The Cunning Linguist

Returning to study after a break can be really painful, particularly with a tool like Anki bombarding you with questions you’ve forgotten the answer to (and having to click a button to admit it)! I’ve found this pain is related to my strong aversion to not knowing things, and of “getting it wrong” – I suspect I’m not alone.

Getting through this pain barrier is vital, or you’ll avoid the discomfort by giving up at the expense of your study and aspirations. The important realisation is that you’re studying because you don’t know the answer right now. Studying is what turns “not knowing” into “knowing”, and your tools are helping you achieve this by identifying the areas that require attention.

So next time you find yourself putting off study or feeling that pain after a break, try to remember this is one of the most valuable parts of your language study. And always write down your best guess before revealing the answer, you might be surprised by what you do remember!

Apple Orchard by ポール

Sometimes studying languages is highly enjoyable; the sense of achievement of conversing about a new topic, the joy of realising your pronunciation has improved, or discovering you recognise previously unknown vocabulary. Some aspects of study are, on the other hand, essential but dry or repetitive, and overall just a little bit dull.

 

Navigating the more obscure points of Japanese grammar and recognising kanji radicals are two top candidates for the “little bit dull” prize, but recently they’ve taken on a new appeal. Why? Well, once you try to use a language, the grammar required to successfully communicate what you want to say becomes king. And, once you’ve exposed yourself to enough kanji to start to recognise the familiar shapes, the potential value of radicals to “give you a clue” with the meaning of those 1,946 kanji becomes seriously worthy of further investigation.

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Rain pelts against the windows, which are fogged with steam from the spaghetti bolognese that is bubbling away on the hob. It is as though winter has returned! It reminds me of New Year, when I re-commenced my language study in earnest; a particularly resonant memory given that just this weekend I completed unit twenty of the first Japanese “Pimsleur” course for the first time ever! Each time I’ve started the course, my study seemed to falter before reaching unit twenty. While it has taken two changes of season to get there (if this really is summer!) I am still very pleased.

The last few weeks have been tiring, and this has been reflected in my study and in the frustrating late completion of my most recent language goals.

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Its been a while since I posted a study tip; here's one I've happened across quite coincidentally. I've managed to get a song well and truly stuck in my head recently. Its call "Hanabira no shiroi iro ha koibito no iro" (snappy title, eh?) and is a popular folk song in Japan, recently released by pop duo W ("double u"). It has become my current phone ringtone, and now I'm singing it to myself even more ... but usually without the words as my Japanese vocabulary is not really extensive enough to pick out song lyrics yet.

Today I decided to have a go at learning the lyrics. I found a romaji transcript and had a go at singing along, but soon realised that - limited as romaji is - the timing of the syllables seemed a struggle. Whole syllable "i"s and "n"s seemed particularly difficult to time when working from the romaji copy. So I set about typing up the lyrics in hiragana instead, checking a few spellings here and there.

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