Breaking through to intermediate

[geebods]

This is my first post so I hope you will be kind to me!

I have been learning Japanese for about 18 months and seem to have hit something of a wall. To be honest, I didn't have too much trouble getting to grips with basic Japanese grammar, such as particles and conjugations, and although learning kanji and vocabulary is time consuming, I have a method that seems to be working.

However, over recent weeks I have become increasingly frustrated with my progress. I have been using lang-8 and Skype to try and practice Japanese but can only produce very basic things. Although my knowledge of basic Japanese grammar is ok, I still have a very limited range of things I can express. When I say to myself that I want to start using Japanese, my mind goes blank and I can't think of anything I am able to say!

Also, I am struggling with the way that the word order is simply so different to English. I can often understand shorter sentences, but longer sentences I feel like I am decoding rather than comprehending - I understand the words but it takes a while to fit them all together. I can give an example from a manga I've been looking at recently:

どうせ今までだってたまにしか会えなかったんだし

I could translate it to English with a little bit of thought, but I don't know how to reach a point where I can comprehend it naturally in Japanese.

I wonder whether anybody has had similar experiences to me, and whether there is anything you can suggest to help me break through this wall and level up?

[amost]

Yep! It happens to everyone, so no worries. Unfotunately this is one of those things that takes lots of repetition. If you measure your listening ability every few months or so, you'll notice yourself making significant progress.

[taikutsu]

My advice: keep going! You've probably made a lot more progress than you realize, so don't give up.

If you keep learning new words, you'll have more to say. If you read and listen more, you'll adapt to the word order. Keep experiencing, and make it fun. 習うより慣れろ。

[rpgherogaz]

This is really common, and I am finding it myself.

The thing is, when you first start out, you can double your knowledge every day for a while, 1 - 2 words, 4-8 and so on, with obvious improvement.


When you get to trying to double 500 to 1000 then it takes longer, but remember, you are still going the same speed! Just your used to it so much that is doesnt seem like your moving at all!

I am in the stage where I can write (emails, texts and what not) at similar to fluent speed, reading kanji is no problem at all and I know kansai-ben enough to email my kansaijin friends as much as i want to, however when it comes to skyping them.... i get flustrated at myself.

I know the words, and the conjugations in myhead, but i freeze up, trying to translate it in english, with it all not written down for me, it becomes alien.

I am guessing this is because i write and read japanese everyday (at least 20 new sentences in my SRS everyday (with working full time and universaty full time) and do not get to hear japanese very much. I have never taken a single japanese lesson either, so no class excuses....


SO it all comes down to practise, like everyday says, ignore what you dont know and love what you do.

Some suggest seeing things in another third language, just to point out how much you rock at your second!

It is a long road, so best enjoy it right!

if you need some more advice, try the AJATT website, it is very good and reading those blogs will help, if you have not already.

[taikutsu]

Some suggest seeing things in another third language, just to point out how much you rock at your second!

I can attest to this. If I listen to Thai or some other language I'm not studying, I really notice how much less I can understand.

[geebods]

Thanks guys - it's so nice to know that I'm not the only one!

rpgherogaz - what you say is so similar to my own experiences. I also rely on SRS quite a lot and have found that it has been very effective for remembering kanji (especially how to write them), but it is not so effective for reinforcing sentence patterns. I think partly because I try to get through them as quickly as possible, because I seem to get more out of creating the sentence cards in the first place than reviewing them.

So I guess the answer is as I already kind of knew - listen more and read more. Well, I can live with that kind of solution!

[Taurus]

I guess I'm at a similar stage in my progress. I keep wondering when all of these grammar points and words that I can understand in theory will start popping into my head unbidden when I'm trying to converse.

But I was reading about the lexical approach to language learning the other day and it made a lot of sense to me. Basically the theory is that the brain stores chunks of language (eg. instead of storing the word 'keep' and 'wondering' as two separate objects, it will store the phrase 'keep wondering' as a single object), and those chunks of language make it easier for the brain to process sentences.

So while you and I might still be at the point where we're trying to break down a sentence that we don't understand on a word-by-word basis, native speakers and advanced learners will pick up the meaning much faster because they are familiar with certain chunks - they won't have to wait to hear each word because their brain will be skipping ahead. Like, if they hear the phrase 'ni yoru to', by the time they hear 'ni yo-' their brain has probably already worked out the nature of the sentence and is moving on to the other parts to plug the holes in its meaning.

The good thing about that is that if you keep sticking stuff into your SRS, your brain will be forming those chunks anyway, and the more stuff you stuff into your SRS, the more chunks, and the quicker the understanding.

So it will come. According to people who know more than me about this stuff anyway.

[amost]

But I was reading about the lexical approach to language learning the other day and it made a lot of sense to me. Basically the theory is that the brain stores chunks of language (eg. instead of storing the word 'keep' and 'wondering' as two separate objects, it will store the phrase 'keep wondering' as a single object), and those chunks of language make it easier for the brain to process sentences.

So while you and I might still be at the point where we're trying to break down a sentence that we don't understand on a word-by-word basis, native speakers and advanced learners will pick up the meaning much faster because they are familiar with certain chunks - they won't have to wait to hear each word because their brain will be skipping ahead. Like, if they hear the phrase 'ni yoru to', by the time they hear 'ni yo-' their brain has probably already worked out the nature of the sentence and is moving on to the other parts to plug the holes in its meaning.

The good thing about that is that if you keep sticking stuff into your SRS, your brain will be forming those chunks anyway, and the more stuff you stuff into your SRS, the more chunks, and the quicker the understanding.

So it will come. According to people who know more than me about this stuff anyway.

I completely agree with this language learning philosophy