October 30, 2012

Language learners are always short on vocabulary.　This is in fact true of native speakers too. Unless we are very clever, and have a very large vocabularly, we lack just the right word for each occasion. This is especially true of English which, lacking kanji or other agglutinative building blocks, means that the first two thousand words are as difficult as the next, and the next, and the next....In Japanese one can learn two thousand Kanji characters and read pretty much anything printed today.

So English speakers, even native English speakers are always at a loss for words. And even Japanese learners too. I was always lacking words. There are many words that simply don't translate. And there are many words that one simply does not know.

For example if I don't know the word funnel in Japanese and I want to borrow one, what do I do? I would say (in Japanese)

Please would you lend me a thing, that is made of plastic or metal, that we use for pouring a liquid into a small hole, that is conical (or if I can't say conical) that is bigger at one end that it is at the other, that is round.

The good, or bad, thing about Japanese is that all these adjectival clauses "that is XYZ," "that we XYZ" go before the noun just like adjectives. Once one gets the hang of putting the clauses before the noun, speaking Japanese becomes so much easier. It no longer matters if you don't have a big vocabulary. You can use simple words to explain difficult things.

But once again, everything is back to front. Inside a back to front sentence, one has to add a back to front adjectival clause. This creates great fear and frustration.

I give my students practice in doing this mainly by guessing games.

E.g. guess a food.
Is it a food that we eat at Christmas?
Is it a food that we eat with our hands?
Is it a food that is cooked in a frying pan?

I also emphasise that many words can't be translated into English. I give my students a list of Japanes things. I then ask them to guess Japanese cultural artifacts.

Here is a list of Japanese cultural artificats that Japanese students will understand. Here is a list of questions about them, giving students practice in using adjectival clauses. I encourage them to make up adjectival clauses of their own, and to answer the questions using the form
No it is isn't a food that we eat at Christmas.