Re: Which to use for learning a new language?
I'm seriously considering getting out of the swing! I've been studying intensively for around 3 and a half years now. I started studying seriously because my light dabbling hadn't produced many results and I wanted to be fluent. So I've studied for an average of 8 hours a week and I've been very organised about how I use my study time. I guess I haven't used the language as much as I'd have liked. I'm too shy to chat to anyone I don't know well via skype, and I find 1:1 conversations a bit too intensive, so face to face social gatherings have been where most of my Japanese is used (excluding the written exchanges via facebook, and the journal I keep on lang-8). I practice free speaking by keeping a video journal too though, so overall I'd say I've been a good student.
Yet my skills aren't where I'd like to be, and definitely not where I believe they should be for my effort. I sound fluent, especially to the newer learners who look up to me as though I'm something to aspire to, but my grammar is terrible, I find advanced or fancy vocabulary hard to remember, and nothing I do seems to change this. While real life conversations are generally okay for me, I struggle to follow movies or dramas unless they're aimed at teenagers or younger. It's as though I just can't learn. I was the same learning English. I was tested for learning difficulties but they said it was just my learning style didn't suit classroom style teaching. I had to take special classes for several years, and I couldn't spell consistently until I was in my 20s.
Maybe a tutor could help, although I don't think I'd get the quick results I'm looking for, and I'm finding myself too nervous to commit and book that first session. I get anxious the first time I chat to someone online even if it's in English, never mind Japanese.
It's killing me, but I think I need to accept that I'm just not good enough to master Japanese. I can keep on pushing against this wall.. keep on wasting hours of my life slugging away at my desk while all I do is get older and more and more dejected. Or I can be thankful that I have achieved a usable level and I'll at least always have that, then move on.
I just wanted one thing that made me feel special. Just one thing. I guess some people just aren't designed to be special..
Originally posted by Hoho
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Yet my skills aren't where I'd like to be, and definitely not where I believe they should be for my effort. I sound fluent, especially to the newer learners who look up to me as though I'm something to aspire to, but my grammar is terrible, I find advanced or fancy vocabulary hard to remember, and nothing I do seems to change this. While real life conversations are generally okay for me, I struggle to follow movies or dramas unless they're aimed at teenagers or younger. It's as though I just can't learn. I was the same learning English. I was tested for learning difficulties but they said it was just my learning style didn't suit classroom style teaching. I had to take special classes for several years, and I couldn't spell consistently until I was in my 20s.
Maybe a tutor could help, although I don't think I'd get the quick results I'm looking for, and I'm finding myself too nervous to commit and book that first session. I get anxious the first time I chat to someone online even if it's in English, never mind Japanese.
It's killing me, but I think I need to accept that I'm just not good enough to master Japanese. I can keep on pushing against this wall.. keep on wasting hours of my life slugging away at my desk while all I do is get older and more and more dejected. Or I can be thankful that I have achieved a usable level and I'll at least always have that, then move on.
I just wanted one thing that made me feel special. Just one thing. I guess some people just aren't designed to be special..
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