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Maria’s Japanese Learning Log (旅立ち) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Hasi Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 6119 days ago 120 posts - 133 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 65 of 101 10 July 2013 at 12:07pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks :) I do hope that I will be able to make it. I actually enjoy studying and even the 1500 reviews (including new words) only took me about 2 hours. how I managed to do that I honestly don't know but it helps that all my failed cards for the day go into a filtered deck that I can review while studying new cards at the same time.
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| Hasi Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 6119 days ago 120 posts - 133 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 66 of 101 15 July 2013 at 3:07pm | IP Logged |
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Today it has been 5 months since I first posted here. In a way I feel like it has been so much longer since my journey began, in a way I can't believe it has been that long. In these past 5 months I had a lot of ups and downs. There were times when I didn't feel motivated to do any reviews, but there is something I have noticed. Even when kanji felt like a pain, even when I hated anki with a passion there was never a day I didn't expose myself to the japanese language. either but watching a drama, listing to a podcast while aimlessly browsing the web, reading a blog post or trying to date on of the AKB girls ;)
I did notice huge improvements because it does feel like I understand more. I also feel less scared about being perfect in every aspect and I noticed that it is ok to say: that is too difficult right now I will deal without some other time. Reading people's blogs here was and still is very encouraging. There isn't really anybody in my life who is learning a language right now so knowing that there are people around that face the same diffculties and joys is wonderful. another thing I noticed is that doing something everyday is so much more rewarding in the long run then just working hard one day but not the next. today is one of those days where I might not finish all of my reviews and study new cards. but I am sure I will catch up because I have done so quite often already. I am feeling rather sick today so I think I might just relax with a good jdrama and hope that I will feel better soon. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Hasi Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 6119 days ago 120 posts - 133 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 67 of 101 18 July 2013 at 10:16am | IP Logged |
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I have decided to change my anki preferences a little bit. I have changed the leech threshold to 5 because I have noticed that there are around 200 cards or so that I just don't remember. I will see them, I will blank on both the meaning and reading and I just won't remember them. So, they will be suspended. I know it seems like a lot but I honestly just want to get through the whole deck once so I can focus exclusively on reviewing, as far as anki is concerned. Of course I will also try and add vocab from native material but I will do that at a much slower pace and not study 80 new cards as I am doing now. For some reason I think in the long run this will be more helpful than just slowly studying say 10 new cards a day because I think I will see more progress. By that I don't necessarily mean that I will remember everthing but that I will see more familar words in native material, thus reinforcing them even more.
Speaking of native speaker material, my game arrived *___* It arrived about 10 days ahead of schedule so I wasn't expecting this at all. I started playing last night and so far I really love it. The graphics are really nice, I like the music and the characters seem great as well :) Also, it certainly helps that I have played other Atelier games because the overall system is more or less the same. The only thing I am having trouble with are the controls because X and O have the opposite meaning but I am sure I will get used to it eventually. As far as the Japanese is concerend, I have to say I am surprised by how much I understand. I was really worried I would barely understand a thing, but so far, this is not the case. Mind you, there were points when I had almost no clue what was being said and had to guess and hope my guess were correct, but overall, it was realtively "easy" to understand. Of course there are words that I hadn't encountered before but I just looked up 2 or 3 when I felt I was missing out on something. What I did notice was that there were quite a few core terms I had recently studied. That really shows me that doing this deck might be worth something :) The background audio seemed to be a bit loud at times and I sometimes had difficulties hearing the words because of that.Having the text and audio for almost all of the scenes (except for speaking to minor NPC characters) certainly helps to make it easier. My listening and reading skills seem to work together quite nicely but I wonder how each is on its own. I will certainly try and practice more "just listen" and "just reading" tasks once I have the time. Speaking of time, it takes me FOREVER to get through the game, at least it feels like it. The reason for this is that I usually read and listen along with the characters and before, when I was playing Atelier games in English I would just read the English text and that would be A LOT faster. Sometimes I am faster at reading then the characters are at speaking but I think I want to hear the reading of certain kanji in order to "test" whether I was correct or not. So far I have only really played the introductary part of the story so I think it will get a lot more interesting from here on out. I can only recommend playing your favorite game/series in Japanese because it really is fun, and with RPGs in particular I think it's very useful for your studies. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Hasi Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 6119 days ago 120 posts - 133 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 68 of 101 20 July 2013 at 11:11am | IP Logged |
