“Japanese has no grammatical gender, number, or articles.” – Wikipedia
“Japanese doesn’t use any equivalent of a, an, or the. In translating from English to Japanese these can simply be dropped.” – Nihongo o Narau
I’ve seen this claim about Japanese and Korean many times, but I disagree. There are what we would consider articles (or equivalents of) in Japanese and Korean, but they aren’t as rigidly necessary as in English grammar. I think we might even consider them present but nullified – Phantom articles.
Consider these examples:
お金を半分使った。その残りを貯金しようと。
Literally, I used half of the money. I think I’ll save that remainder.
More naturally, we’d render the sentence as, “I used half of the money. I think I’ll save the remainder.”
Of course, you could argue that the その can be dropped. Observe:
お金を半分使った。残りを貯金しようと。
But when you pose the question, どの残り？you’d be left answering, as simply as possible, その残り。
So that takes care of the definite article. Let’s look at the indefinite.
講義では、ある生徒が次々に質問をした。
Literally, A certain student at the lecture asked question after question.
To put it a bit more colloquially, “A student at the lecture asked question after question.”
To be a little more abstract, you might say 講義で、は生徒が次々に質問をした。 In this case, however, it could be a single student, a couple, a dozen, or the entire class. So to clarify once again we ask どの生徒？ to which we can answer ある生徒が。
This same tendency occurs in Korean as well. From the dictionary:
책을 샀다지? 그 나머지 돈은 어떻게 헀어?
Bought a book, have you? And what have you done with the rest of the money?
As in Japanese, the 그 could be literally taken as ‘that’, but it acts as a definite article, referring to the money spent on a book. Or, to turn it around, ‘the’ in English acts as a rigid definite article, unremovable from the noun, much the same way that we can’t drop the subject in English like we can in Japanese or Korean once it’s clear. But just because a subject might not be explicitly expressed doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist.
To say that Japanese and Korean “have no articles” is misleading, and to say that in translation they can “simply be dropped” is extremely so.
Translation may be impossible, but this does not make it the less necessary.
- Goethe
Some people argue that nothing is untranslatable. I find that stance to be very optimistic, but I see evidence that refutes it. It’s one thing to argue that concepts can be explained in any language, but it’s another to say that all languages are equipped to naturally express anything that can occur in another language.
The first example against the universal translation theory is technology. Technology has historically advanced geographically, and terms to express new concepts are the most apparent foreign loanwords. It depends on how you define translation, and where you draw the line between translation and explanation, but you can see how a simple sentence like, “We present to you this computer as an introduction to modern technology,” directed at an isolated aboriginal tribe could be “translated” as, “As observed by the gods, we humbly relinquish this object of rapid mathematical ability and organizational utility as an introduction to tools in the current age.” The debate is on whether expressing the concept of a computer as an “object of rapid mathematical ability and organizational utility” is actually a translation or an explanation. I argue that it’s an explanation, but that the concept could be adopted into the aboriginal language and made translatable in the future. It’s evidence of a lexical gap.
However, simply leaving the concept of translation to just its lexical property is to shortchange the entire process. Incidentally, it’s also the best way to do a terrible job.
Traduttore traditore.
The above Italian adage is amusingly self-referential. “Translated”, it means, “The translator is a traitor,” but you might be struck by the absence of one very important characteristic of the Italian original – In English, it loses the echoing play on words. While the meaning might be adequately translated, the sense of the phrase as a whole didn’t quite make it to the other side.
There are plenty of examples like this between all languages. Most apparent are puns, which you’ll often hear someone try to translate but end up tacking on, “…because X in Japanese means both Y and Z.” I’ve tried. Too many times. I always think, “Oh, this pun is great, and I want to tell it to this person. Maybe this time it’ll work!” It never does – The “translation” (explanation) chokes all of the humor that existed in the original.
I don’t believe that you can say anything in any language because that would mean that languages would already be as developed as they would ever need to be. But, actually, that’s what I like about learning languages; that’s what makes learning a new language such a great goal. You can’t express everything in every language, but you can at least try to learn more languages to express yourself in and be exposed to new ways of using language.
A good dictionary is one of the first tools that a language learner should pick up, and exploiting it for all it’s worth is one of the first skills that a language learner should practice.
When planning to use a dictionary for your own language studies, consider the following four points:
- Meaningful sentences
- Collocations
- Cross-checking
- Learner’s Dictionary (monolingual)
Meaningful sentences
Bilingual dictionaries are good for a quick fix of language. All you have to do is look up a target term and you’re presented with a block of possible translations, but you’ll be shortchanging yourself.
