lunes, 16 de septiembre de 2013

Japanese blog #1: Greetings and a little bit of history.

So, I took the idea of writing a blog about my language learning process with Japanese from a website. And I think the first thing that I have to say is that this is not the first time I try to learn a foreign language. Actually, my first language is Spanish and my second language is English so if you come across a grammar mistake somewhere in these pages, you now know why.

In fact, I have to admit that I feel pretty comfortable with English, so comfortable, that I actually have the guts to write a Japanese blog in English. I chose English because it's pretty much the most common second language in the world and this is actually an opportunity to practice my writing skills. So here it is: I've learned a language and I managed to remain conscious the whole process. It wasn't the same case with Spanish with which I don't have any recollection of learning it. Just a few words here and there, such as "cuadra" (block) and the expression "tienes razón" which is Spanish for "you're right".

But with English, it is a struggle and I have to admit that I'm not done yet: I make grammatical mistakes from time to time, I don't have a perfect pronunciation and my vocabulary is not as vast as in Spanish which, after all, it's my mother tongue. However, I do have to say that my comprehension is near to 90% and If I'm not "there" yet (and by "there" I mean, native-like pronunciation, grammar and oral comprehension) I feel closer now than never before. It has taken me 8 years or so to reach this level in English.

Anyway, the real star of this story is Japanese so, to sum it up, I have to say that now, with the experience I've gotten trying to cram English words and grammar formulas into my head, I've realized that the best learning method you can use is raw, extensive and intensive exposure. I know some of you may say that you also need grammar lessons and all that and I agree, because they teach you the grammar rules (or tendencies) explicitly but don't neglect the context which in this case is the raw and pure exposure part.

I've come to wonder why is it that it took me so long to learn the grammar constrains of English and why was the process of acquiring vocabulary so unreasonably slow. The only answer I can come up with is that I rarely exposed myself to English. I mean, I meant to do that several times but by the minute I started watching my favorite TV show and not understanding anything of it and getting bored and hopeless, I started to read the subtitles.

It was too hard and now I regret it so much. Anyhow, now I tried to apply my new knowledge to Japanese. I've heard some words here and there and still don't know what they mean. But I keep listening to Japanese no matter how much I want to read the subtitles and  figure out who's who in Full-metal Alchemist. So far, I've learned the word Arigatō ありがとう, Nīsan兄さん (very common word in Fullmetal Alchemist since Alfonse is always calling his brother "Nīsan" and I happened to have watched most of the episodes in Spanish 4 years ago). Other words are: Gomen'nasai ごめんなさい, Kon'nichiwa こんにちは and that's all. Although, I keep hearing the expresion "shimashita" all the time and I still don't know what it means. I wish you guys could tell me any method you use to learn Kanji or if you just used plain memorization.

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