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I think it is interesting to see how much one has progressed, or not, over time. I think particularly at the intermediate level where you often don't really feel like you know anything this can be very useful :)
so I digged through my bookmarks and found this kanji test. I remember finding it before I started out with RTK. I knew about 150-200 according to the test. however, mostly I was guessing readings and would give myself a pass if I know what the kanji meant. I retook it while working on RTK to see that I actually made progress. Once again only focusing on: oh, the keyword for this one would be X so the meaning must be X. I ended up with around 500 or so, but I don't think I knew any more readings at that point. well...so this time around I scored 890-930, and I only scored the ones I could read. I have to admit I am shocked and I wonder how accurate a test like this could be. I know I don't know that many kanji, I mean, I think I don't know that mean? at least it's a motivation to study more and even if it might not be true I know that I at least improved somehow :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hasi Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 6119 days ago 120 posts - 133 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 69 of 101 25 July 2013 at 8:01am | IP Logged |
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Once again, I wasn't able to do all of my reviews. I am looking at 800 reviews today and I just don't want to do it. xD It is 8 am right now, so I know that I have quite a bit of time left before the end of the day to finish them all and study new words.
I have always had my birthday as the day I need to finish this, in the back of my mind. On the one hand I think it's good because it kept me going but on the other hand I sometimes just don't want to do that much. It is kind of hilarious how I don't have "time" for anki, which is what I keep telling myself, despite the fact that I am on vacation and have nothing else to do. However, looking back a few posts here shows me that I do have accomplished some things. A bit over a month ago I had around 4600 cards left, today I have 2100 left before I am done with Core. Looking at these numbers is kind of insane, I honestly cannot believe it. I do know it is possible to study that much in that bit of a time, but I think I also need to let go of the pressure. That's the reason why I studied so much in the first place. it was fun and I just wanted to study a few words here and there. But first, I need to work on my backlog. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5187 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 70 of 101 26 July 2013 at 11:34am | IP Logged |
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Are you doing anything else besides anki to improve
your Japanese? I'm very very impressed with your wherewithal regarding anki though. I was thinking to myself of doing it every other day to try to make it less boring. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hasi Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 6119 days ago 120 posts - 133 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 71 of 101 26 July 2013 at 1:26pm | IP Logged |
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I am watching dramas,playing an RPG in Japanese and read a few Japanese blogs :)
so yeah, it is not just anki. I do want to read the manga I bought but somehow I currently don't feel like it. Yesterday was not a good day for me. I recieved an email regarding one of my classes because there seems to be an mistake regarding one of my group projects. I was soo happy to know that I had passed that stupid class, and then I got the email. I felt really awful after that and didn't really feel like studying at all. So no new kanji learned and I didn't finish all of my reviews :/ and I was doing soo good. I had done about 300 reviews before the mail and felt awesome. well now, not so much. I did manage to catch up on my dramas though :) This season I am watchng three: Summer Nude, LIMIT and Woman. To be honest they are all kind of cliche but so far I am entertained which makes me happy. LIMIT really feels a lot like Bsttle Royal in a way, Woman feels a lot like Mother but sadly seems to become an illness drama which I don't really like. Summer Nude is...ok, I guess. I mean, it's cute. I like the actors but it's not anything out of the ordinary. I am also watching Kazoku Game which aired last season and this one, I really enjoy. I am still not able to figure out the characters, 7 episodes in and I think that's a good thing. I will probably watch one or two more episodes of it today. I recently rediscovered KanjiBox after one of my friends started using it on facebook. I bought the iPhone app and so far I really like it. I started yesterday and already "learned" N5, N4 and almost all of the N3 and N2 kanji :) I am surprised by how hepful doing Heisig was. There wasn't a single kanji so far I hadn't previously studied and seen, despite the fact that I "only" studied about 1800 kanji with Heisig. There were also only a few kanji I got wrong, mostly by going to fast. So this has been a breeze :) I still want to work with the reading feature of KanjiBox because I was texting with a Japanese friend of mine yesterday and it took me forever to type replies. When studying Core I don't focus too much on whether or not it is a long or a short vowel and that is a problem. So I hope that working with KanjiBox in addition to Anki will be useful. Today I mostly just want to review all my cards and try to study at least 10 new ones. We will see how that will work out because it's already 2pm and my motivation is nowhere to be found. Stupid email. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Hasi Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 6119 days ago 120 posts - 133 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 72 of 101 17 October 2013 at 6:07pm | IP Logged |
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It's been a really long time since I last posted here.