Better than the simple translation given in the dictionary are the example sentences presented. You can “mine” these sentences to help build mnemonic networks, expose you to collocation, and let you see the word in context so as not to establish it in your mind as a rigid translation.
You’ll find that there are often a lot of examples provided, but I don’t suggest writing down (or typing out) all of them. Instead, focus on the sentences of which you already know over 80% of the content. The point is not to force yourself to digest a completely foreign sentence, but to help you better establish a target term in your memory.
Examples*: Target term is 굵다 [big; thick; burly].
Good sentence to mine: 그녀는 다리가 굵다.
Reasons:
- I know all of the words outside of the target term. (그녀 [girl; she; her] 다리 [legs])
- It has good imagery.
- It allows me to easily adapt it to a personal experience, for example a girl who I know who has pudgy legs.
Bad sentence to mine: 굵은 막대가 하나 있어야겠다.
Reasons:
- This is the first time I’ve heard of 막대 [rod].
- I’m not very familiar with the 야겠다 [have to], especially when coupled with 있다 [exist; have]. I would, at the moment, revert to my own lexicon and use 필요하다 [need; require; necessary].
- The sentence doesn’t immediately strike me with an image, except for an obviously phallic one. Then again, maybe that’s the best sort of imagery for getting words stuck in your head.
Another good sentence to mine, this time for the term 낫다다 [better; superior]: 영어에서는 그가 다른 학생들보다 낫다.
Reasons:
- I know all of the words outside of the target term. (영어 [English] 그 [boy; he] 다른 [other] 학생들[students] 보다[more than])
- It has good imagery.
- It allows me to easily create a simple story in my head; a story of a boy who dominates his Korean classmates when it comes to English speaking ability.
The “good sentences” feel like foundations for the target terms, while the “bad sentence” distracts me from it.
*Note: I am actually pulling these target terms from a list of core vocabulary words that I’d like to learn, so these examples are really words that I’m working on as I write this.
Collocations
You’ll also find in the dictionary examples of collocations. Verb-noun collocations might be a little less obvious because lexicographers are limited in terms of how much space they have to give examples, but noun-noun collocations are pretty evident. Knowing collocations will help you choose the correct word for the correct string of words instead of isolating individual ideas in your first language and trying to apply the same logic to your second language.
A non-native speaker, for example, may make the mistake of saying something like, “He got held away,” when really they meant to say, “He got carried away.” You can see how they could easily use “hold” in place of “carry”, but the first sentence sounds awkward if you were even able to catch their meaning. (Or, “Grasp the meaning,” but never, “Seize their meaning.”)
Here are some collocations for the term 결심 [determination; resolution] which might often appear in native-produced language:
결심이 굳다 [to be firmly resolved]
결심을 뒤흔들다 [to shake one's resolution]
A lot of unnatural speech produced by non-native speakers is the result of a lack of knowledge of collocations. Incidentally, they are usually the funniest mistakes to come across. Take for example one of my students who recently remarked that the “dog was ruined” when trying to describe a scene where a dog was wrapped in toilet paper by a mischievous child. The meaning comes across, but it’s obviously not a sentence made by a native speaker.
Cross-checking
When there are multiple options, cross check them! The dictionary doesn’t provide context for translated entries, so if you want to make sure you’re choosing the right word then cross check it going from target-term to your native speech.
Take for example this dictionary entry for 뇌물 [bribe]:
a bribe; palm oil; payoff; payola; the golden key; grease; silence money; boodle; slush; soup; a pie; a shakedown.
You can immediately see a few problematic entries. A bribe or payoff might work out well, but using payola might make you sound like a B-rate 1960s rocker trying to bribe his song into a radio station rotation. Slush might work, but probably only when you’re referring to a “slush fund”. I’ve never personally heard of “palm oil”, though we might say “greasing someone’s palms”, and soup and pie just make me hungry. I’m not sure what a boodle is.
These examples are, of course, highlighting what a Korean speaker might face trying to find an English word, but it’s a similar outcome for the English speaker who is looking for a word in a foreign language. To avoid picking the wrong word, run the words through the dictionary back into English so you can get a better feel for how they match up.
Learner’s Dictionary (monolingual)
I won’t say much about this because there’s really not much to say, but as soon as you can make the transition to a monolingual dictionary, do so by bridging the gap with a learner’s dictionary. Learner’s dictionaries use simple language to explain the meanings of words, and often they’ll have handy lists like 2000 core vocabulary. Unfortunately for the gadget-savvy, learner’s dictionaries tend to come in the traditional analog format (i.e. a heavy book). But they are well worth the minimal investment.
