hi everyone
it’s so awesome to see all the level-ups in the last few days, and a lot of new painfuls too! almost one of my whole tables is pink now o-o
this group has grown a lot! i’m so happy!
just in case you forgot, i’m reminding everyone to make sure their level matches what it says in the op, i noticed that some for some it doesn’t match up.
keep up all the good work everyone! although i don’t post here much, i love reading all your replies and learning about new resources, tips and tricks, and the celebrations
頑張って！
That’s okay! I would say that grammar is actually 75% of the reason I wanted to start italki lessons. My vocabulary and Kanji learning is going really well on my own, but grammar study didn’t feel focused and I felt I wasn’t retaining enough. Getting a teacher has been a huge help in focusing my grammar study and I am getting better at grasping new grammar “in the wild” as well. I’ve also learned more about English grammar studying Japanese than I ever learned in school lol.
Do you have any recommendations on what to focus on when taking iTalki lessons? I just started and have only had two lessons so far, where we just try to keep it to speaking Japanese as much as possible. I’ve got some homework for next time where I need to write about my New Years resolutions and then she will grade it before we begin. I suppose we’ll possibly talk about which mistakes I’ve made there, but I’m wondering if I should also suggest some grammar points from my current chapter of what I’m learning to work on.
Do you have any specific routines or focuses during your lessons? Or is it just free talk?
Hey MinTako! I think it’s a combination of the way your teacher teaches and your own personal goals. As someone who teaches private music lessons for a living, I make sure that I tailor my approach to lessons based on my student’s goals, while still implementing my own philosophy of teaching, and I think it’s the same with italki.
I did an exhaustive search on italki trying to find the teacher that taught in a way that aligned with the way I like to learn. I wanted my italki experience to feel like I was in a classroom, and that’s basically what my teacher is doing. She also has created an environment where I can feel free to ask about anything that interests me so I bring some of the stuff I post on HelloTalk to lessons to get her opinion on if I am sounding natural or using grammar correctly. The bulk of our lesson though is just drilling the fundamentals through Genki, and that is where I think I learn the most.
The routine in our lesson is pretty consistent. We usually start with some conversation based on our material, then exercises in our lessons, and then we go through vocabulary pronunciation if we are moving on to the next lesson. Sprinkled throughout all of that are my questions, which she always takes the time to answer. Her English ability is C1 so it’s very easy to understand all of her explanations. We also have great report. We’ve spent some time just talking about politics, family, culture etc. and I think that is valuable as well.
I think you should feel free to express to your teacher your learning goals. If you want to focus on grammar, your teacher should be able to accommodate you. Hopefully, she will be amenable to your interests and needs as a learner. I know it can be hard to do this, but don’t feel tied to a teacher if you don’t think their style is jiving with your process. Obviously, most italki teachers know what they are doing, but you know yourself the best, and there is more than one way to skin a cat, for lack of a better analogy lol. I don’t think that was what you are suggesting, but I need to tell myself that sometimes!
Thank you so much for the advice! I definitely think the issue is more with me not knowing what to focus on and ask for. I took a few trial lessons with different people and ended up with this teacher because I felt like this one clicked the best and she was also the best at helping me with grammar where the others more helped me find missing words. I also had to rule out all Japanese teachers in Japan because I’d prefer to take lessons after work as I often have plans during the weekends, but with the time zones by the time I finish work its around 1am in Japan and they wake up when I go to bed xD
When asked what I wanted to focus on I did say my speaking. I feel like I’ve got a great routine for self studying my textbooks at this point and while my listening and reading are on par with my current textbook, I’ve never really had the opportunity to speak and I avoid writing cause it’s hard and I’m lazy (I know this is how I’ll get better). This is probably why we focus on just having conversation and then I have homework to finally have someone to keep me accountable for actually writing and providing more Japanese output, instead of purely having input.
For the homework I have time to think and try to focus on using more grammar, but I have to admit for speaking I’m so bad I feel like it mostly comes out as a string of single words. I even forget to use particles, which I don’t realize until my teacher adds them in for me lol. And often when I remember them I get them wrong x.x I’m trying to decide if having a grammar point focus will help me form better sentences or if I’m just at a point where I really just need to speak and work it to a decent level and then try to add on to it by expanding my grammar usage later. I also feel like the grammar points in my current textbook would just overwhelm me.
When you say conversation based on the material, do you mean you work closely with the textbook for topics, vocab and grammar? And what do your exercises typically look like? I’ve never taught anyone myself, and it’s been a solid few years since I went to school, so I don’t really have a good grasp on good learning methods and focuses. My teacher did ask if there was anything else I’d like to do or focus on, so I’m trying to gather inspiration on what could be good for me. At first I thought just speaking, and I know its a hard and long process and maybe I just need to be patient, but I really feel like I’m just flopping around like a fish out of water sometimes haha.
I’m still ill I blame all the lvl 11 ‘sick’/illness related vocab (病気、病人 etc etc) lol. Hopefully won’t last much longer!
Good to see everyone making such good progress My own Japanese studies have ground to a very slow pace as I feel like I have about half an hour’s energy a day right now. Did play a little Pokémon sword yesterday though and came across two new vocab words that I was able to correctly guess at meaning and reading from the kanji which felt really cool! I’ll take whatever little victories right now lol.
