Enter the Linguistic Pagan! 参上！言語学の異教徒！

[DanieMarie]

Re: Enter the Linguistic Pagan!　参上！言語学の異教徒！

Looks like a fun group!

I'm amazed that you learned Japanese....to me, learning a language that doesn't use western characters or vocalizations is really intimidating!

[Jembru]

Re: Enter the Linguistic Pagan!　参上！言語学の異教徒！

That's why Simatong impresses me, because he has managed to learn two east Asian languages at the same time. Japanese uses fewer kanji than chinese, so is easier to write (those rounder characters you see, are more like a phonetic alphabet and can be learnt in a few days, and mastered in a few weeks). I'm going to embarrass him more now, but he also seems pretty humble. He's never made a fuss about my mistakes, and he never made a deal of the fact he's a translator, in his intro on the Japanese forum, and just seems like someone who genuinely enjoys sharing his passion for the language. I had to drop German, as much as it pained me, because there was just too much to wrap my head around with Japanese. I keep saying if I ever master conversational Japanese, I'll return to German, and I do mean it. But anyone who can master two languages at once is worthy of respect!

[Ouranos Ouroboros]

Re: Enter the Linguistic Pagan!　参上！言語学の異教徒！

Oh Goddess....to be able to learn Swedish, Icelandic and Irish would be a dream come true. Italian and Greek as well... Old English seems interesting, and learning Latin for my spells would be so cool if I could! Language lovers unite!

I started with Greek because my son is obsessed with Greek mythology and culture. In a few years, when I feel more sure of my Greek, I'm going to start learning Gaelic - probably an Irish or Welsh variety.

[Simatong]

Re: Enter the Linguistic Pagan!　参上！言語学の異教徒！

That's why Simatong impresses me, because he has managed to learn two east Asian languages at the same time. Japanese uses fewer kanji than chinese, so is easier to write (those rounder characters you see, are more like a phonetic alphabet and can be learnt in a few days, and mastered in a few weeks). I'm going to embarrass him more now, but he also seems pretty humble. He's never made a fuss about my mistakes, and he never made a deal of the fact he's a translator, in his intro on the Japanese forum, and just seems like someone who genuinely enjoys sharing his passion for the language. I had to drop German, as much as it pained me, because there was just too much to wrap my head around with Japanese. I keep saying if I ever master conversational Japanese, I'll return to German, and I do mean it. But anyone who can master two languages at once is worthy of respect!

Awww, thank you for comments. I am sorry for taking so long with the other translations for the Minecraft thing (the bar thing took more out of me than I thought and today I just needed rest). Tomorrow I shall be able to rid myself of all distractions and get to it. Thank you so much for your patience!

[Jembru]

Re: Enter the Linguistic Pagan!　参上！言語学の異教徒！

Awww, thank you for comments. I am sorry for taking so long with the other translations for the Minecraft thing (the bar thing took more out of me than I thought and today I just needed rest). Tomorrow I shall be able to rid myself of all distractions and get to it. Thank you so much for your patience!

There's absolutely no hurry. I'm going to try to distance myself from PF ever so slightly, so I can focus on my speaking practice a bit more. I'm limited to when I can practice spoken Japanese, and I keep wasting time during these windows, by stalking forums. I had an amazing night last night. Miki-sensei brought along a bunch of her students, one of which was a very proficient speaker and only a second year (although he had started studying before the course). I was also sickly Jealous when JP had a conversation in Japanese, with a Japanese mother and her son about manga/anime for at least 10 minutes, before I butted in and said, 'do you know he's never studied Japanese?' To both their amazement! I spoke loads because the pressure to prove myself in front of the students, who probably had low expectations of someone who teaches themselves, overrode my fear of saying something silly. I realised that my speaking ability, when I push myself, actually has made progress, I just usually stick to safe phrases. The difference yesterday, didn't go unnoticed either.

So I actually made them all a promise that I'll stop pratting about and actually do some serious practice. before the next gathering. Which means I'm taking a short break from reading, writing (although I'll probably still pop in and write in Japanese now and then, ^^) and devoting 100% of my study time to speaking and listening.

[Raphaeline]

Re: Enter the Linguistic Pagan!　参上！言語学の異教徒！

I hate that I know no other languages besides my native one. I've always wanted to speak another language, and hopefully maybe some day I will - French, most likely, although I wish I could pick up Hindi. I love languages but I've never seemed to have the time to sit down and actually learn one, even though it's usually something I pick up pretty quickly.

Welcome to the forum!

[Erika]

Re: Enter the Linguistic Pagan!　参上！言語学の異教徒！

I'm proficient in American Sign Language, and hopefully I'll be learning another language soon: I still need to go through MEPS, but I'm seriously hoping to be a linguist for the Army. Fingers crossed for Mandarin or Modern Standard Arabic!

[Jembru]

Re: Enter the Linguistic Pagan!　参上！言語学の異教徒！

I'm proficient in American Sign Language, and hopefully I'll be learning another language soon: I still need to go through MEPS, but I'm seriously hoping to be a linguist for the Army. Fingers crossed for Mandarin or Modern Standard Arabic!

