The useless example sentences are a disaster

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#166

Hm, I kinda see Nimbifera’s point here. I think the conversation between you two degraded a little bit because there was nitpicking about definitions and who said what, which is something that in my experiences always leads conversations south no matter who is talking, or about what.

About nuance and stuff, this is something that really clicks with me, I really have a knack for getting and expressing a ton of nuance with minimal communication (and for seamlessly integrating body language when decoding and producing language). So I don’t think it’s going to be as doom and gloom as you hinted, it’s just a banquet really. When in doubt, I just shamelessly ask/try to find the answer online.

About pitch accent and regions, yeah that one is going to be a little bit harder until I get used to it, but it’s not unlike here in Brazil either, the Northeast region has a style that no native is ever going to mistake for the South dialect, or for the MG dialect. So that one is a bit more work, but it is doable.

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#167

This was unnecessary

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#168

Being a Japanese native can be the worst starting point of being a good Japanese teacher. Long story, please don’t trigger me.

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#169

Yeah, I see what you’re saying. Native teachers in any language are best when you’re going from intermediate to advanced.

#170

If you like nuances Japanese is really where you belong to.

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#171

Ok, but here it’s a case of a Japanese native (the wife of mariner929) not understanding some example sentences written by other Japanese natives (from the staff of WK). Maybe some sentences are a bit clumsy, or a bit weird, or contain some error, but still I don’t expect them to be garbled to the point of other natives being lost.

#172

I don’t think in any other language (culture) people have such incredibly fixed ideas on how what and when a “foreigner category xyz” should be expected to do AB or C. There is an unique Japanese set of problems here and they touch a large field including exams for the sake of it, meaning of Life going to Toudai to have children looking at Toudaiseis in TV to be inspired to learn away their life to become a Toudaisei themselves to be able to become an expert in English without being able to say “Good Morning” but making up a test like JLPT for “foreigners” and…Atsugiri Jason… I said DON’T TRIGGER!

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#173

Lol
My heart is with you
You are stronger than your triggers
Keep sending me data points :blush:

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#174

I met many Japanese people and for a while I tried to ask them questions. But the response was ALWAYS - this is strange, we don’t talk like that. Ever. Try it for yourself it is not only mariner929s wife. It is my husband, all of my colleagues I ever talked to and also even Japanese teachers think a “foreigner” cannot learn Japanese.

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#175

Sounds like a challenge

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#176

Do you remember the sentence? It would be educational to discuss it and get her feedback.

#177

people conveniently forget that even in english, one area may have phrasings and sayings that elsewhere make absolutely no sense whatsoever to others. Just because one person’s wife didn’t understand something really doesn’t say much.

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#178

Like the geordie dialect - utterly unlike English anywhere else

#179

I never found them useless, maybe a bit hard to follow, but that’s okay. Those sentences can either be rewritten or replaced, or I can just skip them.

I typically don’t put too much stock into it as we need many more examples in all kinds of different contexts to really learn Japanese or any language for that matter.

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#181

I guess that there is a fundamental different conception of “question” in Japan and “overseas” (haha).
What “we” think is a neutral question with the intention to hear the other persons true opinion, while (this is just my impression trying to make sense of it) a Japanese hearing a “question” automatically thinks there is a problem or conflict coming up and becoming defensive. And in order to avoid conflict they answer in a way they think you want to hear if this does make any sense.

Like if you ask your wife “What do you think about this sentence” she might receive a message like “Hey goddammit, look at this annoying sample sentence I start to hate learning Japanese and I expect you to tell me my sense of this being wrong is correct” or something like that. And of course for her the sample sentence is not really important and for her the question comes unexpected while she is eg cooking dinner but it is important for her to keep the harmony and so she starts feeling uncomfortable and tell you this is strange and to be honest any sample sentence is strange by nature because it is something made up and if you start thinking about it too much you realize that it is strange.

#182

Sure, but they are not Japanese themselves, so I don’t see how that is really relevant.

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#183

The reply got flagged but I can’t believe people still use r-ard/fuse it with other words to insult people. What’s this, 2012?

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#184

The relevance is in how do you learn a language of a culture that sees questions as some kind of aggression. How do you get feedback? How can you ever be sure you are not making mistakes if people are too polite to not correct you or think you are a lost case anyway from the beginning even if you pay them as a teacher?

#185

Ahh, sorry! Now I understood your point as I reread your comment. I was trying to think in the context of me asking the question and mariner getting defensive, when you were talking about the situation between mariner and his wife. I agree that’s possible, but now were just hypothesizing even more :sweat_smile:.

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#186

Ha! The email I’ve been meaning to write…add a 4th sentence in the first position that is the most basic use of the word.
(and add more than 500 character spaces for “Notes” while at it.)
I’ll get right on that.