I believe there was study we have special place in brain to detect our name. It is most pleasing sound for us xD
I can be wrong here about that study though - but seems to be true anyway. (salesmanship 101: remember your costumers names you moron!)
I knew a guy that only sweared in Hungarian I believe. He studied there I believe, so maybe some people are exception, but true: English swear words are so soft and polite to me 0_o There is not that “rrrrr” sound xD (part of sound symbolism Asher like to talk about?)
Strange, I wonder if that’s really true. Or who the study involved. I wouldn’t say that my name is the most pleasing sound for me. If I had to describe the most pleasing sounds, they would simply be sounds, not the words that sound is creating. For example, my mother or father’s voice, my partner’s voice. I associate feelings with the sound of their voices, not the words they are using.
Interestingly, from a medical perspective, the strongest memory forming organ in the body is the nose. Something you only ever smelled once can bring so many memories flooding back to you if you smell it a second time, even decades later.
1 Like
For anybody interested in how we form our beliefs and how we protect them from more technical point of view, I can recommend this interpretation:
seems to be working on all front: neurology, psychology behaviouralism, ethics, religion or even economy.
That the most robust interpretation of our knowledge and the most holistic approach I have seen so far. It is just abridge version though… only 12x2h+ lectures D :
Have you never catch your name in crowd and wonder if somebody is calling you? It happens to me and I have rare name. My wife have it all the time since her name is very common.
it is similar in nature to the fact we see face everywhere:
What you see here:
: )
This has nothing to do with being pleasing, it’s just recognition. Of course we are trained to recognize our names.
1 Like
have a lot. we hate where pattern we are searching are collapsing and love to find them true: that source of confirmation bias.
Just pretend that keigo doesn’t exist for now…
9 Likes
Learn the kanji from day 1.
11 Likes
This post reminded me of the Tofugu article that helped me through the initial process of goal creation and proper direction.
4 Likes
Thank you for reminding me of this article. 
Rereading it was useful after gaining some more context. That one just made me feel a tiny little bit more confident with my approach:
Alternative: Learning Japanese Grammar On Your Own
1 Like
That to me is the appeal of language learning: the idea that we can switch our worldviews like lenses on a phoropter!
4 Likes
I meant it as a joke! Didn’t want to derail the conversation hahaha
3 Likes
I keep forgetting about it as well…
But you gave us nice excuse for conversation so thank you 
After some thoughts: that would be very good advise if the question would be framed a little be differently. If just there would be “starting learning Japanese” instead just “starting Japanese”.
I think it is good framework to think about ourselves as “users of the language” instead of “learners of the language” regardless of our level. So best advise would maybe be:
“Don’t Learn A Language. Get Used To It.”
2 Likes
1 Like
Learn the difference between pre-, inter-, and postfix math notation. Japanese is postfix.
I figured it out myself, but if someone had said that up front, I would have figured out particles a whole lot earlier.
3 Likes
I’ve been doing Japanese for 10 years and I’ve still no idea what this means haha
Basically he is saying that Japanese is very consistent with the idea that you assign grammatical properties of the word after it. Example: 私は、私が、私に、私で、私と and so on when in other languages it can be less consistent or done in different way. Example:
I am going, I go, I will go, I am going to go, I was going.
Here you change assign grammatical properties of a word “go” before it, and sometime after it.
In Arabic I believe it is often in the middle of the word (by changing vowels I think).
I maybe wrong though since I have no clue what word “math” is doing here xD Is formal logic that important?
So just funny way to say Japanese use particles, I guess? xD
Oh right. Is that not something you learn on day 1 of grammar though? Never heard of anybody mistakenly saying は私が犬好き for example…
2 Likes