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Yeah, you’re right about not feeling bad; I think I’m paranoid that I’m not paying close enough attention to my Japanese audio. Sure, it’s on all the time, so I *hear* it all the time, but I don’t know if I *listen* to it enough.

Anyway, my pretending to be Japanese question stems from a technique for success where you believe you already are what you’re trying to be. I’m not really trying to become a Japanese citizen, I just want to learn the language and be in-tune with Japan, so perhaps that technique isn’t really that valid here.

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How do you remind yourself that you are now a Japanese person, and how do you make yourself truly believe that this is true?

Being Derrick from some TV show I’ve never heard of isn’t much help…

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No matter where you go, if you see a girl leaning away from the guy next to her who’s trying to hit on her it tends to mean she’s just not that into him (or maybe his breath just stinks?), and I can recognize semi-coherent rage no matter what language it comes in. A fist is a fist is a fist, and even the tells of lying are the same regardless of language. We are all humans after all, last time I checked, and we hold a lot more similarities than differences.

The nice thing is that body language can help us fill in context gaps when we’re stumbling about trying to learn Japenese (or anything else for that matter). We just have to make sure we’re consciously paying attention*.

During my middle school years my dad worked for a summer in Germany and I got to tag along. I particularly remember this one experience with a german girl around my age who was the daughter of one of my dad’s work colleagues. While they sat around talking and being old farts she and I played together and had no problem despite the fact that our knowledge of the other’s language barely extended past colors and numbers. We pointed at objects and exchanged terms some, but mostly we just got on by gesturing, showing, and giggling. And we came up with some imaginative, fairy-chasing dance games, not just playing on swings or something.

Granted German and English are much closer than Japanese and English, but the language barrier is never as big in person as it is in say, text. Why else would we use emoticons so much even when chatting on the internetz in the same language, ne?

*If you’re ever picked up by a flying saucer though, I make no guarantees about how useful body language will be for you.

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Before i begin, i want to tell you that you are one facinating human
being. I feel as though we perhaps share the same brain except i feel
that you are more of what i really wish to be like.

My name is Angelique and i am learner of Mandarin Chinese for about a
year.

I stumbled across your blog, searched through the table of contents,
and picked “Language is Acting” to read first.

I was completely blown away because all that you said is exactly how i
feel and what i’ve been trying to explain people.

You see, I am spanish by blood but i do not speak it and i always get
made fun of because i do not speak Spanish, totally have no desire to
speak Spanish, and is learning Chinese. Let me give you an example of
what i go through.

Random Person: *is speaking Spanish assumming i know how*
Me: * is staring with a blank face like an idiot*
Random Person: “You no speak spanish?”
Me:…”no >>,”
Random Person: *looks like he just had a heartattack*….”WHAT?!!!!”
Me: “You see, Although my mother is hispanic she never was taught the
language and although my father, who is puerto rican, speaks Spanish he
never taught me….so yeah…”
Random person: *shakes head out of pity*
Me: *slowly walks away annoyed”….-_-+

I try to reason with people like the that. I tell them that no one is
“born” Spanish, no one is “born ” Chinese, and no one is “born”,
Japanese. I tell them that culture and language are things that we are
not born with but are taught. A bird is born knowing how to build a
nest but a human being is not born knowing a culture or a specific
language. A human may “look” like he’s Chinese, Spanish, or Japanese,
but all that is is just looks.

But even so, people still just dont get it. They call you a freak or
not normal just because you LOOK like a Chinese, Spanish, or a Japanese
but do not speak or do the things Chinese, Spanish, and Japanese people
do because you werent taught that way.

Besides that issue, I always saw learning language as acting. A
successful actress isnt one who merely reads lines from a script but
becomes it.

A successful learner of a language can’t just merely speak the language
but must become it.

My other Chinese learning friends would be like “Angelique you sound so
good!! Do you study a lot…?” And i would say “Yes i study everyday”.
But honestly anyone can just study a language and never sound great no
matter how much studying they do because they are not becoming the
language. When i speak Chinese i become it even though i takes much
courage and boldness on my part since i am naturally a shy timid
individual but i somehow do it.

Even so, I still stuggle though. My enemy is intimidation and is
something that i fight hard to overcome. I get so intimidated when im
around native speakers that i realize that i know nothing and i am
still a “baby”.

One thing that i wanted to ask you is how were you able to master the
Japanese grammer so fast? You see, i am struggling with Chinese grammer
and it is making me want to rip my brain out of my skull and stomp on
it….seriously.

