How to Learn from my Mistakes

Japanese
#1

So I was originally going to write a long, demotivating post about my entire Japanese language learning journey, and how it feels absolutely soul crushing to see how little I can do with excellence.

But I slept on it, and figured that there’s no point bringing down everyone else, and nobody needs a sad story. So instead, let’s focus on solutions.

My problem is that when I write on HiNative, I ask to get corrected, and I am grateful to receive the corrections. Usually, I fully understand the corrected sentences and recognize that they sound natural. However, what’s been especially frustrating is that I almost never understand what causes certain aspects of my original sentences to come off as unnatural.

And just to be clear, this happens even when there is not a single piece of grammar that is out of place. It’s frankly demotivating to get corrected and not know what was the impetus for the change, nor even to know whether the original was at all acceptable. What adds fuel to the fire is that I am already taking an immersion-centric approach, so if that is going to be the solution, then I’m already doing it (and just happen to be stuck in the long web of intermediate trouble).

Anyway, does anyone else have the experience of putting in 30 minutes into writing 3 sentences, only to get corrected in several areas that you have no idea why the original came off weird enough to warrant such changes? Like it’s not that the corrections don’t make sense, but rather that it doesn’t make sense that they would think the original didn’t make sense or wasn’t natural. It happens to me almost without fail and it’s starting to eat away at my confidence. The more it happens, the more time I spend trying to use the most precise vocabulary possible, with the most applicable grammar I can, and the more I am frustrated when I am corrected seemingly without cause on areas I put so much effort into.

But as I said, not a sob thread. I want to know if anyone has gone through it and passed it (emotionally, regardless of whether you have transcended not understanding the reasons behind the corrections), and if so, what boosted your motivation. Maybe I need to stop using HiNative and instead just do conversation exchange. Or maybe there is some way to understand the underlying impetus for the corrections that I receive. Any solutions, whether they be in the form of encouragement or practical steps, are greatly appreciated.

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#2

Is it possible it’s just a problem with the nature of HiNative in particular? In that natives just come along and correct something on the basis of feeling and then move on. Whereas if you look at somewhere like japanese stack exchange or this forum people are much more enclined to try and justify their feedback. Even just posting in longform seems fairly uncommon on HiNative.

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#3

Yes! Totally. And yes, you should probably take a break from hinative – they are correcting what sounds natural not what is grammatically correct. In conversations, people are more focused on trying to understand your meaning, not fix your grammar. (pros and cons there too).

As far as sounding natural, one “ah-ha” moment for me was when I realized that English sentences are motivated by verbs – A does B. Japanese is motivated by nouns or passive phrases – Phrase B is A.
Instead of: あなたは日本に行きましたか？ You went to Japan?
It’s normally: 日本に行ったことがありますか？ Does the went to Japan thing exist?

(I’m probably butchering the true linguistics explanation but that’s how it sits in my head.:slight_smile:)

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Compiling "Strange" Japanese from Immersion - Decoding Japanese Way of Thinking
#4

That’s actually a really good point that comes up in several areas in my immersion. Let me give a few examples:

  1. そのペースじゃ 貴様は 永遠にブタのままだな！
    (Instead of something like 永遠に豚である状態に続くよ, which I’m sure is 100% 変.)

  2. The whole explanatory の particle is to thing-isize what is not a thing. The Japanese love their concreteness.

  3. 全員に100万渡しても 余る額だぜ
    (This is the amount that would remain even if I distributed 1 million to everyone.) My initial instinct would be to do something like この額は、blabla, remains. (i.e.: put the verb to describe the noun rather than just modify the noun to explain it.)

  4. 病院行けよ 脳外科だぞ (Go to the hospital, the head surgery department.)
    This is probably my favorite example. My instincts would tell me it should be 脳外科に, but using だ makes it sound that much more emotive and hilarious, but it’s still kinda puzzling.

Maybe I’ll make a separate post about some sentences that I still find kinda puzzling from my immersion. But thanks @FredKore and @EbonyMidget for your input. やっぱり, HiNative is not doing me as much good as I want it to at the moment.

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Compiling "Strange" Japanese from Immersion - Decoding Japanese Way of Thinking
#5

Uttering grammaticaly correct sentences that are not idiomatic happens to me a lot also. Usually, the correction comes from one of my japanese teacher. But more often than I would wish they can’t explain why the sentence is not idiomatic. First, like you, I was also a bit despaired but I changed my mind and now consider these moments as hints that there is something to understand. So I turn these moments as opportunities to search on the internet and in my books and dictionaries to find a satisfactory explanation that teaches me something about the Japanese language and/or the way Japanese people see the world through their language. I frequently do searches like “N1 N2 違い” to understand nuances between words and/or expressions.

Anyway, don’t be discouraged, learning Japanese is a long and hard but interesting endeavour.

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#6

I love your message! I’m in the process of compiling a list of “strange” Japanese, organized by reasons for strangeness, annotated with my impressions. It would be great if you could add more examples and provide any insight you might have! So keep on the lookout for that if it tickles your fancy.

Here it is: Compiling "Strange" Japanese from Immersion - Decoding Japanese Way of Thinking

#7

I think its important to realise that not all of the corrections you get on apps like HiNative are actually correct. When I use HelloTalk, I often see other people who at least claim to be native English speakers correcting Japanese peoples English. A lot of the time I either think their correction is wrong, or that the Japanese persons original sentence didn’t require a correction and it was fine. So basically what I’m saying is, some of those native speakers might just have a personal preference based on what area they live in, their social circle, their age or whatever. Don’t let it hit you too hard, just take note of it and move on, it doesn’t mean you failed or that you suck at Japanese.

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#8

Or they just need to answer a few questions to make their question about targeted language more visible so they don’t care that much if their answer is well thought and valid.

#9

Hello the coorections of HiNative are often very subjective.
I remember when I had to write a letter in french (it was an application for an intern position )
At first I asked my father to correct it. He changed a lot of my sentences to make them sound more natural. He felt like my choice of words was a little to stiff. He recieves job application himself so I trusted his judgement.
But later, after I changed some stuff, I couldn’t show it to him because he was at work. So I showed it to my sisters boyfriend (who is a native french speacker) and a lot of the sentences my father my father suggested got changed back to what I wrote beforehand. He (the boyfriend) felt like they where not formal enough.

So I believe in Hinative, that correction sometimes don’t mean that what you wrote was wrong but that they want to suggest a diffrent way of expressing yourself.

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