Is it necessary to have newbie lessons?

[watermen]

Ok...it is newbie #50 today, looking back from the day I started studying Japanese, I realize how much I improved.

I started off with newbies then beginner S1 and S2. When I listen to newbie lessons now, I realized that it is too easy for me. This prompted me to think the necessity of having anymore of these lessons. I believe anyone who went through the first 30-40 newbie lessons and then proceed to beginner lessons really don't need anymore newbie lessons. What is the point of teaching newbie stuff again and again when most people already know how to use, we need to improve too right? We are not going to stay in newbie level all the time right? I realized that most people who listen to the latest newbie lessons now are mostly pretty advanced or at least intermediate. Real newbies are not likely to listen to the latest newbie lessons, they will most likely start from the beginning, since that is a better way to study, by the time they reach newbie lesson #50, they are really no longer newbie??? Look at those people who wrote comments on the few latest newbie and S2 lessons, these people are definitely not newbie or beginner. The real newbie write their comments on the first few lessons. This clearly demonstrate the demographic differences.

According to another thread that I started, it seems that Jpod101 team is spending ton of hours in creating 1 lessons, it is a great effort and I am really touched with that. With that being said, shouldn't Jpod101 consider stopping newbie lessons and channel more energy in creating intermediate or more advanced lessons?

I believe the reason why Jpod101 emphasize so much on beginner level is because there are a lot of beginners out there who just started learning Japanese like me, therefore it is reasonable to have this policy when Jpod101 first commenced. Jpod101 is going to be 2 year old next month, I certainly believe those that have closely followed every lessons from Jpod101 from the beginning are no longer beginner anymore. I have to say that with 50 newbie, 170 S1 beginner and 49 S2 beginner lessons, this amount to a total of 269 lessons..with an average of 4 pages per PDF file, if you print all the PDF files out, there will be more than 1000 pages!!! This is more than any Japanese text book with the purpose of achieving a beginner level that I know of. If you add up all the audio together, it will be more than 67 hours. This is more than any Japanese classes too! This does not include the 60 survival lessons and 50 cultural lessons. That will amount to 379 lessons! More than 1500 pages of PDF, more than 95 hours of lessons!!!

I agree there is a big market for new beginner, but I am very certain that there are more people out there who are stuck somewhere between beginner and advanced level. This especially apply to people who started Japanese long time ago and stopped studying, people who took a few semester of Japanese classes, people who live in Japan for a while or even people who just finished all the 269 newbie and beginner lessons. These people are definitely not beginners, yet their level is no where near fluency or functionable. These are the people that know a little bit of Japanese yet not enough to read yomiuri shinbun or hold a normal conversation with a Japanese. Relearning newbie or beginner lessons is not going to bring them to another level. Yet going straight to intermediate may be a little tough, lower intermediate seems to be a nice option, but there are just too few lessons.

I hereby beseech Jpod101 team to reformulate their lessons strategy. Please focus on trying to help existing users to reach a higher level of fluency with the goal to make them advanced Japanese users. 369 lessons are really more than enough for any normal people with an average IQ of 100. Should anyone failed to reach a beginner level after 369 lessons....most likely there is something wrong with that person, that person needs to rethink his/her studying method.

We need more lower intermediate and intermediate lessons. Please consider setting up an advanced level too. I know premium is a great idea...but there are only 4 lessons...the audio blogs are great too..but it is not a lesson.

Those who are stuck between beginner and advanced level, please support my idea, let's push Jpod101 team to create more higher level lessons.

May be we can have 2 lower intermediate, 2 intermediate, 1 premium or advanced level each week. And 1 audio on Saturday or Sunday.

Please look into it seriously. ありがとうお願いします。

[jemstone]

i recall a post somewhere in the forum that talked abt this.

the newbie and beginner lessons are here to stay, as it was mentioned a post, the reason this place is called japanesepod101 and not japanesepod201 is because it is catering mainly for people who wants to pick up japanese.

however in that same post, it was also highlighted that there will be advanced stuffs coming in for those who are no longer beginners.

in that sense, japanesepod101 is widening it's scope, but because of the nature of japanesepod101, the focus on newbie and beginner lessons probably aren't gonna be diminished.

