As a teacher in the Japanese public school system, I sometimes observe various classes in Japanese. Last week, during English class, the teacher explained, in Japanese, why Americans call "Native Americans" "Indians". It was very easy to follow as I already understood the concept and instead I was just trying to pick up a few new words and ways of structuring sentences.

I was thinking that since my Japanese is high enough follow history, I might be able to do the same in a foreign language class. That way I would learn two languages at once instead of just one. Has anybody tried this? I figure it might be more effective than trying to learn Japanese or Chinese with other native English speakers.

Sounds cool. I have had a lot of interaction with Koreans and Japanese who are studying Chinese but don't speak English, and it really helped me to push my Chinese.

I've done the reverse before while at the beginner level - learning Japanese in Chinese. It is great for finding out holes in understanding in the foreign language you are using as a basis (Chinese in my case), but I don't think it would be useful for you from a Skrittering point of view.

I tried setting Skritter to do zh-ja before, and a lot of words were far too easy to remember because a lot of them used the same Chinese characters (or variants of the same characters). In my own case, it is a lot more of a challenge to remember the correct words I am prompted for if I do en-ja instead. So that is what I did/do.

Basically, if you learn Chinese in Japanese, unless your Japanese is really, really solid, I think you will learn Chinese more slowly than you would otherwise. It may help you maintain your Japanese though up to a certain point. My Chinese ability has declined significantly over the years of not using it actively on a regular basis.

You should also think about what your goal is with the languages. In my case it is not translation, so beyond the beginner level, it is best to learn the target language in that language.

In my current Japanese class, I have a lot of Chinese classmates, so I get some Chinese reinforcement, but I find it better to learn the material in Japanese first. As I get to higher levels and my Chinese classmates become more serious about their own Japanese study, less Chinese is used in class. My teachers only teach in Japanese.

In your case, if you learned Chinese in a class where your classmates are Japanese, and they were serious, beyond the beginner level, I don't think you'd get much Japanese reinforcement.

@greenteapanda

"You should also think about what your goal is with the languages. In my case it is not translation, so beyond the beginner level, it is best to learn the target language in that language."

Could you clarify what you mean? If the (or a) goal is translation would your studying method be different after the beginner stage or from the beginning? And since you don't want to translate how did you originally study?

if the base (your japanese) is still shaky it doesnt make much sense and might lead to a lot of frustration and confusion.

it does make sense if you feel really safe and secure in your second language. then you can use this (second language) to develop your next language(s).

thats what I am doing: my mother tongue is German - and now my English is developed enough to use it to build my Chinese.

I didn't understand this. Sounds interesting though, but I don't get it

@icecream

Unless you want to learn a language from scratch like you did your mother tongue, you will probably learn the basics of your target language in a language you already know. Even if the goal is not translation, it provides a starting point to translate things back and forth between your base language and target language.

In my case, I learned the vast majority of my foundational Japanese when I was living in Taiwan. I paid for 1-on-1 Japanese lessons, since the cost was not that much more compared to a group class.

At that time, I could get by in Chinese just fine in everyday life and could understand a lot of what I read in newspapers. Nonetheless, I wasn't used to the way Chinese explanations of Japanese in the Minna No Nihongo textbooks, so that actually helped me fill in little gaps in my Chinese ability.

These days I am living in Japan, and I study Japanese in a language school. The textbooks at school are mostly entirely Japanese (though some of them provide questionable Chinese, English, and Korean translations of some sample sentences). Since my goal at the moment is to be functional in Japanese in a Japanese environment, it is very helpful for me to think about everything in Japanese. Part of learning a language well is learning the thought processes and the way native speakers would tend to express (or not) certain ideas, not just being able to give a rough idea of meaning.

At my current level, in translation a lot of different Japanese structures have seemingly the same meaning in English/Chinese. For example, there are lots of sentences that can translate into English or Chinese as "if... then..." but have differences in meaning/context when used in Japanese. Similarly with vocabulary. If my goal were translation, I'd be looking at how to translate a lot of the grammar and vocabulary mechanically. That is - I'd pay less attention to the coherence of my Japanese and more to being able to express the rough meaning in one language or another.

Obviously a skilled translator can consider these thought processes, but that can really only be done by having experience using the languages natively that are being translated from/to. That takes years of experience IMO.

@ greenteapanda

Our educational background, and studying methods, are completely different. I learn Japanese the way Kindergarten students do; which, I guess, is close to learning it from scratch. I watch and listen to my students and their teachers then mimic them. I learn Japanese in Japanese. There is very little "back and forth" translation. I think translation is impossible. At best it's a good paraphrase. Even relatively simple phrases like もしもし (hello on the telephone) don't have a corresponding word in English. This problem is compounded if you start dealing with documents that require context to understand. I won't even get into literary allusions...

I've done a bit of simple translation for my students and I don't see how you can do it mechanically. It's more like art than anything else. There are so many possible ways to render the same sentence into English. Translations also age rapidly. The Tale of Genji (源氏物語) is basically a different book when you read it by different translators from different time periods.

Back to Skritter: I agree it is best to learn both of them in the target language. My brain is able to create unique analogies and abstractions that would only make sense to people who have done the same.

@icecream

When it comes to listening and speaking practice, I learn the same way you do, mostly by copying a native speaker. I also intentionally try using sentences/structures differently to see the reaction of the native speaker.

For explanations of the language though, it is convenient to have those in a language I already know when I am starting off. Stuff may not translate easily, but a rough description of the meaning is at least helpful when starting to learn a language.

