I started learning Japanese in the early ‘80s. In those days we used a thick, heavy kanji dictionary and had to count the number of strokes in each kanji in order to be able to look it up. Even then it was an arduous task. Japanese typewriters were still in used and fax machines were becoming popular.
I went to the Naganuma Japanese School in Shibuya, the oldest Japanese school in Tokyo. It was torture. Outside of class, I couldn’t understand when men were talking, because they used a completely different vocabulary from the polite Japanese I was learning. The teaching methods were rather old fashioned even then. After two and a half years I gave up and relied on private language teachers on and off with varying success. Recently, I met a new comer to Japan who mentioned that he was studying at the Naganuma Japanese School in Shibuya. I laughed, told him some of my experiences, and asked how it was now. He laughed regretfully and said it’s exactly the same.
A couple of years ago, I decided to review my Japanese skills with Duolingo. I started from beginner’s level and progressed bit by bit for a whole year. I learned so much! I finally understood all the prepositions and discovered the many habitual mistakes I’d been making that none of my friends ever told me about. Learning Japanese is a lifelong struggle but it’s so much easier to study now than it used to be. Maybe there’s hope?
Thank you for sharing. I myself used the Naganuma books which literally started off with "I have a pen" (pen being 万年筆 of course). I'm not quite sure why but when I first went to Japan I never got around to going to a Japanese school; I guess I just wanted to learn at my own pace. And yes, one of the great promises of technology is its potential to personalize the entire learning process.
For three years, I thought I could just pick up the language, but I ended up going to Japanese school because I wasn’t making much progress. The first year in Japanese school was realizing how many bad habits I’d picked up and trying to correct them. I wish I’d gone to Japanese school the first year I was here. I met Shigeru Miyagawa from the linguistic department of MIT and he told me that Japanese is the most difficult language for English speakers to learn. At Naganuma, Koreans, Chinese, and westerners were all in the same class. Koreans and Chinese made great progress. The next semester, we westerners who had fallen behind were put in the same class. The teacher told us we were the stupid class! That kind of attitude was common there which is why I finally quit. I wonder if anyone can recommend a good Japanese school?
I have been using Memrise in which I hear, see and write Japanese. I enjoy it, and it appears they are actively updating itheir content for more learning.
I started learning Japanese in the early ‘80s. In those days we used a thick, heavy kanji dictionary and had to count the number of strokes in each kanji in order to be able to look it up. Even then it was an arduous task. Japanese typewriters were still in used and fax machines were becoming popular.
I went to the Naganuma Japanese School in Shibuya, the oldest Japanese school in Tokyo. It was torture. Outside of class, I couldn’t understand when men were talking, because they used a completely different vocabulary from the polite Japanese I was learning. The teaching methods were rather old fashioned even then. After two and a half years I gave up and relied on private language teachers on and off with varying success. Recently, I met a new comer to Japan who mentioned that he was studying at the Naganuma Japanese School in Shibuya. I laughed, told him some of my experiences, and asked how it was now. He laughed regretfully and said it’s exactly the same.
A couple of years ago, I decided to review my Japanese skills with Duolingo. I started from beginner’s level and progressed bit by bit for a whole year. I learned so much! I finally understood all the prepositions and discovered the many habitual mistakes I’d been making that none of my friends ever told me about. Learning Japanese is a lifelong struggle but it’s so much easier to study now than it used to be. Maybe there’s hope?
Thank you for sharing. I myself used the Naganuma books which literally started off with "I have a pen" (pen being 万年筆 of course). I'm not quite sure why but when I first went to Japan I never got around to going to a Japanese school; I guess I just wanted to learn at my own pace. And yes, one of the great promises of technology is its potential to personalize the entire learning process.
For three years, I thought I could just pick up the language, but I ended up going to Japanese school because I wasn’t making much progress. The first year in Japanese school was realizing how many bad habits I’d picked up and trying to correct them. I wish I’d gone to Japanese school the first year I was here. I met Shigeru Miyagawa from the linguistic department of MIT and he told me that Japanese is the most difficult language for English speakers to learn. At Naganuma, Koreans, Chinese, and westerners were all in the same class. Koreans and Chinese made great progress. The next semester, we westerners who had fallen behind were put in the same class. The teacher told us we were the stupid class! That kind of attitude was common there which is why I finally quit. I wonder if anyone can recommend a good Japanese school?
I have been using Memrise in which I hear, see and write Japanese. I enjoy it, and it appears they are actively updating itheir content for more learning.