If you had a choice of being able to fluently read and write a language or fluently speak the language (In this case Japanese) which would you choose?
I am asking this question with all honesty, I use the following link as reference to give some background into why I am asking this.
http://www.jref.com/forum/showthread.php?t=502&page=11
I would ask people to please share their thoughts and opinions here on this question, thank you for participating.
I voted for spoken Japanese, mostly because of my own experiences here, but because I also believe that verbal communication is how people learn to get along with each other more than written communication.
One other thing, if I can speak the language I can always ask someone to read and write something for me if neccessary, rather that have to read and write to communicate with another person.
...there is no speaking or writing section, and so you may get someone who aced the test and can get by fine in daily life only to find themselves lost when the conversation turns to abstract or specialized topics. Likewise, someone who may be able to produce a fairly good essay or letter may get flustered or make a number of simple mistakes when put on the spot in an interview or conversation.
Okay--but you agmit they would at least be able to carry out nichijou kaiwa. That, to me, is as fluent as I really need to be, so...
I have one question to the 8 people (so far at least) that replied to the poll stating that they would rather be able to read and write the language fluently vs being able to speak the language fluently.
What goals do you have or want to have that would allow you to be fluent or literate in reading and writing and not speaking the language? Or per chance are you assuming that because you would be able to read and write the language you assume that you will also be able to speak the language as well?
i have chosen "speak the language fluently". to the OP: i presume this option indicates that "listening" and "understanding" the language is also fluent? it isnt explicitly stated so speaking without being able hear would be absolutely pointless. just a small point http://www.qando.net/ - If they had a choice ::
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If one had to choose, I would opt for speaking fluently as Hachiro said.
I say this because it's easier to live with ONLY speaking/listening than with ONLY writing/reading.
Also, speaking fluency can be a great base from which upon your reading skills can be built, because it is a given for me at least that one will work towards both in the end.
Since there was no "both" option I had to go with speaking. I'd much rather be able to interact with the Japanese on a personal level than just read books and signs. Being able to talk to Japanese would, to me, be a much more valuable commodity. They are amazing people.
Speaking...
...there are a lot of reasons for both sides, but ultimately I'd rather be able to speak a language and not be able to read or write it than to be literate in a language I couldn't speak.
2nd option :)
I understand what you are saying it's just that if I had included that as an option it would have defeated the purpose of the poll.
I am interested in hearing which people would prefer to be able to have as ability or skill in Japanese.
As other posters have written, and as I also know of myself, there are people that do very well at reading and writing Japansese but do poorly when speaking it. Kind of like the Japanese with regards to English, well maybe not quite that bad but a fair analogy I think.
I also get from reading replies here that some people tend to assume that with reading and writing ability will come an ability to speak the language well enough to communicate, thus the emphasis on reading and writing was chosen as being more important than speaking only. I disagree with that to a point, as I stated earlier that I know people who are not able to speak the language even though they can read and write it.
Of course in learning any language a balance should be learned, as the best course of aquiring the new language, yet I submit that, depending on the person and their ability, it is not necessarily necessary to study both to aquire fluency in the language.
I choose speaking Nihonggo fluently.
Fluent speech requires a large vocabulary and is also a requisite of reading and writing. However, it is difficult to build one's vocabulary solely through reading. Practice is better than simply memorizing words. The more one uses words learned the better it is imprinted in the mind. Besides, once one has built a vocabulary, reading and writing should become easier.
Ok if 2 choices are not fair enough what would you include? Reading and writing go hand in hand, I would think that it is fair to assume that.I'd add another option "50-50". I can read lots of kanji, but I can't write them, so do they really go hand in hand :?
However being able to read and write the language does not neccessarily mean that one will be able to speak the language. I know of some people here that have JLPT 1st level but speak the language very poorly. It just means that they are good or even great at remembering Kanji.Ofcourse not, but isn't it save to say that if one can write/read Japanese he can at least explain in Japanese what he wrote? Maybe not as fluent, but at least enough to make himself clear.
On the other hand just ask any Japanese Junior High School, High School or University student that "studies" English which they would rather be able to do.There is a huge difference in studying English or Japanese, but I know they'd pick speaking over writing. All of my Japanese friends want to be able to speak better English :souka:
Meh; I did not say a thing about JLPT. I'm talking about reality, not some test.