Do you have any tips, advice on mastering grammer and how not to attack your own brain?

Anyways, thank you for your encouragment. Now when people make fun of
me i’ll say ” I have the right to learn the Chinese language!!! and
chase them off with my chopsticks. xD

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Elitists are too caught up in their own conceptions about language and the necessity to know the exact mechanisms and made-up names for grammar, foisting that bullcrap onto helpless learners. Wtf is a mizenkei, I don’t know. I don’t care. Neither should you.

I know I’m making a wild generalization here. Of course there are academics who can actually live the language they’ve spent decades researching.

It boils down to the same thing as before: Just Do It. Don’t think, don’t bother with the nomenclature of grammar points, Just Do It.

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I’m not learning Japanese (yet), but I’m planning on doing it in the future… However, I’m learning German and, although your method is mainly designed for the Japanese learner, it’s in accordance with my own ideas on language learning and I’d like to improve my learning. Now to the point: I try to listen to German on the bus and I search for content on the web and to talk to native speakers on skype. I’m currently using the lingq method, which I think you already know (www.lingq.com) and I try to be immersed in the language. But can’t live in the language, as much as I try. How did you really do it before going to Japan? You had to talk to people in English, and how did you manage to only watch TV in Japanese?

Sorry for the big post…

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>For over a year I have confused these two characters: “packed” and “cottage,” assuming that both used crock pot and forgetting the stories.

They actually don’t both use the lidded crock. If you look closely, you’ll see that “Packed” uses the Aerosol Can and “Cottage” uses the Lidded Crock. For further demonstration of this, please view the frame for the Kanji for “Good Luck” and you’ll see what I mean.

Hope this assists you in your confusion.

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Dear Teacher:

I wanted to send you this as an attachment because I tend to hit plateaus where I level out and take more time to master characters. When I am faced with a dead-end and feel no progress, I have found two methods of clearing up the problems.

An example:

For over a year I have confused these two characters: “packed” and “cottage,” assuming that both used crock pot and forgetting the stories.

Two solutions to quicken and sharpen the mental image of Heisig’s stories:

(1) Use questions that reflect a logical grammatical connection between or among parts of the kanji so that the answers to the questions are the actual sub-kanji or key words.

(2) Use the word perfect to enlarge the kanji so details and connections are seen more clearly to discriminate between two characters that may look similar when the font size is very small.

“PACKED” 詰
(I tried but can’t copy and paste the 48 font)
“COTTAGE” 舎
(I tried but can’t copy and paste the 48 font)

I recently discovered I needed better glasses and so they help; however, these kanji have been copied and pasted into a Microsoft word document so that they can be enlarged and effectively contrasted, thus more clearly understood. Solution 2 addresses a physical problem of actually seeing the text.

Solution 1 addresses logical understanding of the story composed by Heisig or by the student (if Heisig’s story doesn’t work).

“Packed,” for me, requires two questions: “What is packed?” and “What is its container?” When I answer them and connect them logically by the questions in my native language (I have no experience as a native speaker and reader of the kanji), then I can more readily store the image and accept it. I use my native language as a bridge.

“Cottage,” for me, requires two questions: “What keeps the rain off me?” and “Where could food be stored?”

I know that the ideal level to reach is forming the questions and stories in Japanese, finally letting go of the native language. However, these basic tools are encouraging me to add new kanji and increasing my confidence in retaining what I have studied.

I really enjoyed the experience you shared from your university comedy group. Often mental cruelty is just thoughtless remarks, commenting on something the speaker can’t control.

OFF THE PLATEAU AND SEEING BEYOND THE CURRENT DEAD-END.

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Those who talk about it end up spending so much time seeking out “free internet resources” and trying to tie them together, talking about learning Japanese with other learners, that they don’t actually DO the learning.

And that’s easy to do. Learning Japanese takes effort. Let’s face it: it’s much easier to spend your time chatting in English with other wannabe-learners than it is to buckle down and start learning sentences and kanji and vocabulary. After a while it becomes impossible to learn Japanese, because they’re not actually learning Japanese: they’re just talking about it.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you’re learning Japanese if you spend your 15 minutes a day reading a Japanese lesson on a website or doing a few exercises in a textbook. Maybe if you can do this every day for 20 years, you’ll have a chance. But that’s not good enough for me. I don’t have that kind of time left After finding this site last year I’ve pretty well stopped posting on the fora and am instead living in my own little bit of Japan, USA, actually DOING the learning instead of just talking about it. Thanks for the attitude, Khatz. You’ve made me change from a wannabe into a learner.

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