日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 6

If you have a question about the language, ask it and fellow 4channers might see it and answer it for you.

Japanese - Ask questions thread
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1174719097/1-40

日語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread2 質問
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1206158123/1-40

日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 3
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1267485093/1-40

日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 4
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1302350850/1-40

日本語 Japanese Ask Questions Thread 5
http://dis.4chan.org/read/lang/1330050873/1-40

>>282
My friend actually explained this much better than I had understood it prior: yes, children learn by immersing themselves in a language environment. It takes them upwards of two years until they can say basic things, and they do not have any verbal symbols prior.

Writing is a functional system of creating symbols where they might not have existed before (gestalt theory shows that we will read words holistically instead of breaking down the letters or ideographs). Additionally, if you want to go into an immersive environment, then go right in. But, like a child, expect to understand nothing for two years and then slowly begin to grasp the language. If you want to learn like a student, then you should learn the writing system so you can study Japanese textually. Your speaking skills will be weaker than your textual skills at first, but if you go to Japan with two or three years of study under your belt, you will be surprised at how quickly you go from a retard to someone able to hold a functional conversation in a real topic. That's been my experience, as someone who had a writing-heavy college experience and then went abroad after 2.5 years of study. In 4 months I went from being almost unable to talk at all (I could talk somewhat, which is pretty good for text-heavy learning), to being able to hold basic conversations at full speed, and more intermediate conversations (things that have constructions such as "it's not necessarily given that ~ even if you say ~, but rather...") at a lower speed and accuracy but functional enough to get my point across.