[markystar]

first, a suggestion - a little more review of the basics might not hurt, as "ありがとうお願いします" is not correct japanese.


as jemstoneさん said, there was a similar thread this summer and i tried to explain the situation from our perspective. everyone comes for his/her own reasons and has their own personal goals. but not only are people on varying levels, but they also have their own learning styles and differing amounts of time available to study. we try take all of these things into account. there are obviously some practical limitations, but we aim to keep as many people happy as we can. my personal crusade has been to interact with as many users as possible and listen so we can customize lessons for as many people as possible. but for better or for worse, the majority will win --- even if there is a more outspoken minority (i'll go into this in more detail in a minute).

for people looking for more difficult material, i have good news!
we will be kicking off the new year with new seasons and a new approach to some of the levels. so stay tuned for that! We will start off the year with Lower Intermediate on thursdays and Upper Intermediate on fridays, so both intermediate levels will be getting harder. it's not set in stone, but if i get my way, sometime around June Upper Intermediate will become Advanced, conducted entirely in Japanese. as a hint of things to come, the first Upper Intermediate lesson series will be called "We Need a Translator" and covers things that are even difficult for native speakers. i'm really looking forward to it!

now, why the majority rules...
i wouldn't judge the level of listeners strictly by the people who post in the lesson threads. there are many more listeners who never comment publicly nor interact with the community. furthermore, a lot of people who are very active on the site are really big fans of the site. they're really passionate about jpod and literally listen to everything, regardless of level. since there's an entertainment value to the lessons as well as a pedagogical one, it's not unusual for lower intermediate learners to listen to beginner lessons or newbies. but it all boils down to this: statistically, the majority of our listeners are new to the language (ie; Newbie and Beginner). luckily, long term listeners are advancing and new people are joining, so that's why we can finally expand the Intermediate levels. That said, currently, we offer 3 non-beginner series if you include Miki's blog. so, if the Newbies are too easy, it's not like there's nothing else to choose from.

in the new year there'll be a lot of great things to look forward to, especially for people in the JLPT 二級 bracket, and come summer, in the JLPT 一級 bracket. i'm really excited about doing more difficult lessons.
and... there will also be Newbie Season 3 and Beginner Season 3

marky

[annie]

ooh, I'm excited for the 1級 stuff.
But, I think the Beginner/Newbie lessons are more important to offer.

Not everyone who listens to the podcasts is actually studying Japanese; my mother started listening to them before she came to visit me in Japan and she had no plans to ever speak a word of Japanese, it was just a way to learn more about Japan. (and in case I abandoned her on the mean streets of Kyoto )

Anyone who is at an Advanced Level needs a lot more that japanesepod101 can reasonably offer. (And besides, I think I learn something new in almost every lesson I listen to.) Supplement your learning with other material, devote some time to reading and writing.

[kitty-chan]

I agree with Annie!
I am busy with my university and my family and my boyfriend and my work. I have more time to visit the site than actually listen to a lesson.

Waterman, it's amazing that you came this far in a few weeks! おつかれさまです！
I wish I had as much free time as you!
But why should JP101 should stop making newbie lessons just because you finished them so quickly? You sound kind of selfish, no offense.

I tried to study Japanese with a text book and it was so boring. But the stories and pace here are very good for learning. がんばってください、JP101！:kokoro:

[NickT]

Great news about the upper intermediate and advanced lessons. Even though I am probably not ready for them yet, it is good to know that there will be something waiting for me when I get there. It gives me something to aim at, too - extra motivation!

It was the same way with the current intermediate lessons, and the audio blog. They were too hard for me when they first came out, but now I am at the right level and have plenty of material to keep me entertained

Can't wait

[Ulver_684]

Ok...it is newbie #50 today, looking back from the day I started studying Japanese, I realize how much I improved.

I started off with newbies then beginner S1 and S2. When I listen to newbie lessons now, I realized that it is too easy for me. This prompted me to think the necessity of having anymore of these lessons. I believe anyone who went through the first 30-40 newbie lessons and then proceed to beginner lessons really don't need anymore newbie lessons. What is the point of teaching newbie stuff again and again when most people already know how to use, we need to improve too right? We are not going to stay in newbie level all the time right? I realized that most people who listen to the latest newbie lessons now are mostly pretty advanced or at least intermediate. Real newbies are not likely to listen to the latest newbie lessons, they will most likely start from the beginning, since that is a better way to study, by the time they reach newbie lesson #50, they are really no longer newbie??? Look at those people who wrote comments on the few latest newbie and S2 lessons, these people are definitely not newbie or beginner. The real newbie write their comments on the first few lessons. This clearly demonstrate the demographic differences.

According to another thread that I started, it seems that Jpod101 team is spending ton of hours in creating 1 lessons, it is a great effort and I am really touched with that. With that being said, shouldn't Jpod101 consider stopping newbie lessons and channel more energy in creating intermediate or more advanced lessons?

