My Reading Assignment

My Reading Assignment
2006.03.15 1:48

Since I'm Japanese, I mean my native tongue is not English, it takes three times to five or more to complete reading journals here in comparison to native speakers. Recently I found lots of very interesting debates occurred sponteneously among Journal writers, and it is a favourable matter, Journal sections seemed to be less active than main page for a long time. I've been spending too many time in reading these journals, but since many posts appeared so rapidly simply I can't catch up with. So here I summarise my reading assignment.
"Faith-based science"
Final score: Faith
This should be interesting ...
My quest for 1000 freaks, etc
Abortion - What I think and why you should flame me
Read well, think well, then I will be able to write well.
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Loved your summary(Score:1)
by jawtheshark (198669) * <slashdot@jawthesh[ ].com ['ark' in gap]> on 2006.03.15 16:07 (#14922369) (http://www.jawtheshark.com/ Last Journal: 2006.04.26 23:29)
Read well, think well, then I will be able to write well.
That hit the point! My mother tongue isn't English either, but I can assure you that my English has only improved over the years by reading slashdot and other English websites. It is indeed true that slashdot features a lot of spelling mistakes, but it's not important.By reading, you simply enhance your knowledge about how to build sentences and the general structure of the language.
My personal credo is: "use a language, or lose a language". I know this is true from personal experience.
I learnt German on my own. From listening TV and radio, from reading german magazines. I have no diploma that certifies that I have studied this language. I can only prove that I know that language because I talk it. Two things: I do not write German quite well and my mother tongue is Dutch, which makes things easier for me.
When in highschool (well, the local equivalent) I was good at French. Then I went to study in a Dutch environment and I could only use my French sporadically. The result was that, when I returned after four years, my French simply *sucked*. I had to think for words all the time. Sentence structure was wrong. Stuff like that. Now, eight years later, I still think that I haven't recovered fully to the level I once was So, yes, read, read, read and write... It is all connected.
---- A sharkless slashdot is a toothless slashdot. -- Turg (19864)
Re:Loved your summary(Score:1)
by mercedo (822671) * on 2006.03.16 0:51 (#14924445) (http://mercedo-compl.../2006/04/zen-ya.html Last Journal: 2006.04.28 3:11)
Last night I was reading till 5 in the morning and I just finished reading the first one "Faith-based science".
I am in a hurry to keep on reading other stuffs too, since we've got other 'journal erruptions' -this word refers to sporadic erruptions of journals with a lot of comments -at least more than 50, among those slashdot celebrities, I've got to catch up.
--Ancient Greek Philosophers -18c Enlightenment Thinkers -Slashdotters
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Re:Loved your summary(Score:1)
by jawtheshark (198669) * <slashdot@jawthesh[ ].com ['ark' in gap]> on 2006.03.16 1:15 (#14924698) (http://www.jawtheshark.com/ Last Journal: 2006.04.26 23:29)
least more than 50, among those slashdot celebrities,
It's been a long time I've had +50 comments in my journals. I guess I'm not a celebrity ;-))
---- A sharkless slashdot is a toothless slashdot. -- Turg (19864)
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What would you suggest(Score:2)
by SamTheButcher (574069) * <.samthebutcher. .at. .gmail.com.> on 2006.03.18 4:21 (#14943908) (http://www.samthebutcher.com/ Last Journal: 2006.04.28 23:32)
For someone who wants to learn Japanese? Or, since you know Japanese first, do you not have any suggestions for learning the language? :)
I'm a native English speaker, but I wouldn't know how to suggest to someone that they start learning the language.
I might have some ideas once I thought about it, though.
--"If you want really want to hurt your parents and don't want to be gay, go into the arts" - Kurt Vonnegut
Re:What would you suggest(Score:1)
by mercedo (822671) * on 2006.03.23 2:05 (#14972658) (http://mercedo-compl.../2006/04/zen-ya.html Last Journal: 2006.04.28 3:11)
Arigatoh gozaimasu -Thank youDoumo arigatoh gozaimasu -Thank you very muchGomennasai -I'm sorrySumimasen -Excuse meHajimemashite -Nice to meet youDoh'itashimashite -Not at allBanzai -Bravo
I recommed you to start memolising some common greeting phrases. If you used one of these expressions, their attitude would greatly change.
