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now i've really been feeling as if i've been living in japan for years and need to get better at japanese. like, i look around and basically go "everyone else understands this, i need to understand it too", "everyone else is reading x and y, i need to be able to too".
technically speaking i know the way to get as fluent as a native speaker is just immerse myself: read, watch, speak and listen TONS. and copy native speakers. if you hear someone say something, you just copy how they say it instead of trying to think of "your own way" of saying it, or translating your own language. that can come later when you're already fluent. that's how i USED to learn japanese back when i was 16 and trying for the first time, but the problem is somewhere along the line i sort of forgot how to just "copy" people without thinking about how stupid i seemed. (years ago, i thought you were stupid if you DIDN'T copy; somehow the fear of sounding like a BAD copy is overriding that original feeling now i guess).
anyway after searching around in japanese the advice was basically "read something every day, doesn't matter what it is", which i am technically doing but i think i need to step it up a notch. i think i'll start checking out TONS of kid's books from the library and reading one every day. theoretically they won't be too hard to read, or to finish reading, and i can just keep going and then slowly move on to pre-teen books and young adult books and stuff. manga's still long enough that it takes a few hours to read, i think i need to grab stuff that takes an hour or less.
i was thinking that even if i talk to kids, those kids have a better grasp of japanese than i do and they know words i don't. so what better than to start on the same level as them and work my way up? even if i don't learn any new WORDS, i'll certainly be learning CULTURAL STUFF that "everyone knows". since i want to be a translator in the future that cultural knowledge is pretty important too. well anyway, my japanese level's been bothering me so i just want to do something about it. every time we have grammar or vocabulary class it's like i don't know anything at all...
technically speaking i know the way to get as fluent as a native speaker is just immerse myself: read, watch, speak and listen TONS. and copy native speakers. if you hear someone say something, you just copy how they say it instead of trying to think of "your own way" of saying it, or translating your own language. that can come later when you're already fluent. that's how i USED to learn japanese back when i was 16 and trying for the first time, but the problem is somewhere along the line i sort of forgot how to just "copy" people without thinking about how stupid i seemed. (years ago, i thought you were stupid if you DIDN'T copy; somehow the fear of sounding like a BAD copy is overriding that original feeling now i guess).
anyway after searching around in japanese the advice was basically "read something every day, doesn't matter what it is", which i am technically doing but i think i need to step it up a notch. i think i'll start checking out TONS of kid's books from the library and reading one every day. theoretically they won't be too hard to read, or to finish reading, and i can just keep going and then slowly move on to pre-teen books and young adult books and stuff. manga's still long enough that it takes a few hours to read, i think i need to grab stuff that takes an hour or less.
i was thinking that even if i talk to kids, those kids have a better grasp of japanese than i do and they know words i don't. so what better than to start on the same level as them and work my way up? even if i don't learn any new WORDS, i'll certainly be learning CULTURAL STUFF that "everyone knows". since i want to be a translator in the future that cultural knowledge is pretty important too. well anyway, my japanese level's been bothering me so i just want to do something about it. every time we have grammar or vocabulary class it's like i don't know anything at all...
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