Both of which we have proficient or native speakers of here at PF. I bet if you smile nicely they could be persuaded to help you when you start learning! Arabic is on my language wish list too, but I know by the time I reach my goal in German (assuming I ever get good enough at Japanese that I even start learning German again), I'll have too few good brain years left in me to cram in another language. Swahili is also on my wish list, as I started learning that when I was 13, and still remember a few phrases. My mind was JUST still at the age where I could grasp languages more easily.

Oh, that reminds me. I mentioned somewhere on this forum.. maybe it was this thread... that I was waiting to read a research paper about the effect of anxiety on language learning (I just begrudge paying for just 24 hours of access to the paper, I hate how elitist academia is; knowledge should be freely available to everyone). Well.. my gods was that research fascinating! These guys seem to suggest that actually, contrary to popular belief, adults are better at learning a second language than children. The problem is that our anxiety at looking foolish or not being as good as we want to be, has such a debilitating affect on us, that it masks this and the absence of anxiety in children makes them appear to have a natural ability that adults lack! This has fascinated me and is one of the reasons why I just went for it, guns blazing, last night. I also think this is what makes my partner, JP so good at communicating in a language he hasn't even studied. He just doesn't care and is entirely free of anxiety when he speaks. Okay, he probably IS special in his ability to hear a word just once and remember it instantly, but otherwise, I think he kinda proves the research.

[MoonRaven]

[DanieMarie]

Re: Enter the Linguistic Pagan!　参上！言語学の異教徒！

Both of which we have proficient or native speakers of here at PF. I bet if you smile nicely they could be persuaded to help you when you start learning! Arabic is on my language wish list too, but I know by the time I reach my goal in German (assuming I ever get good enough at Japanese that I even start learning German again), I'll have too few good brain years left in me to cram in another language. Swahili is also on my wish list, as I started learning that when I was 13, and still remember a few phrases. My mind was JUST still at the age where I could grasp languages more easily.

Oh, that reminds me. I mentioned somewhere on this forum.. maybe it was this thread... that I was waiting to read a research paper about the effect of anxiety on language learning (I just begrudge paying for just 24 hours of access to the paper, I hate how elitist academia is; knowledge should be freely available to everyone). Well.. my gods was that research fascinating! These guys seem to suggest that actually, contrary to popular belief, adults are better at learning a second language than children. The problem is that our anxiety at looking foolish or not being as good as we want to be, has such a debilitating affect on us, that it masks this and the absence of anxiety in children makes them appear to have a natural ability that adults lack! This has fascinated me and is one of the reasons why I just went for it, guns blazing, last night. I also think this is what makes my partner, JP so good at communicating in a language he hasn't even studied. He just doesn't care and is entirely free of anxiety when he speaks. Okay, he probably IS special in his ability to hear a word just once and remember it instantly, but otherwise, I think he kinda proves the research.

That's really interesting! It actually makes a lot of sense...when you're a kid, you just sort of say words, and you don't really care if you're right or not. Kids don't even learn their native languages that well in the beginning lol. I bet adults can process grammar and structure a lot better.

I think what's harder as an adult is pronunciation. It's easier to learn how to form words as a kid, because you're still in the stage where you're learning to form words in your own language, so learning a different one isn't that hard. Still, by that logic, I should have a better accent in French than German (because I grew up watching Canadian sesame street and started basic, basic French at 10) and I am NOT at all better. Granted, I also learned to pronounce German as a young child, but until I was 18 the only words I really knew were "Bach" (as in the composer), "Kaffee," "Katze," and "Vogel". I think I could count to 10 as well. My mom wasn't so big on teaching me German.

[Jembru]

Re: Enter the Linguistic Pagan!　参上！言語学の異教徒！

and "Vogel".

Which is pretty lucky, as it's a dangerous word to get wrong ^^

I never thought about that, but yeah, I think pronunciation is probably harder for adults, who can't really avoid processing their new language through their first. Even though Japanese pronunciation is generally fairly easy (kinda like German, you say it as it's spelled, so once you learn each sound, it should, in theory, be easy), I find I often say things with too strong an English accent. As Japanese doesn't really stress words the way we do, it can make the word hard to catch for Japanese ears if we accidentally stress a vowel, even though the other way around, both the Japanese pitch accent and our stress, sound pretty similar. I'm sure anyone who's studied Japanese will nod in agreement as I say this, but you often find you'll say something, they'll ask you to repeat it, and then when you do and they realise what you meant, they'll repeat it back to you almost exactly as you said it, with a slighly different intonation. They do this with places too. I see it more with the newer members. They'll say, 'oh I've been to Nagoya' and the Japanese will reply, 'Nagoya?'. They do this ALL the time.

I never noticed this so much with Germans. They were more inclined to just laugh at weirdly pronounced words. It was the grammar that they would halt the flow of conversation to correct!

