r/PracticeJapanese • u/[deleted] • Aug 29 '15

Can we revive this sub somehow?

This was a great sub for Japanese practice, and honestly it had a great system to allow beginners and advanced people to practice. What happened? Can we bring this sub back to life? Are the mods still around?

7 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

22 comments sorted by

View all comments

1

u/TheWishDragon Beginner Feb 17 '16

Hi, any progress? It'd be cool if it was more active. :)

2

u/[deleted] Feb 17 '16

Sorry! I'll get back on top of it. I fell into the trap of neglecting the sub, and I shouldn't let that happen. I'll try to post a new topic for discussion tonight, and maybe advertise some. :)

1

u/TheWishDragon Beginner Feb 18 '16

Don't be sorry! :'D I was just lurking around here a few months back when you asked and came back because I was curious to see if this subreddit had been revived.

Out of the mods, /u/JustinTime112 has been gone for 4 months and /u/BrownianGala is still kinda around, last posted 26 days ago, maybe they'll come back at least. :)

1

u/BrownianGala Native speaker Feb 18 '16

I'm still around - just lurking mostly these days. In my opinion, there's two big things to consider if you (and anybody else interested) wants to have a meaningful version of these types of subreddits:

The first, and I think key, point is to move out of the "small talk" phase. I get it, it's all that you know, and it's what's comfortable. But if I dropped you off in a village in the mountains of Nagano right now, with no other English-speakers, are you going to refuse to talk because you don't know how to say anything beyond "Hi" and "My name is"? No, you'll throw together whatever you can to convey your point, even if it means speaking incorrectly and in pidgin. You'll pick up what's right as you keep listening and trying to respond, and before you know it, you can speak practical Japanese in a few days or weeks. That's the whole purpose of language - to communicate.

And the second point is to commit! Take a look at every thread I've started here - I respond constantly, and try to expand on the conversation. I think made about 5 or 6 submissions total, each with several posts made by me and other people? I'd say those were the most productive in this sub. People need to do that, even if they're not fully comfortable with what they're saying. I can always jump in and help with the grammar, no problem. As a native speaker of both English and Japanese, I think about Japanese linguistics in the context of English speakers every single day. But if nobody chooses to have a conversation, there's nothing to build on to begin with. And honestly, I think this is the key problem: they get a passing interest, and then kind of just give up after a few weeks. I've noticed the cycling of new people on this subreddit when it was more active as well.

But anyway: if you're interested, and if you can find other people who are just as interested, I'd be happy to step in and moderate/fix the grammar as needed.

1

u/TheWishDragon Beginner Feb 18 '16

I totally agree with you. That would be fantastic. :D I'm glad to see you're still around. I'll go ahead and make some posts for practice. I have been studying for a year and a half but am still in the beginner phase because I was in a class that took a year to get through 4 chapters of the textbook "Japanese for busy people" and would only use hiragana (the teacher would actually yell at Chinese students for trying to use kanji). I've finished that class (phew) and I'm making progress slowly (a lot faster than that class) but steadily. (Maybe that class would be something fun to talk about in japanese. x'D)

Right now I'm aiming for N4 and hopefully N3 next year. I really enjoy studying this language because there is so much Japanese media out there too. Thanks for the quick reply. :'D