"Tto" "yosa so" and "ya"

[mmmason8967]

Teabagさん

Thanks!

Natsuko sensei is just being moderate and humble by saying her learning progress is slower than a turtle.
We also have the same saying in Chinese. Is there an equivalence in the English language?

We sometimes use a tortoise (rather than a turtle) for this kind of comparison. Of course, turtles and tortoises are not native to the UK, so in British English we mostly make the comparison with snails. The single most common phrase is <something> is going at a snail's pace, where <something> can be almost anything--people, vehicles, tasks, projects and so on.

マイケル

[community.japanese]

マイケルさん、Teabag さん、
that's right....my pace of study is slower than a turtle's walk

I think it's very interesting how we use animals in sayings.
Turtles are often mentioned in our conversation as "slow" pace, but we also can
mean "slow, but steady". Have you heard of うさぎとカメ story?
In that story, a turtle and a rabit do a race of run. The result seemed to be obvious, so
a rabit took a nap in the middle of its way while a turtle, despite being super slow,
continues its way constantly. The winner was this constantly hard-working turtle.
From this story, we often say "even if it's slow, it's better doing something with firm foundation and/or
progress than rushing to the completion just like a turtle did".

Well, my extremely slow study is not constant either, so I can't refer to カメ with the second meaning
I meantioned

Natsuko (奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com

[mewes6190]

About a year ago, I read a story about a native English speaker who was learning Chinese. He was at an airport and picked up two newspapers, a Chinese newspaper and a German newspaper. He understood less of the Chinese newspaper (which he'd been studying for ten years) than he did of the German newspaper (which he'd never studied).

I've noticed the same thing myself. Since I started studying Japanese I've noticed that Swedish, French and German seem to have become noticeably easier to follow. It's like some kind of bizarre side-effect for which I have no sensible explanation.

I guess, it's because you make your own language more - present in your head. seriously, when do you ever think about the strings and bolts holding your own language together?? When do you ever really pop up the hood of your mothertongue, trying to figure out how it works?
Learning a foreign language forces you, to do that - with another language. It makes you much, much more sensible for your own. And others also.
Many languages (like english and german) have a lot in common. Having looked under the hood of your own language (and a very alien one like Japanese) gives you tons of insights and the ability to see the aforementioned strings and bolts in other languages too, especially those which share the same ancestors as your own.

Small fun fact: Germans never question that the german "Gift" means "poison", yet in english "gift" equals a "present". In fact, some centuries ago, "Gift" in German meant "present" too, but due to a lot of cases of, well, "poisened presents", the meaning of "Gift" changed from "present" to "poison" in the German language. Obviously, it never made that change in the english language, so it's like a little window in the past.

Anyway, just wanted to say: becoming sensible for your own language is a side effect of learning alien languages and often open doors to other languages related to your own.

[community.japanese]

Small fun fact: Germans never question that the german "Gift" means "poison", yet in english "gift" equals a "present". In fact, some centuries ago, "Gift" in German meant "present" too, but due to a lot of cases of, well, "poisened presents", the meaning of "Gift" changed from "present" to "poison" in the German language. Obviously, it never made that change in the english language, so it's like a little window in the past.

Good one!
It's very interesting how a language has developed its own way making some differences from others.

Natsuko (奈津子),
Team JapanesePod101.com