I think you do use some description, because otherwise there would be no basis for your question in the original post in this thread.

I understand where your thoughts are coming from regarding translation. From English to/from Japanese and Korean in particular, a lot of context is needed for translation, but individual words can still often be translated mechanically. Of course, once sentences get beyond a few words, the problems with such an approach increase exponentially, as you noted. Google Translate is an excellent example of this sort of mechanical translation in action.

Anyhow, I hope your Chinese studies go smoothly!

I like to argue for arguments sake. If you had said that translating is an art form I would have made fun of you for being pretentious.

I understand why, in theory, you would want a description of a language but in practice I find it is unnecessary and counter-productive and will give you a false sense of understanding. During a JHS class the teacher was translating, verbatim, the English sentence “I want something to drink” into Japanese. His translation: “私が欲し何かのむ”. Even without ever taking a formal course in Japanese I knew this was a bit contrived. I thought simply saying “飲みたい” would have been shorter and more natural. The former sentence is what students learn in classrooms the latter is what is more often encountered in daily life. You can easily see which one is better.

Another example, this time showing how you don’t need any description at all, is how you can almost instantly figure out the meaning of something by talking to little children. During recess at the elementary school I go to I love to play with the 1st grade students. One day this little girl came up to me and said “来て” and then motioned with her hands for me to follow her. This was the first time I had actually heard this but was able to figure out the meaning almost instantly (she also said, in English, “come on” a few seconds later which confirmed my initial suspicion). It also helped solidify, in my mind, the purpose of the ending “て” when it comes to verbs. I wouldn't have had this epiphany inside a classroom.

You are lucky to have so many authentic learning opportunities. There are definitely some contexts where I can learn Japanese as you described, but it does not work for everything. At least not for me. The further I get in my study, the less likely I am to run into a situation that makes the usage that clear in so few instances of hearing/reading the target language.

On the one hand, I am studying in a Japanese language school at the moment, so I get fed contrived examples that obscure natural language usage all the time. As you noted, the meaning might be the same, but Japanese people would not say it such a way. Such as in a formal letter, it might use 弊社 for "our company" but I've seen the dumbed down version "我が社" in my textbooks, which doesn't match my prior real life experience with such letters.

However, if contrived examples can be avoided, I find explanations to be quite useful. Some books give good examples of usage, but have no explanation. For example, from an N1 book I saw examples of であれ...であれ grammar. I could see the meaning was basically the same as でも...でも. However, there was no guidance in the book about who would use which structure, or under what circumstances. In that case, the explanation I got from a native speaker was very important. If I were to pick it up out of context naturally, I'd have to be very keen on who used and when であれ...であれ was used over multiple encounters to know children often don't even know it (so it tends to be used by adults, especially males, etc.).

Every day is an authentic learning opportunity. Today, at the convenience store, the clerk said to me おさきにしつれします. I don’t know why. Her pronunciation was perfect but she has little comprehension of her own language. Strangely these types of situations happen to me all the time (or they are the ones I chose to remember). It might be because I live in a low-class area. A few of my students – excluding the special kids – at the middle schools I go to are the same way. A boy, in the morning, once said こんばんは to me. I expressed, with facial expressions, that something wasn’t right and he then proceeded to cycle through all of the greetings he knew. If you go to a Kindergarten, it’s even worse. The kids have no idea what they are saying. They are just copying and imitating what they think they hear.

The worst part, though, is that at all ages the very smart children will purposely use Japanese incorrectly so they don’t stand out among their peers. This was a very hard concept for me to understand when I first came to Japan and it makes it very difficult to learn the language without a lot of context. I think this might be the issue you are having: You have to have a deep understanding of Japanese culture and psychology in order to know when and where to use certain words and phrases. Most things – often the important things – are completely left unsaid. Some of the most common words in English – I, he, she, it, a, the – are almost never spoken. I never use the Japanese equivalent in conversations.

So yeah, I have no idea what exactly you are learning in a language class because real life among common people is much messier.

BTW: I didn’t know the difference between “here” and “there” or “this” and “that” before I started teaching English (at the age of 25) so I’m sure these issues are universal. You have to study many different languages before you can even begin to understand your mother tongue.

I am learning contrived Japanese in class so I can ace contrived tests like the JLPT N1 and the EJU (the Japanese University Entrance exam for foreigners, also used for grad school admission). The EJU at least has short essay writing, but neither test speaking ability.

I was brought up bilingually (English and Spanish). However, up until high school, I did not think about translating between the two. My mind was either in English or Spanish mode. When I did learn the grammar formally in both, that is when the meaning of a lot of different things in both languages finally clicked.

So yeah, I definitely don't have a natural unconscious understanding of Japanese yet. I guess I could say I understand the theory behind a lot of Japanese, but not the practice.

Thanks for your insightful comments!

It's funny you mention how neither tests speaking ability: The same situation occurs with Japanese students learning English. Reading and writing -- but not speaking -- is stressed. I'm sure it's another cultural aspect. I've actually looked at some of the tests high school students take to go to college and I couldn't answer half the questions regarding their method of mapping the different English sounds to words (the phoneme differences between c and k). It's strange and contrived. I guess the same could be said for all tests though.

I've found, compared to English and Spanish at least, Japanese is much more conservative in regards to keeping old words in circulation. It's been argued that modern English is actually a creole. Japanese, by contrast, hasn't evolved to nearly the same extent.