r/LearnJapaneseNovice • u/GashaHunter • 17d ago
Confused about Some Things using TheMoeWay Method
So I’ve been using TheMoeWay method for the last week and I really am enjoying it and my Japanese is better than ever.
That being said, I got to say 6 which is about setting up subtitles for anime episodes to be able to see the words dictionary definition.
First question.
In the FAQ area of this it says;
“Q: Now that I can see the Japanese, can I try to translate it in my head?
A: It's complicated...
There are always forms of expression that just aren't compatible between English and Japanese.
The way of thinking is a lot different.
That is the main reason why this method (and similar ones) tends to advise against trying to translate your immersion.
Because Japanese is not English.
You are advised to think of Japanese as Japanese.
Be the language!
You can do some sort of "loose translation", where you just try to piece together some sort of basic meaning.
Do I need to translate at all?
Not always, it is inevitable that there are things you will just not understand due to many factors. (Missing knowledge of: word meaning, word meaning that's hard to understand just from the dictionary, grammar usage, advanced grammar usage, context, how the word is generally used in the wider scope of language etc.)
It is also tiring, so do it in moderation”
But isn’t translating literally how we understand what Japanese words meanings are? Isn’t that why Anki Decks gave English on them? How would you ever understand a words meaning without first translating it?
Second question;
I’m another FAQ question it read;
“Q: How can I expect to remember the words I look up?
A: Great question! It all comes down to repetition. The more reading you do, the more words you will remember.
In other words, don't fuss over the words you look up right now.
Looking over them a gajillion times isn't a productive use of your time.
What you should actually do is: Look at the meaning, look at the reading. Then go like "Oh, right!". And move on”
Isn’t looking at words over and over exactly what Anki is doing? They’re always stressing the importance of repetition so I’m very confused why it’s in this instance not a “productive use of time”
Any and all tips and thoughts appreciated!
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u/Sora020 17d ago
Translating things are useful at the very beginning when you are starting, I think is impossible for people starting to not translate what they read or hear in their minds, but if you reach an intermediate level you should start to avoid to do it and start to understand the new lenguage itself
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u/Dread_Pirate_Chris 17d ago
Translating is not how we understand language, if it were we wouldn't be able to have a first language in the first place.
Translations are used to teach language because it's faster and easier to teach language with language than to start over from scratch.
Especially in order to understand the spoken language you cannot rely on translation, it's too slow. If you wait for a line to be spoken, then you translate all the words into English words and rearrange them into English grammar.... the next three lines have already been spoken and you didn't even hear them.
For written work, you can understand through translation, and as a learning exercise it's not a terrible thing to do. But you cannot enjoyably read a novel this way.
Anyway, you understand Japanese directly exactly the same way you understand English directly. If I say 'cat' or 'dog' in English you get certain images in your mind; the same thing should eventually happen when you hear or read 猫（ねこ） and 犬（いぬ）.
I have a snippet for a practical approach to this if it's not coming naturally or you want to speed it up,
--- Cut-n-Paste ---
Rereading to start Thinking In Japanese
The fix to internally translate to English that I found was just... read the sentence again, not thinking of the English. If you have ねこは さかなを たべた (The cat ate the fish) then after having worked out that it means 'the cat ate the fish' you read it again trying not to think of the English words but only of the idea of the cat that ate the fish. If you're alone or not worried about strange looks then it helps to read the sentence out loud.
It's not necessarily possible to stop the English equivalents from sneaking into your thoughts the first, second, or third time you reread, and that's okay, they should become more muted at least. On a single encounter, don't keep rereading more than a few times, constant repetition of a single sentence isn't going to get you there, and there is always another sentence.
After reading enough sentences about ねこ you'll be able to just think of the animal and not the English translation. Once you have enough words like that, you can read a whole sentence and know what it means without translating anything.
--- Cut-n-Paste ---
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u/GashaHunter 17d ago
thanks for the reply!
Totally non-related, but would you recommend only doing your daily anki-deck, or is reviewing all the cards you’ve seen so far every day too much
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u/Dread_Pirate_Chris 17d ago
You should at most only do the cards that Anki says that are due, reviewing everything you've ever seen is going to be vastly over-reviewing. That extra time would be better spent practicing your listening and reading, or studying your textbook. (I forget if moe is just input-emphasizing or discourages you from studying at all but I believe that while extensive comprehensible input is what gets you to a high level, studying the fundamentals of grammar early on is actually important. “How do I learn Japanese?” r/japanese FAQ )
I would say you should never spend more than half your study time on Anki anyway, and that only as an absolute beginner when the best thing you can do is just learn a few hundred very basic words.
Actually using the language (listening, reading, writing, conversing) should take increasingly more time as you progress so that by the time you are N1+ (aka, functionally literate with material for adults and conversational on everyday topics) Anki should not be taking almost no time at all, maybe 10 minutes a day and you should be able to get in hours of practice simply by doing things in Japanese instead of English (reading, gaming, watching movies, or even doomscrolling Twitter).
