Author Archives: taekk

I have a Lang-8 account. Won’t you be my friend?

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I created an account on Lang-8! Basically, Lang-8 is a social network where people can correct each other’s writings.

Tofugu.com has a good writeup so I’m not going to waste my time doing the same. I only wish native speakers would write more in their language to give me something to read without having to sift through all the errors. Also, why does it have only two languages? I can’t study 3 languages at the same time? But besides my minor gripes, this site has one of the best communities I’ve seen. Everybody has been genuinely friendly and helpful so far.

Currently, I’m trying to hack out some crazy Chinese and also thinking about improving my Japanese writing, though I don’t know how much time I can devote with all my other stuff going on. I’m also trying to make some friends so here is my Lang-8 page in case you’re interested!

Actually, Japanese has future tense! Kind of…

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Studying Chinese got me thinking about tense recently and how it’s expressed in different languages. That’s when I realized my concept of present tense was over-simplified and that yes, future tense does exist in Japanese… in a way.

At first glance, the idea of tenses seem very simple. You have past, present, and future to describe when something happens well… in the past, present, and future. However, if you think about it, present tense cannot exist as a single point in time because it is changing every minute, second, millisecond, ad infinitum. In other words, you can say, “I ate yesterday.” and “I will eat tomorrow.” but you cannot say, “I eat now.” because by the time you are finished saying it, that present is already in the past and the future is already the present. The only way you can talk about anything close to the present tense is by defining a span of time that started in the past and is continuing into the future. That is why you would say, “I am eating now.” instead. But that is the present progressive of the verb. Hence, my original concept of the three tenses being, “ate”, “eat”, and “will eat” was oversimplified.

So I looked up what is considered present tense in English and found this very informative page about simple present with time lines for different cases. Let’s look at how they translate into Japanese.

USE 1 Repeated Actions

This case represents a repeated action not in any specific time frame. There is no specific information on when these repeated actions occur, which is exactly the same as the plain verb form in Japanese.

I play tennis. – テニスをする。

USE 2 Facts or Generalizations

This case represents a fact that is continuously true. There is no specific information on the time period the statement purports to be true. Again, exactly the same as the plain verb form in Japanese.

California is in America. – カリフォルニアはアメリカにある。

USE 3 Scheduled Events in the Near Future

Scheduled events in the future are expressed in simple present in English exactly the same as Japanese

The party starts at 8 o’clock. – パーティは８時に始まる。

Even though we can also use the future tense in English, it means the same thing and is unchanged in Japanese.

The party will start at 8 o’clock. – パーティは８時に始まる。

USE 4 Now (Non-Continuous Verbs)

This case is a bit tricky because the English verb “to have” is a continuous state disguised as a non-continuous verb. In Japanese, this is always a continuous state of holding something or 「持っている」. But besides this special case, most examples are again exactly the same.

Do you have your passport with you? – パスポートを持っている？
I am here now. – 今ここにいる。

Conclusion

If you consider the fact that the present tense in the sense of an action happening exactly at the present point in time really does not exist in either English or Japanese, this opens up a whole new way of thinking. What does present tense mean and how is it expressed in each case? Is it so strange that Japanese has one more case where the plain form also expresses all future actions? Especially since the plain form is used to express so many different time frames same as the present tense in English. As USE 3 shows, even English uses the present tense for future events in some situations.

Grammatically, Japanese does not have a future tense in the sense of a verb form reserved strictly for the future. However, that’s because the whole idea of present tense is ambiguous. It’s more accurate to say there is no present tense and the plain form is the future tense in addition to other usages. What we commonly think of the present tense as expressing what’s happening now is really the present progressive which Japanese clearly has in the 「～ている」 form.

Seattle Career Expo 2008

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Update
This job fair is now over. Did anybody attend and if so, how was it? If you missed this event, please do check 帰国GO.com periodically. They seem to have a lot of good information and I’ll definitely be checking it out if I ever wanted to work in Japan again.

Gmail gave me this link based I think on my comment emails from my post about finding a job in Japan. (Google is scary! They’re reading my mail!!)

Seattle Career Expo 2008. It’s this weekend!