I know you didn't--I'm the one who brought it up. Since this topic is about the importance of different areas of linguistic skill, I thought it was an appropriate example of something used as a benchmark for "fluency" that, by not testing one of said aspects, fails in that regard. To take one of my aquaintences (friend-of-a-friend) as an example, he has passed JLPT 1 but speaks painfully slow, occasionally inappropriate (not as in "rude" but as in "sounds strange") Japanese--from the sounds of it, Hachiro could speak rings around him, but he probably couldn't pass JLPT 1.
Which one you would consider more fluent is related to how you answer the poll.
2 choices is not enough IMHO. You need at least a fair amount of both :souka: I chose speaking, as that would be the most important out of all 3 things. But I think reading and writing are as important as speaking.
I would rather be able to speak Japanese fluently. I would love to go to Japan and talk to everyone with as much fluency as I have in English. That's a little dream of mine :blush:
And understanding anime!! WOA~~~
In my case, I cast my vote assuming that I'm going to learn a new foreign language.
Of course, speaking/listening comes first, since you get to know people through communication with other people, audio-visual media, etc.
However, I think that reading/writing should follow, since I believe there are aspects of culture that can be gathered and learned (such as cultural outlook, social mechanisms, laws, philosophy) mostly through the written language. My opinion is that speaking/listening and reading/writing are all part of a single process of language learning. It depends on the person whether to stop at speaking/listening and pursue no further or go ahead into reading/writing (which is more difficult because it requires discipline).
I'd like to learn to read and write a foreign language for the reason stated above and for gaining a broader horizon and outlook into a new language and culture, as well as respect I may gain for working hard on it. :relief:
Bah. Gomen, all--I wrote that during a break from writing a bunch of things in Japanese, so my brain wasn't quite fully functioning in English :relief: What I meant to say with my little greater-than diagram thingy is that this is the typical order of growth in skill levels. Although you may learn to speak before you can read or write, once you develop the fundamental skills you will typically read better than you listen, listen better than you write, and write better than you speak. Naturally there are exceptions, but all things being equal, this is where most people's linguistic skills stand.
Okay--but you agmit they would at least be able to carry out nichijou kaiwa. That, to me, is as fluent as I really need to be, so...
Of course I'll admit that--if I recall correctly, obtaining JLPT Level 2 is supposed to indicate ability to carry on daily conversations. However, the nature of the test means that if someone speaks excellent Japanese but is not particularly skilled at kanji or uncommon grammatical constructs, they will fail Level 1 while someone who has only studied the language in textbooks or college classrooms in the States may pass it. In other words, while JLPT is a good indicator of one's ability to comprehend the language, it is not necessarily useful when it comes to measuring one's ability to actually use it.
At the risk of getting even further off-topic, however, there is a growing number of tests that do take such factors into account while still recognizing the need for literacy as a prerequisite to full fluency. The J.Test (http://www.jtest.org/jtest/) is my personal favorite, although the Business Japanese Test (http://www.jetro.go.jp/en/bjt/) also seems like a good overall measure of ability. Please note that I'm just speaking from what I've read about each, having taken neither...yet.
I guess my point was that although the JLPT is still accepted as more or less the de facto standard for measuring Japanese ability, it is not a complete measure of one's ability, much like TOEFL (www.ets.org/toefl/) is not a complete measure of one's English ability. So just as one can't say that a person is fluent just because they passed JLPT 1, neither can you write off someone who may speak excellent Japanese but not be able to make it through a newspaper.
Ideally, of course, you'd be able to do both, but we don't live in an idea world :blush:
I don't quite understand how you could be able to fluently read Japanese, and not speak it... But, I'll go with speach.
I don't want to be a thread-drifting party pooper, but since I was involved in the other thread I feel I ought to participate here as well.
I don't see it as a choice between one or the other.
As M.O. said, speaking ability gives one great hints for figuring out written things one hasn't actually learned. Likewise, the written word can help to build speaking skills. The problem is, it takes a little investment of time (who am I fooling? It takes quite a bit of an investment of time.) to get the ball rolling on reading skills beyond kana. Fortunately, one doesn't need to be able to read every little bit of something in order to get quite a large amount of info out of it.
Well, they might simply be more interested in being able to read signs/books/labels than being able to communicate verbally in japanese.
