From my experience, at the beginning beginning of language learning there's not much more one can do than learn short phrases and repeat them until they roll off the tongue. Before I achieved a level of comfort with the most basic vocabulary and phrases, I was pretty much only capable of speaking practice with friends and basic writing practice.
I'm so glad to have reached a level (pseudo)fluency that at least allows for better conversation, as well as other types of activity in besides just sitting down with a Japanese textbook. Although I do enjoy studying grammar as well, it is nice to be able to accomplish something like preparing a Japanese recipe or writing a note to a friend. Some practical. Something that contributes to community. Something I enjoy as a hobby.
My latest endeavor with Japanese is to read a novel! It's one you all may know:
That's right! Harry Potter and the "Wise Man's" Stone. 賢者, or kenja, for wise man (or philosopher, or, apparently, sorcerer) was already new vocabulary for me.
When I'd pick up any article or magazine in Japanese before now, I'd usually have my electronic dictionary or phone (or a friend :)) handy to help with on-the-spot translation. By stopping every time I happened upon an unknown word or phrase, though, I'd be robbing myself of a chance to figure out the meaning of the word by context. This is, I'm pretty sure, how I bolstered my growing list of sight words when I was learning to read English books as a child.
To my surprise, I learned several of the words on page one by said context, getting to the end of the page in about 15 minutes before going back to define the remaining 29 unknown words. Had I stopped for dictionary duty each time I got stuck, the list would have been more like 40 words. Hooray for small victories!
Enter ReadMOD (read more or die). My friend Amy let me know about an online (friendly) competition that lets you keep track of the amount of pages read for language learning. You can keep track of your progress and ranking, and, most beneficial of any of these in my opinion, see that there are other people out there reading not only Japanese, but many other languages as well! Click here to read more about how extensive reading boosts comprehension.
Amy has a goal that averages out to 30 pages a day and is in the middle of a different Harry Potter book. My goal averages out to 10 pages a day. Judging by the one page that took me about 45 minutes total today, I think I'll need to either revisit my goal of 300 pages by January 31 or skip the dictionary part all together and count on my prior knowledge of the plot to help when I'm stuck. Whatever I end up doing, I'll keep underlining and hopefully see the number of underlined words go down gradually.
If you're wanting to learn another language, reading is a good way to reinforce vocabulary you're learning, and even a good place to start with language learning in general! When I was a kindergarten teacher in a completely EAL classroom, I was constantly telling parents one of the best things they could do was grabbing any book with simple, repeated text and then, when appropriate, pointing their kids toward more difficult text in a book that grabs their attention.
Same goes for adult learners, too, eh? Happy reading!
