I just wanna say something about this video from the perspective of learning language. If you take the time to watch it, you'll see the Rick character be immensely proud of his limited language ability. He uses one and two word snippets of japanese as though they had opened the gates of this culture wide just for him.
I'm not sure I was ever quite so impressed with myself for such a limited ability, but this phase is sort of the model for what a language learner needs to always run from: premature pride. The truth is that pride in your language ability is almost inevitably premature. You're really no good at a language until you start taking your ability completely for granted.
The video brought back a internal montage of (now) embarrasing moments in the past... like reading a romanized text of the local dialect in front of almost all the city English teachers (not my choosing)... or falling (halfway) victim to a internet scam...
If you're gonna really learn, pride is the first thing that's got to go.
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2 comments:
Just a quick note to let you know that I have zero pride in my Japanese. Not sure how you got that impression! LOL! (^_^)
I have never taken "learning Japanese" seriously (and probably never will!) I don't even consider it learning, I'm just having fun reading manga in Japanese; to me it's like doing a sudoku or some kind of similar puzzle.
Also, I must say that I admire your hard work with the language! Sorry I gave you the wrong impression. Good luck in your studies! がんばってね。
-Rick.
rick, you seem like the nicest guy in the world. you weren't out to give anyone any impression, to be sure. Maybe I'm just projecting.
I really talking mostly from my own experience.
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