Hello. This is not a Thanksgiving-related post. That... will probably be tomorrow. I also have a voice thing that I'll be doing tomorrow for Thanksgiving because giving thanks means giving hope to those who wonder about giving thanks too. Something like that.
Before I forget, I've been making some audio diaries. I started them with the purpose of learning how to put feelings into words and how to say them out loud, since I have problems with talking, both figuring out the words to say and saying those words. I'll find some site to host them soon, and I'll try to figure out an easier way to make them sound presentable despite my laptop noise. For the time being, though, just know that some of my blog posts and such have been turned into those.
Anyways, this post is based on a discussion I had with a friend. We were talking about a set of English translyrics I'm working on, in which I pointed out that one of the words used was difficult due to its two forms (aphrodisiac and aphrodisiacal) having two different pronunciations. However, English is most likely one of the easier languages to write song lyrics in due to its rules and structures being so malleable (at least, in my opinion). However, Japanese has the ability of fitting in more words and more meanings into sentences with fewer syllables. While English does have the capability of doing multiple meanings (through puns and idioms and so forth), it's not really the same as Japanese (and it's definitely more difficult to spot in English).
And that brought us to the topic of language classes in different places. The English language is mostly grammar rules, with vocabulary being kind of secondary in importance. However, English classes tend to focus more on literature than grammar or vocabulary, and even then, vocabulary seems to have higher importance than grammar. This might explain why a lot of Americans have difficulty with the language past a certain point.
In English classes in Japan, however, grammar and vocabulary are highly emphasized. ...Actually, come to think about it, isn't that how a lot of foreign language classes are? Emphasizing grammar and vocabulary? I was also wondering how Japanese classes in Japan work, since the Japanese grammar seems to have more with vocabulary than grammar. I'll ask my teacher when I get back to school.
That also brings to mind the differences between how we learn a foreign language compared to our base language(s). I say "base language(s)" because, coming from a family that speaks more than one language, I consider them both to be my starting languages. A base language, for me, is pretty much any language learned and spoken during early childhood. Foreign languages are learned mostly through grammar rules and vocabulary. However, as a child, how did we learn a language? I believe we learned from vocabulary first, and then grammar? And there are some that believe that learning languages in the same way we learned as children would be more efficient.
I don't think it'd work, though. Children learns through immersion, observing the people around them and following (which is how I thought as a child that "honey" was my uncle's name. whoops.). However, when learning a foreign language, we are unable to simulate that, no matter how we try. ....Also, there's something about the conscious mind compared to the subconscious and how it changes from child to adult among other cranial changes, but I will save that for another post since this one is already pretty long. Overall, though, a child's mind is different from our currently, grown minds. I, for one, remember being a lot more oblivious and happy as a child than my current cynical self. And this cynicism, I think, is one of those things that prevents me from learning in the same way I did when I was younger.
Anyways, I'm not even sure what the point of this post is anymore, nor do I know where to put a page break. I apologize for it being so monstrously long.
Anyways,
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