From: Jamis Buck <jgb3@...>
Date: 2004-10-07T22:24:05+09:00
Subject: Re: Bit of the Matz Interview (in Rubyist Magazine)

Paul Battley wrote:
> On Thu, 7 Oct 2004 12:24:49 +0900, Ryo Furue

[snip]

> Personally, I'd advise you to concentrate on learning speaking first:
> it's a lot easier to learn to read a language when you already
> understand it.
> 
> Paul.

Wonderful exposition, Paul. Thanks for the info. Your statement that 
"most of the sounds of Japanese are fairly easy to pronounce" is 
encouraging, since I found the Korean glottal consonants (in particular) 
difficult to say correctly. The different between, say, "ssal" (rice) 
and "sal" (flesh) is extremely subtle, to my ears. I'm sure I made more 
than a few Koreans snicker when I asked how old their moon was, when I 
was trying to say daughter. :)

As for learning to speak it first... things like speaking and listening 
are, in my experience, much easier to learn when you have someone else 
handy to speak or listen to. Learning to speak "in a vacuum", as it 
were, seems like it would be harder than just learning to read or write.

It's kind of a moot question for me, at this point, since I don't really 
have the time to learn either speaking, or writing, right now. :(

-- 
Jamis Buck
jgb3@email.byu.edu
http://www.jamisbuck.org/jamis