The Milkman's Sister
Apr. 24th, 2008 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
parasitegirlThe Milkman's sister is out, and I have been given the computer. I feel that I must make use of it, even though I can't think of much to say...it's either this or back to the studying Japanese. There are only so many hours I can put behind a textbook.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, polishing up my grammar is essential for communication in all my walks of life, but my essential issue with textbooks have not changed: they reflect a life that is not my own. It's like learning to cook exotic vegetarian dishes by reading a traditional German cookbook.
I realize that not all my study can be fun texts and podcasts, but why must so many textbooks take the life out of a language?
I've recently gone up a level in one of the better textbook series and am finding myself a little lost. All of a sudden we've become even more distant from my life. Suddenly I've gone from the passive inconveniences of Mr. Yoshida drinking all my booze, which I can relate to, or the joys of receiving the ability to leave work 5 minutes early from my kind boss to this new place...a land with a lot of thesis papers on the general state of the economy and the merits of each one. People keep debating the big things, and I still can't explain my various feelings about Japanese Shoe Culture or why being around me might drive Mr. Yoshida to drink?
It reminds me a lot of poor Yan-San and the semester we watched him go from the ideal Japan to the Japan that lead to his breakdown.
Where is the textbook that holds my interest? I think I need one in which the sample sentances takes me to a land of variously social akward people wherein we debate the merits and detractors of the relationships that each one has found themselves in and what options they may have now!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, polishing up my grammar is essential for communication in all my walks of life, but my essential issue with textbooks have not changed: they reflect a life that is not my own. It's like learning to cook exotic vegetarian dishes by reading a traditional German cookbook.
I realize that not all my study can be fun texts and podcasts, but why must so many textbooks take the life out of a language?
I've recently gone up a level in one of the better textbook series and am finding myself a little lost. All of a sudden we've become even more distant from my life. Suddenly I've gone from the passive inconveniences of Mr. Yoshida drinking all my booze, which I can relate to, or the joys of receiving the ability to leave work 5 minutes early from my kind boss to this new place...a land with a lot of thesis papers on the general state of the economy and the merits of each one. People keep debating the big things, and I still can't explain my various feelings about Japanese Shoe Culture or why being around me might drive Mr. Yoshida to drink?
It reminds me a lot of poor Yan-San and the semester we watched him go from the ideal Japan to the Japan that lead to his breakdown.
Where is the textbook that holds my interest? I think I need one in which the sample sentances takes me to a land of variously social akward people wherein we debate the merits and detractors of the relationships that each one has found themselves in and what options they may have now!
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-24 03:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-24 04:16 am (UTC)Ties and sweater vests for all!
no subject
Date: 2008-04-24 04:03 am (UTC)Perhaps you can pick a book on a topic you like that you can read at least a few pages even with guessing skips, and then do the cycle of "read a few pages, marking words" "look up the unknowns" "copy out the 'oh, so that was a nice usage'"?
If you have some good references (and I would recommend a book 日本語文系辞典 by くろしお出版 if you don't have it), then any book should be "official text" worthy. Just pick one thing to officially plow through looking up EVERY thing you wonder about (as opposed to the regular reading).
I don't know (and goodness knows I have no relevant qualifications AT ALL so YMMV) but when I officially tutor people I try to get them to that point, even if the books they are reading are ones aimed at elementary kids or whatever.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-24 04:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-24 04:26 am (UTC)I helped some people to do it before but found that the 完全マスター books from アルク for the grammar bits, together with also looking up the grammar bits from the 日本語文系辞典 was pretty helpful.
If you want old tests complete with answers there's a Chinese website that has all at hjenglish.com, it's all in Chinese of course but if you search around on JLPT or X級 in there you can find the stuff. I have some old stuff saved from level 1 on my work computer... somewhere.