Yeah, it’s just makes your argument seem like it’s based on gross misunderstanding of Japanese though.
This “lack of understanding” as you call it won’t stop you from really getting to grips with the language. No native speaker of any language understands the depths you are describing here naturally. You can break it down into as many small fragmented pieces as you like, to me it makes the language far, far more complicated.
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I am simplifying. True. Note one thing: I am learning so being wrong is part of the process.
I am not speaking here about pure linguistics. Only about pragmatic framework that helps me at this point.
There is no point to teach 12 years old if you can have square root from -1. You can’t, don’t think about it. You will discover the truth in high school when you are able to understand it.
There is no point in getting stuff 100% right from the start. Not even possible.
I am happy to agree with this. But you should also know that the percentage of people that ‘start’ learning japanese (simply to watch One Piece), that reach the point of being able to watch one piece is probably below 0.5%. This should be enough to show you that there is a fundamental problem in the English approach toward learning Japanese.
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Yes.When somebody is saying: "Japanese is very very very very hard, just do what i did."I am out. I much rather prefer to test something else out. Maybe it will work…
And this makes you think it’s easy?
It is hard because it is different. You are happy to admit Polish is a hard language, why not Japanese. You’ll be lucky to find a non-native speaker that thought learning it was easy.
No. It makes it easy. It hard to translate to english and doing so is holding you back.
That is the reason I was beginner in English for 12 years…
I can’t recommend enough this framework for learning stuff:
Ok this is bugging me, so I am going to post an early picture of the diagram I am using in my video. Please note that this is a rough draft, @ljoekelsoey the reason I am making this is because I honestly believe that if people really understood how Japanese worked (from the beginning), it would be a hundred times easier. (Check back in 10 mins)
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If you want you can send me it privately, if you don’t want it public that is. I’m very keen to see how to you look at this.
Please don’t do that D :
I’ve not at all claimed that you need to translate between languages to learn a new one, you have completely misunderstood me here.
Yes it makes it hard to translate to English. No arguments there. It is said to be hard because your native language forms the understanding of structure in your brain that language abides by as the brain develops, the more different the language you attempt to learn after this, meaning the stranger the grammatic structure from what exists as gospel in your brain, the more time it takes for your brain to get used to it, ergo more difficult, or at least takes longer. Languages do not get easier the more they diverge from your native tongue usually.
I don’t think my outlook on this has held me back, I passed N2 within 2 years of being in Japan, so I would say I had a pretty effective method of study.
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Please both be aware that this will be much… much easier to understand when I make the video, and can have the individual elements of the diagram moving, To show how each word really works.
Let me just break each part down for you (excuse the shit color choices, I had to color this in 5 minutes. In Japanese, there are 3 perspectives to all forms of life, this is called 三密。These three perspectives are the realms of
あ、い、う、え、お。
か、き、く、け、こ。
and さ、し、す、せ、そ (not shown here, but it’s the listener circle)
All actions and interactions in Japanese, are an expression of how this diagram interacts with eachother. The big circle (that everything else is within, is called あ. The 2 smaller, but still biggish circles are the world of こ (left), and the world of そ (right)。The 5 smallest circles represent the possible states of each action (going back thousands of years, these were referred to as the 5 elements, but in Japanese they are simply referred to as 吾 (the 5 mouths/passages - relating to all possible sensory experiences). A simple expressions of this diagram can be seen in か、き、く、け、こ. As you can see, they are opposites to eachother. If the Speaker wants to inform the listener of something that only exists in their part of the world, they must use が. If the speaker wants to know about something that exists only within the listeners portion of the world, it must use か。あ represents the place that exists beyond the understanding of either the speaker or the listener, い represents the edge of concious understanding of the speaker (hence why か) is out of reach of い for the speaker. all of the う forms, the verb endings, show the interaction points of the speaker and listener, the space in which all action takes place.
