Wanda Kaishin

Quote from another thread:

link? @Blaveloper - In another thread you said: But now you say: Please don't stretch the truth just to impress people. If you truly became "proficient" in Japanese in 18 weeks, you must have your own very special definition of "proficient". Maybe something like Benny Lewis's definition of "fluent"?

I always learn to converse before/better than I write, so I was a little surprised by the title. This is because I choose a learning method with the highest priority on making me a good speaker.

All skills reinforce each other, so they should all be practiced.

I recommend you use a different verb

I agree with you in principal, but want to add that nothing will work if you're not putting in a lot of time using the vocabulary. In other words, time spent doing exercises like flashcards and wordlists should be only a fraction of the time you spend using the language.

I'm probably good at picking out tonal languages because I speak 2 of them. If you listen carefully, you can hear him pronounce a high steady tone, almost like he's singing it, every few words. It's only a split second, but I bet you can pick it out if you listen to it again. It has more tones than that, but that high tone is the easy one to pick out.

As you might have expected, it doesn't. It just interferes with your sleep cycle.

Here's an old thread from a crusty old forum which I still think has the most comprehensive advice on learning vocabulary. I hope somebody archives it because I hear that forum is going down.

My first step in learning a language is learning pronunciation (along with the script). I learn it for the phonemes, words and sentences. By the time I'm through with that, I usually know several hundred words and many sentence patterns, so I'm ready to start talking. This is about 2-4 months in. So when I start talking to natives, my pronunciation is quite good. Of course I sometimes mispronounce, but it's usually with words I don't know. Honestly, I don't understand wanting to talk to a native before even being able to pronounce their language. I'm not judging you, but I wouldn't want to be that native speaker.

Monotonous and tonal have opposite meanings. It's definitely a tonal language.

What are you basing that on? What skills does dreaming prove you've mastered?

I realize most people will probably ignore this post, but I just wanted to point out the OP's definition of "active listening" isn't what most of the recent posters think it is. Please read the first post to understand what I mean.

It's tonal. Could be native american...maybe Navajo? I just listened to a sample of Navajo and it sounds very close.

Just saw this - thanks!

Imo, the OP's grammar is fine for informal writing (forum posts, personal blogs, texting, etc), and I wouldn't call it poor because I think that's a little strong. But for something formal I would understand why it wouldn't be accepted. Personally, when I read something published or official I get a little annoyed if I see even minor grammar mistakes. That being said, there's just so much unregulated content out there today that it seems to be harder and harder to get writers with excellent grammar to fill all the writing positions.

It's true for all languages I study. However, when I write a language, since my goal is to improve my conversation and I don't intend on becoming a good writer, I usually write like I speak. Drives some of my teachers nuts at times, but there it is.

Awesome tool. I use it more often than all my other translation sites combined. Of course it has limitations, but what site doesn't?

The genre that you like the most. One book that's often recommended as a first French novel is L'étranger.

To be fair, he said that you need all those kanji before you can really dig into the grammar. But that's also false. There are extensive grammars with furigana, kana, and even romaji, assuming you have to read to learn it. Adults can't learn like children, so it makes little sense to compare them.

Yeah, I didn't know what you meant by "learn according to the scholarly system". You probably wanted to say something like "you have to choose a language for your child to take in school". And I understand your point regarding teaching a language that isn't your mother tongue; I just disagree with it.

Why? I learn languages faster at this age than when I was younger. And everyone takes several years to master their mother tongue.

Norwegian is first on your list, so that's your choice. Good luck with it!

You didn't write anything about schools in your first post, so thanks for clarifying. Maybe things have changed, but when I went to school here in the US we didn't start learning foreign languages until high school. At that age, I think it's unwise for the parent to try to get involved with the child's decision. Let the child choose; maybe she'll actually stay with it that way. And outside of school, I'm sticking with my previously stated opinion. Please don't teach anyone a language which you aren't a native speaker of. It messes up their accent, grammar, word selection and probably a lot of other things.