2008年5月24日(土)　9:00 AM – 5:00 PM
2008年5月25日(日)　9:00 AM – 3:00 PM

Hyatt Regency Bellevue
900 Bellevue Way NE. Bellevue, WA 98004
Phone: 425-462-1234
Website: http://www.bellevue.hyatt.com

Here’s the most important part for non-Japanese people.

ビジネスレベルの日本語能力をお持ちで、日本での就職を希望される方であれば、日本国籍をお持ちでない方も参加可能です。

So all you need is business Japanese. Even if your Japanese is not that great, you might still have a chance with Microsoft. I’ve never been to this job fair but it sounds pretty good.

How I found my first job in Japan

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If you’re currently a senior in college, you’re probably feverishly trying to finish up final exams and senior projects about this time. Once you’re done, if you’re like me you’ll sigh a breath of relief and then suddenly realize, “Holy shit, what am I going to do once I graduate??”

Well, I’m no expert but for those interested in finding a job in Japan, let me tell you about my experience with Career Forum, a job fair that helped me land my first job as a Java developer for Hitachi.

Career Forum is a great job fair geared for English and Japanese bilingual speakers and is free to attend for job seekers. You can apply to all sorts of companies including top names like Toshiba, NTT Docomo, and of course Hitachi. I have to be honest though. This is not for the faint of heart.

First of all, they had a technical career forum in San Francisco a little before I graduated in 2003. This year, it seems like the summer forum is being held in Tokyo so even getting there is no picnic and will hit your poor student wallet hard. For that price, you might as well consider going to the London forum at 5/31-6/1. The only other option is to wait until the end of September twiddling your thumbs for the Los Angeles forum. Juniors, you might want to think about getting a head start and plan for the next Boston and New York career forums in Fall and Winter.

Second, when I was there most of the companies seemed to be looking for Japanese people graduating from universities of English-speaking countries. The logic seems to be since they managed to graduate, they must be good at English even though the interviewer usually doesn’t speak English and so has no way of verifying this. I doubt if half the people there were actually fluent in English. So I suggest getting very comfortable in interviewing completely in Japanese. Also, I wished I had done this, but you should prepare a Japanese-style 履歴書 in addition to your regular resume. Make sure to have it proofread, ideally by somebody who successfully found a job with his/her 履歴書.

If your Japanese is not near native level, you’re going to have a lot less options so you should evaluate whether the cost of transportation and accommodations is going to be worth it. Look for foreign companies with locations in Japan like Goldman Sachs. In any case, you should check to see what companies are participating and focus on those you’re interested in. You won’t have enough time to visit every booth. Also wear a suit, no question. It’s Japan we’re talking about here.

If you do manage to land a job in Japan, congratulations! I hope you enjoy the high stress, long hours, and low pay! (Pay is based on seniority and not profession and skills.) Seriously though, you should think about whether this is the path you want to take as it’s not an easy one. I found my job by pure luck and I had to fly twice to Japan for 1st and 2nd round interviews with only the 2nd one paid for by the company. Until then, I was basically sitting around my mom’s house waiting for them to finally hire me. Even then, I was only hired on contract and became a regular employee after one year and yet another interview.

After the expense of flying and staying in San Francisco and Japan, I was pretty much out of money. Thank goodness meals at the company cafeteria and dorm were deducted from my salary. I managed to make it to my first paycheck by eating the cheapest thing I could get at 松屋 every weekend. Also, I had to shop around for a bank branch that would open an account for me without an Alien card (takes over a month to process) so that I could get paid. Can you believe that checks don’t exist in Japan?

Why go through all this when I could have had a much more comfortable job in the US with less stress and more pay? Well, working for a Japanese company in Japan was a great experience for me and helped me grow in many ways. I also started developing my career right away without spending a couple years teaching English in JET or whatnot. Still, that’s another perfectly fine option for getting into Japan. Another option is to develop your career first and then eventually find a company willing to ship you over. You’ll probably end up with a cushier job than climbing the Japanese corporate ladder from the bottom like I did. Whatever approach you decide, I suggest you do it while you’re young!

