Site devoted to common errors?

[Alexandre]

Does anyone know of a site (or book) specifically devoted to common linguistic errors made by foreigners learning Japanese?

[Rod Wadd]

Does anyone know of a site (or book) specifically devoted to common linguistic errors made by foreigners learning Japanese?

http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E5%A4%96%E5%9B ... 4938669137　

[Jessi]

Now that book just looks scary. Not to mention about 100 years old

I can't think of any sites/books off of the top of my head, but if I come across any, I'll let you know!

[Belton]

Foreigners is a bit broad. It will depend on the learners first language. And maybe the dialect or accent of the first language. Learners mistakes are usually made by trying to impose L1 structures, meanings and sounds onto L2 situations. In an attempt to communicate you grab at the familiar if you don't know what to do usually.

Mostly this kind of topic is very academic rather than targeted at learners to show them common mistakes to avoid. And these sorts of academic papers are hard to find if you aren't part of the linguistic academic community I think. (I'm interested in kanji research studies, so far mostly all I've found are titles of papers rather than the papers themselves)

I'm not really sure how good a learning tool it is to explicitly point out the common mistakes. Will it just reinforce those mistakes? Is it better to make them and learn from them?

That said all I've really come across is in the now defunct Mangajin. In the compilation Basic Japanese Through Comics there is a brief chapter on Gaijin Bloopers.

My favourite is the mixup of ブス and バス for bus. Which I've actually seen in an example essay from an exam report.

The best one I've made is ちちちゃん。I meant 父ちゃん。とうちゃん.
but it had the meaning of 乳ちゃん。

[Jessi]

That said all I've really come across is in the now defunct Mangajin. In the compilation Basic Japanese Through Comics there is a brief chapter on Gaijin Bloopers.

Aww, I really liked Mangajin! 懐かしい～ Seeing how popular manga is these days, I'm sure if they started it up again with some fresh manga titles it'd be a big hit! I really liked how they took apart whole sentences and explained everything. I learned a lot from it!

[Belton]

does anything ever really disappear in the age of the Interwebs?
http://www.mangajin.com/

I can see how paper publishing might be costly but if you could secure rights to some good manga an electronic edition would be good and achievable. It'd be pretty cool as a weekly or monthly in iPhone form.
Maybe JPod could run with that idea, licence it or something.

[gerald_ford]

The way I see it, everyone makes different mistakes. If you spend enough time observing your linguistic habits when learning Japanese, and then compare them to what's in the text book, you'll quickly notice mistakes, and will work to correct them. You can't correct mistakes if you don't know you're doing them.

[Alexandre]

I was NOT referring to mistakes generally made in transition from L1 to L2 as a broad subject, but very specifically to the types of mistakes foreigners usually make in the case of Japanese.

Yes, the typical mistakes will change from language to language, but generally, I'm sure there are things most foreigners stumble upon without knowing, things Japanese still can understand and say nothing about, at a level where first language is no longer a serious issue. Not basic stuff, like ga/ha, but small things gaijins get wrong until they are told or shown.

In an effort to iron out even the small creases, such a book would be really useful. It could be in the format of questions and answers, but preferably a book with a 1 page 1 problem format. I saw such books for Japanese people learning English -- librairies in Japan are full of them! Why can't we get the same privilege

[gerald_ford]

...I'm sure there are things most foreigners stumble upon without knowing, things Japanese still can understand and say nothing about, at a level where first language is no longer a serious issue. Not basic stuff, like ga/ha, but small things gaijins get wrong until they are told or shown.

Can you help quantify what kinds of mistakes you're expecting to see, or any example cases that foreigners are known to commit?

[Jessi]

I can think of a few, if this is the kind of thing you are looking for:

*Using -san to refer to oneself
*Overusing pronouns, esp. "watashi"
*Mixing up similar sounding words (kowai/kawaii, kirei/kirai, etc.)
*Getting long/short vowels wrong (kite vs kiite)
*Not using appropriate politeness level

Stuff like that?

