Recently I've been thinking that the skills necessary for learning a new language are similar to the skills needed for math. Not to make anyone panic who happens to love language and hate math...
Not that Japanese has a one-to-one correlation with English. Of course not. That's as weird as saying algebra has a one-to-one correspondence to English. I guess in your own language you don't have to worry so much about the rules, but in a different one you're always conscious of the rules.
I made the connection after I started writing cards to help me remember grammar. And they sort of ended up looking like equations.
plain verb + you ni + suru (This sentence means you're trying to do something.)
Actually in both math and language you have to learn some new terms and how to change simple concepts into more difficult ones. When you add all these different terms together in the right order you can get some important information as a result. In math it's some number. In language it's a sentence you need in everyday life.
The tricky part is when everything begins affecting everything else--when it's not just one operation going on but a series of operations all going on at the same time, and you have to balance them. And in both math and language, forgetting even one step can change the result!
When I learned something new in math I usually had to start by memorizing a formula. And just doing it lots of times until the steps stuck in my head. And then once I had it, I could start playing around and seeing its nuances. It's the same with new grammar. First, I just have to remember the rules and the general meaning. But after I'm used to it, I can see interesting things and unusual ways to use it.
What's also similar is "If you don't use it you lose it." So practice is important!
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