Comparing to Chinese (part 3): Grammar

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Ah ignorance is bliss. When I first compared Chinese to Japanese, I had only the most rudimentary knowledge of Chinese so my comparison was a bit misinformed. Almost a year later, my Chinese skills are… still rudimentary. I guess it can’t be helped considering the fact that I spend about 1/10 of the time I used to spend learning Japanese. However, I do know quite a bit more than I used to so here is an updated and slightly more informed comparison.

I still think Chinese is much easier than Japanese as I mentioned in my first comparison except for two main problems. One annoying issue for me personally is that most of the reading materials available nearby are in traditional Chinese probably due to the large number of Taiwanese people living in Seattle. The other difficulty I have is the one aspect of Chinese I seriously underestimated: grammar. I just can’t seem to get a good handle on Chinese grammar because really there is no grammar.

What I mean by “no grammar” is that I can’t identify any kind of common pattern to how you should arrange or structure your sentences. In Japanese, once you figure out that verbs come last and that subordinate clauses can directly modify nouns, you can logically figure out how to arrange your sentence most of the time. In addition, the function each word plays is clear regardless of order thanks to the magic of particles. However, in Chinese I’m often lost about where I should start my sentence and how to put all the words together to match my thoughts.

For example, let’s look at the classic example of, “How do you say ‘student’ in Chinese?”.

How do you say ‘student’ in Chinese?
「student」は中国語で何といいますか。
“student”中文怎么说？

Now, anybody would probably agree that the Chinese version is much easier to understand. In Japanese, you have the quotation 「と」 particle and the verb is conjugated into the polite form. With Chinese, you have three words strung together: “Chinese how say”. But the simplicity of Chinese grammar (or the lack of) is what confuses me. Can I say “中文’student’怎么说”, “‘student’怎么说中文”, or “中文怎么说’student'”? Goodness, think how confusing it would be if I asked, “中文英语怎么说?”

This is usually how Japanese and Chinese grammar differ. Chinese is much easier to learn at first but you pay the price later on. Though it depends on your learning style, you can imagine how difficult it is for someone like me who wrote a whole guide based on the structure and logic of Japanese grammar. I just don’t feel comfortable in Chinese, especially for more complicated sentences.

Chinese: 31 flavors, take your pick

You may think having no verb tenses would make things easier but you would be wrong. In Japanese, while the conjugation rules are a pain to memorize, the concepts are much closer to what we’re used to in English. For instance, a verb in the past tense means that the verb happened in the past. Simple, huh? Not in Chinese where tenses don’t exist. Take a look at the following simple sentences.

昨天去。- Yesterday go (past).
今天去。 – Today go (present).
明天去。- Tomorrow go (future).

Looks pretty easy right? But what if you don’t include when it happened? How do you indicate it happened in the past? One thing you can do is to attach “了”. If you know Japanese, you can guess from words like 「完了」　and　「終了」 that “了” indicates that the single action is complete. But if you want to say that you finished the act completely, you can attach “完”. Or you can do both!

There is also “过” which is the simplified version of 「過」 and means something has past, pretty much the same as 「過ぎる」. But besides being its own verb, it’s also another one of these characters you can attach to other verbs. This is pretty much how all of Chinese grammar works. You take certain characters that have a certain meaning and attach it somewhere in your sentence. Sigh…

你看了吗？ – Did you see/read (past)?
你看完吗？ – Did you finish seeing/reading?
你看完了吗？ – Did you finish (past) seeing/reading?
你去过吗？ – Have you gone?
你去过了吗？- Have you gone (past)?
春节过完了。 – New Year’s has past and finished.

It’s crazy, there’s just no grammar here, just characters that you can attach here and there and some are insidiously similar to others. In fact, some of these examples might not be natural Chinese (see comments) but I’m not good enough to tell.

I can go on (for example, 下着雨 vs 在下雨) but I think you get the idea. The point is, you have to learn how each individual character works, its nuances, and how it interacts in the sentence as a whole.

I have always maintained that the hardest part of learning languages is vocabulary because there’s just so much and you have to learn the nuance and usage of every word. In Chinese, grammar is basically just more vocabulary!