Mnemonics for learning a second language are a little different than what you might remember doing in elementary school as you tried to cram for your next spelling test. There are a few characteristics of mnemonic devices that aid in effectively solidifying new L2 terms into your long-term memory.
The best mnemonics are visual and self-generated. I’m going to extend the idea of “visual” mnemonics from an actual image that you can see with your eyes to one that you can imagine, as in a memory or scenario. The keyword technique, which is the process of connecting imagery to a target term, will help you remember words better.
Here’s an example of imagery superficially associated with a target term in Korean. (Pardon my inadequate image editing skills!)
The target term is 판단 (pandan – judgment), and the imagery is of a panda as a judge (handing out his judgment). When you use this technique, be careful of pseudo-cognates, as they’re false friends and you may get confused and actually think that 판단 means “panda” in Korean. Another mistake would be to confuse the image of a judge with the term “judge” when the term 판단 doesn’t refer to a person but an act. But thinking about all of this actually improves cognitive depth.
Cognitive depth helps you internalize target terms by thinking about them on different linguistic levels. For example, hearing a word, seeing it written, focusing on its spelling/writing, visualizing it in use, considering its part of speech, and observing its collocation with other terms. Relating the target term to all of these characteristics, and associating it with mnemonics, will aid in network building for your personal lexicon.
It may be useful to get some hints on mnemonic associations for target vocabulary terms, but I’ve tried to explain here that it’s best if you build the associations by yourself from the ground up.
Sir Richard Francis Burton was a lot of things. He was an explorer, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist, poet, hypnotist, fencer and diplomat. Most importantly, he was a translator and linguist who spoke 29 languages of European, Asian, and African varieties.
The Life of Sir Richard Burton quotes him explaining his technique:
I got a simple grammar and vocabulary, marked out the forms and words which I knew were absolutely necessary1, and learnt them by heart. … I never worked more than a quarter of an hour at a time2, for after that the brain lost its freshness. After learning some three hundred words3, easily done in a week, I stumbled through some easy book-work4 and underlined every word that I wished to recollect, in order to read over my pencillings at least once a day5 … Having finished my volume, I then carefully worked up the grammar minutiae6, and I then chose some other book whose subject most interested me7. The neck of the language was now broken, and progress was rapid. If I came across a new sound, like the Arabic Ghayn, I trained my tongue to it by repeating it8 so many thousand times a day. When I read, I invariably read out loud9, so that the ear might aid memory. I was delighted with the most difficult characters10, Chinese and Cuneiform, because I felt that they impressed themselves more strongly upon the eye than the eternal Roman letters.
I first heard of this account of Sir Richard Burton in Scott Thornbury’s How to Teach Vocabulary
- He made a list of core vocabulary. A commonly accepted basic core vocabulary of English is around 2000 words, which would give an understanding of 9 out of 10 words in the average text.
- He managed his time wisely. Instead of pushing through cram sessions, he did study rounds. (This can also be referred to as timeboxing.)
- He set short-term goals for his own language process. Instead of just having the amazingly intimidating goal of “Learn language X”*, he made short steps of progress. He most likely did this using distributed practice. (This can also be referred to as spaced repetition.)
*It’s impossible to determine when you’ve “learned” a language, because how do you define the state of completion? Do you, for example, know the entire English language? - He engaged himself in graded readings.
- He made studying a daily habit.
- He analyzed grammar after being exposed to it.*
*I’ll write in a later post a little more on my thoughts of the lexical approach to grammar. - He engaged himself with the language by studying topics that he was interested in.
- He would keep the language in his mind throughout the day.
- He vocalized speech as he read it, which made him use more parts of his brain and helped him to better internalize the language. I also think subvocalization is a legitimate application.
- He was intrinsically motivated to study.
He did all of that without a computer, the internet, an electronic dictionary, a television, or an MP3 player, all while pursuing the advancement of his other trades. Now think of the sort of advantage that we have living in the age that we do.
Going through a couple of academic texts regarding approaches and methods for use in classrooms, I’ve found some universal metalanguage to use in place of the terms I thought up myself having gone through the process of SLA first hand. For example, what I had been calling “Memory Tags” I found described as an attribute of “cognitive depth” with basically all of the same features as what I had described here, like a lot of exposure to terms in context and personalized mnemonics.
I’m planning to rework the content of this site to account for more universal terms in my explanations, and I’m hoping to lay out more examples of how I go about studying on my own, but instead of Japanese which I’m pretty comfortable with, I’m going to be highlighting what I do for my Korean studies. I might even make a few tutorials on using technology effectively to create your own materials, like randomized lists of the top 2000 frequent terms in a target language, or building your own [very limited] corpus.
