonably well.
  - chrisvasselli 4y ago
    I'm going to add some ability to display things in romaji in the future, so users can start on some of the actual sentences before completing hiragana/katakana. Agree that getting through all the characters before starting anything else is not motivating.
- ehnto 4y ago
  I think an issue self learners have is that they are often reading only. Without knowing the kanji you can't actually read anything. With furigana and the phonetic alphabets you can at least read them out loud but I think reading only is why you see people thinking they need to learn a bunch of kanji before doing anything else. I agree with you though, you really benfit from the dense web of association you get from actually reading and hearing words in sentences. Much quicker path to practical fluency in my opinion, and you get the benefit of learning words in contexts you will actually use.
- chrisvasselli 4y ago
  I'm also a fan of learning kanji only in the context of words, and not on their own in a vacuum. I made the kanji decks in my other app Nihongo (https://nihongo-app.com https://nihongo-app.com) based on this philosophy. Basically, they teach you (1) the kun-yomi word(s) for each character, (2) the 1-3 most common words for each on-yomi, and (3) to write the kanji. Don't try to learn the readings in isolation, learn them in the context of the words where they appear. And by learning a small set of the most common words using the character (especially if it has a standalone kun-yomi word), you'll internalize the meaning of the kanji itself.
- Ruarl 4y ago
  In his books, Heisig recommends learning all the joyo kanji before anything else. It's what his books are for, so it isn't a surprise, but perhaps that's where the idea that it's useful to do so came from.
  - eloisant 4y ago
    Yes, that's his point of view but he's a bit alone on that. It probably works if you're not using Japanese at all while learning the Kanji, but if you do need to use Japanese (i.e. freshly arrived in Japan) it doesn't really make sense to spend 1 year on kanji before learning the language. For most people kanji is better learned with vocabulary. You definitely need to learn hiragana first, and not use romaji at all, but that can be done in 2 weeks.
    - Ruarl 4y ago
      The idea is somewhat persistent amongst beginners though, whether sources agree or not. I guess that’s a problem of community-lead learning, instead of instructor-lead.
ehnto 4y ago
I think conversational fluency takes a bit of gumption, in that you need to find people to talk to. You can join Japanese/English discord servers, get into the voice chats and listen and learn. iTalki is an app where you can schedule conversation time with tutors. There are also lots of YouTube channels that focus on natural Japanese and not textbook learning. But the theme with all of these is that no one is guiding you through, there's no easy to follow path and it is very DIY. I think drilling kanji catches people because it feels like a gamified progress that ends in fluency, if only you could drill enough kanji. So it becomes a morale failing in someones mind, rather than seeing it as a failure to teach.

by raylad 4y ago

timr 4y ago

> I think a lot of people don't get past the "learn all the characters first" barrier. PSA: That's not an actual barrier. It's a borderline useless thing that some significant subset of self-learners seem to do, for reasons I cannot explain. There is no such thing as "learning the characters". You need to learn words and sentences. You can certainly categorize the learning by character (this is how it's done in Japanese language schools), but that's not necessary (or necessarily advisable), and going from that to "I must first learn the characters" is pathological. People get stuck on this because they spend weeks/months/years doing rote memorization, and make no progress toward understanding the actual language. Eventually you get to a place where you can start to infer word meanings from kanji, but that's a lot like using latin roots to infer the meanings of unknown words in English. It's a nice-to-have, not an essential tool, and you'll get there anyway if you simply study words.

raylad 4y ago
You misunderstand me. I am actually referring to katakana and hiragana, not kanji. Just having to learn those first will stop a large percentage of people who would otherwise be able to learn to talk reasonably well.
- chrisvasselli 4y ago
  I'm going to add some ability to display things in romaji in the future, so users can start on some of the actual sentences before completing hiragana/katakana. Agree that getting through all the characters before starting anything else is not motivating.
ehnto 4y ago
I think an issue self learners have is that they are often reading only. Without knowing the kanji you can't actually read anything. With furigana and the phonetic alphabets you can at least read them out loud but I think reading only is why you see people thinking they need to learn a bunch of kanji before doing anything else. I agree with you though, you really benfit from the dense web of association you get from actually reading and hearing words in sentences. Much quicker path to practical fluency in my opinion, and you get the benefit of learning words in contexts you will actually use.
chrisvasselli 4y ago
I'm also a fan of learning kanji only in the context of words, and not on their own in a vacuum. I made the kanji decks in my other app Nihongo (https://nihongo-app.com https://nihongo-app.com) based on this philosophy. Basically, they teach you (1) the kun-yomi word(s) for each character, (2) the 1-3 most common words for each on-yomi, and (3) to write the kanji. Don't try to learn the readings in isolation, learn them in the context of the words where they appear. And by learning a small set of the most common words using the character (especially if it has a standalone kun-yomi word), you'll internalize the meaning of the kanji itself.
Ruarl 4y ago
In his books, Heisig recommends learning all the joyo kanji before anything else. It's what his books are for, so it isn't a surprise, but perhaps that's where the idea that it's useful to do so came from.
- eloisant 4y ago
  Yes, that's his point of view but he's a bit alone on that. It probably works if you're not using Japanese at all while learning the Kanji, but if you do need to use Japanese (i.e. freshly arrived in Japan) it doesn't really make sense to spend 1 year on kanji before learning the language. For most people kanji is better learned with vocabulary. You definitely need to learn hiragana first, and not use romaji at all, but that can be done in 2 weeks.
  - Ruarl 4y ago
    The idea is somewhat persistent amongst beginners though, whether sources agree or not. I guess that’s a problem of community-lead learning, instead of instructor-lead.

ehnto 4y ago

I think conversational fluency takes a bit of gumption, in that you need to find people to talk to. You can join Japanese/English discord servers, get into the voice chats and listen and learn. iTalki is an app where you can schedule conversation time with tutors. There are also lots of YouTube channels that focus on natural Japanese and not textbook learning. But the theme with all of these is that no one is guiding you through, there's no easy to follow path and it is very DIY. I think drilling kanji catches people because it feels like a gamified progress that ends in fluency, if only you could drill enough kanji. So it becomes a morale failing in someones mind, rather than seeing it as a failure to teach.