[DanieMarie]

Re: Enter the Linguistic Pagan!　参上！言語学の異教徒！

That's because they're an irritatingly nitpicky culture. They'll correct your accent too when they know you better, but they don't think it's worth it most of the time. I told my boyfriend to stop trying to smooth out my accent. It's not insanely strong or anything, it's just -there.- I personally really like having an accent. I always wanted one growing up, and now I have one.

[Jembru]

Re: Enter the Linguistic Pagan!　参上！言語学の異教徒！

Hey Shimoppi (too much? ^^), I'm putting this here because I don't want to double post in the other thread. On the other forum, we're talking about doing a group translation project together. The idea is for me to scan a page from either a Japanese novel (probably) or a magazine (maybe) and then we'll have a go, taking a line each, to translate. We can then offer feedback and opinions on one another's translation, correcting grammatical misunderstandings, considering better ways we might word it, or what we think the author really intended. I think it could be a fun and educational exercise, and I was wondering if you'd like to join in? I've already bigged you up to the others!

If you don't have time for that, maybe I could pop over to this forum and share some of the lines that have us stumped and see what you make of them? Whatever suits you really! I'd just really love it if you could be involved on some level.

[Simatong]

Re: Enter the Linguistic Pagan!　参上！言語学の異教徒！

Hey Shimoppi (too much? ^^), I'm putting this here because I don't want to double post in the other thread. On the other forum, we're talking about doing a group translation project together. The idea is for me to scan a page from either a Japanese novel (probably) or a magazine (maybe) and then we'll have a go, taking a line each, to translate. We can then offer feedback and opinions on one another's translation, correcting grammatical misunderstandings, considering better ways we might word it, or what we think the author really intended. I think it could be a fun and educational exercise, and I was wondering if you'd like to join in? I've already bigged you up to the others!

If you don't have time for that, maybe I could pop over to this forum and share some of the lines that have us stumped and see what you make of them? Whatever suits you really! I'd just really love it if you could be involved on some level.

Oh, wow! That might be interesting! (And by "might" I mean "absolutely" ). I would definitely like to see what's going on with that. You can bring some things over to this forum if you like, though I will try and drag my lazy carcass over to the Japanese forums too (Sometimes I get all misanthropic or just get distracted, and that makes me feel guilty, as all this language stuff truly does give me the "happy feels"). I would be more than happy to do some collabs with you guys! I will pop over in a bit to see what's going on too!

- - - Updated - - -

That's because they're an irritatingly nitpicky culture. They'll correct your accent too when they know you better, but they don't think it's worth it most of the time. I told my boyfriend to stop trying to smooth out my accent. It's not insanely strong or anything, it's just -there.- I personally really like having an accent. I always wanted one growing up, and now I have one.

I used to hate having an accent, but it's gotten to a point where I am like, "It's just a part of me. No biggie." It makes it a lot easier (for me) to just have fun with the language when I stop trying to be obsessive about accents all the time. Though the obsessions to creep up every now and again~~~

[Jembru]

Re: Enter the Linguistic Pagan!　参上！言語学の異教徒！

Cool!! I'm so excited about that! Okay, what I'll do then, is pop over here and let you know when things have kicked off or new posts made, maybe with a tempting teaser to spark you interest even more!

Also, we should start a thread for discussing paganism in Japanese. I wonder if we should check with the staff how they'd like us to do it and where? It would be very rude to have a private conversation between ourselves in a language that most members can't read, but I'd be worried that if we started such a thread on the other forum, some members might be offended. I've mentioned in passing that I am pagan, and Abby, who's a church going Christian, wasn't in the slightest bit offended, but my study-buddy, who I was meeting on skype to do speaking practice with, suddenly vanished altogether and I'm a little anxious that this is why.

Maybe we could make it bi-lingual so that people can join in with English only, if we say something that interests them, or do it in blogs which would keep it off the main forum. I've never, ever attempted to discuss paganism in a meaningful way in Japanese. I've literally explained roughly what I believe and then quickly moved onto a safer topic.

Anyway, I'm going to be skanning in the first page for the reading task tonight or tomorrow night. The book is 'Bizan', by Masada Mashi, in case you want to look into it before we start. I'll let you know as soon as the thread is started!

- - - Updated - - -

Wait a moment! I've never checked the kanji on the title of this and just assumed that first word was 'とうじょう', because of the '上'. I've only ever heard this word, so haven't seen written. Rikaikun caught it as I ran over with my curser just now and I see that it's actually read さんじょう. I've never come across the word 参上. I see it means 'visiting or calling on' according to rikaikun. So, is this an alternative word for 登場? Yeah, I looked up the proper writing and it doesn't even use 上! This is exactly why I shouldn't guess at words, although I do this far too often. I knew 参 from 参加, so could have guessed it was read 'san' but this is the ONLY word I can read that uses this kanji, so I guessed maybe it had other readings. ^^ Oh dear, this reading task is going to be interesting then isn't it? Haha..