Conclusion

As I get farther into Chinese, I personally find Chinese grammar to be much more difficult than Japanese. While Japanese has more rules and conjugations, I think the benefit of having that structure carries with you later on. However, I would admit that it’s a difficult comparison to make and will probably depend on each person. What I can say with confidence is that Chinese grammar is by no means easy! For those of you with experience learning both languages, what do you think?

Update:
I just want to leave you all with this neat tidbit I just found at: http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/Chinese/grammarlist.htm

Use of the 正 在 V 着 O 呢 zhènzài V zhe O ne sentence pattern [9]

This sentence pattern indicates that an action is under way. Note that some of the elements of this pattern can be omitted: all the following sentences mean he is watching TV.
1. 他 正 在 看 着 电 视 呢 tā zhèngzài kànzhe diànshì ne full version
2. 他 正 看 着 电 视 呢 tā zhèng kànzhe diànshì ne without 在 zài
3. 他 在 看 着 电 视 呢 tā zài kànzhe diànshì ne without 正 zhèng
4. 他 正 在 看 电 视 呢 tā zhèngzài kàn diànshì ne without 着 zhe
5. 他 正 在 看 着 电 视 tā zhèngzài kànzhe diànshì without 呢 ne
6. 他 在 看 电 视 呢 tā zài kàn diànshì ne without 正 zhèng and 着 zhe
7. 他 看 电 视 呢 tā kàn diànshì ne without 正 zhèng , 在 zài and 着 zhe

Isn’t Chinese so fun?

Further Reading:
Contrasting English Tense and Mandarin Aspect

Learning methods: does it matter?

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Normally I hate blog posts that just link to another blog that links to another blog that links to the primary source, especially when I’m subscribed to both blogs. Just give me the source, I don’t need your one line comment and link!

Nevertheless, I read a blog post about language learning methods and felt an urge to add my two cents. Here’s an excerpt from the post.

The neat thing here – and I’ve counseled this before – is that language learning isn’t about following a method; it’s about getting in sync with and enjoying a language.

In this light, the debates about which method is best are silly. But if they keep people talking about new things that others might not have tried yet, they’re still useful. Ignore the bombast about who’s best, then, and keep reading the forums and blogs. You might just find what you are looking for now in spite of everyone’s best efforts to settle what’s best left unresolved.

Looking at the many comments on the merits and drawbacks of Heisig, I’d have to agree. I’ve learned that what works for some doesn’t work at all for others and most importantly, what didn’t work for me may work for others.

In the end, it doesn’t matter what study method you use as long as it helps you spend more time with the language. Still, I have to argue that you have to do my very simple method at some point for fluency, which as many of you already know, is to practice in a real-world context with real people and primary source materials not just artificial textbooks and dialogs. Ok, I guess it’s more common-sense than “a method” per se.

For completeness, here’s the blog post that is link to by the blog I just linked to (whew!). Amazingly, that blog doesn’t link to the primary source which is a thread in the how-to-learn-any-language.com’s forum. （ﾟ_ﾟ;）

The most useful word… EVAR

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In every language, there’s a common pattern of the most useful words being the most complicated and confusing. This is a natural consequence from the fact that the word must cover many different types of usages and meanings in order to be so useful. Due to its usefulness, it will also often go through various types of abbreviations and shortcuts to facilitate speaking, further complicating the issue. This post will cover what could arguably be the most useful and hence the most intricate word in Japanese: 「いい」. We’ll see that this word is much more expansive in scope and usage than the English equivalent word “good”. Just learning the definition is barely scratching the surface of this useful word.

Briefly on Conjugation

I’ll assume that most readers are already familiar with many of the discrepancies in the conjugation rules for 「いい」 and so I’ll just briefly mention that the discrepancies are all caused by the change from 「よい」 to 「いい」. This word is so useful and so often used that even the slight pursing of the lips to pronounce 「よ」 seemed to tax Japanese speakers and was eventually changed to 「いい」. The newer version has the added convenience of removing one pronunciation completely and replacing it with a single longer pronunciation of 「い」. The older version is now considered formal and old-fashioned. Unfortunately, many of the conjugated forms such as the negative （よくない） failed to transition over to the new pronunciation hence creating a number of discrepancies which annoy Japanese beginners to this day.

