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旅立ち/Катюша-Woodsei’s TAC 2014 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| 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 25 of 162 24 January 2012 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If "only" doing 400-500 kanji per week counts as "falling off the kanji-wagon," that must be one big wagon.
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| fortheo Senior Member United States Joined 5028 days ago 187 posts - 222 votes Studies: French | Message 26 of 162 24 January 2012 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
It seems to be more like a shipping container than a wagon lol. keep up the good work woodsei! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4789 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 27 of 162 26 January 2012 at 4:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
and
Gotta say, I laughed a lot when I read those two comments. They were hilarious :) I guess what I meant to say was that almost half the week I didn't do any kanji study or review whatsoever, and then had to make a mad dash in the second half, which, I admit, drove me insane, and wasn't the most ideal thing to do. I really don't want to go through that again. I really hope I can finish RTK 1 by the end of Jan, because I really want to do some serious Japanese. Oh well. Best laugh of the week :) Thanks Fortheo and Brun_Ugle :) Keep up the good work too! Edited by Woodsei on 26 January 2012 at 9:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4789 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 28 of 162 31 January 2012 at 9:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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Ahhh, I'm late for my weekly post again. Oh well. I don't have any excuses for that:)
Japanese I'm finally done with RTK 1 and the supplement. My head feels so numb.....I didn't realize I was on a crazy marathon until today morning, when I woke up and realized....no kanji. Well, there's still RTK 3 to be sure, but since 1 was the main bulk...phew! I'm happy that's over, but I kind of feel a little nostalgic. I really did enjoy kanji. It was like little puzzle games to me. Although I wouldn't be doing any mad dashes like the house is on fire anytime soon. In retrospect, I could have maintained an even pace of 25-30/day, and I almost broke down too many times than I could care to mention. But every time I decided to do that, and then look at a sentence, I start getting very frustrated, and finding myself defaulting to reading the romaji version of it. This didn't happen with the kanji I already knew. I was able to focus more on comprehending the sentence, and understanding the function every part of it plays. I just couldn't see myself studying only kanji for 4 months at a moderate rate, and putting off all study until then. And I really do try and convince myself to start with a textbook before L/R, but....the rate at which they progress is so slow. And I keep burning out after reading a few pages. I've finally gotten around to clearing all the cardboard in my new home that was sticking out like a sore thumb the past two weeks I've been here. I feel really exhausted. But it was good seeing my home clean and clutter-free, finally. I'm really loving it here. The neighbors are so nice, and I discovered beautiful woods and gorgeous trails right outside the complex. L-R in the fresh, woodsy, winter air! My home is located right next to the woods, and I'm feeling so lucky at the moment. That also helps because I had to drop my classes this semester due to a lot of issues coming up. I was feeling so bummed, because I left one class I was so looking forward to, a writing class. Well, I guess the upside is now I can focus on languages full time, and there's always next semester and back to classes again. But I'm not here to complain. Today I took a break, and then made the following outline for my next step. When I was scouting for Japanese resources a few months ago, I stumbled across a treasure trove that was lying around in my friends house, a set of grammar books that were -gasp!- sadly unused and crying desperately, "Please read us, or else this poor tree would've died for nothing." :) Okay, seriously though. My friend told me that Japanese was no longer a language she wanted to study, so I could have them. They're the 3 Dictionaries of Japanese Grammar-Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced- plus All About Particles, and two handbooks of verbs and adjectives/adverbs. What went through my mind was why on earth would someone get rid of these?! I was sort of shocked speechless, and I guess it showed :) But I'm not complaining. I don't have to purchase them now, and for a student, this is a definite plus :) I find that I do so much well when I set mini-goals within a bigger one. So I'll be outlining my plan for the upcoming month, and depending on the results, I'll make further plans. I downloaded the sound files and transcripts that I was able to find from the links Sheetz has posted in his Japanese log here. Thank you Sheetz! I also have the shared Anki decks for the Smart.fm Core 2000 and 6000, and the Harry Potter vocab deck. I also have both the first and second Harry Potter books in Japanese with their respective audio. And of course numerous dramas, movies, and anime. I was toying with either doing the sentence decks first before moving on to L-R. I guess I'm feeling a little intimidated, huh? But I still haven't made my mind up yet. I'm leaning more to starting L-R right away, although it doesn't necessarily have to be Harry Potter. I know my vocab, kanji reading, and