That was one of the main reasons I had for chosing the other way--but in the end I figured being able to talk smack in Japanese during a sparring match would mean more to me than being able to read all those untranslated mangas I've seen on the filesharing--er--on the import store websites, yeah, that's it. :evil:
Hmm...I chose speaking, because it seems like speaking a language has always been my problem. I am only a begginner in Japanese, although I know enough Kanji and grammer to be able to pass JLPT 4, although I have never taken it. Yet my problem has always been speaking, I can write (at my current skill level) farely well, as well as read (at my skill level I know about 135 kanji). If you ask me something as long as it isn't a complex sentence I should understand what I am being asked. But it takes me a while to answer you back.
This was a big problem with my Japanese teacher, because to her speaking was more important then being able to read it. I always passed most of my written exams with good grades, yet I failed every single oral exam.
Yet I think its my learning style, cause I had the same problem with Spanish, which I have taken for 3 years. And being that I lived in Houston and Miami for a bit and those areas have a large latino population I heard it everyday, so I might not get all of the conversation but I can catch 70% of what you are saying. And can read Spanish almost fluently. Yet I can not speak it at all.
I dont know I think I have some kind of mental block, because if you ask me something in either Japanese or Spanish, it takes at least 2mins to answer a question cause I have to think about it for so long.
I took the test, mastered most of the kanjis (not the gitaigo or giongo though), but when I wanted to say such simple thing as "answer the telephone for me", previously I would have said something like "denwa no juwaki wo hiroiagete kure". But later I found out that one should just say "denwa ni dete kure".
You can still say 'Please pick up the phone for me' without any problem it just becomes slightly idiomatically "Juwaki wo toriagete kure (kudasai)." :-)
I think it all depends. I live in Japan and will begin working here come July, so speaking is the priority to me. That being said, probably my biggest selling point is that in addition to being functionally fluent, I am also literate, and that will play a huge part in what I can do here.
The majority of people at my school, however (Hachiro, might that school have happened to be in Yokohama?), are graduate students who will return to the States in a couple of weeks and continue their studies, so to them reading and writing is far more important. In other words, it all depends on what you can do.
As an added side note for literacy affecting fluency, I have also heard the interesting argument that foreigners rely too heavily on their literacy when learning new words. To offer myself as an example, although I am getting better, I have a very hard time remembering words unless I know the characters for them and a very easy time remembering them if I know the characters (for example, I learned 恣意的（しいてき） - 'arbitrary' - after a single exposure but have to check my dictionary to make sure I don't mix up おしっこ and うんこ). Likewise, if I haven't quite mastered a word yet, I may wind up mixing up the characters and saying something unintelligible, humorous, or just plain rude (i.e. しんじんじこ instead of 人身事故).
I have great respect for those people who attain even an intermediate level of Japanese without the aid of kanji, but I'm simply not one of them.
Which do you mean 50/50 for reading and writing or reading/writing and speaking?2nd option :)
I don't want to be a thread-drifting party pooper, but since I was involved in the other thread I feel I ought to participate here as well.
I don't see it as a choice between one or the other.
As M.O. said, speaking ability gives one great hints for figuring out written things one hasn't actually learned. Likewise, the written word can help to build speaking skills. The problem is, it takes a little investment of time (who am I fooling? It takes quite a bit of an investment of time.) to get the ball rolling on reading skills beyond kana. Fortunately, one doesn't need to be able to read every little bit of something in order to get quite a large amount of info out of it.
Mike I am personally glad that you chipped in here, as yes you were one of the motivating factors behind me starting this thread. I figured, at least to me, that this was one direction the converstation was heading and did not want to hijack the thread from others.
I am not totally "illiterate" with regards to reading and writing Japanese, it's just when I learned them I had no practical reason to use them so I forgot them for one reason or another.
I do not disagree with you, being able to read, write and speak the language gives a person the "total" benefits of being literate in the language. All I am saying is that one can learn the language here without needing to be able to read and write it. I guess I made a conscious decision somewhere along the way that, at least in my mind, separating the reading and writing from the spoken was the quickest way I could learn the language and be functionally literate in Japanese.
I am not at all suggesting that everyone should follow this way, because not all can do it, but I do submit that it is possible.
If you ever get here to Okinawa or me to where you are I would love to sit down and have a drink, even if it is just to say Hi and nothing else.