To get the full scoop, check out my page on adjectives on my grammar guide. Now let’s look at the various ways this adjective can be used. You’ll also see how these patterns translate to very different things in English and yet is just a simple adjective with some grammar patterns in Japanese.

Using 「いい」 for permission

The usage of 「いい」 for asking and granting permission is just another example of the fundamental difference between Japanese and English, as well as, a great example of how vital it is to understand how 「いい」 is used in various grammatical patterns.

In English you use words like “can” or “may” to ask for permission, in Japanese the word 「できる」 is reserved only for the ability to do something, not on whether it’s permitted or not. (This is similar to the difference between 能/会 and 行 in Chinese.)

In Japanese, you ask for permission by asking literally, “Is it good even if I…”.　I’m sure many of you in Japanese class learned the phrase: 「トイレに行ってもいいですか？」 This literally means, “Is it good even if I go to the bathroom?” Your teacher may respond by saying either 「いいです」 or 「だめです」 (or the very formal 「いけません」). There’s a logical discrepancy here in that the positive answer is 「いい」 but the negative answer is not simply the negative: 「よくない」. This is because the 「てはいけない／てはならない／てはだめ」 grammar pattern set for saying you can’t do something is separate from the one that says you can do something.

However, while saying “can” versus “can’t” is not as easy in Japanese as saying 「いい」 versus 「よくない」, there is one very useful way to use negatives with the 「V～てもいい」 pattern. You can negate the verb in front to have 「～なくてもいい」. Let’s see how this translates literally for the example: 「行ってもいい」.

1. 行ってもいい。
– It’s good even if [you] go.

2. 行かなくてもいい。
– It’s good even if [you] don’t go.

Can you guess what the examples translates to in English? The first means, “You can go” while the second means “You don’t have to go”. Once again, you have two completely different grammar patterns in one language while the other is just the negative and positive version of the same grammar pattern. Except this time, it’s the other way around. This is another example of why it’s best to work in the target language as opposed to trying to tie everything into English.

Let’s look at the following example short conversation at a training seminar.

Aさん)　トイレに行ってもいいですか？
Bさん)　いいですよ。これは授業じゃないから、聞かなくてもいいですよ。
Aさん)　じゃ、戻らなくてもいいですか？
Bさん）　だめです。

This next dialog shows how slang can hide these grammar patterns but still have the same meaning. In the dialog, Aさん is not asking if the pen is a little good.

Aさん）　そのペン、ちょっといい？
Bさん）　だめ。俺、使っているよ？
Aさん）　いいから早く貸して。

Using 「いい」 for good result

There are many variations to this usage but the basic idea is to show a good result as a result of something. The most basic example of this usage is to make a suggestion.

例）　病院に行った方がいい。
– The side of going to hospital is good. (You should go to the hospital.)

例）　どこに行けばいいですか？
– If [I] go, where is good? (Where should I go?)

Notice the non-literal translation uses the same word “should” but as you can see, the word “should” has many meanings which are expressed differently in Japanese. The first is a general suggestion such as “you should see a doctor” or “you should get some more sleep” while the second is conditional on the situation such as “Which way should I go if I wanted to go to the mall?” or “Where should I write my name?”

You can also use the past tense to talk about what you did (relief) or should have done (wishful thinking).

例）　早く予約してよかった！
– [I] made reservation early and it was good! (Good thing I made the reservation earlier!)

例）　早く予約すればよかった！
– If [I] had made reservation early it would have been good! (I should have made the reservation earlier.)

Again, you really can’t directly translate English phrases like “Good thing I…” or “I should have…”, you have to use a grammar pattern and 「いい」 to express a similar thing.

Here’s another example conversation.

Aさん）　頭が痛い。
Bさん）　コンビにで薬を買った方がいいよ。
Aさん）　どこのコンビニに行けばいいの？
Bさん）　駅の近くにあると思う。
Aさん）　今日仕事休めばよかった。

Conclusion

In writing this article, I surprised even myself on all the various hidden but essential ways 「いい」 is used in the Japanese language. It can be expressed to indicated things you should do, things that are allowed, things you don’t have to do, and much more. I hope this article helped you realize the importance mastering the many uses of 「いい」 and why it’s better to approach it from Japanese instead of from English.