Life (back) in Korea is even better than I had imagined, and I had imagined that it’d be pretty sweet.
Unfortunately, I’ve entered some sort of temporal vacuum where, despite teaching just 15 hours of university classes a week, I’m strapped for time to get my study on.*
I think that once I get into the flow of this semester, I’ll be able to prepare for my classes in much less time than I’m investing into them now, and I’ll be able to devote a good portion of my office shelf space to my own research and studies.
It feels great to be in an environment where I’m surrounded by a language that I don’t speak well (again), and I feel like I’m progressing everyday. Certainly, I feel like my Korean skills are kicking back on and the words are starting to roll off my tongue a bit smoother.
*Not entirely true – I’ve been engrossed in a book that delineates Korea’s tradition and transformation.
I’ve got to put Victory Manual on hold for a couple of weeks as I relocate my family [back] to Korea where we will live forever.
Our time in Japan was great – We learned to live in the language, fostered a trilingual daughter, and became a part of our local community. However, this is not the place for us in the long run. I was given a great opportunity in Korea and we decided to not let it slip by us.
For sure we’ll be making return visits to Japan since we have relatives who live here, and its proximity to Korea makes travel between the two countries seem like nothing. (3 hour boat ride from Busan to Fukuoka) We’ve stocked up plenty of materials in Japanese to keep us satiated for quite a while, but I don’t need to focus on Japanese as my primary language of study anymore. That’s the reason Korean examples and information have taken the spotlight around here recently.
In the meantime, I highly recommend to any Japanese language learners who live in Japan that you go out and pick up a copy of the wonderful “comic essay” 日本人の知らない日本語 (Japanese [language] that Japanese [people] don’t know). It’s written from the perspective of a Japanese teacher who teaches Japanese language to foreign students in Japan, and all of the interesting questions about language and culture that inevitably arise. A lot of the points aren’t very new, and I think I might have even discussed a couple of them on this site before, but there are a lot of different international perspectives on the language and the learning process, and some interesting information on the historical development of colloquial terms. It’s a fun read!
With that, I’m off to Korea!
I’ve stumbled across a word that I can’t find in Japanese!
Gleek (as in the saliva that squirts from under your tongue if you yawn or eat something sour)
That’s not saying it doesn’t exist, but at least it doesn’t seem to be very widely used. I checked Eijiro, JDic, the Goo dictionary, and I even searched for a wikipedia article in Japanese – Nothing. Eijiro came the closest, but it was only an entry for a 3 player card game with the same name.
Because I can easily gleek on command, I feel that I should be able to accurately convey the term in Japanese.
I have achieved vocabulary success! This might work for you, too.
Speeeeeeeed Reader!
I was always jealous of speed readers who could get through at least a book a day. “Man,” I thought, “why am I so slow?” But then one day I realized something – I had a much higher rate of retention of content.
Speed readers save time, but the trade-off is on how much information they come out with. So if that’s the case for getting through books, I thought it might be the case for vocabulary in a foreign language as well.
Slow down!
This is a technique I’ve been experimenting with lately (with Korean), and the results are fantastic. I’m getting an extremely high rate of retention from having only seen words one time. Here’s my approach:
- Focus on a target term for 10 to 20 seconds. Focus only on that term, and try to “feel” the meaning of the term.
- In the back of your mind, tell yourself, “I’m going to remember this term.” (Don’t let that distract you from focusing on the target term, though!)
- Associate the term with some imagery, and then imagine that you’re hearing it used in a conversation.
- Finally, imagine yourself using the term in a conversation.
This whole process could take anywhere from 20 to 40 seconds, perhaps more if it’s not immediately sticking. It may seem like a slow pace, but you’ll actually find you save time as you won’t need to review.
For example, I went through this process a couple of nights ago while studying Korean. I studied a set of words by focusing on them individually. Half an hour later, I tested them out on my wife to see if they were still in my memory, and what do you know – Still there. But that’s not enough of a confirmation. So two days later, I tested them out again, and I hadn’t forgotten a thing.
When you “power through” a huge list of terms (even within full sentences, as I recommend), just like speed reading, the information is fleeting. Some of the terms might stick, but you’ll generally need to review the terms again, and again, and again, until they’re finally in there.
The approach I outlined above might not work for everyone. Actually, I don’t think it would have worked for me even two years ago. But it’s working now. So give it a try and see if you get something out of it as well.
