So language error of the day today may make it into the top ten for the year.
I wanted to buy some running shoes, so I went to a store in Shinjuku where I was told they sell the sort I'm after. I couldn't see any on the shelves so I plucked up the courage to ask one of the staff if they sold them.
すみません。。。
My enquiry was met, as usual, with a rather long winded reply, which I interpreted to mean, no we don't have any at the moment.
Not too discouraged by this I decided to plough on and ask when they would get some in. The clerk wasn't sure, so I was escorted over to his boss, who began to go on about sizes and seemed to be saying that they'd have some in tomorrow.
Great! I thought. It was then that the conversation took a turn for the worse.
What size are you?
She asked.
Oh, shit!
I've never bothered to remember what my shoe size measurement is in Japanese / American measurements, so, beginning to get a little flustered, I told her that I only knew my size in UK measurements.
In fact, I made a bit of a mess of telling her that, and a thin layer of sweat had by now formed on my head as I began to mentally wrestle with the dual problem of shoe size conversion and foreign language communication.
Oh, that's OK. She said. What 's your shoe size in UK size?
Oh, she knows UK sizes? Great!... Shit!..... What is my shoe size in UK sizes.....? Oh yeah it's 11..... or 12.... or something like that isn't it.
11 o'clock. I said.....
..... or half past eleven.
Yes, that's right I converted my feet into clocks and began to talk about the time.
They didn't seem to mind too much though, and it was only when it dawned on me that I had made the error that I brought real attention to it by trying to correct it. No, no! not 11:30 of course, 11 and a half.
Unfortunately, all my hard work went unrewarded as there is no knowing, apparently, when they will have any 11s or 11 and a halfs in. And, in my rush to extract myself from the embarrassing "feet becoming clocks" conversation I didn't manage to find out what an 11 and a half is in Japanese measurements.
Better google it I guess...
Tuesday 21 September 2010
Step by step
I've just had two days off, and to be honest, I haven't really felt like studying much. This is not unusual and I've compensated by watching some TV and doing a bit of reading, but it has reinforced a pattern I've noticed in my emotions and motivation with regard to my language study.
It feels like there are a lot of very small steps that I need to climb to progress in a language. Every so often, it feels like I have climbed one of these steps, maybe I notice that I am able to understand something that I had had trouble with a few months previously, or it might just be a general feeling of progress that is hard to define, I just feel like I have improved in some way.
Climbing one of these steps is a good feeling, and may be followed by a few days of positive feelings about the whole thing, but this is, I have begun to notice, followed shortly after by a period of not such positive feelings—it's as if there is a high after the fact, that is, like any good drug addict will tell you, followed by a low.
I think the reason for this is probably pretty easy to work out. It's like the feeling of climbing one of those steps is accompanied by an expectation that the rest will be pretty straightforward—I've moved up a level and my language experience will improve! I can look forward to trouble free conversation anytime soon!—Unfortunately, this is seldom the case, and climbing one of these small steps is usually followed pretty quickly by more frustration and hardwork.
I think this has been the case this week. I'd had some pretty good conversations in the past week, using language I hadn't used before, and felt that I'd kind of found a comfort zone in the language. Of course this was soon followed by some less successful attempts, and this may have resulted in the lack of motivation over the last few days.
What can I learn from this? I guess not to get my hopes up so much might be one way of looking at it, but it seems a bit negative to me. The more positive way to look at it might be to try and remember what it was that had caused this feeling of progression, and try and do more of it in the future. In last weeks case, it was listening to podcasts on LingQ that I believe had given me the added confidence in my conversations that week, so I'm going to try and listen to a few more of them over the coming weeks.
It feels like there are a lot of very small steps that I need to climb to progress in a language. Every so often, it feels like I have climbed one of these steps, maybe I notice that I am able to understand something that I had had trouble with a few months previously, or it might just be a general feeling of progress that is hard to define, I just feel like I have improved in some way.
Climbing one of these steps is a good feeling, and may be followed by a few days of positive feelings about the whole thing, but this is, I have begun to notice, followed shortly after by a period of not such positive feelings—it's as if there is a high after the fact, that is, like any good drug addict will tell you, followed by a low.
I think the reason for this is probably pretty easy to work out. It's like the feeling of climbing one of those steps is accompanied by an expectation that the rest will be pretty straightforward—I've moved up a level and my language experience will improve! I can look forward to trouble free conversation anytime soon!—Unfortunately, this is seldom the case, and climbing one of these small steps is usually followed pretty quickly by more frustration and hardwork.