Am I missing any important usages here? Let me know in the comments!

Things that lose “coolness” when translated

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Some things in Japanese just seem to lose their cool when translated into English.
I’m sure there are examples where the reverse is true but it’s much easier for me to come up with these examples.

Fighting words
「ぶっ倒してやる！」 (Cool) -> “I’m going to beat you!” (Not cool)

Technique/Spell/Summon Names
「螺旋丸！」 (Maybe Cool) -> “Spiraling Round [Thing]!” (Definitely not cool)

語尾 (technically 終助詞)
「くるぞ！」 (Brave) -> “They’re coming!” (Scared)

Expressions and Cultural Phrases
「がんばれ！」 (Uplifting) -> “Do your best!” (Dork)

Heavily Girly Style of Speech
「嫌だもん！」 (Pouty Cute) -> “I don’t like it!” (Complainy)

Finally, basically all of Death Note in English is just awkward.

What, you forgot it? Good!

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When I wrote that current spaced repetition software all suck, I wasn’t saying that you shouldn’t use them or that the idea of spaced repetition itself sucks. To make an analogy, Linus Torvalds said subversion sucks in a talk about git and while I found his talk interesting I still continue to use subversion. It’s because his philosophy and needs for source control are different from mine. Just like Linus, I think that the current SRS can be so much better based on my needs and philosophy (the difference being he actually built the software while I’m just all talk).

I have a basic and simple philosophy that learning languages should be simple and enjoyable. Current SRS are all based on the idea of study and review. I don’t like “studying” because it sounds like work and flipping through cards is work to me (and boring work at that), especially when I have to make them myself. I’ve learned enough about myself to know that I could never stick with it. But hey, I’m just talking about me personally, so don’t let me discourage you from finding the techniques that work for you. In fact, I encourage you to try out various different methods of study to find what works best for you. I went through the same experience to learn enough about myself to know what works for me.

Personally, I think spaced repetition works naturally if you have reading material with words that are spaced out. I’m talking about graded readers that naturally introduce new words while reusing old ones. You can even throw all the vocab in an SRS as a bonus but the most important part that’s missing in current SRS is the material; you have to find it yourself. The simple reason is because software is made by programmers not writers. That’s why my idea of a great spaced repetition program is not one that flips through words but one that allows use to share and find material that interests us in the language and at the right level of difficulty. Flipping through words based on the material is simply a nice bonus.

I love the concept of spaced repetition and enjoy the effects every time I learn a new word without even realizing it. This may sound counterintuitive but forgetting a word really is the best way to learn it. If you forget a word it means that you’ve already learned it and spaced enough time to forget it again. It’s hard to explain without experiencing it yourself but the more times you think, “Oh I can’t believe I forgot this word again!” the faster you end up memorizing it. So you shouldn’t feel discouraged when you forget a word, you should be thinking, “Yes! I forgot it! This is really helping me to remember it for good.”

Lingq, a cool and promising flash card website

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I just wanted to write a quick post about Lingq, a website I just found about today. It’s so cool that I just had to write something about it right away. It’s a real world implementation of some of my ideas for a better flash card program. Instead of having to create your own index cards, the website has a thing called a store which is a library of content for the language you want to learn. You can create and share your own content by adding text and upload images/audio.

Flash cards are created by selecting text and clicking a little widget at the bottom of the screen. The flash cards show you a phrase with the word instead of just having the reading and definition like most flash card programs/websites.　You can add them if you want, however, as a hint.

This is pretty much exactly what I was talking about. Sharing content and creating flash cards that have meaningful content. Though it doesn’t work for Chinese, Japanese lookups work amazingly well. Now, all they have to add is user ratings to help filter out the most interesting content.

There are also additional features involving tutors and Skype that I haven’t tried out.

I encourage everybody reading this to try it out.

My only minor complaints are that the navigation is hard to get at first and the site seems a bit slow.

Also, my original idea had linking and giving proper credit to the original content. I guess these guys are not too worried about the ethical implications of uploading other peoples’ content directly to their website without providing any kind of credit. Especially since it looks like they are trying to make a buck.