#-parrot duolingo example sentences

[rat-tomago]

once again convincing myself tht using duolingo wont be the worst language-learning experience of my life

[oh-boy-me]

hi, you mentioned Japanese was your third language, could you share some tips and ways you learnt it? I’ve been meaning to learn some Japanese but I just can’t figure out how to get started. Thanks ^^

Oh yeah of course!!  I’m always happy help out in that regard :)

On top of all of this, I have to lead with the fact that guidance from a teacher or tutor of some kind is always good, so if you have access to that I do highly encourage it.  I know it’s very hard though, especially if you’re still in the West at a time like this.

First things’s first

You might remember hearing about things like “auditory learning” and “visual learning” and then never thinking about them again.  They’re actually really important for the path you take when learning a language.  I had a really hard time remembering the materials I read, for example, but the ones I heard and practiced in class were much easier.

The four types, to get rid of their technical names and make them more obvious, are seeing, hearing, reading, and hands-on approaches.

People who learn though seeing will benefit from manga or watching children's shows, while those who learn best through hearing will get more help from podcasts or traditional lectures.  If you learn by reading, taking notes and reading texts will help (although you should take notes regardless lol).  And if you do best hands-on, you'll want to multitask, whether it's doing something unrelated while reviewing, or using a task or goal to practice.

You aren't limited to, and shouldn't limit yourself to, resources that fit your learning type best, but when you're finding yourself stuck it's useful to have an idea of how you'll most easily be able to push forward.  Language has two main element pairs—reading/writing and speaking/listening—and while you'll want to get used to everything, it's fine to focus on one or the other at first, especially with pictorial languages like Japanese.  If you find yourself reading a lot, kanji will be a more immediate concern, but if you're focused on speaking you won't need to worry about it for a while.  The opposite is true for tone-indicating particles like ne or deshou.

Anyway, with that in mind, you'll be able to fine tune your experience, but here are some overarching tips that should apply no matter what kind of learner you are. 

Getting Started

It's obvious once you get started, but you want to master hiragana before you even begin to think about katakana or kanji.  You can use hiragana In any situation, technically, and you'll want to be able to look back at your notes and be able to pronounce them later.

On a similar note, it's much more important to be able to read kanji than to be able to write it.

As soon as you can, stop using the Latin alphabet to label pronunciation.  It'll help you with your hiragana, and the further you detach your Japanese from your English, the better.

What I mean by that last sentence is, Japanese and English are different languages, so if you try to think of everything with a one-to-one relationship to English, you'll find yourself getting stuck very often.  Sometimes things won't work the way they do in English, and "that's just how it is" is going to be the most helpful answer.  (Which is why practicing in any way you can is really important).

Be active in your learning!  Don't just "get the gist of it", really dig into the sentences you read or hear to make sure you're picking up on everything that’s being said.

When I get something wrong, I find it useful to figure out what it is I accidentally said or wrote (for example, instead of watashi no saifu [my wallet] watashi wa saifu [I am a wallet]).  It helps me remember to not make the same mistake later.

Above all else, keep it fun for yourself!  If you hate your book, there's probably a better one out there.  Learn songs.  Play games.  You're more likely to remember things if you actually care about the information, so give yourself something to care about.

Reading/Writing

For learning any alphabet, hiragana and katakana included, watching YouTube videos will help you best see how to naturally write it.

LingoDeer is actually pretty good for the Japanese syllabaries too, so that's also an option.

Children's books, slice-of-life manga, news articles, and video games without timed text are some of my favorite ways to practice reading.

For writing, journaling is usually pretty fun, and of course if you're up for it you can always find a study buddy or a pen pal to write back and forth with.

The important thing is to stay on your level and not overwhelm yourself with things you don't know yet, especially with writing.  You're going to sound like a preschooler for a little while, and that's fine.

Periodically test yourself on groups of kanji to make sure you're retaining them.

Unfortunately, Japanese can be really picky about its writing (look at 未 [not yet] and 末 [end], or わ [wa] and れ [re], for example), so it's important to keep close track of it and practice a lot so that your muscle memory can start to take over.

Speaking/Listening

The absolute best option is to go to Japan, since that will force you to practice, but assuming that's not going to happen (lol) and you're working on your own, children's cartoons, songs of all kinds, and YouTube videos are going to be your best friends.

