More Copyright Infringement & Some Thoughts on Language Learning

Sabre wants to warm you up

Just taking a break from "translating" the Manabi Straight scans. It's hard work when all your Japanese is learnt from watching anime, you know.

A few hundred years ago, back when I was just seven, my mother tongue sensei said something which I found rather interesting. The logical progression in learning a language is to master listening, speaking, reading and writing, in that order. Which kind of makes sense when you apply it to babies learning their mother tongue.

First, babies pick up vocabulary and grammatical structure by listening to the people around them. At this point their speech would still be limited to single words or simple phrases. But you can be sure they're soaking up words and grammer subconsciously like a sponge.

Young children's brains have the amazing ability to process and organise all that junk into meaningful speech. They don't have to memorise any grammer rules. They just know. And before you know it, the little bugger is asking so many questions you'd wish he were mute.

Healthy Girls

Reading is probably something most people are consciously taught to do. If you're not taught or did not consciously try to learn it in some way, then you'll probably not be able to read. Literacy is probably less essential to survival in an evolutionary sense. I mean, if you can't chat a girl up, you can't reproduce, right? Can't read? Still alright. I remember I wasn't able to read even the ABCs until sometime after I started attending preschool. I could sing the alphabet song, I just couldn't read it. The nurse giving me my first eyesight check thought I was short-sighted 'cos i couldn't read the chart and was just randomly shouting alphabets.

Writing is the last and the most difficult. Well, all I remember about learning to write is doing pages upon pages of penmanship exercises. And I had to get the guy sitting beside me to write my small-letter "a"s for me cause they were too hard.

So Listening and Speaking comes naturally and Reading and Writing are more difficult. Regardless of whether that is really true, most people pick up their first language in that order anyway.

Adults picking up a new language is another matter altogether. Remember the super baby brain that processes speech faster than a Pentium 9? You lose most of that function by the time you hit 10 years old. So no more junk in prose out. Not as fast anyway.

Umisho Bamboo Blade?

So how do adults learn new languages? While adults lack that natural ability to soak up language, they make up for it with a (hopefully) stronger power of comprehension. You can explain grammer rules to adults and make them memorise vocabulary. Like how Uraha coaches Kanna.

Therefore, I believe children learn languages best through immersion, while adults would benefit more from structured lessons. Not that adults don't benefit from immersion. They do. Immensely.

I was trying to learn Malay several years ago, and i leant it the adult way, in the classroom, memorising rules and vocabulary. I ended up being able to read and write (the supposedly harder ones to do) but I couldn't understand spoken Malay, not to mention speak it. I realised what i lacked was exposure to the spoken language. And I've forgotten 90% of what I've memorised by now due to lack of practice.

Hauntingly Beautiful

Contrast that experience with my attempt to pick up Japanese. Ok, actually there was no attempt. It kind of just happened. I've been watching subtitled anime for close to 10 years. One day, I watched a raw and realised I could understand half the dialogue. Wow, I still have some of my baby brain left over. Well, it's probably not the same as a child's learning pattern because the kid can learn from watching raws.

Then i tried to learn how to read, cause I want to singalong to my favourite ani-songs. At first, I found kanji a lot easier to read than hiragana or katagana, for obvious reasons. So i'd just play the songs and try to follow the gibberish on the lyrics sheet, using the kanji as "checkpoints". Once i figured out that each hiragana is one syllable, it was a matter of matching the character to the sound. The results can be seen in the two previous posts.

Bloody Beautiful

Speaking. This is problematic, for there is no one to practise with. I can say "anata wa baka desu" but it just sounds off. Even though i know what it's suppose to sound like having heard it like, maybe, a few hundred times.

Writing? Haha, forget it. I think Microsoft word does a good job for me.

My Japanese is still extremely rudimentary, and in fact, I will never dare claim that I know the language with my current level of proficiency (or lack thereof). Sometimes I wonder what's the point of getting any better at this. Not going to help me get a better job.

But guess what?

I'm enjoying myself.

Edit: The links to the bigger versions of the pics disappeared after I shuffled them around. Any idea why?