I joined Line, the most popular messaging app in Japan, so I can chat with family members in Nihongo. One problem: what topics, shared interests, and so on, do I talk about? I recall Everett Bleiler said that Japanese can be extremely simple in its expression of basic ideas, yet very elaborate in expressing the speaker's feeling about the ideas. In other words, it's very meta and perspectival, it's not the 'what' but the 'how' that can be more important. That is a good area to focus upon. From a dual-aspect monist perspective, how one feels about or attends to something can be pluralistic, from a "both either/or and both/and" point of view. But as a novice language learner, I face severe limitations in communication. For instance, I cannot make a joke easily because humor is hard to translate, and anything more than simple statements could easily become gibberish in my sloppy attempts. So expressing the sort of intuitive, embodied coincidentia oppositorum views consistent with the McGilchrist/Iroquois hemisphere hypothesis that I aspire to convey will require a very slow and methodical approach: today one view, tomorrow the next, slow alteration and literal meanings allow time for consistency and comprehension before the next is introduced and elaborated. Eventually I should be able to work up to more complex sentences and concepts (such as the need to neither let ratiocentrism blend with us, nor let it drift too far from our awareness, so we will always see the relational continuity amidst fragmentation). If I try to coin new metaphors or figures of speech early on, while lacking the nuanced vocabulary, it will not make any sense at all. But I can try to write senryū, or at least some kind of poem in Japanese every day. (Maria Ortega recommended this to help us break out of the straitjacket of rules.) Having sufficient patience in the face of these limitations, while also accepting the reality that I will make countless mistakes, is challenging. But opposites usefully constrain and limit the excesses of each other. My limited language proficiency does limit my words, but limiting such tools of the rational mind sometimes permits greater metaphorical power (something poets know well). One "hack" to get around this limitation can be the use of "filler words" and aizuchi.
In regard to staying focused, it helps me to be able to see the "two minds" within humans. Tawiscara is the one who with ADHD, and who craves the dopamine hit from social media. Taronhiawagon is the one who is making the longer term plans. He has trouble keeping Tawiscara from getting distracted too often, but he needs his discriminating attention so he can learn Nihongo. So he's told him that he can use social media no more than a few minutes a day because "it is right that he maintain a small distance, while at the same time keep his attention upon it; neither letting it drift too far from his awareness, nor letting it blend with him."
I've now listened to over thirty language podcast episodes. A recent guest, polyglot Luca Lampariello talked about his "bidirectional translation method", but mostly the passion he has for learning new languages as a doorway to learning. He's a great speaker. There's a few more podcasts I want to hear to gain new strategies, but so far these seem core: SRS & interleaving (method of study), chunking (idea categories), and mimic (common phrases and filler words with accent). But it all comes down to the hours I put into it, that's why extensive reading is considered important. I need to fully commit to the mimic method. Write fewer original long sentences, and instead make a list of my favorite "common phrases", metaphors, idioms, expressions, and even poems that I can mimic and recite frequently. Each of these can be chunked with similar variations. Recall the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Darmok", which features a language that is built upon metaphors and allegories. It's said that reading and writing, speaking and listening, constitute the four main areas of language learning. That makes me wonder if think more in words or images. I suspect images, and if that's so perhaps focusing on the reading and writing graphics may be an easy entry point. Although recently, on 11/24/22 I had a dream I was speaking in Japanese, so perhaps it is the words? I can make all grocery lists in Japanese, and Simon Ager, the creator of the Omniglot website, has a nice list of "useful Japanese phrases".
In a very nice conversation, Emanuel Vasconcelos pointed out that language is a performance skill, so deadlines can help with learning. Don’t learn the 500 or 1000 most common words, that’s just derived from a simple text analysis of printed media. It certainly doesn’t apply to beginning language learners. Instead, learn the core verbs, the five or six most important verbs and conjugations. The single sentence is the unit of the language “chunk”.
I had lately been thinking of taking a university job, where part of the benefits package is a tuition waiver for dependents. But this is often administrative work (what David Graeber calls BS jobs); it's typically sedentary and requires far more use of McGilchrist's "left hemisphere" than I find comfortable. However the more embodied and creative jobs, such as teaching Japanese language to others, are more "right hemisphere" and potentially intrinsically rewarding. But is it possible that I could achieve such proficiency in a few years? Could I teach McGilchrist's The Matter with Things, in Japanese, as a government employee at a university? That's a very lofty goal. Perhaps not, but if I get just halfway there it would be worth it nonetheless. Were I to reach that, then perhaps I could do the same with the Ainu language. Ambition knows few limits!