The typical order of skill development when acquiring a second language goes like so:
Reading > Listening > Writing > Speaking I must be abnormal, because I learned how to speak before how to read or write. That was the nature of the program that I belonged to.
This is why JLPT Level 1 does not equate full fluency--in addition to the fact that it is merely a marker of whether you are "functionally fluent" (10,000 words, a good chunk of kanji), there is no speaking or writing section, and so you may get someone who aced the test and can get by fine in daily life only to find themselves lost when the conversation turns to abstract or specialized topics. Likewise, someone who may be able to produce a fairly good essay or letter may get flustered or make a number of simple mistakes when put on the spot in an interview or conversation.
I think the JPT just reflects the Japanese view of foreign languages applied to their own language. In other words, foreign languages are to be read and listened to, but producing it? You gotta be crazy! (Sorry, I'm feeling a little playful now!)
Of course anyone would want to be able to do both! (Speak/understand, and read/write.) And the best way to learn any language thoroughly is to learn with a nice balance on both. :) But I'm assuming the question is hypothetical; along the lines of, "If a miracle could happen and you could wake up in the morning with suddenly a fluency in one aspect of the language, which would you rather it was?" :blush:
I'd choose speaking/understanding. From my viewpoint, the purpose of language is for communication, and communication through speaking is the most widely used. ^^ Additionally, as someone pointed out, if you can speak the language quite fluently, it's easier to get a native speaker to help you with the reading and writing.
As for how I am trying to learn . . . I just went to a regular college evening class, at level 1 only (nvq level 1), and the tutor was a native Japanese speaker. We learned speaking first, and had some written notes in romaji for the first few lessons (because you need some way of remembering!), then we learned hiragana/katakana (well, I'm slightly biased because I knew them already ^^), and during the course we learned the speaking and the reading/writing in kana simultaneously. Some people were slow at learning the kana, though... :worried:
I think that learning the speaking and the writing tend to naturally work side by side when learning another language, because you need to have some kind of memory-jogger to remind you of the sounds of what you've learnt! If you can't write it down, it's much harder to hold the sound in your memory! (I find that writing something down helps greatly to fix it in my memory. :) )
Of course, if you are living in Japan and hear the language a lot, you probably wouldn't need to write it down nearly so much in order to remember. :) I'm just thinking of people like me, learning by classes and self-study. ><
Also, I find that learning certain things in speech first, makes learning kanji a lot easier. Because of the different readings... if you were to just attempt to learn the readings, it can be a little confusing. But if you already know the words/phrases in which they're used, it all falls into place when you see the kanji! (For example, 'ima' and 'ko'... they don't sound related, but once you have learned, 'ima' as 'now', and 'kotoshi' as 'this year', it makes perfect sense and you can't forget those readings! :p ) (sorry, I can't type kanji on this machine >< -_-)
I don't quite understand how you could be able to fluently read Japanese, and not speak it... But, I'll go with speach.
The typical order of skill development when acquiring a second language goes like so:
Reading > Listening > Writing > Speaking
This makes sense, as comprehension almost always outpaces production, even in one's native language. Although there is some fuzziness regarding whether listening or writing skills develop first, the general concept is that reading and writing provide you more time to think about and digest the language while listening and speaking require almost instantaneous comprehension and response. Admittedly, the utilization of kanji throws a bit of a kink into developing those reading skills in languages like Japanese and Chinese, but the use of furigana or Pinying can help one get around that.
This is why JLPT Level 1 does not equate full fluency--in addition to the fact that it is merely a marker of whether you are "functionally fluent" (10,000 words, a good chunk of kanji), there is no speaking or writing section, and so you may get someone who aced the test and can get by fine in daily life only to find themselves lost when the conversation turns to abstract or specialized topics. Likewise, someone who may be able to produce a fairly good essay or letter may get flustered or make a number of simple mistakes when put on the spot in an interview or conversation.
i have chosen "speak the language fluently". to the OP: i presume this option indicates that "listening" and "understanding" the language is also fluent? it isnt explicitly stated so speaking without being able hear would be absolutely pointless. just a small point
Yes it does and thank you for bringing up that point as both of these skills are necessary to be fluent in speaking the language.
I'd add another option "50-50". I can read lots of kanji, but I can't write them, so do they really go hand in hand :?
