Category Archives: Learning & Resources

Language is about people, people!

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We can get wrapped up in language study just like anything else in life and lost sight of the bigger picture. Whether you’re taking class, listening to podcasts, watching TV programs, reading books, etc., after awhile it can get tiresome. I’ve taken breaks in my Chinese studies myself because I just had other things I’d rather do than study. And I’m sure I will again.

If you’re in a similar situation, take some time to write something in your target language, and here’s the most important part, get direct feedback from somebody. Pick one of the suggestions from below and do it today! Then come back and tell me how it went.

  1. If you know a friend who actually replies in a timely fashion, send him/her an email or message saying, “Hey, what’s up? Here’s what I’ve been up to. What about you?”
  2. Pick a place where native speakers visit and write what’s been on your mind lately. Here, you can even use my forum for Japanese, if you want.
  3. Send a message or friend request to a native speaker on Lang-8 or if you have lots of friends already, write a journal entry.
  4. Write a comment on this post. If you’re learning Japanese or English, I promise to reply.

Sometimes, we forgot that the whole point of learning a language is to communicate with people. The reason why we talk or write is because we expect somebody (maybe even just ourselves) will listen or read what we have to say. We are social creatures and I guarantee you’ll feel better and maybe even excited about learning the language when you’re actually communicating with somebody. I know I did once I started getting comments and messages in Chinese on Lang-8.

Make sure to let me know in the comments what you’ve done today to communicate with somebody and how it felt!

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!

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!

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;）

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.

日本語のブログ

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みなさん、日本語で書かれている面白いブログ、ご存知ないですか？英語のブログをたくさん読んでますけど、日本語のブログは全然です。

人気ブログランキングがあるんですが、範囲が広すぎて、面白いブログを探すのがめんどくさいです。有名人のブログも人気あるようですが、個人的にはあまり好きじゃないし、私みたいな凡人よりもっと面白い人生を送っているようで、なんかムカつきます。

ちにまに、私が読んでいるブログは、この日本語教師のブログぐらいです。日本語に興味なくても、なかなか面白いですよ。

コメントで面白いブログをシェアーしましょう！

最後に．．．（もう遅いけど）

あけましておめでとうございます！

今年もよろしくお願いします。これからも、コメントをじゃんじゃん書いてね！

Where’s the research for Japanese language education?

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I was taking a look at last year’s admissions test for the Japanese Applied Linguistics Graduate program at Waseda and there are some very interesting and intriguing questions.

Here’s a small sample:
G　JSLの子どもを対象にした日本語学習教材について述べなさい。

B　CLL (Community Language Learning) について説明しなさい。

H　「総合型教科書」 について述べなさい。

You can download the whole file at:
http://www.waseda.jp/gsjal/dat/nyusi_master/07.4-07.9m_kakomon.pdf.

It seems like there’s a lot of research and things going on for teaching Japanese. But I have no idea where I can get information about this stuff. For instance, how do I get these teaching materials for JSL kids? (I’m guessing JSL is Japanese as a Second Language like ESL?) I’m also curious about what a 「総合型教科書」 is and how it could help people learning Japanese. It certainly can’t be worse than the mainstream textbooks here. Or maybe Community Language Learning is the way to go for learning Japanese? I have no idea because unfortunately, real research studies and papers are nowhere to be found on the net. I guess I can try looking in University libraries nearby.

The thing I’m wondering is how does all this research help people learning languages? Biomedical research cure illnesses and technology research (eventually) creates new and innovative products but how does research in applied linguistics help improve the language classes that you and I take? Why are we still stuck with workbooks, flash cards, drills, cheesy dialogues, and crappy textbooks? When is this Applied Linguistics research going to “apply” to us?

I’m curious to hear from anybody studying Applied Linguistics particularly for Japanese or Chinese. What’s the best way for me to catch up on current research and introduce the good stuff to the rest of the world?

How many of you have a stack of index cards collecting dust?

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Following up from yesterday’s post about index card programs, I stumbled upon Jonathan’s blog and his post about spaced repetition software by following his comment link.

I won’t talk about them here because as we all know, I think they all suck. Why is it that these programs never think about sharing index cards, community ranking by difficulty level, and incorporating richer content than just text? Jonathan, if you want my opinion, you’re wasting your time. Please do let us know how it goes, though.

But it’s only been a few days that I’ve been using this method, so I can’t gauge yet just how effective it is. For now, however, I’m pretty pleased. It certainly beats the pit of near-inactivity that I have been falling in recently.

I certainly can’t argue with that.

Personally, I’ve tried them all and could never stick with it. I ignored the desktop or homepage widget, deleted my kanji email after they piled up, stop going to the websites, and my index cards were collecting dust long before I finally threw them away. I eventually realized it wasn’t a problem of motivation (I had that in spades) but rather a problem stemming from a flawed method. The index cards themselves were as interesting as reading a dictionary because well… that’s essentially what it is.

Have any of you successfully used these programs or index cards to study for a significant period of time? (I know my readership is dismally too small to make a statistical difference but I’m curious anyway.)