Welcome to nihonGO!. Before I start going on about the program I thought it would be appropriate to write about my journey:
I started my actual study 4 months or so before high school started. I had no experience with foreign langauges -- especially the Asian kind. I studied a lot about learning methods and neurology (yuck!) thinking it would help. When I turned 15 I begged my parents to let me study at a nearby high school that had a Japanese program. I wasn't ready to take on high schools when I started. I had a hard time with teachers and navigating my way.
It turns out that the Japanese program wasn't what I expected it to be. Elective classes are in a fragile situation, if the students don't meet the grade standards then the class is cut. This was more so for a class like Japanese. The teachers of these kind of classes have the choice of either motivating their students to exceed or dumb down the class and hand everyone an easy pass. Sadly it was the latter. I had learned the whole first year of high school Japanese by myself in 4 months before I even started. It wasn't that I was smarter than the average student there, many of them were far superior in math skills. It was a mixture of:
1) When standards are lowered, the effort the students make only dwindle.
2) The teacher handed out extra credit through drawing pictures... would you rather study or draw a picture, you tell me!
This is broccoli before nihonGO!
Well even though the teacher was a funny person I left the school for an online high school because frankly he was just babysitting us. He didn't help those like me who wanted to learn to the best of our ability. I guess that is the weak link to public schools, all the students are massed together.
Next was a non-credit community college class. This time the teacher was a native Japanese lady. This class was a greater improvement because grades and tests didn't infect our study. The class was really small and the teacher would make content specifically for us. Even though the material was just as simple as the class before it there were some fundamental differences. The teacher encouraged us to go at our own pace, she seemingly taught us all individually but managed to keep the social part of a class. She helped me improve my writing while helped those who needed help with grammar etc. The second difference was that once the "academic" part was taken out so the study became learning. There is a difference in that. Once we were having fun, the daunting list of Chinese characters (used in many Asian languages including Japanese) became like a game. We were able to give tips to each other unlike a class which one was not permitted to speak. How anyone can learn a language in a silent classroom is beyond me. Sadly that class was the teacher's last! So I had to move on.
This is broccoli after nihonGO!
Since then I have been to many classes from online to college courses. Sadly all the other classes were the same as the first class. I have taken classes titled, "Intensive Advance Japanese 3" that still didn't cover all of eementary Japanese. I think many of the methods I have learned through my journey have showed me a very different approach to "studying" a language.
Many say that Japanese is a hard language. I say they are a bunch of whiners -- millions of Japanese citizens seem to be fine with it. The only difference is the time they put into it. There are two variables to language learning: time and interest.
This is a platypus before nihonGO!
So what is nihonGO!? It's my senior culminating project with the purpose to teach anyone, anywhere, anytime. Learning a language is daunting, but it shouldn't be. There is a Japanese saying that goes, "A journey of a thousand miles begin with a single step".
So, how does nihonGO! work?)
nihonGO! is spread out over a period of 6 months. Each month is labled "Step 1", "Step2" etc. Unlike a normal class they don't have start and end dates. You complete lessons everyday until you finish a step and then you move on. It's pretty simple.
There are 28 daily lessons roughly 10-20 minutes in length.There are bonus lessons consisting mainly of vocabulary lessons with no grammar points. If the class is too difficult one can do a lesson every two days or visa versa. Whatever pace one chooses, I recommend that one put in some time not matter how small everyday. 5 minutes a day would be better than an 5 hours during the weekend! Languages are learned differently than math. Most of the work is done subconsciously by your brain. Ideally, if you have 30 minutes a day to learn Japanese put 15 minutes to new material and 15 minutes to review.
There are 28 daily lessons roughly 10-20 minutes in length.There are bonus lessons consisting mainly of vocabulary lessons with no grammar points. If the class is too difficult one can do a lesson every two days or visa versa. Whatever pace one chooses, I recommend that one put in some time not matter how small everyday. 5 minutes a day would be better than an 5 hours during the weekend! Languages are learned differently than math. Most of the work is done subconsciously by your brain. Ideally, if you have 30 minutes a day to learn Japanese put 15 minutes to new material and 15 minutes to review.