Which do you mean 50/50 for reading and writing or reading/writing and speaking?
You can still say 'Please pick up the phone for me' without any problem it just becomes slightly idiomatically "Juwaki wo toriagete kure (kudasai)." :-)
It's still literal, Elizabeth.
Picking up the phone receiver is "juwaki wo toru."
JLPT
Meh; I did not say a thing about JLPT. I'm talking about reality, not some test.
i would pick to speak it fluently, because eventually, you would have to learn how to read it and write it.
The typical order of skill development when acquiring a second language goes like so:
Reading > Listening > Writing > Speaking
Does it? The whole Pimsleur language course thing is based on:
Listening > Speaking > And repeat.. And a bit of reading in some courses. I do know that it works, because I did a few courses on Spanish that way, and I do speak a BIT of Spanish now. I'm sure the learning process is accelerated if you try to read and write a lot too.
If you ever get here to Okinawa or me to where you are I would love to sit down and have a drink, even if it is just to say Hi and nothing else.
What the hell? Is this the Dating and Relationship thread now?:p
I chose reading and writing. If you can read and write fluently then you can solve most of the problems that arise by yourself. I am not a very outgoing person and I remain fairly quiet most of the time. I can speak better than I can read and write, but I wish it were the other way around!
The typical order of skill development when acquiring a second language goes like so:
Reading > Listening > Writing > Speaking
This makes sense, as comprehension almost always outpaces production, even in one's native language. Although there is some fuzziness regarding whether listening or writing skills develop first, the general concept is that reading and writing provide you more time to think about and digest the language while listening and speaking require almost instantaneous comprehension and response. Admittedly, the utilization of kanji throws a bit of a kink into developing those reading skills in languages like Japanese and Chinese, but the use of furigana or Pinying can help one get around that.
This is why JLPT Level 1 does not equate full fluency--in addition to the fact that it is merely a marker of whether you are "functionally fluent" (10,000 words, a good chunk of kanji), there is no speaking or writing section, and so you may get someone who aced the test and can get by fine in daily life only to find themselves lost when the conversation turns to abstract or specialized topics. Likewise, someone who may be able to produce a fairly good essay or letter may get flustered or make a number of simple mistakes when put on the spot in an interview or conversation.
I think you are spot on there with regard to your opinion on the JLPT. I feel that way very often too. I took the test, mastered most of the kanjis (not the gitaigo or giongo though), but when I wanted to say such simple thing as "answer the telephone for me", previously I would have said something like "denwa no juwaki wo hiroiagete kure". But later I found out that one should just say "denwa ni dete kure". Throughout my years studying for the JLPT and going through so many reading materials I didn't know such usage until talking about it with my friend. I did not live in a Japanese speaking environment and I was learning the language by myself, so I had to go great lengths in just learning these simple terms.
2 choices is not enough IMHO. You need at least a fair amount of both :souka: I chose speaking, as that would be the most important out of all 3 things. But I think reading and writing are as important as speaking.
Ok if 2 choices are not fair enough what would you include? Reading and writing go hand in hand, I would think that it is fair to assume that.
However being able to read and write the language does not neccessarily mean that one will be able to speak the language. I know of some people here that have JLPT 1st level but speak the language very poorly. It just means that they are good or even great at remembering Kanji.
On the other hand just ask any Japanese Junior High School, High School or University student that "studies" English which they would rather be able to do.
i would like to speak more than i write. but, it seems that i write better than i speak... or maybe it's kind of the same, but i think my recognition for kanji surpasses my speaking skill. i would def like to increase my speaking skill because i want to be able to communicate with friends and also i would like to be able to understand manzai!!!!
haha, taking away the imaginary limitations
this is so easy u can get 2 birds with one stone.
pick reading and writing, if u can read and write fluently, it wouldn't be so hard or nearly impossible to not be able to speak japanese fluently.
though on the other hand, if u can speak japanese fluently, u can still be illiterate.
It's still literal, Elizabeth.
Picking up the phone receiver is "juwaki wo toru."
I guess I did get a tad ahead of myself there...My thinking was of "toriageru"
as I had seen it before in the more abstract uses of "picking up on"
"featuring" or "bringing up" like broaching a subject at negotiations or in a meeting or something. And these all may be misinterpretations....:blush: :bluush:
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