I took a break from Japanese. I took a break for over a month. Where I didn't or rather, couldn't, study at all. I didn't watch any dramas, I didn't review and I didn't study anything new. the reason? the email I mentioned in my previous post. it completely caught me off guard and I just needed to find something to immerse myself in. something that would take me in keep me from thinking about it. that, saidly, was not Japanese, but rather a virtual game site I don't want to name cause it's too embarressing. XD Mind you, I had a good time while I was gone, and thankfully, I few days ago the whole problem with that email got finally solved. Classes have started 3 weeks ago and that gave me the motivation to start up Japanese again. Having this routine, and three hours of commuting time, really helps me focus on Japanese. even though my days are busy I still manage to study everyday. I did something rather dramatic though. I reset my anki decks, both my RTK and my Core deck. so I started from scratch. why? because believe me looking at over 1700 reviews is NOT fun and NOT motivating at all. believe me it was hard, it was really really tough to delete the deck and readd it to start from scratch. particulalry core. I had spent soo many hours studying and now I would have to restart. but: it was for the best. I restarted core a few weeks ago and I am now back to over 2000 cards studied. it was SUCH a great feeling. easily breezing through most of them, actually remembering words that I had previously forgotten.I really enjoy it, but I know, the tougher part is yet to come. I feel confident though that I can finish it this time around. I am currently studying 55 new words per day which would mean I'd be done at around Christmas. personally, I think once I reach words I haven't seen before it will get tougher, but I know I can do it :) I restarted my RTK deck just yesterday. my boyfriend finally figured out how to reschedule the deck based on Heisig number. (I more or less made my own RTK deck so loosing all that work that went into making it would have been tragic) I am already at 513 and my retention rate is at around 90%. Honestly, I am in shock to say the least. I NEVER thought that it would be this easy let alone that I would be able to remember all those kanji after all those months I have neglected them. (I can't even remember the last time I reviewed RTK.) mind you, both of my decks are recognition decks so it is easier then actually having to write out the kanji each time, but still, I am super impressed. this also shows me that the way I did RTK worked, for me at least. I am planning on finishing the RTK deck by the time I leave for Amsterdam (November 1st) I am also back to watching dramas and it seems like watching shows as they air might be easier to keep up with then downloading the whole show at once. I am eagerly awaiting new episodes and I can't wait to watch more. I am still watching with Japanese subs, mostly to reinforce the kanji and vocab I study, but to be honest, also because I feel like I still need them. the way I study core makes recognizing the kanji easy but just by hearing the term I don't always know what is meant. so I still need this crutch, or I am telling myself I do. at least for a little bit still. Until I feel more comfortable, until I practice what I preach, namely:"It's okay not to understand everything. If you get the gist of things it will be okay. You will understand eventually, I promise." I will start with Pokemon Y in Japanese today. I am scared. not because of the kanji but because of the katakana. I told myself that if it gets to frustrating I can always restart in German (mostly because I will need to look up EVERY Pokemon name and EVERY attack) but I don't want to give up. I will try my best, I just wish there would be a way to switch to German during the battles ;P 1 person has voted this message useful |
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