[Psy]

I'll throw a few on the list that I see all the time:

*asking "genki desu ka" and replying "hai, ogenki desu"
*using 'da' after i-adjectives in plain speech.
*confusing "temo ii desu ka" and "te kudasai"
*mixing the usage of 'de' and 'ni'
*using "arigatou gozaimasu" too much and "yoroshiku onegaishimasu" not enough
*pronouncing the "ne" in "onegaishimasu" as "ni" (I hear this sometimes even with advanced students-- but never with a native Japanese!)
*calling your own mother/father okaasan/otousan when speaking to others
*asking questions with ~tai in polite situations, and in general overusing the -tai form.
*confusing kariru and kasu (I'm told this happens a lot)
*confusing mieru and mirareru (I'm told this happens a lot too)
*confusing "oishiisou" and "oishisou" (goes with Jessi's mention of long vowels)
*calling ローマ字(roomaji) "romanji"
*not realizing that kamaimasen carries the nuance of "It doesn't matter (and I don't care)"

If I'm mistaken anywhere let me know, but I'm fairly certain these are on the mark.

[Yoshiko]

I read some articles about making errors and a very interesting one was about Dutch learners of English who try to avoid using structures that look 'too similar' to be true. So it's not always the case that a first language makes you translate too literally.

Belton, what are the titles of the articles about kanji you want to read? Maybe I can access them through my university's sfx.

[Belton]

Belton, what are the titles of the articles about kanji you want to read? Maybe I can access them through my university's sfx.

It was the bibliography of this paper.

www.kyotogakuen.ac.jp/~o_econ/society/t ... chmond.pdf

No idea about the authors credentials but the sources he cites look interesting. The few attempts I've made on Google didn't throw up anything. I've yet to try our universities systems (I'm not an academic, and this isn't my field anyhow).

Kanoo, Chieko (1994). ‘A Proposed Syllabus for Kanji Teaching’. Nihongo Kyooiku Ronshuu 9.
Tsukuba: Tsukuba Daigaku Ryuugakusei Centre,

(because I like the textbooks she has written on kanji, I'd be interested in her thinking about teaching kanji)

Noguchi, M. (1995). Component analysis of kanji for learners from non-kanji using countries. The
Language Teacher, 19 (10), pp. 11-14.
Okita, Yoko (1995). ‘Kanji learning strategies and student beliefs on kanji learning.’ Sekai no
Nihongo Kyouiku, 5, pp.105-124.
Okita, Yoko (1997). ‘Students’ beliefs about learning Japanese orthography: Beyond the textbooks.’
In Cook, H. M., Hijirida, K. and Tahara, M. (Eds.), New trends & issues in teaching Japanese
language and culture. Honolulu, H: Second Language Teaching and Curriculum Center,
University of Hawai’i at Manoa pp. 61-75

The titles of Yoko Okita's papers on kanji on her resume look quite interesting overall

I could go on but I gotta go, If you can find anything by Okita or Kanoo I'd be very interested.

[Yoshiko]

The first one is here:
http://www.tulips.tsukuba.ac.jp:80/lime ... 0204/5.pdf
It's in Japanese. I don't know how this works with references, if it is common to translate the title altough the work is in japanese.
I can't get access to the 'The Language Learner' for Noguchi's essay, it's not in the database.
Okita Yoko's works might also be available in Japanese only.

But I have read an (English) article about kanji learning by Mori Yoshiko, and I saw there were more available at JSTOR. I can't put them on the forum, but if you want, I can send them to you if you don't have access to JSTOR.

[Belton]

Thanks,
I'll see if I can get access to JSTOR when I get back to uni.

I think references style depends on who your supervisor is usually. I would have thought you'd at least give the title it was published under if you're citing an original text and not a translation.
The essay in Japanese may well be beyond my reading ability. (><)

Rather than hijack this thread I'll IM you about JSTOR in a week or so.