This is a super small example, and a very brief example, but each row of kana have specific meanings which are shown within the 5 passages through the middle. I will cover all rows of kana and their meanings in the full video. You’ll just have to trust me that once you see it all ‘moving’, you will understand the language much… much better
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Interesting. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt as this is but a snapshot of an entire video you are creating, but I do find this to be very confusing to the point that I don’t actually understand it. Without being flippant, is this supposed to underpin a basic understanding that makes 行く、行かれる、行かせる、行かせられる easier to get to grips with?
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I wholeheartedly agree with you, this picture here is basically one of those 3d images https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/the-hidden-history-of-magic-eye-the-optical-illusion-that-briefly-took-over-the-world/
That used to be popular in the 90s haha. You know the ones that make no sense until someone tells you how to solve them 
But yes. Once I give you the meaning of each kana (by itself), you will be like ‘Holy shit this language is easy’… hopefully.
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I eagerly await your video then.
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Even if we don’t since we are coming from different backgrounds than you, it should not hurt to have another framework at our disposal for times when get stuck (it is like once a week for me, but I hope it will get better. It has to…) and we will run out of more natural to us frameworks to work with. 
But so far it looks like something that can be good for people like me (I am more of poetry kind of person, than logic kind of person - although logic is poetic on itself as well xD) so I can’t wait
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It may just be the way my mind works then. I found learning by rote easy and enjoyable, and nothing inherently difficult about Japanese verb conjugations on their own, never mind that people actually don’t think they exist. Compared to Italian verbs it’s a cinch.
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I learned Swedish by brute force, so I can sympathize. I don’t know what happened when I was learning Japanese. I started out learning by brute force, then it just changed at some point ‘shrugs’
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I think if anybody try to learn any foreign language and it is her/his first one, then it is useful to think about esperanto:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaedeutic_value_of_Esperanto#:~:text=The%20propaedeutic%20value%20of%20Esperanto,explore%20other%20cultures%20more%20successfully.
Just split time in two: half of it to enjoy playing around targeted language without any goal (learn some random words, grammar, play on duolingu or anything at all to get used to it), and second half focus on trying to become fluent (meaning: I think in foreign language, can express myself in unique way, and struggle to translate myself into my native language) in Esperanto. It should take you between 2 weeks to 6 months depending on your talent and motivation.
We don’t use the same part of brain for native and foreign language. It is almost impossible to feel the language the way natives do. So it is useful to teach your brain how to learn languages on really easy language first. It will save your a lot of time.
BTW: If anybody is interested in testing this idea out I should be able to help. I am about to start relearning Esperanto from Japanese sources for 3 reasons:
- Looks like meaningful use of that little Japanese I know already, so it will best kind of immersion for me.
- I want to take it to highest lvl possible this time around to get the feeling how my longest term goal feels like to make it easier to conceptualise it (I am arrogant person: I will try to learn to the lvl allowing to write haiku in Japanese. I think 20-30 years should do the trick xD)
- To find some nice Japanese person that does not speak English well and is willing to check whatever I will decide to write (esperantist are very strange but usually they are very friendly and not nationalistic). just to save some money on conversations and maybe there will be somebody I will be able to help with something as a payment.
I don’t mind helping somebody wanting to give Esperanto try. Helping often feels better than being helped…
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I’m not convinced that a beginner understanding that masu form etymology coming from mawirasu and seeing it as two words makes Japanese grammar easier to understand. In fact, very few may find it actually useful at all. I’d rather say it ‘conjugates’, and move forward though knowings it’s more conceptual for foreign language learning. Knowing the history of cars or skills of engine repair have very little to do with actual driving ability. It’s not to say it isn’t interesting. I like it in fact, at least to the point of functional linguistics for enchanced language study but not for the sake of it (my language journey is very much a part time gig, for others I can see the appeal if you have the background or pursuit).
I came across this book while responding here, seems there is quite alot of grammar-verb theory within native material though whether it covers this specific topic, IDK but the title seemed interesting (paradoxically, you need to learn Japanese grammar with its ‘conjugations’ to find out 
)
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