Same haha. I do take the Tofugu approach though that writing will slow me down if I try to spend too much time on it right now. It’s not as important as reading and listening input imo.
This is great! You definitely have a clear idea of what you want. Speaking is part of my reason for taking lessons as well. Output is important like you said and developing “muscle memory” by actually producing the sounds of the language is invaluable but I think focusing on reading and listening (especially at the same time) will inevitably improve your speaking ability. I feel your speaking and writing ability is largely a result of your input. I think there are many differing opinions on this point though haha.
I think it will. I like to study a grammar point by going over how and why it’s used, and then immediately find examples in context. Context is really important for particles as well because they directly effect the function of words and sentences.
Yes, you are right on! It’s basically a question and answer conversation, but I tend to shy away from the vocabulary because it’a mostly school related and I want my answers to be real so I take the grammar structures we are learning and insert my own vocabulary knowledge. She will ask “What are you doing this weekend?” I’m definitely not going to say “I’m going to the library,” or “I’m going to play tennis at school” lol because I haven’t been to a library in a long time, and I’ve never played tennis but I will say “I’m going to Starbucks” or “I will eat thai food.” You can say a ton of stuff with some grammar and a lot of vocabulary, and it doesn’t need to be complex, in some cases, it should be short and sweet so it sticks better. This is something I practice a lot actually. I will take a grammar point and use it with a ton of different vocabulary so I can say a lot of different things while solidifying the structure.
This is where we drill the particles and grammar we encounter in Genki. This is much more structured.
Speaking on my own experience, getting grammar explanations from a native speaker is an illuminating activity lol. Talking about the function of grammar has helped it stick for me.
You could ask your teacher to spend some time on your textbook, or maybe you could ask to read some manga together and focus on the grammar. Reading together might be pretty cool, because you could be reading out loud and your teacher could explain what is happening functionally as well. Even just mentioning to your teacher that you want to put some focus on grammar may give her the impetus to put more focus on it. She may even have some ideas on how to effectively implement it into lessons.
I feel like I always provide novels in these discussions. I have way too much time these days lol.
Okay >.< I’ll put a lot more thought into trying this out now! I have the same feeling when it comes to learning more English grammar while studying Japanese lol. I was a horrible student in school because I had no attention span. As I got a little older my attention is a little better, plus Japanese has given me even more discipline to stay focused.
The past couple of weeks I’ve been slacking when it comes to learning outside of just doing my Wanikani reviews, so I need to build a better schedule to hit all my other points. For awhile I was doing bunpro and a little bit of satori reader alongside WK and I need to get back to doing that. Maybe italki would give me a little more motive to go full out again lol. I really want this to be a big year for my Japanese
No worries! We need to give ourselves a pass sometimes. I’ve had a similar issue in the past week or so doing new lessons on WK. Language learning is a lifelong process so I don’t sweat it too much though. I’m not letting my reviews fall off and I’ve been engaging with people on HelloTalk every day. I had an extended chat conversation with some native speakers about the difficulty of Kanji for both natives and non-natives which was super fun, and enjoying the language is really what it’s all about!
Just imagine what we could be doing with Japanese by the end of this year if we study and stay motivated!! That’s what keeps me going.
I think it would actually be hard to talk to a little kid cause they can’t really gauge your ability or guide a conversation like a native speaking adult can.
I use Hellotalk a bit but I realized I jumped onto it way too early and I’m more of an English help than anything atm lol. But I just kept it at 2 people that I enjoy talking with and I do still learn some things from them. I know it will be much better once I have a little more structure under my belt. And the kanji talk is interesting lol, I also ran into a stream when they were talking about it being crazy that people even try to tackle the amount of kanji we are learning.
Yep, I was the same when I joined two months ago. I don’t like to use the translate function for more than looking up words, so it took a while to actually converse, but it has gotten easier, and I have gotten past はじめまして and お元気ですか。
I also got messages from a ton of folks who were not native Japanese speakers or learning Japanese who wanted me to teach them English. I was like, huh? ummm, no lol.
We are pretty crazy, aren’t we? haha
@sycamore It really feels great. Granted, my end of the conversation is just a bit simpler (lol), and my replies take (a lot) longer, but it’s giving me extra exposure to the vocabulary I am SRSing and introducing me to new vocabulary as well! One of the coolest features is that native speakers can correct your mistakes when you post. I’m still having trouble deciding when to use は and が and I am usually incorrect, so their feedback is welcomed haha.
On a more serious note, how far I’ll still be away from ‘consuming Japanese media without much effort’ in a year is actually what often demotivates me
If I continue at my current pace I’d be a very solid N3 at best
I blame all the lvl 11 ‘sick’/illness related vocab (病気、病人 etc etc) lol. Hopefully won’t last much longer!
My own Japanese studies have ground to a very slow pace as I feel like I have about half an hour’s energy a day right now. Did play a little Pokémon sword yesterday though and came across two new vocab words that I was able to correctly guess at meaning and reading from the kanji which felt really cool! I’ll take whatever little victories right now lol.
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