This is a platypus after nihonGO!
Themes)
Themes cover various time periods spanning from 1 week to 3. In these themes we work though projects like cooking to watching movies. We don't study new grammar points or new characters. No new knowledge is required to participate in any of the events. They are designed for multiple levels of students so if one completed the steps slowly then they can still participate in these events. The goal of themes is to solidify the material learned and to make it natural -- and fun!
What are the tools?)
*The lessons will be posted in a blog post, containing a PDF, MP3, powerpoint and occasionally a youtube video.
*I highly recommend everyone download "Anki" from this website:
http://ichi2.net/anki/
This is a turkey before...you know where this is going.
Anki is essentially a virtual flash card program. There are many advantages such me being to make sets of flash cards for you! Instead of having a word/sentence on both sides, pictures, videos and recordings become a possibility. I believe there is an Anki application for smart-phones out there but it costs around 10 dollars. (It may have changed since then.) With this application you can cut the average amount spent on reviewing in half! I highly encourage you to try to use this device, even if you aren't a computer person. (Heck, I am one of those ignorant Mac users who has no idea how to zip files. XD)
What am I going to learn?)
Japanese, duh! We will learn how to READ before we will learn how to say silly expressions textbooks force students to say like, "I wish I had friends." or "This is a rock!". (You laugh now but those dialogs are baaaad.)
*Japanese alphabets (2)
-The Japanese use 46 letters in their alphabet(s) which may seem like a lot but take in mind that we won't have to learn crazy spelling like in English. (For you know-it-alls, Japanese don't really have "alphabets" they are technically called "syllabaries". But seriously, no-one cares you know that. )
*A crapload of Chinese characters...400 to be exact
-Your'e brain may have exploded right then. Yeah, Japanese uses Chinese characters WITH Japanese alphabets. Have fun! I'm being sarcastic, don't worry about the difficulty, remember that with languages there is only time and fun-ness. Just study a little bit a day and before you realize it you will have memorized them all wanting more.
*Pretty much the basis to say what you want
-We will be covering all of elementary Japanese grammar (scary word, I know). But I am a strong believer in example sentence > grammar rules. In fact, in Japanese there are only 3 irregular verbs! Poor English has several hundred...or thousands -- in fact I have no idea of the number of iregularities in English.
That's about it for the introduction! Thanks for reading this boring post -- if you can read through this then you can be sure to do well!
--
ジェーク (Jake)
What am I going to learn?)
Japanese, duh! We will learn how to READ before we will learn how to say silly expressions textbooks force students to say like, "I wish I had friends." or "This is a rock!". (You laugh now but those dialogs are baaaad.)
*Japanese alphabets (2)
-The Japanese use 46 letters in their alphabet(s) which may seem like a lot but take in mind that we won't have to learn crazy spelling like in English. (For you know-it-alls, Japanese don't really have "alphabets" they are technically called "syllabaries". But seriously, no-one cares you know that. )
This is a turkey after nihonGO! All characters and turkeys are copyrighted under federal law. Any use of these characters is highly prohibited!
*A crapload of Chinese characters...400 to be exact
-Your'e brain may have exploded right then. Yeah, Japanese uses Chinese characters WITH Japanese alphabets. Have fun! I'm being sarcastic, don't worry about the difficulty, remember that with languages there is only time and fun-ness. Just study a little bit a day and before you realize it you will have memorized them all wanting more.
*Pretty much the basis to say what you want
-We will be covering all of elementary Japanese grammar (scary word, I know). But I am a strong believer in example sentence > grammar rules. In fact, in Japanese there are only 3 irregular verbs! Poor English has several hundred...or thousands -- in fact I have no idea of the number of iregularities in English.
That's about it for the introduction! Thanks for reading this boring post -- if you can read through this then you can be sure to do well!
--
ジェーク (Jake)
