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TAC 2013, Sakura 桜 - dampingwire | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4675 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes  Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 25 of 137 22 January 2013 at 10:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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Last week my tutor decided that the best way to see where I am with N4 is to stick some
past papers in front of me. I probably got maybe 30% on the Readings paper, which given that I've only just started on the N4 vocabulary was no too bad. So now I'm trying to power through the N4 vocabulary course on Memrise. I'm 700 words in (I've left the kanji for now - it's the words I'll be needing for the next paper). I'll almost certainly get the course finished in time for the next session on Wednesday then I'll be starting on consolidating the bits that don't stick. Retention rate seems to be about 50% right now. That's partly because I already know some of the words and some of the new ones are related to each other, so if one sticks, the related ones tend to too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6630 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 26 of 137 22 January 2013 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | ||
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Are you keeping two logs for Japanese at the same time? Why? Just curious.
Nice to see that your vocabulary study is going well. I feel like I'm at a point where I sort of almost understand things, but I need a little more vocabulary to really get it. It's a little frustrating sometimes, but it's getting better. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4675 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 27 of 137 24 January 2013 at 12:28am | IP Logged | ||
I want to keep my original log going as a continuous record of weekly progress. I'll probably keep my entries there somewhat more brief than they have been in the past. I'm going to keep this log for TAC-related stuff (which I guess will be pretty much anything that isn't "this is my weekly update" stuff). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4675 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 28 of 137 28 January 2013 at 6:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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It's near enough to the end of January that I can review my goals and set some new ones
for February. 1. I did finish listening to the JPOD101 Upper Intermediate seasons. It was mostly above my level but it's been useful for fixing some vocabulary that was proving hard to stick. In fact, I've exceeded my target by quite a way as I'm now nearing the end of the 85 episode Intermediate season that I'd quite forgotten about. 2. I did meet my Anki target. 3. I met my goal with the memrise N4 course but I've not even looked at the N5 one since starting TAC. 4. I met my goal with Japanese Reader, except for last week (I forgot - not a terribly original excuse I'm afraid). 5. Kanji reviews have been kept up every day. So overall I met my goals. One thing I noticed, however, is that I didn't really leave much time for Minna No Nihongo, or indeed anything else that came along. So, discounting the audio (which always happens during the commute) and also not counting Kanji + Vocab, I think I can consistently find five additional hours per week for Japanese. I'm going to use one for reading and two for Minna No Nihongo. With that in mind I'm going to modify my goals for February: 1. Keep up the Kanji reviews at Reviewing The Kanji . 2. Keep up with Anki reviews. 3. Keep the memrise N4 and N5 courses watered. Although I will track the amount of time I spend with Anki and memrise, I'm not going to set any time goals. I want to see a retention rate of 60% or more for the N4 course, and I'll put in extra time in March if that's not happening, but for now I'm just going to keep to non-time-based targets. 4. Work on A Japanese Reader for 60m (this counts any vocabulary/kanji work required). 5. Work through two lessons of Minna No Nihongo each week. That means covering the grammar points, going over the sentences and covering exercises A, B and C. I'll also be adding the lesson vocabulary to Anki, although I may suspend the "supplemental" vocabulary if that seems to be getting in the way. 6. Keep the audio going. Once I've finished with the current JPOD101 Intermediate series, I'll try the Audio Blog seasons. If that's too advanced to provide anything meaningful, then I'll pick one of the other series I've yet to try (e.g. JLPT or Particles). EDIT: fix a URL Edited by dampingwire on 03 February 2013 at 10:34am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4675 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 29 of 137 03 February 2013 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've just added some columns to my spreadsheet so I can track how much listening, vocabulary, reading and grammar I'm doing. For this week (not including today, Sunday) it looks like:
Listening: 19h Vocab: 6h56m Reading: 2h55m Grammar: 2h46 Listening is basically listening to a JPOD101 lesson or Pimsleur etc. Vocab is Anki or Memrise, currently N4 vocab plus N5 maintenance. Reading is working on "A Japanese Reader" plus associated kanji work. Grammar is Minna No Nihongo or any similar work (say JfBP or Tae Kim etc.) When it comes to A Japanese Reader, I've found that it's not enough to look at the kanji and then read the lesson. I find that the words are not sticking, so I've created another Anki deck which I'm populating with the kanji words on the front of the card and the English meaning on the back. Any work on that deck (entering it or actually using) I'm counting against "Reading". Anyway, the Listening I have no issue with: it's almost all time that would otherwise be wasted. I've obviously not got an issue sitting down and working on vocabulary: anything that involves sitting in front of a screen seems to be easy for me to find the time to do! There's not a lot of Reading, but it's more than I was aiming for, so I'm OK with it for now. What worries me slightly is the grammar, which is currently basically Minna No Nihongo. I'll certainly get another hour or so in today to finish Chapter 28, so I'll be on target. However, I always feel that it's going to be "difficult" so I think I keep putting it off as much as possible. If I'm going to go for N4 in the summer then I need to apply no later than the beginning of May (at a guess: the dates are not yet online AFAICT). That gives me about 11 weeks to get through 22 remaining chapters. I know that I will still have a few months after that point to improve, but I'd like to know that I have a reasonable chance of not disgracing myself when I apply :-) So what should I do to make the book-work more appealing? All ideas gratefully accepted! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5992 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 30 of 137 03 February 2013 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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You now have exactly 22 weeks until JLPT in July. Rather than trying to burn through 22 chapters in 11 weeks, I think it might be easier to try and work steadily and consistently, covering 1 chapter a week. If you can stick to this by the application deadline, you should be confident that you can get the whole thing covered by the day of the test. If not, it's no disaster if you have to put it off until December. You'll keep progressing whether you take the test or not.
I find the most helpful thing to get motivated to do book work (apart from choosing a good quality text in the first place) is my attitude when I open the text. If I'm feeling relaxed and curious about what I'm going to learn, I have the best study sessions. If I'm feeling rushed, anxious or uninspired, I get tired of book study a lot quicker. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4675 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 31 of 137 04 February 2013 at 12:13am | IP Logged | ||
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I just realised that if other people can go online and get their JLPT results, then maybe I can too. Turned out not to be too painful at all. I started out umming and arring about whether I really wanted to know. Then, when I saw the "here's how your test result will look page", began to wonder whether I'd understand it (wouldn't that be both embarrassing and ironic).
Anyway, I logged on and I've passed the N5. The interesting part is that although I only got 83/120 (69%) for the Language Knowledge part, the three subsections are all A. I'm going to interpret that as "all three sections are equally weak" :-) My (now confirmed) weakest skill is Listening (39/60 = 65%). Now my own assessment would have put Listening much further behind than that, so I'm a tad surprised to say the least. I'll definitely consider pushing hard for N4 in July now. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5992 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 32 of 137 04 February 2013 at 12:32am | IP Logged | ||
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Yay, congratulations!
You got a very safe pass, so I wouldn't worry too much about "only" getting 69%/65% - if you'd scored much higher than that it would have suggested you should have sat N4 in the first place! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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