Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6612 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish
| Message 545 of 1702 22 September 2012 at 9:40am | IP Logged |
kraemder wrote:
I just finished my first session on iKnow and I find it interesting that the session says it will take me 16
minutes but in fact took me an hour and fifteen minutes... Granted I did a couple of extra steps in that I
handwrote some of the kanji when it gave me the audio only to test myself. But a whole hour longer than
they thought it should take seems excessive. |
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I wondered about that too at first, but the first sections do take a long time. It's because all the words are new and they present them in more ways and more times than they do in later sessions. So the first sessions take longer than the estimate and then last sessions when you are about to master the card and all they give you is the sound and you have to write it and then they give the kanji and you have to write the pronunciation, take a lot less time. The thing is, the estimate is always 16 minutes. I guess that is the average when you are in the middle stage, but I think it would be nice if they calculated the time a little more accurately rather than just giving the same estimate for everything.
I think the first round probably takes me at least double the estimate, probably more; I don't remember. Of course, since I've done it for so long, I'm a bit faster than in the beginning. And you are writing things out in addition, which really takes a long time. I tried it a few times myself and it took forever. I eventually gave it up and decided than my writing practice can come from other sources as it was too much trouble. I like iKnow being in its simple format so I can do it when I feel lazy.
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Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6612 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish
| Message 546 of 1702 22 September 2012 at 9:49am | IP Logged |
g-bod wrote:
There is a difference between use of と and とき. I can't really explain it myself but I have been corrected for using the wrong one before. |
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You really should get a grammar dictionary. These are fabulous. For now you can just get the basic one. It is packed with stuff and will really take you very far. I use it a lot. I write on lang-8 and when I get corrections, for example when they changed けれど to が, I could look up both words and see what the difference is. It gives explanations of all those sorts of words and explains how to use them, then it explains when you have to use the one word and when you can replace it with a related word. It even gives example sentences showing when you use which word and why it is so. It is overwhelming in the amount of information it contains, but I find it very useful to check why my mistakes are mistakes. Making a mistake and then reading about why it was wrong, makes me understand and remember it so much better.
Edited by Brun Ugle on 22 September 2012 at 9:50am
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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 547 of 1702 22 September 2012 at 7:51pm | IP Logged |
Brun Ugle wrote:
[QUOTE=kraemder]
I wondered about that too at first, but the first sections do take a long time. It's because all the words are new
and they present them in more ways and more times than they do in later sessions. So the first sessions take
longer than the estimate and then last sessions when you are about to master the card and all they give you
is the sound and you have to write it and then they give the kanji and you have to write the pronunciation,
take a lot less time. The thing is, the estimate is always 16 minutes. I guess that is the average when you are
in the middle stage, but I think it would be nice if they calculated the time a little more accurately rather than
just giving the same estimate for everything.
I think the first round probably takes me at least double the estimate, probably more; I don't remember. Of
course, since I've done it for so long, I'm a bit faster than in the beginning. And you are writing things out in
addition, which really takes a long time. I tried it a few times myself and it took forever. I eventually gave it up
and decided than my writing practice can come from other sources as it was too much trouble. I like iKnow
being in its simple format so I can do it when I feel lazy. |
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Woot. iOS 6 crashed my safari. New version is slightly less stable than it was. Anyway. I am pretty lazy so I
really like iKnow flashcards for this reason. It's easy to get into and just do. I spend time getting so I can
repeat the example sentence without looking (and understand each word in it etc) and that can take a little
time. I've been doing this about a week now and it's going faster though. Some sentences are really easy
however - 彼は留学生です。Is so basic it's a bit disappointing. But most aren't quite that easy.
I write the word out in kanji when it gives only the audio and doesn't give any visual clues. If I've already
written the word several times recently that it's just redundant then I skip that step. I don't really know where
else I'd get this practice.
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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 548 of 1702 22 September 2012 at 7:54pm | IP Logged |
I'll pick one up. I'd really like an ebook version - reference books are a pain in the butt especially to carry
around. It doesn't look like that one is available in ebook format =(. I'm not sure that any are. I might end up
getting a print copy and scanning it to PDF. I'd really prefer one professionally put into ebook format though.
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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 549 of 1702 23 September 2012 at 6:45am | IP Logged |
Ever feel cursed? I decide to subscribe to japanesepod101 and get their pdf's to go with their shows etc...
and the new iOS apparently is bugged to not display Japanese text in PDF's now.
I'm feeling like I could use a break from this language. heh not gonna happen but I just feel worn out.
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Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6612 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish
| Message 550 of 1702 23 September 2012 at 8:07am | IP Logged |
kraemder wrote:
Ever feel cursed? I decide to subscribe to japanesepod101 and get their pdf's to go with their shows etc...
and the new iOS apparently is bugged to not display Japanese text in PDF's now.
I'm feeling like I could use a break from this language. heh not gonna happen but I just feel worn out. |
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At this point, I think you are the only member of our team who hasn't taken a break.
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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 551 of 1702 25 September 2012 at 8:24am | IP Logged |
Yeah I can't take a break now either... I'm in a class and if I just stopped going I'd feel terribly guilty. I don't
see myself taking a break for more than a day. I dunno how long it takes to count as a break. A week?
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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 552 of 1702 25 September 2012 at 9:11am | IP Logged |
I don't think there's an official time limit :-) I'd say long enough that you feel refreshed and ready to return to the language with new enthusiasm, but not so long that you give up entirely. But yeah, I don't think you can really take a break while doing a class, although you could spend a week just turning up, doing your homework but nothing else. Or hold out until the Christmas holiday.
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