Repeat everything you hear to get used to saying it!  Repeat prompt questions before answering them, and while you don't need to parrot literally everything in a video, if something catches your ear or is being heavily emphasized, give it a whirl.

Tsu and r are the sounds that are noticeably different from English, so you want to get used to those.  U and f are technically different too, but you can get away with using their English equivalents.

If you find yourself getting bored in your spare time, try to talk to yourself in Japanese, whether it's narrating what you're going to do tomorrow or answering imaginary interviews for when you inevitably become famous.  Even if you get stuck, it's one of the most natural way to practice verbal sentence building.

Resources

LingoDeer is an app with some free lessons on top of a subscription service for the full package.  In terms of languages like Japanese and Chinese, it feels a little more natural to get started with than Duolingo.

That said, Duolingo is free and very useful.

Maggie Sensei, HiNative, and Japanese Language Stack Exchange are great for explaining grammar points.  Keep in mind that the latter two are forums, so you should check to make sure people aren't disagreeing with an answer.

Jisho is a useful dictionary for both standard Japanese and slang!  Just be sure the words are breaking up where they should, because Jisho always takes the first option it sees.  Isolate parts of a sentence if you think other kanji or particles are getting in the way.

It won't work for everyone, but I have this book called Remembering the Kanji by James Heisig that's proved helpful for me.  You can find all of the introduction and part one for free here.

[lilietsblog]

things I like about specifically Duolingo

- the color scheme is nice and cute and everything is designed so its easy to look at and not distracting

- picking a language is p easy&intuitive to find and nobody cares if you abandon the old one or switch back and forth looks like

- the exercises arent timed so you can leave in the middle of one and then come back hours later like ‘where was i’ or you can use a dictionary or you can take 10 minutes to reread the sentence 100 times until you can finally parse it. THAT LAST ONE ESPECIALLY

- you get a written version AND a pronounced version and it will repeat the pronounced version as many times as you want

- seriously you can get distracted or mishear or have sound off or the site might be lagging but it means nothing!!! you can repeat as many times as you like and literally nobody is counting

- i just. i cannot describe how important the ‘not timed and repeat an unlimited number of times’ thing is to me

- when i was learning french the ‘discern by ear’ exercises were the BANE OF MY EXISTENCE but in duolingo theres even a specific ‘repeat slowly’ button which you can also mash as many times as it takes for you to figure it out

- making a mistake just means you’ll get another stab at it later!!! and you ARE TOLD the correct answer

- you can repeat the same topic again... and again... and again... and it doesnt assume that you’re already familiar with it, sure it accelerates a bit but if youre just extra slow you can keep doing it until you’ve GOT IT

- and it records that as LEVELS YOU GET so its positive and not negative to just repeat the same thing many many many times

- it doesnt explain grammar it just gives you simple examples that you only need to parrot and its intuitive. i know not everyones learning style works like that probably but listen. to me? its perfect. figuring out patterns is a much better way for my brain to remember things than being given everything pre-chewed

- and if something’s confusing theres the comments section? granted its only available once you’ve finished and there’s no back button if you clicked through accidentally but given how much the same phrases repeat (esp if youre doing the ‘rack up levels in the same skill’ thing) you’ll get another try... and SOMEONE in the comments will have explained the thing

- it actually is really genuinely good at parsing whatever you wrote, even if it’s not the suggested translation. if you’re being marked down there’s a reason for that even if the reason is just that you forgot to add ‘a.m.’ bc it was obvious to you BUT NO MUST TRANSLATE ACCURATELY it is a meaningful distinction. you aren’t getting marked down for ‘it is’ vs ‘it’s’ or clause order in sentence and just. GOOD SHIT

- the streak thing? just get 50 xp per day to keep your streak going! and if you’ve lost it, no judgement, just go at it again! it’s so nice and motivating <3

- I mean I’ve been doing a lot more than 50xp but I know if I lose the mood or anything I can get 50xp per day easily even just by repeating the same skills I already have

- listen. listen it’s so good at teaching you all fucking three japanese writing systems in ways that are actually memorable and easy and dont put ridiculous fucking strain on your memory. you dont need to like. do separate exercises to memorize them or anything, duolingo literally provides you with everything you need. just get more levels in this skill if you are having trouble remembering which symbol is which

- dictionary hints on hover ;u;

- too good to be real

- and yet it’s real

- and also free

- I would like to thank God and also Jesus

- listen I love Duolingo so much...