Random Thoughts about Learning Japanese

9 Nov 2012 - by Jay Bird

When studying Japanese, I make little rules to learn certain words. An example is どこか (dokoka, somewhere). I think of it as being made of two parts, どこ(doko, ~where) and か(ka, the question particle). So I put it together as "where?"-->"unknown place"-->"somewhere".

I always halfway imagine the Japanese people see it that way too. But recently it came to my attention that I actually don't look at English words that way.

For example, take the English word "somewhere". A Japanese learner may try to use my method above to learn it, by thinking of it in two parts "some" and "where", and remembering those individual meanings. But the funny thing is, I don't think of "somewhere" as two words stuck together. To me, it's just one long word.

I guess my point is that when learning a foreign language, you are likely to notice things about the language that native speakers don't even notice. Of course, its nice to appreciate the little intricacies of any foreign language. But I also think that it impedes a person's ability to learn a language quickly when they overthink things like the original and construction of individual words.

If you want more efficiency in learning, I think it's best to just think of words like "somewhere" (and どこか) as their own word. Don't overthink it.