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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6589 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 497 of 706 16 May 2014 at 9:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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Don't worry, that's what at least I took it to mean.
I think with extensive activities, the mindset is important. Whether you're trying to learn something in 10000 hours or just 20, deliberate practice is mentioned. You don't have to look up every word but you do need to notice things that you can understand but not produce, or even things that you've learned to use but don't truly understand. With enough exposure, understanding will take care of itself (assuming you get comprehensible input - or make it comprehensible with dictionaries or translations when really needed). More ideas: reading strategies Bakunin's logs I think you'd benefit from spending a couple of evenings at good old HTLAL now :) I also think you definitely need some access to technologies when you can't use your computer - if not a tablet, then at least an e-reader with a popup dictionary. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4839 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 498 of 706 16 May 2014 at 11:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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@Serpent - Ah, okay. I just didn't want any misunderstandings.
Thank you for the links. (I still don't understand how you are able to produce such helpful links so fast! My goodness!) I found an awesome Android application called Jade Reader a few weeks ago, which is basically a reader with a Japanese-English pop-up dictionary. It saves so much time because when reading Japanese, not only do you have to look up the meaning of a word but also its pronunciation, and it can be difficult to input Chinese characters in a dictionary... well, not difficult, but slow. With Jade Reader, I just click on an unknown word in the text and voila! The pronunciation and meaning are shown at the bottom. Sort of like the Rikaichan extension in Firefox. Plus, I can save words onto a vocabulary file for reference later. So handy! Now if only they had something like that for Portuguese on Android. Oh well, maybe something will come up in the future. But it's not so bad to look up words from a Portuguese text. I don't have to worry about pronunciation so much; I just copy-and-paste it into the QuickDic application or the Google Translate application if it is a conjugated verb. I have to switch "windows" in Android, but it takes just a few seconds. Deliberate practice, huh.... for me, that would take... well... deliberate practice to get used to it. The problem I have, when I encounter a text, is that I (a) want to look up every unknown word in the text, or (b) I want to read it without worrying about what words mean. Neither is a pleasant thing. I'm guessing that with deliberate practice, one has to make some sort of effort to understand the story, especially when one is not able to determine the meaning of words from context. I've heard people say, "Make guesses at the meaning of words, instead of looking them up." That tends to be frustrating to me, because I'm always thinking, "What if my guess is WRONG? What if this word means 'chicken' instead of 'duck'? That might be a problem if I go to a restaurant." 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6589 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 499 of 706 17 May 2014 at 12:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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A couple more links :)
ProfArguelles on reading. A nice thread that came up while I was looking for the previous one. As for guessing, just don't be specific. Even in our native language, we have various words stored in our brains as "some plant" or "some animal", without being able to explain precisely what they are. And often that's a good thing, because otherwise I'd not have the hardware for all my languages :-) If a word seems to mean either chicken/hen or duck, just conclude that it's "a domestic bird" (don't know if they're considered birds in English but you know what I mean:D) and don't bother with the details. When you need to use the word, look it up. For me that's an immensely powerful moment, especially if I already had a guess and it's confirmed/specified. Apart from some special kinds of materials (GLOSS or the "easy" books about Italy I've been reading), I mostly just look up words when I'm about to use them, to make sure I don't say something ridiculous. I'm also trying to introduce the term "unknown knowns". These are words you can guess/understand but haven't encountered yet. In related languages (like Spanish and Portuguese), people often underestimate the power of reading and listening, because they can already understand and think they need "formal" study to improve. But simply changing the mindset can help one learn from reading, I think. And of course as you keep encountering the (semi-)transparent words, you go from having to actively guess and maybe look up to understanding them effortlessly and being able to use them in your speech/writing. In Portuguese that would be mostly words shared with English, like gratidão, quilo, pinho (just randomly chosen from a textbook). If you ever learn Spanish or French, there will be many more, obviously. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6589 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 500 of 706 21 May 2014 at 5:42am | IP Logged | |||||
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Your post about Anki made me wonder... how is your Anki situation now?