listening comprehension will grow by leaps and bounds as opposed to focusing only on sentences. I want to give my Japanese a turbo boost, so to speak. It'll be interesting to see what will happen with that. I'll try to hold out for the exact steps I read in the original L-R thread by its owner, and see how well that works for me, or if I can keep up with the long hours. I feel good about it since I have no school, so I do have the time. The idea loosely revolves around only listening and reading for two weeks first. I want to see how my comprehension advances, and how well I can follow. And of course it's great for kanji practice. Then the following two weeks, in addition to listening and reading, I start reading the Basic grammar book, studying a concept, going back to the text I'm L-Ring and looking up examples of that concept, and googling some more of them online. And into Anki they'll go. But I wanted to start first only L-R so I can get into the flow. I'm so excited to see where I'll be by the beginning of March, if all goes well. I hope so. Of course, I'll also start looking at the Smart.fm sentences then. I just have the decks, but I'm not worried about the grammar since I have my trusty dictionaries, which I read briefly a while back and really liked. Oh, I forgot to mention, I did the katakana too, since I haven't done them before. I have to say, I like the hiragana better, but that's not an issue. In a nutshell: L-R only for two weeks, then L-R and grammar the following two weeks. That is not to say that I intend to read ALL the grammar books, of course. That's just my plan for February. I'll also start RTK 3, but a very modest pace is my plan. This week I'll review the kanji I studied, and then begin RTK 3 the following week, with reviews. 2. Russian I finally got around to it, thank God. Aloysius had recommended a really good idea to approaching the Russian alphabet, and that is reading words that are Latin-based, in order to compare them to the English pronunciation. That was really great. I listened all week to the first FSI Russian FAST tape and read the corresponding unit, until I'm starting to feel that I'm no longer reading AMBULANCE backwards in a rear-view mirror :) It's actually starting to feel much better now. My main gripe with my Russian studies right now, since I'm focusing currently on Japanese, was where to start. Unlike Japanese, I haven't spent countless hours watching and listening to Russian, and it's just....non-existent, for lack of a better word. So I convinced myself to start with a textbook, and I found two that I liked, Assimil, and Ultimate Russian. I'll only be going through one of them, but I'm still on the fence about which to choose. If anyone has any experience with either, I'd really appreciate getting your feedback :) I decided to do so because I will devote 30 minutes a day, and no more than an hour maximum, to the language. I guess I could start to listen and read, but I don't know how effective that'll be, especially since I have no idea what Russian is, but that it's very melodic and beautiful-sounding. Also, I noticed that textbooks for Russian, or the more popular languages, are much better than those for Japanese. Meaning they cover more material. Well, I can't complain. Japanese is so different from English, or Roman-based languages. Or even Slavic ones, but I can't be sure. I guess I don't feel too intimidated by it because I grew up looking at both Roman and Arabic letters, and speaking the languages, so I'm used to foreignness. Is that even a word?! Oh well, I'm tired :) So, to sum it up for February: 1. Japanese: L-R, then add grammar half-way through + RTK 3 2. Russian: 30 minutes to an hour per day on eithet Assimil or Ultimate, unless a change of heart occurs. Japanese Media I watched a very beautiful and bittersweet movie called Tokyo Girl. It was lovely, but so sad at the end. Hmmm. I'm a hopeless romantic. And of course kept re-watching Gokusen (it makes me laugh like no other :) ). Found the manga (in English) and it was even better than the drama. I was intrigued by g-bod's post mentioning Tiger and Dragon, so I decided to watch that one too. As well as Orange Days that was recommended by fortheo. But seriously, I have to look for more feminine dramas, or else I'll end up speaking like a violent yakuza guy. If there are any interesting dramas or movies out there for females, throw them at me. I'm also watching Naruto, Fairytail, and the like anime-wise. Word of the Week kanji: 変な , kana: へんな , romaji: henna, meaning: weird, strange, scary It's a common word, nothing special, but I wanted to post it because it really does sound like its meaning :) I love words like that, where feelings are emphasized, and I think Japanese is full of them. I'd also like to mention that another word, nemui (kanji: 眠い , kana: ねむい ) means sleepy, is just like the Arabic version, with the pronunciation close enough. In Arabic the word is nayem, or nayman, meaning sleepy. Isn't it interesting? It's really fun to find how words can really connect across languages. Food of the Week Okonomiyaki ( (お好み焼き): They're something like pancakes, I guess, but they're savory. Tried it the first time, and the result left something to be desired :p But the second time around it was much better. I really loved it, so I'll keep making them until I get them to be perfect :) Miscellaneous I decided to keep track of the hours I'm spending time with in Japanese and Russian. Since I keep Japanese playing in the background all day, as long as I'm awake, I'll just calculate the hours I'm up. But I will log the actual hours I'm spent studying. I might also post throughout the week, not necessarily