Then you learn hiragana/katakana -Japanese phonetic words, each contains 50 characters. It's not difficult to memolise those characters.
--Ancient Greek Philosophers -18c Enlightenment Thinkers -Slashdotters
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Re:What would you suggest(Score:2)
by SamTheButcher (574069) * <.samthebutcher. .at. .gmail.com.> on 2006.03.23 3:25 (#14973534) (http://www.samthebutcher.com/ Last Journal: 2006.04.28 23:32)
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions! :)
I have some audio CDs that go by the "immersion" method, where you just start out hearing phrases and what they mean and you start figuring out the commonalities of the language. I bought a "First 1000 Japanese Words [amazon.co.uk]" book for my kids - my oldest daughter is very interested in Japan - she takes after her dad. :) There's an internet link in the book so you can hear how the words are pronounced - with Japanese, that's the biggest thing, I think.
But you'd suggest learning the characters, then? Or the sayings and words for conversational Japanese?
What would you guess would be the hardest thing about learning Japanese for non-native speakers?
--"If you want really want to hurt your parents and don't want to be gay, go into the arts" - Kurt Vonnegut
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Re:What would you suggest(Score:1)
by mercedo (822671) * on 2006.03.24 1:03 (#14980785) (http://mercedo-compl.../2006/04/zen-ya.html Last Journal: 2006.04.28 3:11)
What would you guess would be the hardest thing about learning Japanese for non-native speakers?
You see there are many types of non-native speakers. Chinese people use 5000 Chinese characters, that used to be completely the same before the World War II, and Koreans learn 1500 Chinese characters, although they ceased to use them in their daily life. So naturally both people can learn Japanese much faster than people in other countries. In standar Japanese 1850 Chinese characters are used frequently. Besides, grammartically speaking Korean has very similar structure -roughly S+O+V type, so Korean will be able to speak very good Japanese in very short time. ( They don't have D sound, so they tend to pronouce To instead of Do as German people pronouce Tochoter instead of daughter.) In the case of Chinese people, the structure of their language is very similar to that of English -Bo Ai Knee which means I love you, they also learn English very quick.
Aside from the cases of both countryman, it is a little tough to learn Japanese, if you intended to learn Romanised Japnese -Japanese transliterated in English alphabet for use other than Japanese, you just concentrate on memorising lots of words and expressions as I picked out. I believe that's the best way for you to learn Japanese. Because Japanese people can understand Latinised Japanese as in Ohayou gozaimasu-Good morning. Probably it's much easier for you to learn languages whose words are written in English alphabet, so I recommend you to learn Chinese, Japanese, through English alphabet. Korean has their own alphabet called Hangle, so in the case of Korean, it depends.
Among European languages, Russian and Greek use different alphabet, and I never heard people who learned those languages without knowing how to write their alphabet, so it is worth while to learn their characters. Korean alphabet -Hangle and Japanese phonetic signs -Kanas are just easy to memorise if you intend to do it. 26 or 50x2 are not so large number, if you really intend to spare time for them. Or if you are a scholar. So anyway I recommend you to start learning by heart some expressions, then when you lost your interest on these languages, you just had a free hand to use those expressions when in need ( if you use the expression Hajimemashite when you start talking to a Japanese for the first time, they will sure to feel you are friendly, and agreeable, something like that, of course even if you didn't use these expressions, it is undoubt you are though.
So when you asked What would you guess would be the hardest thing about learning Japanese for non-native speakers?, I must say there are many. But if you choose to learn Japanese in English alphabet, you can be an even more fluent Japanese speaker thannative people. Because I must say for Japanese, extremely complicated way of writing Japanese ( combination of three characters ) is the biggest obstacle casting big black clouds ahead of our future, in the age of the Internet, in the age of people can travel to Mars, I think Japanese people must overcome their orthography. But still they keep on staying on this obstacle with their fingers untouched.
--Ancient Greek Philosophers -18c Enlightenment Thinkers -Slashdotters
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