April 17, 2008

Make your questions specific

I think it is very good for you to ask questions about what you do not understand. However, your questions need to be specific and clear. If there is a sentence you do not understand, you need to tell me what word or phrase is confusing you. You should also tell me what you think the word or phrase might mean in that context. In other words, even if you are not sure of the meaning, you should try to develop some hypotheses about the meaning of the word or phrase in the sentence. When you write your question on your blog, you should explain your hypotheses about the meaning of the word or phrase and then ask which one of your hypotheses is correct. One way to explain your hypotheses is to use Japanese. For example, you could write something like, "Does this mean 何々, or does it mean 何とか何とか?" In addition, you should tell me why you are not confident about your hypotheses. For example, is the problem that your interpretations do not seem to fit in the context of the passage you are reading? In that case, before you ask me your question, see if you can think of another interpretation that would fit the context.

In summary, I think it is very good for you to ask questions but I want you to do the following:
  1. Use dictionairies to see if they can help you understand the part of the sentence that is confusing you. Don't be satisfied with the first definition you find. Study all of the definition and think about which one might fit the context of what you are reading.
  2. Make hypotheses (two or three would be better than one) about what the meaning might be and explain them in your question.
  3. Explain why your hypotheses don't seem to be satisfactory.
If you do these things, you may find that you are able to figure out the answer before you ask your question. Great! In that case, write in your blog about what was confusing to you and how you figured it out.

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