JCC Let’s Learn Languages

For Japanese I was taught "Ja Mata" for a casual "see you later".

 

Yeah, or Ja mata ne, with the ne indicating that you're expecting a response back.

I use it here in Cairns when I leave the local sushi place, and I always get a response!

 

Right, ne is basically the Japanese version of the Canadian "eh"?"

 

So, I need a bit of advice from fellow language learners.

A couple of days ago I wrapped up the German tree on Duolingo (well, okay, I'm still polishing off levels of the very last lesson, but it doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist to internalize that Ägypten means Egypt and der Kontinent is the continent). I've still got the array of stories to work through, and some levels on Memrise, but I'm worried I'm beginning to approach a wall of what I can seriously hope to accomplish "merely" working with free online courses - the informal Goethe Institüt online test puts me somewhere in a hazy B1-to-accidentally passing B2 range - and I think my biggest obstacle is going to be vocabulary building.

So... what makes the most sense? Watch a lot of TV and read a lot of books? Suck it up and head to the G.I. building downtown to enroll in a proper course when the pandemic measures lighten up? Get myself a good German-only dictionary? I feel like I'm baffled precisely because I have no idea how I built up my English vocabulary.

 

I like doing that. Or you can also do online lessons from native speakers. I do mine through Rosetta Stone because I got a good deal on unlimited lessons for a year, but there are plenty of places that do online courses. Good for a pandemic situation.

 

Kinda late on this, but I really have a few things to say

Ne （ね）doesn’t necessarily mean you expect a response back. But if you’re saying goodbye, you’ll get a response back, regardless if you use “ne” or not, because that’s just social etiquette.

And yes, I think it’s more or less the same as the Canadian “eh”. Or the Portuguese “né”. Usage depends on personality too. I have a Brazilian friend from Minas Gerais who often ends every other sentence with “né”, and when she speaks in Japanese she does the same thing with ね .


Re: Japanese goodbye.

Yes, nobody says sayonara. That's just dramatic movie dialogue. Same as ai****eru 愛してる. (edit: lol automatic censorship - I added the Japanese next to it)

However, there are technically several ways of saying “goodbye” in Japanese, and this is one case where there is no direct translation. It depends a lot on the situation and the expected social etiquette of each case-

“Ja mata”, “mata ne”, “ja ne”, etc, is only used among friends after a social gathering. “Bye bye” is also used (バイバイ).

Most of times, people use “(osaki ni) ****surei shimasu　お先に失礼します” and/or “otsukaresama desu　お疲れ様です”, or variations of it, as a non-casual/polite way of announcing they’re leaving. Especially in a workplace environment. Some companies are also quite... particular about what words you use. For instance, I work part-time at Sushiro, and whenever my shift ends, just before leaving, I always have to say this mouthful sentence: お先に失礼します。今日も一日お疲れ様です! (Osaki ni ****sureishimasu. Kyo mo ichi-nichi otsukare-sama desu!) - which is, by the way, literally printed and displayed on the kitchen for the workers to see in case they forget it. And the manager, if he’s nearby, just replies: “Hai, otsukare.”

There are also situations where, after a friendly/social gathering, you may use “otsukare” (instead of “mata”) when saying goodbye. For instance, after attending a rock concert. “Otsukare” implies that you acknowledge the people you’re with may be physically exhausted after participating in the activity you enjoyed, and you’re grateful for their dedication.

Also as a side note, if you’re leaving a place after you ate there, or a dinner event where someone paid your bill, the departure expression that’s common to use here is “gochisousama”. Which means, thank you for the meal.

@Ramza

If you can take online lessons with an actual teacher, or speak online with native or fluent speakers, that would be the best way imo. Next to that, watching TV, but actually dedicate yourself to that activity. For instance, choose a drama or series of your liking and watch an episode every two days or so, without any subs. Every time you watch an episode, make an effort to understand everything: I mean, do pause and rewind as much as you need, and look for the unknown words you think they’re saying online or in a dictionary. This helps you train your hearing, your spelling and your context-based language comprehension, as you have to force yourself to figure out the meaning of sentences on your own.

Other than that, reading blogs also helps, I think. Blogs are good places to learn how natives commonly express themselves.

 

Pretty common, depending on area. A lot of Japanese surnames are stuck in a particular area, but the really common ones like Suzuki and Sato are pretty much everywhere. Where I live Suwa and Seki are stupidly common, but in other places they're quite rare.

Kasai has loads of different kanji. Noriaki and Yuna are both 葛西, but they're both from Hokkaido, the biggest prefecture. Also most of Japan is mountainous and a lot of people ski as their one official hobby (Japanese people are weird in that most people only say one thing for their hobby. Usually golf in anyone over 30) so it's not weird that there would be two. Also Yoshiko Yoshiizumi's maiden name is Kasai and she was a ski jumper. She's also from Hokkaido.

 

So. Today I start a journey of serious commitment to learning Korean. I got into a coveted and highly organized server for BTS fans who want to learn Korean.

 

You so crazy... never change, man.

 

As a bilingual Chinese-American I can tell you that growing up I watched a lot of Chinese feature films to learn my parents native language. Not for fluency but for dialect used throughout the different regions. But I am fluent in Hanyu Pinyin (simplified) of Pinyin (traditional) Chinese.

 

yeah living in Taipei made speaking mandarin so much easier. News, MRT announcements, movies etc.

 

How's language learning going?

I just leveled up on the official Korean Sejong test to a Level 1B. That's out of four levels but yeah I started out a total beginner level 0 in March. I have been studying a ton.

 

For German, I've got advanced vocabulary on Memrise and then just a lot of my casual reading (I get most of my Bundesliga news from Kicker, for example) and TV shows (Der Kommissar is available on YouTube and that show rocks. Also Netflix helps a lot, obviously). One thing that does stink is the little highly nuanced differences that barely translate - brennen vs. verbrennen is the most egregious one in my mind, but they crop up from time to time.

For Czech, pronouns and I remain bitter enemies. When we meet in the streets a fight commences. Judges have filed restraining orders. If I ever travel back in time and meet whoever came up with svůj I will kill them.

 

You should try Korean, which basically doesn't have pronouns or conjugation based on pronouns! You just figure out who you're talking about by context most of the time. Of course you also change conjugations based on how old the person you're talking to is relative to you instead.

I did 3.5 hours of Korean classes today. Am I overdoing it? No. I wanna understand kdramas!

 

What resources or classes are you using to learn these languages?

 

Duolingo for grammar, Memrise for vocabulary, plus a willingness to consult textbooks and native speakers. My university offers a Czech language course for foreign employees but that has ten slots and fills up instantly, so.

If I was very serious about getting my German to professional grade I’d probably go to the Goethe Institut which is located downtown. However, at about €300/course that is not an economically sound option for what is still just a hobby second language.

 

Communication achieved:

 

Ah see for Spanish I used DuoLingo, Rosetta Stone's live immersion coaching, and some grammar books.

But Duolingo is absolutely useless for Korean. Useless! There it's all about Talk to me In Korean and Pimsleur.

 

Iä! Iä! Ich hätte gern die Schweinshaxe mit Erdäpfelknödel und ein Bier fhtagn! Nimmt mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh Kreditkarten oder nur Bargeld?

 

Add the Death Star blowing up Alderaan to represent Serbian insults.

“May your mother recognize your dead meat in a hamburger she eats.”