I think this has been the case this week. I'd had some pretty good conversations in the past week, using language I hadn't used before, and felt that I'd kind of found a comfort zone in the language. Of course this was soon followed by some less successful attempts, and this may have resulted in the lack of motivation over the last few days.
What can I learn from this? I guess not to get my hopes up so much might be one way of looking at it, but it seems a bit negative to me. The more positive way to look at it might be to try and remember what it was that had caused this feeling of progression, and try and do more of it in the future. In last weeks case, it was listening to podcasts on LingQ that I believe had given me the added confidence in my conversations that week, so I'm going to try and listen to a few more of them over the coming weeks.
Monday 20 September 2010
Chinese character goal
I have set myself the goal of completing all the Smart FM Chinese character goals by the end of February—6 months from now.
This goal will be difficult, but I have made it difficult in the belief that this will get me to study faster and harder than if the goal was easier.
At the moment I’m on level 2. Level 1 took me approximately 20 hours. Considering level 1 was pretty easy for me anyway because I’m familiar with a lot of the basic Kanji, let’s say that it takes 24 hours to complete one level. In that case, a robot would be able to complete the course in 10 days. Unfortunately, I’m not a robot, so 6 months is my goal. That means I have to complete one and a bit goals per month—let’s say 30 hours a month. That’s about an hour a day. When I have to work, that's unlikely, but if I can keep in the game, I can play catch up when I have some spare time.
I'm going to measure my progress by saying 50% of each level should be completed by the 15th of the month—50% of level 2 by 15th September, level 3 15th October and so on, and the whole goal should be completed by the end of the month (so far, so good). Then it's just a case of fitting those other 2 or 3 goals in somewhere along the way.
Should I manage this, then in theory, I should know enough Chinese to read a newspaper by March next year. I guess the grammar might be a little weak here, but if the goals work as they should, then character recognition and pronunciation shouldn't be a problem. Seems hard to believe.
Watch this space.
This goal will be difficult, but I have made it difficult in the belief that this will get me to study faster and harder than if the goal was easier.
At the moment I’m on level 2. Level 1 took me approximately 20 hours. Considering level 1 was pretty easy for me anyway because I’m familiar with a lot of the basic Kanji, let’s say that it takes 24 hours to complete one level. In that case, a robot would be able to complete the course in 10 days. Unfortunately, I’m not a robot, so 6 months is my goal. That means I have to complete one and a bit goals per month—let’s say 30 hours a month. That’s about an hour a day. When I have to work, that's unlikely, but if I can keep in the game, I can play catch up when I have some spare time.
I'm going to measure my progress by saying 50% of each level should be completed by the 15th of the month—50% of level 2 by 15th September, level 3 15th October and so on, and the whole goal should be completed by the end of the month (so far, so good). Then it's just a case of fitting those other 2 or 3 goals in somewhere along the way.
Should I manage this, then in theory, I should know enough Chinese to read a newspaper by March next year. I guess the grammar might be a little weak here, but if the goals work as they should, then character recognition and pronunciation shouldn't be a problem. Seems hard to believe.
Watch this space.
Thursday 16 September 2010
Musical Instruments or Foreign Languages: which are harder?
Is mastering a foreign language as good an achievement as mastering a musical instrument?
I was skimming through this site the other day when I saw a Chinese Mandarin script that had been recorded by someone from Scotland, who listed their accent as Glaswegian. The thought of someone speaking Mandarin with a Glaswegian accent was pretty enticing, so I clicked on the recording, and, low and behold, the Mandarin was perfect. It really was like listening to a native speaker. I was well impressed!!
Well, this got me thinking as to how I would love to be able to speak Mandarin like this, and what a sense of achievement this would give me.
I began to think, would being able to speak Mandarin this well, be equivalent to say, mastering the violin, say to a level where you could play in a proper orchestra? And if so, why are there no people who are exulted for their second language talents, as world class artists like say Joshua Bell or Yo-Yo Ma are?
The only comparison I could think of is perhaps someone like 大山 Dashan, or Mark Henry Roswell, to give him his real name. But then 大山 really is famous for his performing skills I think, it just so happens that he is performing in a foreign language, and performing a type of cultural comedy, 相声 Xiangsheng, that is completely foreign to his native culture.
So I guess my question is this: Is learning a musical instrument to an extremely high standard more difficult than learning a foreign language fluently? Is there something that makes an art form like playing the violin different to training your vocal muscles in such a way that there are able to speak a foreign language?
One argument might be that mastering a foreign language really is just a means to an end, and not actually worth anything in itself—seeing that there are, depending on which language you are learning, already many millions of people who can already do what it takes a language learner years to achieve, just because they were born and raised in that area.
