YukiI just posted on Lang-8. I get corrections so fast! Yet I’m so nervous about correcting other people’s journals. orz orz That’s really sad, actually. ^^;
It’s also dangerous and annoying making typos in Japanese because it can completely change the kanji and thus the meaning of what you are trying to say. But the fact that I didn’t catch the typo just means that it’s a legitimate mistake and I don’t need to panic over it and make excuses about it. I messed up. Let’s get over it now. (I’m sweating from the nervousness;;; )
Well, yesterday I finished the final frame for the video art I’ve been working on for the past three or four weeks. ^o^ So it’s donnnnne! The video will be uploaded around the 23rd, so that will be nice. I’ll post a link to it on Lang-8 too and try to write about it.
You know, I see a recurring theme here. Perfectionism really can be more dangerous then helpful, huh? ;_; I already talked about it in relation to my art, but then there’s this… T_T
Like… I don’t want people to see me being wrong, being the owner of something that is filled with mistakes.
On the other hand, God accepted me with all my mistakes, didn’t he?
I’ll keep trying to not be so ashamed of my mistakes. After all, the point of Lang-8 is to point out and correct your mistakes so that you learn the right way (or a better way) to say what you’re trying to say.
It’s just difficult when I get a private message on Lang-8 with someone wanting my Skype ID. I’m not confident enough in my Japanese to Skype with anyone. ;_; But then, when will I be confident? If I wait until I’m confident, I’ll have already gone through face-to-face and over-the-phone conversations. I have to Skype eventually, don’t I?
I feel like I’m pushing against (or through; I’m not sure which) the wall of “Intermediateness”–Intermediate Japanese. To put it in JLPT terms, as I am now, I could pass the JLPT level 5, which is like…not even on anyone’s radar. ^^; Level 4 is where I’m moving into, and then level 3, but I’m still having what I think are beginner problems of making sentences and stuff. It’s very annoying.
How I have been constructing my Japanese sentences:
1-Basically, I imagine the sentence I want to say. It’s usually centered around a feeling, idea, or object.
2-What comes to mind is a vocabulary word (usually the feeling, idea, or object in question), and then a set phrase that includes the word. For example: “But then, when will I be confident?” becomes in my mind 「でも、自信がある」which means “But (I have/there is) confidence.”
3- Then I typically say it aloud, and amend it as I say it: 「でも、自信があるの？」(“But (do I have/is there) confidence?”)
4-I realize that’s not really what I’m wanting to say, and throw in the word I think I’m missing: 「でも、自信があるの？いつ？」(“But (do I have/is there) confidence? When?”)
It’s very colloquial, and not really what I’m trying to say. “But do I have confidence? When?” is NOT the same thing as “But then, when will I be confident?” So then I try to fix the sentence from the beginning, and that’s where I run into the second problem: grammar.
It might come out like this: 「でもね、いつ、私は自信になるの？」but I’m not certain it’s right because I don’t know if you can turn 自信 from “confidence” to “confident” in that way. (“But you know, when will I become confident?”) (Let me remind you, that’s what I think the sentence says, but I’m not sure if I’m right, even as I write this.)
I think being fluent isn’t so much knowing all the words or being able to read everything, but rather knowing that when you say something, you know for a fact that it is exactly what you want to say, and that when you hear someone say something to you, you understand it, and you know that you understand it correctly (or at least hopefully XD). People who are fluent don’t often have to pull out a dictionary. I’m a native speaker of English, and because I’m fluent in English, I don’t have to pull out a dictionary to type this sentence. (If I were to come across a word I didn’t know, then of course I would look it up.) Because I can’t do that in Japanese, I’m not fluent in Japanese.
I want to be fluent. But I’m not there yet.
I need to find some time to read articles and things in Japanese…like I mentioned in an earlier post…
And I need to not be so nervous. Or move forward even though I’m nervous. (o`wo)9