Why You're Not Getting Better at Japanese

I've had a couple of students here and there leave because they're quite obviously not making any progress. When you aren't making any progress, Japanese seems even more difficult than it ever seemed before you began.

But in 90% of the cases of people who said they were not making progress, a simple, quick test established the reason why: they just weren't doing their homework.

They did not have the vocabulary.

It does not matter if you know how to conjugate a "-ku" ending verb, it does not matter if you know how to make the "-te-iru" form of a verb or how to make it into a past tense.

None of this matters at all if you don't know what the verb means.

In fact, nothing about learning Japanese means anything unless you have the vocabulary.

I don't know why I even bother saying this; it's so obvious it's pathetic. It doesn't just apply to Japanese, it applies to all languages.

If, in Sulawesian (a dialect of Borneo) I happen to know how to say "Go," "Water," "Quick," "Where," "Food," "Hunger," "Big" . . . well, guess what? I know how to tell a Sulawesian that I would like to find some water and food quickly, because my hunger is "big."

I don't need to know how to conjugate "Go," but I most certainly need to know the word and what it means. Why is this so difficult for students to understand? Let me make it quite plain: We can't have a conversation if you don't know the vocabulary needed for one.

And how do you get to know the vocabulary? By having your teacher repeat it fifty times during your lesson?

NO.

You get to know the vocabulary by writing it down when your teacher mentions that it is a common word and should be learned, and then you go home and learn it.

I recall that with one of the last students who quit in indignant disgust, complaining that we were "going in circles," when I tried to initiate a conversation to maybe give them confidence in what they'd learned so far, they didn't understand half of what I was saying or asking them.

I was talking in very simple Japanese -- stuff they SHOULD HAVE KNOWN after three months of lessons -- but most of the time I just got blank, uncomprehending stares.

Do you know how frustrating this is? Yes, I am their teacher. Yes, it is my responsibility to try to teach them Japanese. But I can't learn it for them!

"How did you get here today? By train?" Uncomprehending stare. They did not know the word for "today." They did not know the word for "train."

This after three months of lessons.

Look: there are possibly 500 words of English vocabulary that I might use in a typical day. I do not speak to my partner in highly technical English, using obscure, difficult terms or odd sentence constructions.

A typical conversation might be: "So, anything up for today? Do you have to go out? Me, I'm going nowhere. It's too fucking cold. We have enough food for dinner, right? What do you mean I have to go to the bank? Do you know what the bank is like on the first Monday of the month? Forget that noise. You want to go to the bank, YOU go to the bank."

That's it. That is the entire conversation, lame as it might sound. But it's the kind of conversation we have every day, dozens of times a day. There are no words like "Contemporaneous with your aspirations about making the arduous journey to our fiduciary institution on a day that would make an Inuit blanch" -- I mean, I just don't TALK that way, although I could, if I wanted to make someone's life difficult.

To those who quit: I just don't know what to tell you. You just did not do the work. You came to class, a miserable two hours' worth -- expecting to be taught a language. But you DID NOT DO THE WORK.

I cannot hold your hand when you get to Japan and tell you what the word for "train" is. If you do not know what the word for "train" is after THREE MONTHS OF LESSONS, don't blame me.

No, we may not have had an entire lesson centered on the word "train." It may NEVER HAVE COME UP IN A LESSON AT ALL. But don't you think it "might" be important for you to know the word? DON'T YOU THINK IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ON ONE OF YOUR VOCABULARY LISTS?

There is no need in the entire world for you to have to learn the proper way to say "The girls were swimming in the pool." But shouldn't you AT LEAST know the vocabulary for "to swim?"

What, you want a pill called "verbs" that I give you at the beginning of a lesson, and you go home magically having learned twenty new verbs and how to conjugate them and use them in a sentence?

There is so much to learn in a language that it pretty much doesn't matter where or on what you start. If I start teaching you terms used by naval architects, well, your progress might not go so quickly once you get landed in the middle of the equivalent of Times Square in Tokyo. Except you WILL know how to say "Excuse me, where is the office of the nearest naval architect?"

I rest my case.

Message From The Master

Here is a message from Tai-chan. Listen to it. Absorb its wisdom. Live by it.

Basically, he is saying that if you don't speak Japanese properly according to his dad, when he comes here (which will be eventually) he will personally kick your ass.

Time to Work

These are all time-related expressions. I can't post them directly on the blog because they have tabbing and other formatting problems that this blog program can't deal with, so download the PDF here.

Learn the kanji within -- they are all very commonly-used kanji that form parts of many other words.

And the expressions themselves are classified as Red-level -- meaning absolutely essential to remember and to know how to use.

Until I come up with a better way to classify stuff we'll go with "Red-level" all the way down to "Green-level," in which Red is top priority to remember and practice, and Green being stuff that you should be familiar with but no need to remember the kanji.

Learn these, learn how to use them, and learn their kanji as well. RED-LEVEL.

Here are the romaji versions and definitions.

kyū ni                              suddenly, out of the blue

totsuzen                           unexpectedly, suddenly

toriaezu                            for now, for the time being, meanwhile

genzai                              at the moment, currently

konogoro                         lately, these days

kono mae                         the last time, last time, the time before

sore kara                           after that, from then on

kore kara                          from now on, starting now

sono ato                            after that (happens, happened)

sono mae                          before that (happens, happened)

kodomo no koro               when I was a kid

ima no tokoro                    at the moment, right now

mukashi                            back then, a long time ago

dōji ni                                at the same time

jikan dōri                           right on time, exactly on time

mō chotto ato de                in a little bit, soon, soon after

sono toki (wa)                    at that time