My feeling is that learning a second language is very much like learning a musical instrument, and the satisfaction gained from mastering either is just as great. The truly great pianists, cellists, and guitarists however, are at an advantage over the language learner in that they have mastered something that few people manage to do. Mastering a foreign language is equally, if not more difficult—you have to rely on, and use others to a certain extent to make progress, and bend to the culture and society of the language you are learning—but the number of people who actually master the skill are then dwarfed by the number of people who can do it anyway, without spending so much as a minute consciously thinking about it. It’s like spending years and years trying to behave and move like a cat, only to find out that there are already millions of cats!!
Perhaps.
Maybe I should take up the violin… again.
Actually, I should point out that the Mandarin recording uploaded by the Scotsman, was, it turns out, not actually recorded by a Scotsman at all, but by a native speaker. On further investigation it transpired that some technical difficulties forced the recording to be uploaded by someone other than the person who recorded it. Still, I’d like to think that there are some Glaswegians out there who can speak Mandarin like a native.
I was skimming through this site the other day when I saw a Chinese Mandarin script that had been recorded by someone from Scotland, who listed their accent as Glaswegian. The thought of someone speaking Mandarin with a Glaswegian accent was pretty enticing, so I clicked on the recording, and, low and behold, the Mandarin was perfect. It really was like listening to a native speaker. I was well impressed!!
Well, this got me thinking as to how I would love to be able to speak Mandarin like this, and what a sense of achievement this would give me.
I began to think, would being able to speak Mandarin this well, be equivalent to say, mastering the violin, say to a level where you could play in a proper orchestra? And if so, why are there no people who are exulted for their second language talents, as world class artists like say Joshua Bell or Yo-Yo Ma are?
The only comparison I could think of is perhaps someone like 大山 Dashan, or Mark Henry Roswell, to give him his real name. But then 大山 really is famous for his performing skills I think, it just so happens that he is performing in a foreign language, and performing a type of cultural comedy, 相声 Xiangsheng, that is completely foreign to his native culture.
So I guess my question is this: Is learning a musical instrument to an extremely high standard more difficult than learning a foreign language fluently? Is there something that makes an art form like playing the violin different to training your vocal muscles in such a way that there are able to speak a foreign language?
One argument might be that mastering a foreign language really is just a means to an end, and not actually worth anything in itself—seeing that there are, depending on which language you are learning, already many millions of people who can already do what it takes a language learner years to achieve, just because they were born and raised in that area.
My feeling is that learning a second language is very much like learning a musical instrument, and the satisfaction gained from mastering either is just as great. The truly great pianists, cellists, and guitarists however, are at an advantage over the language learner in that they have mastered something that few people manage to do. Mastering a foreign language is equally, if not more difficult—you have to rely on, and use others to a certain extent to make progress, and bend to the culture and society of the language you are learning—but the number of people who actually master the skill are then dwarfed by the number of people who can do it anyway, without spending so much as a minute consciously thinking about it. It’s like spending years and years trying to behave and move like a cat, only to find out that there are already millions of cats!!
Perhaps.
Maybe I should take up the violin… again.
Actually, I should point out that the Mandarin recording uploaded by the Scotsman, was, it turns out, not actually recorded by a Scotsman at all, but by a native speaker. On further investigation it transpired that some technical difficulties forced the recording to be uploaded by someone other than the person who recorded it. Still, I’d like to think that there are some Glaswegians out there who can speak Mandarin like a native.
Wednesday 1 September 2010
Exciting new blog
I have a new blog!
And no messing around this time. This one's going straight to the heart of the Japanese nation. A Japanese blog, in Japanese.
Check it out:
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/easterngrean
My initial idea is to try and translate Japanese news articles into English. I'm gonna try and select ones that have links to China, and hopefully, as my Chinese improves, I'll be able to translate them into Chinese too. Actually, I mean, from Chinese, into English. Vice versa will probably have to wait a bit longer.
Anyway, hope it's interesting.
Feedback/comments welcome!
And no messing around this time. This one's going straight to the heart of the Japanese nation. A Japanese blog, in Japanese.
Check it out:
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/easterngrean
My initial idea is to try and translate Japanese news articles into English. I'm gonna try and select ones that have links to China, and hopefully, as my Chinese improves, I'll be able to translate them into Chinese too. Actually, I mean, from Chinese, into English. Vice versa will probably have to wait a bit longer.
Anyway, hope it's interesting.
Feedback/comments welcome!
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