only on Sundays. That one will still remain and be the highlight of the week, but if I can post daily to share what happens with L-R, I'll do so. The past month, I've only been doing kanji for approximately 6 hours/day, but those weren't in one go. My head just can't take it. I kept Japanese running in the background, but really focused on it when I wasn't doing kanji. I found it helped to watch an episode of a drama or anime, the play it again while doing something else, and repeating that cycle. I was picking more words and phrases, and I did google some ones to understand them better. While doing so, I came across a page that had body part idioms, which I thought was really worthy of mention. I really enjoyed going through it. Here's the link: Body Part Idioms I hope you like them! Questions For the book Kokoro by Natsume Soseki, the links to the recordings that are on the audio book thread are broken, I think. Does anyone know where to find them? I'm willing to purchase the audio book, if it's not readily available online. Help would be much appreciated. Manga in its original Japanese. I have no idea where to find an online bookstore that sells them. I would be so happy for any recommendations. Online, or otherwise. And for Russian, recommendations for movies, dramas, songs, podcasts, would also be great. I'm looking around too, and it would be interesting to check what others have really enjoyed. That's all for this week. Please excuse my long, messy, and overdue post. Cheers! Edited by Woodsei on 31 January 2012 at 10:44pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 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 29 of 162 31 January 2012 at 1:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm racking my brains now for dramas that might have more standard and feminine speech in it. One I really enjoyed, which I guess could be called a romantic comedy, was Kekkon Dekinai Otoko. It focusses on the relationships between (fairly) normal professionals so I think the language is quite standard too. Another favourite of mine is Honey and Clover. I didn't like the anime version at all but I thought the live drama was really good. I think the boys get the biggest share of the dialogue, but I think it's still fairly standard speech, since they are art students rather than yakuza!
Looks like you struck gold with the grammar books. With that lot you probably have all the reference books you'll need. For purchase of manga etc I tend to pay the exhorbitant shipping and buy from Amazon Japan. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 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 30 of 162 31 January 2012 at 9:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Those grammar dictionaries are fabulous. You're so lucky! I'm about halfway through the first one and I love it. It was a little confusing at first, but you soon get the hang of reading it. I haven't bought the other two yet, but I'm going to soon.
For buying manga, you could try YesAsia . They don't have quite the selection that Amazon has, but the prices are much better since shipping is usually free if you spend USD40 or more. Amazon's prices look cheap, but they add 300 yen to each book, plus there is an additional shipping charge. I don't know what their rates are the the US, but they are quite high to Europe. RTK3 is really tough. I only learn 5-10 per day, but I always forget half of them by the next day. Of course, they are very useful words, like that autochthonous, which spell check apparently doesn't even recognize. I really recommend L-R with Harry Potter. It was surprisingly easy and it helped me tremendously. The guy that reads it is fabulous too. I love all the different voices he has. They all seem to fit the characters perfectly. I found the last chapter a little difficult though. He does a very scary, nasty Voldemort. I don't have the second audiobook, but I'm sure it's great too. Unfortunately, they apparently only did those two. I don't know which Russian books you should choose, but if it were me, I'd do both. I like having two courses for a language as they tend to explain things differently and have a different approach. Plus the one serves as a review for the other. I look forward to reading about your Russian studies. I might do Russian eventually. It's between Russian and Polish. I like Polish, but Russian has a cooler alphabet. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6349 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 31 of 162 01 February 2012 at 7:37pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Woow. W.o.o.w. Woodsei! Completing RTK1 in only a month is an AMAZING feat!! !! !
For those of you who don't know how impressive this is: RTK1 means remembering the meanings and writings of 2000 kanji. Give yourself a huge pat on the back, you have made a stunning start of this TAC and I'll be thrilled to follow the rest of your adventures! :D 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5548 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 32 of 162 01 February 2012 at 8:14pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Just one month...no way José...that's amazing, Woodsei! It's probably a good idea to smooth out those review spikes in Anki before hitting the RTK3 though, and I bet you could probably do with a well deserved breather anyway. I'm sure you're already all too familiar with those little Anki love notes that great a learner in the morning...x out of <insert ridiculously large review number here> due today, and that's before you've even touched breakfast (lol). Great to have you on the team! :)
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