I believe the reason why Jpod101 emphasize so much on beginner level is because there are a lot of beginners out there who just started learning Japanese like me, therefore it is reasonable to have this policy when Jpod101 first commenced. Jpod101 is going to be 2 year old next month, I certainly believe those that have closely followed every lessons from Jpod101 from the beginning are no longer beginner anymore. I have to say that with 50 newbie, 170 S1 beginner and 49 S2 beginner lessons, this amount to a total of 269 lessons..with an average of 4 pages per PDF file, if you print all the PDF files out, there will be more than 1000 pages!!! This is more than any Japanese text book with the purpose of achieving a beginner level that I know of. If you add up all the audio together, it will be more than 67 hours. This is more than any Japanese classes too! This does not include the 60 survival lessons and 50 cultural lessons. That will amount to 379 lessons! More than 1500 pages of PDF, more than 95 hours of lessons!!!

I agree there is a big market for new beginner, but I am very certain that there are more people out there who are stuck somewhere between beginner and advanced level. This especially apply to people who started Japanese long time ago and stopped studying, people who took a few semester of Japanese classes, people who live in Japan for a while or even people who just finished all the 269 newbie and beginner lessons. These people are definitely not beginners, yet their level is no where near fluency or functionable. These are the people that know a little bit of Japanese yet not enough to read yomiuri shinbun or hold a normal conversation with a Japanese. Relearning newbie or beginner lessons is not going to bring them to another level. Yet going straight to intermediate may be a little tough, lower intermediate seems to be a nice option, but there are just too few lessons.

I hereby beseech Jpod101 team to reformulate their lessons strategy. Please focus on trying to help existing users to reach a higher level of fluency with the goal to make them advanced Japanese users. 369 lessons are really more than enough for any normal people with an average IQ of 100. Should anyone failed to reach a beginner level after 369 lessons....most likely there is something wrong with that person, that person needs to rethink his/her studying method.

We need more lower intermediate and intermediate lessons. Please consider setting up an advanced level too. I know premium is a great idea...but there are only 4 lessons...the audio blogs are great too..but it is not a lesson.

Those who are stuck between beginner and advanced level, please support my idea, let's push Jpod101 team to create more higher level lessons.

May be we can have 2 lower intermediate, 2 intermediate, 1 premium or advanced level each week. And 1 audio on Saturday or Sunday.

Please look into it seriously. ありがとうお願いします。

Watermen-san!

Lets talk the true, if you really know so much Japanese thanks to JP101 and all your sites and methods then write this whole paragraph in Japanese. I honestly don't believe you until you post a video on youtube or write in Japanese but you refuse to do one video.

I saw another topic where you give your method so everybody follows, it may work for you but it's not for everyone and everybody is different and has another ways to learn.

You also said that you are learning Japanese to learn some formulas, whatever you really are not that much interest in Japan has we are all here. My goal is to live in Japan and love this country with all my heart like my native country so I have to support Jemstone-san, Marky-san and Annie-san because they really have the great responce to your topic, wants and needs.

[watermen]

Watermen-san!

Lets talk the true, if you really know so much Japanese thanks to JP101 and all your sites and methods then write this whole paragraph in Japanese. I honestly don't believe you until you post a video on youtube or write in Japanese but you refuse to do one video.

I saw another topic where you give your method so everybody follows, it may work for you but it's not for everyone and everybody is different and has another ways to learn.

You also said that you are learning Japanese to learn some formulas, whatever you really are not that much interest in Japan has we are all here. My goal is to live in Japan and love this country with all my heart like my native country so I have to support Jemstone-san, Marky-san and Annie-san because they really have the great responce to your topic, wants and needs.

I wish I can write everything in Japanese. Unfortunately, I can't. May be a few more months??? Besides that writing in Japanese is not my goal, my goal is to be able to read yomiuri shinbun.

I have never said my method will work for everyone, neither I think my method is the best. My intention was not to make everyone follow. I just wanted to share my experience. In the end of the day, you make your own decision.

If Jpod101 has infinite resources, then making endless newbie lessons will be fine. Unfortunately, Jpod101 does not has infinite resources. Which is why I suggest Jpod101 to consider shifting their focus.

[watermen]

Here is a similar discussion about newbie lessons in Chinesepod.

After reading the post there, here is my pros and cons of low level lessons.

Pros:
1. There is always a beginner market.
2. Repetition of newbie and beginner help to strengthen your Japanese foundation.
3. It can be a day for more advanced listeners to lay back and relax.
4. The story in the podcast can be fun.

Cons:
1. Too many newbie and beginner lessons can be intimidating to a new comer.
I was intimidated by the 170 S1 lessons when I started 1 1/2 month ago. I was wondering when can I ever finish all of them. I am still at lesson #150 by now. I am not willing to skip any lessons. You can call me OCD, but I believe in progressing through all the lessons in a step wise manner, because I really don't want to miss out anything.

I think 170 beginner lessons are OK, but not newbie!

