Kolintogba

Based on everything discussed in “How to (really) learn foreign languages”, I have developed my teaching material with the following principles. Everything is specifically geared to maximize the efficiency of learning the real living language:

• Every effort has been made to capture all the vocabularies that typical adults need in all aspects of life, e.g. Informal, formal, technical, specialized, work, family life, fad, classical, jokes and so on
• Each phrasal verb, idiomatic expression, set phrase is treated as an independent entity, not as a subset under the head word
• Every single word and phrase is individually ranked by importance. When one word has multiple meanings, each meaning is given separate ranking, so you can prioritize what is really important
• Every single word and phrase is given a concise and straightforward example, not long-winded excerpts from some classical literature on the internet that you don’t even comprehend. Also every effort has been made to make all the examples meaningful so that they clarify usage and provide mnemonic help. For instance, an example phrase like “it is open” is not very useful because it doesn’t present any concrete concept of “open”. Instead phrases like “The door is open” or “the store is open until 8” will help learners get the idea easier
• Every example phrase is given a translation that accurately conveys the meaning of the original. For example, “enough is enough” is the common English counterpart of a Japanese phrase as “ いい加減にしろ (=keep it at the acceptable level)”. However if I give only the former as a translation of the original Japanese expression to learners, they can be confused by the jump of the logic. In this case both the verbatim translation and more natural English translation are given, so learners can grasp the nuance accurately  
• All words and phrases are grouped by common meanings, so that you can learn by comparing them and clearly understand the differences of usage and nuances between them
• Slang terms, whether vulgar, pejorative, discriminatory or fad, are all included with detailed notes on usage, so you know what they mean. It is up to you to use them or not

In all reality my teaching material is a sort of hybrid dictionary and thesaurus. You can use it as a dictionary, but its real purpose and the critical difference with the existing dictionaries are to let you learn the real living words and phrases systematically, in the most thorough and efficient way possible. Used properly it eliminates time wasted just looking things up or struggling to guess what some sentences really mean. I wrote every single example from the ground up. They are all contemporary, exactly as used by real people from all walks of life today. 

Ranking of vocabulary

The word/phrase ranking in this material is based on the following concepts:

1. The structural words that are indispensable to form complete sentences, the most basic words and greetings
2. The words/phrases indispensable for normal adults to do basic communications with others
3. The words/phrases necessary for typical adults to function in public lives
4. The words/phrases not indispensable, but most adults know and use frequently in daily lives
5. The words/phrases used in advanced writings/speeches often by professionals. The slang terms, idioms, jargons people generally know, but not often used

How to learn a foreign language using this material

This material is not in a step-by-step format. As mentioned many times so far, the only way to learn a foreign language is to build vocabularies, and you will need about 20,000 to be able to function as an adult through work and social life, understand news articles, movies, joke with friends, etc..

The most effective way to build your vocabulary is to work systematically, mixing the below methods. By combining multiple different methods, you can build multiple paths of associations, and also eliminate dead spots and vocabularies falling through the cracks.

• Learn vocabularies with higher importance: Obviously prioritizing the vocabularies with higher importance allows efficient learning
• Learn structural words: Structural words include particles (助詞), conjunctions, modal verbs and others. They are key components of sentences. Learning them systematically helps you understand the grammar naturally 
• Learn synonyms: Learning synonyms is one of the biggest keys of building vocabulary. Clarifying the differences between synonyms eliminates confusion and that makes memorization easier and you will be able to use them with confidence
• Learn words by categories: Learning words in the same category – as with eye, ear, nose, mouth, lip – helps memorization by association
• Learn words by speech level: Japanese has an extremely complicated speech level system and it is crucial as an adult to be able to use it properly for each social setting. Learning it systematically facilitate the understanding of what to use when 

In order to facilitate the above, this material currently provides the following tools:

• Search Japanese words/phrases: You can search words and phrases as you do in dictionaries. You can also search them using English keywords like “eat” and “sleep”
• Search from a list of Japanese headwords: You can see a list of Japanese headwords
• Search English keywords: You can search English keywords, which you can use to search synonymous Japanese words and phrases
• Search from categories: You can search vocabulary categories such as “business”, “crime” and “science”
• Search by speech level: As mentioned before, the ability to use appropriate speech levels is critical in Japanese. You can search words/phrases by usage (e.g. colloquial, literary), by politeness, by gender and by importance
• Search structural words: You can search structural words by word class
• Search example phrases: You can search examples phrases in the entire database (currently about 28,000 phrases) for a specific word and/or expression 
• Vocabulary building exercises: You can do translate-English-to-Japanese and translate-Japanese-to-English exercises

While using the above tools, the fundamental learning method is to translate Japanese into English, and English into Japanese. Note there is absolutely no need for your translation to be exactly the same. It is normal that there are multiple ways to say the same thing. Just focus on practicing as many times as necessary until you immediately understand Japanese sentences, and you can build Japanese sentences yourself without hesitation.

Also remember the followings as well:

• Don’t get caught up with small details: Small grammatical mistakes and not-so-perfect pronunciation won’t detract others from understanding you. Unlike in schools, perfect grammar and pronunciation won’t score any points in real life. The only thing that matters is you communicate your thoughts to others. Just keep practicing by actually using the language and don’t worry about small details
• Do not try too hard to translate between the foreign language and your native language, especially if two languages are of totally separate families. English and Japanese have little in common, and many of the phrases cannot be translated verbatim. Many of the concepts in English don’t even exist in Japanese and vice versa. At some point you will simply not be able to translate all. Try to learn a foreign language as it is. As I have been mentioning, the essence of languages are “you don’t exactly know why but that’s how you say it”, so you have to learn that way as well

You may feel disappointed, but there is no magical way to learn foreign languages without any effort. Most language teaching products claims that you will speak a new language in a few weeks with just 15 minutes a day of study. Unfortunately that will NEVER happen, unless your definition of “speaking a language” is saying some greetings and other simple phrases. With your native languages, you have accumulated your vocabulary throughout your life. Professional writers spend years honing their skills, and only well-read readers can appreciate them. However there is a clear difference in efficient and inefficient ways of learning. If you put the same amount of effort and time, apparently those who learn efficiently will get better results. People used to spend years learning foreign languages with little success. With enough dedication, you should be able to achieve great results in months, not years.

Learning a language is a little bit of chicken and egg. Unless you go out to the real world and use it, you will never really get better. However unless you have a good enough foundation you cannot get started. This material is designed to let learners acquire that foundation by building necessary vocabulary and understanding of the underlying grammatical concepts as efficiently as possible. If you really work hard using this material, very soon you suddenly realize you understand Japanese movies without subtitles and you can read Japanese articles with amazing ease.

I believe this material will always be useful as a reference, but languages are often very much personal as well. Some people prefer clear, concise languages. Some people prefer rich, layered languages. While I am confident my teaching material is universal in its value, I have no intention of insisting that the way I look at Japanese language is the way that everybody else has to see it too. it is up to each individual to develop his/her own language style. So please use my material as a stepping stone, and explore your own world.