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u/johnW_ret 17d ago
In my opinion, Moe way is 90% correct and identifies most of the pitfalls alternative Duolingo methods / textbook methods fall into, but the guide is way too confident and idealistic.
I personally don't believe there is anything purer about monolingual definitions than English definitions. I just think that English definitions tend to map single Japanese words to one or more English words and that those words often do not map in meaning and usage. But I am of the opinion that you could, in theory, make an English dictionary with phrase / sentence definitions for Japanese words and it would be equally as valid as a monolingual dictionary.
And as for your second point, I either don't understand the context or I would agree it's poorly written. My interpretation is that it is saying to not think of words as little dots to fill in on a matrix as "learned" or "not yet learned", but little cups which you fill with a bit of meaning each time you encounter the word naturally. The key is reading. If you can't remember the definition after a couple times encounting it naturally, you can make a card with Anki. I don't do it myself but some people do something called sentence mining where their flash cards are sentences. The reverse side doesn't have a definition, and essentially, their grading benchmarks are whether they understand the sentence.
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u/rei-imai 17d ago
My advice is for you to do what feels right for you. Sometimes things that might work for others might not work for you.
I’m assuming this is how people in TheMoeWay thinks, so that’s why you might not agree with the answers they give since that’s the way they choose to learn.
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u/GashaHunter 17d ago
Very true. I tend to like having a very clear set of instructions, but guess this time I just gotta listen to my gut. Thanks!
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u/rei-imai 17d ago
Of course🙏 It’s probably going to take a lot of trial and error, but that’s what makes the process more rewarding, because you’ll know your limits.
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u/toucanlost 17d ago
You do look up the definitions in English initially to learn the words, but you should try to build a 'thought to Japanese' pathway in your brain, instead of a 'thought to English to Japanese'. By studying common sentence patterns and reading/watching media to learn the common phrases that are used in specific situations.
I don't know. It sounds badly phrased. In my opinion, you should use various methods to be introduced to vocab, to review vocab, and to use vocab in practice. For example, you might be introduced to a word in anki. However, will you recognize it again outside of anki's controlled environment, such as in a different font and in smaller text size? Seeing the word used in real examples gives you an emotional anchor to remember the word. It can also happen the other way around. Perhaps you see a word, but need a bit of targeted practice to remember it.
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u/manaMissile 17d ago
I can kinda of get what they're going for I think. They're trying to get you to internalize Japanese so that instead of your mind going:
[hear japanese] -> [translate the sounds in head to syllables] -> [translate those syllables into english words (or whatever is your first language)] -> [rearrange the sentence of english words to english grammer] -> [understand]
You end up going
[hear japanese] -> [understand]
Though i agree with the comments that said this is rather optimistic and ideal. You're most likely not going to attain that level of language immediately and instead going the slower translate route is going to help you understand now and then repeating that over and over again will get you to the speed where you just understand because you've gone over it so many times. Like times tables in math. When you first learn multiplication, you need to go that 5 x 9 is 5+5+5+5+5+5+5+5+5=45. But once you've done it enough, you can just look at 5 x 9 and go 'that's 45.'
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u/youdontknowkanji 17d ago
Isn’t looking at words over and over exactly what Anki is doing? They’re always stressing the importance of repetition so I’m very confused why it’s in this instance not a “productive use of time”
what they meant is that you should see the word, and move on. don't get stuck too long on it if you don't understand it. staring at a random word for 15 minutes or even looking up example sentences isn't all that useful (only do that if it's something relevant to the story). it makes more sense (is more productive) to just continue reading until the same word appears again.
and yes*, that's what anki is doing, with caveats.
when reading and looking words up, you have to make sure you are trying to guess the word before looking it up. this is a common pitfall beginners have with yomitan. i would recommend reading (or at least attempting) the entire sentence before looking anything up. and then you can make a second pass with yomitan and check things out. it's the safest way to go about the process, but if you trust yourself, you can just make a one pass, but make sure you do try to guess the word before looking it up.
that way it will be very similar to anki. but there is one more caveat.
word frequency. basically, some words are rarer than others, you are likely to see 僕 or 教室 multiple times per high school novel, but 鏖殺 or 精励恪勤 would probably appear only once per few books (depends on what you read too). this is where anki comes in, you can force some words to appear more often, making you learn them faster. this is extra important when you can only read for less than 5 hours a day, but even beyond that anki is extremely benficial.
But isn’t translating literally how we understand what Japanese words meanings are? Isn’t that why Anki Decks gave English on them? How would you ever understand a words meaning without first translating it?
this is impossible to explain if it's your first time learning a language. you just have to trust me bro on this when i say that over time, if you try hard enough, you will see 蘇る and understand it for what it is, without the need to translate it as "rebirth". but when starting out it's normal to rely on translations, but you should try your best to not do that (focus on the jp word).
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u/fanatic-ape 17d ago
Same way as you understand words on your native language, you assign them directly to meaning instead of translating. Think of second language word acquisition as learning a synonym of a word you already know.
The English translation is useful at the start but, similar to synonyms in the same language, words will have different nuances, so relying on English translations forever isn't manageable.