kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5176 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 1153 of 1702 21 November 2013 at 12:48pm | IP Logged |
Wondering how I'll do on the JLPT. I wonder why I didn't think to finish other sections
earlier and out more time I to the reading section. 仕方ない。I'm thinking next I'll be making
more flashcards using the iKnow website. The vocabulary is good and the sentences aren't bad.
The last time I made a deck from it I included the English translation of their sentences and
I am finding that helps create a more vivid image in my mind of the meaning of the sentence.
Some are obvious so it's not needed but others are more idiomatic or just have words I don't
know yet. I'm thinking I'm going to add English translations to the Japanese subs in my
flashcard too. More work. But I think it's worth it?
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kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5176 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 1154 of 1702 21 November 2013 at 12:54pm | IP Logged |
dampingwire wrote:
kraemder wrote:
The site got me thinking about stroke order again.
It's something that
I think
us nice but I'm not going to kill myself studying it. |
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I do write out my kanji and I find that helpful for remembering. I did start off learning
the general principles of stroke order but I thin decided that I wasn't going to sweat
over it too much.
I'm wondering whether that was a good decision or not. Are you finding working on stroke-
order helpful in remembering the kanji?
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Well adding the stroke order font to the deck is pretty easy so it seems like a waste not to
have it. And I do feel a little better knowing I'm writing it out correctly. I don't know
that it makes me remember the kanji any better. And I don't give myself a wrong response if I
mess up the stroke order, but it's mostly intuitive anyway. I don't struggle too much to
remember stroke order with the stroke order of on the flashcard to help me learn.
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kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5176 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 1155 of 1702 23 November 2013 at 2:26am | IP Logged |
Just reading g-bod's language log. I don't know if she's going stick with quitting Japanese again this time but it's looking like it. I often wonder why people decide to learn Japanese instead of other languages. I know language teachers will ask new students to their class why they're learning the language. Of course the teachers are happy to encourage and push the students to learn but at the same time, I've heard from them that without a practical reason to learn the language, most students give it up without making very much progress. And yet there are students without any practical reason who do really well. I am pretty addicted to anime and that kind of keeps me from ever really quitting because I am hearing Japanese every day, whether I'm formally studying or not. But that's not the case for a lot of my peers both here and in my class at Pima (the local community college). Sure, a lot of them think anime is interesting but they hardly watch it every day. But they're still studying Japanese. They don't really know any Japanese speakers per se except through the class - the teacher and the tutors. A friend of mine from class a year ago just told me she would be majoring in Japanese to get an actual degree. She's really smart so I'm sure she can do really well. I was really happy to hear that. She may change her mind of course. But I often feel like these language teachers looking at students and wondering how they can tackle such a monumental endeavor like learning a foreign language without anything on a daily basis in their lives that makes them want to keep studying this crazy hard language.
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g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5974 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German
| Message 1156 of 1702 23 November 2013 at 10:45am | IP Logged |
I started learning Japanese because I already had some interest in the culture from reading
some novels in translation and anime. I also carried a fascination with the writing system
and a genuine desire to really learn how it worked. And I was at a stage in life where I
really needed the kind of challenge a "difficult" language offers.
I can't promise I'll give up on Japanese forever. In fact I really hope I don't. I'm just
prepared to let it go to the extent I'll have to make some effort to bring it back rather
than spending an hour or so every day to keep it in top condition. Priorities change in life
and that's ok.
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kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5176 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 1157 of 1702 23 November 2013 at 1:45pm | IP Logged |
Of course it's ok - it gives me time to catch up to you =p. I gotta say that what you said about it being harder to maintain than German/French kind of scares me. Why does Japanese have to be like that?
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4657 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 1158 of 1702 23 November 2013 at 8:01pm | IP Logged |
I do think that if I didn't have the work connection or some other "justification" I
don't think I'd've put this much effort in to Japanese. With German or Spanish or French
it's easy enough to hop across the channel for a holiday and get some immediate pay off.
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g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5974 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German
| Message 1159 of 1702 23 November 2013 at 10:03pm | IP Logged |
kraemder wrote:
Of course it's ok - it gives me time to catch up to you =p. I gotta say that what you said about it being harder to maintain than German/French kind of scares me. Why does Japanese have to be like that? |
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Don't be scared! It just means that if you don't use it every day, you need to spend more time "warming up". So long as you never get over your anime addiction, you will never have a problem!
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kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5176 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 1160 of 1702 24 November 2013 at 1:12am | IP Logged |
I just had a JOI N3 prep lesson. Reading practice. I think I'm going to spend the rest of this week doing reading exercises from the workbooks and whatever I can find online. My vocabulary is good enough to get through it I think but I'm slow. Really slow. The other learner who was studying with me was a lot faster on a lot of the questions. Part of that is that the teacher had us read it out loud, once each (two of us in the class) and then do the questions. I am finding that when the material is pushing me to my limit that I need to read it to myself mentally at my own pace to best understand it. The other student did really well. Makes me jealous haha. But the good thing is that my vocab is pretty much good enough...
I'm hoping I will finish the other sections of the test with a little bit of time to spare so I can cheat and get a look at the reading section some more.
*edit*
I noticed I stink at interpreting advertisements and business type documents etc., stuff that is pretty useful if you go to Japan (or have been to Japan). But isn't in anime or fiction stuff which is where I do all of my studying. The only reason I know some of the vocabulary is from studying the Core list.
Edited by kraemder on 24 November 2013 at 1:16am
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