If Jpod101 is going to have 500 newbie lessons one day. It is very intimidating. A newbie may want to finish all 500 lessons before they feel happy to go to the next level.

Those 228 newbie lessons in CPod are really intimidating. I can't imagine how long will I take to finish all of them. Those that argue against my idea, imagine you want to study chinese and decide to use Cpod, how do you feel about listening to all 228 newbie lessons? Will you want to go through all 228 newbie lessons before going to the next level?

The questions will be, does anyone need 228 newbie lessons to achieve a beginner level? The answer is certainly not. I rather have 228 lower intermediate lessons to achieve an intermediate level than to have 228 newbie just to achieve a beginner level.

2. Jpod101 can use their limited resources more wisefully.

3. It can be boring to listen to the same kind of material again and again.


Since it is not advisable to scrap it all together. Therefore, I suggest Jpod101 to reduce the frequency of newbie and beginner. May be Jpod101 can have 1 newbie or 1 beginner S2 every 2-3 weeks. These time slot can be used to make more higher level lessons.

[Javizy]

You have some sort of point in that the beginner lessons start you from scratch, so there isn't really any need for newbie. However, I think they're trying to provide an improved set of lessons for people new to the language, while still leaving the old ones available for download. The original lessons were done a long time ago after all. You also have to realise that the new podcasts are jpod's best means of attracting new listeners, the majority of whom will be complete beginners.

I don't exactly agree with the intimidating point; the more lessons the better. The only downside is wanting to catch up to post comments the day the lessons are released, but most people are realistic and don't aim to achieve fluency in a couple of weeks. I only finished all the lessons last week (less Miki's blog), having managed to stretch them out over eight months. It's motivating to have an audio lesson to listen to every day while reading other textbooks and literature at my level (Doraemon ).

You can't rely solely on jpod, even if they do such a great job. You should definitely have some grammar references and books in Japanese to synergise with what you learn here. I 100% recommend the books 'Basic Connections: Making Your Japanese Flow', and 'Japanese Core Words and Phrases' by Kakuko Shoji. The first one covers pretty much all the grammar and a lot more covered on this website from a different perspective. It has comparisons and examples that teach you to sound more natural. The second one is like a dictionary of idiomatic expressions, they're both priceless books and have cleared up so many points for me.

[watermen]

You have some sort of point in that the beginner lessons start you from scratch, so there isn't really any need for newbie. However, I think they're trying to provide an improved set of lessons for people new to the language, while still leaving the old ones available for download. The original lessons were done a long time ago after all. You also have to realise that the new podcasts are jpod's best means of attracting new listeners, the majority of whom will be complete beginners.

At least to me, I realized that the best series among all the lessons is the S1 beginner lessons. This series successfully brought me to another level. My Japanese improve progressively because of this series. Sometimes, I wish Jpod101 can continue making more S1 lessons.

The newbie series and beginner S2 have no continuity in term of difficulty. Each lesson is like a standalone lesson. There is no progressive increase in difficulty like beginner S1. I don't feel that I actually improve much until I started the beginner lessons.

[markystar]

beginner season 2 is designed to reinforce. it doesn't progress.
it's for practicing fundamental grammar necessary for the Level 3 JLPT, but generally introduces a lot of other items: slang, dialects, male/female speech variance, and in general it's more focused on natural spoken japanese.

also there are 2 newbie series. there original newbie series and then the nihongo dojo. they are both separate progressions and don't bear any connection beyond the designation "newbie."

personally, i recommend true newbies to start with nihongo dojo. if there is some question about grammar, they can check out the older lessons. also, there are grammar tags for each lesson. so certain points can be compared to other lessons and various levels. once people 'graduate' from the newbie level, the beginner season 1's are a good place to continue (or as you did, follow them in parallel).*

the last beginner lessons were actually quite advanced, as i'm sure you've noticed (problem on the pitch and text message turmoil come to mind...)

there comes a point when studying any language, be it english, latin, spanish, german, etc, where you've learned all the basic grammar. there's a finite amount of building blocks. at that point, the student has to focus on honing their skills through exposure to the language and using the basics. vocabulary has to be built up. idioms have to be learnt. nuances and connotations need to be mastered. politeness levels, definitely not so simple in japanese, have to be reinforced. this is true in all languages. after a certain point there is linear progression.

students who are new to a language have an easy goal. learn all the basic grammar to become functional in the language. this should be done in a controlled and linear fashion.

students who have reached that point have a more difficult goal. at that point the goal becomes mastery. this doesn't happen in a linear fashion.

actually, i agree with your thoughts about a linear progression being helpful. i imagine at some point the newbie level will morph into a new beginner level and run in a linear pattern.
due to the nature of the beast, we will continue to change things up. each year we'll try a new approach to keep things exciting!