Anki strategies are kinda like iphones - they get outdated as soon as you get used to them :-))))) Basically, don't become a slave to Anki :) When possible*, choose human interaction over Anki repetitions (especially in Japanese). *if you happen to be an introvert (and you come across as one), don't push yourself too hard either. You have so many opportunities that it's okay to skip some. Be honest to yourself about the opportunity cost/whether it's worth it. And consider this factor when planning, there should be a time for everything. If you experience the "I need to do this but I'm too stressed" feeling (I get this a lot btw), don't allow it to be a form of procrastination. Acknowledge your needs instead of suppressing them. Okay, enough speculations and generalizations from me :D 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4839 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 501 of 706 21 May 2014 at 8:08am | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks for asking! I didn't say much about Anki the past few months because I was trying some new strategies, but after all that, I went back to the system I started with: recognition-only sentence cards. Having sentences works better for me than individual words. And I was worried about my passive vocabulary being much larger than my active vocabulary, so I was trying to think of ways to practice recall in Anki. But now I know that Anki is just about getting some additional exposure. In bodybuilding terms, Anki is just a protein supplement - not the workout. As long as it helps me to get the words "in my head", that's fine. I'm finding that my brain will choose what goes into my active vocabulary and what does not, and I'm okay with that. No need to force it. I know that we're supposed to do Anki reviews every day, but nowadays I don't, especially on the weekend. Weekdays are okay, but it's hard for some reason on weekends to open Anki on my computer. I'd rather read, listen, or watch something in my languages. But I think that's fine; I end up catching up in my reviews during the week, anyway.
Thank you for that advice. This language journey has caused me to learn more than just vocabulary and grammar. I've learned a lot about myself, my personality, and my brain. So not only am I learning two languages, but I'm learning how to reshape my habits and add more discipline in my life, and learning more about my strengths and weaknesses, and how to deal with those. Yeah, I consider myself an introvert, but... I don't know... I might be a unique kind of introvert. You should see me when I'm teaching English to my students; I'm a force of nature. I dance to the music playing in my PowerPoint presentations in front of a class of 40 teenage students. Do other introverts do that? I'm really comfortable teaching and speaking in front of a large group, but feel a lot of pressure when talking one-on-one with someone. I don't have to do so much work to talk to other people in a group, because the other people can talk to each other, and I can take a break from thinking about what to talk about. But if it's just me and another person... that is stressful. I have to work harder to think of topics to talk about. And I worry that other people don't have the same interests that I do. In my conversations with people, I usually end up asking them a lot of questions about themselves. But if they ask me about ME, well, I don't say much, and the conversation dies quickly, unless I start asking them more questions about themselves. It's funny, but for that reason I get along well with extroverts, but not with other introverts. Anyway, that was far off topic. Luckily, when I have opportunities to speak Japanese to people, I often take them, especially if they are nice people and willing to deal with my broken Japanese. I do sometimes end conversations early because I'm worried if I have enough vocabulary to keep a conversation going, but I do make a point to take any opportunities I get. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 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 502 of 706 21 May 2014 at 8:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm kind if similar. I don't do so well talking to people if they always try to steer the conversation back to me
because I'm kind or shy I guess. I noticed this a bit talking to another language student at a small party last weekend. I can't believe you dance to your power point presentations. I'm assuming you do these sober? Or do you sneak a few gulps to build courage? ;) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6589 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 503 of 706 21 May 2014 at 3:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I don't think that's offtopic at all. That's important for finding the best ways to interact with people. Now the suggestion to join some sort of club etc makes even more sense :)
And introverts vary. As it was mentioned in the recent thread, many/most people who enjoy public speaking are introverts. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4839 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 504 of 706 21 May 2014 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
I down something like 20 cups of coffee before classes start each day. Perhaps it's the caffeine. ;) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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