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日本語 Study Adventure? :D

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OysterPancake
Newbie
United States
Joined 3688 days ago

10 posts - 11 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 1 of 9
15 October 2014 at 5:10am | IP Logged 
It's been many years I've been studying Japanese, but I am just really bad at motivation, so during these years I usually study perhaps 1-2 weeks and stop for several months.
So granted I am not very good at all.
Now I think I'll probably have a better chance of sticking with it.

Reasons for my distractions would be
-msn/skype, but now some friends have disappeared and the ones I'm still in contact with usually aren't on that often. (and neither am I) so a major distraction for excuse has been cut out.
-Youtube...which I'm no longer addicted to and use in a more reasonable matter, so distraction 2 cut out.
-Something I'd call sleepyness syndrome, it seemed if I studied days in a row eventually every time I went to study I'd become extremely sleepy and have to sleep, even if I switched to a non-study related task I'd fall asleep during that instead. It became extremely discouraging.
(I think giving myself extremely specific time goals for study sessions caused this, and trying to get as close to that time no matter what. Now that I don't have lieutenant time goals it seems to work out. Instead of saying 'study for 20 minutes but aim for more', I'll say 'study for 5-25 minutes and NEVER over that amount', the instant I realize I'm even a tad bit tired during study -trying to get my brain to disassociate learning with sleeping-, if I switch to a new task immediately I'm good to go back to studying in 5-10 minutes. I don't know why that works for me, but it works a WHOLE lot better than what I was doing for some reason.)
-Parents acting like I'm wasting my time, saying I should study something more useful like Spanish (but...I think I'd prefer to follow through with getting somewhat decent at Japanese before focusing on another language.)

In the past I used that I'm not using currently.
-Pimmsluer, finished (if I had to do yard work)
-Michael thomas finished (if I had to do yard work)
-Rosetta stone (I only lasted like 2 weeks at like 2-6 hours a day....until it became just really boring.)
-Japanese For Everyone (textbook, I only made it to like lesson 9? I plan to get back to it in time.)
-Heisig Method. (I wore myself out doing it with unrealistic daily goals, and now I think I just prefer studying kanji through vocab, not by kanji.)
-Lingq
-Ajatt (I found trying to have everything in japanese very draining and unmotivating without enough understanding.)
-Other things I've forgotten by now.

But I can't tell you anything I remember from any of those specifically.~ (textbook I'd probably be most familiar with stuff I learned though.)

Stuff I use almost everyday now (that I used in the past)
-Anki (I have a goal of 80 minutes a day, but more if possible. I don't fret over missed days or getting less than that. I use this series of custom decks this one person made, that's a mixture of vocab and the vocab used in sentences. I also write down the sentences twice in a notepad whenever I get them right, idk if it's helpful to do it, but I like to believe it is.)

Stuff I use, but not everyday:
-Read Real Japanese Fiction.
-Jazz up your Japanese with Onomatopoeia
-Common Japanese Collocations (I'm making paper flash cards from this book, but I don't plan to really study them till I get them all written down. I'm only writting down ones that seem most relevent to me.)
-Sticky Study Kanji Vocab. (use this on car rides usually)
-Erin's Challenge. https://www.erin.ne.jp/ (use it when I want to do something besides anki.)

Non-Study Stuff that's in the language:
-Manga's and Manga Magazines I bought
-Disney's Aladdin
-Shimajiro Episodes.
-Japanese Dramas. [mainly 'At Home Dad']
-Pokemon Black and White 2. (when I play this, when I come across a word that keeps showing up, I put it in a dictionary entry on this app called Imiwa, and reference it for whenever I forget the word.)

I don't know what I'm doing, I never did regardless of how much I read peoples blogs with success. I'm hoping what I'm doing will get me somewhere eventually, and I'm just gonna ignore the fact I feel like I'm learning close to nothing.

I guess I'll post updates once a week or so?
I don't really know what I could update on? Minus posting pictures of my Anki log, since I strictly keep myself from timing myself and avoid looking at clocks for the most part.


=======================
[since my question was answered that I had here, I have removed it.]


=======================
Anki Stats of the week (I'll probably do more tonight but I'm taking a pic now):


Edited by OysterPancake on 31 October 2014 at 8:08am

1 person has voted this message useful



Ezy Ryder
Diglot
Senior Member
Poland
youtube.com/user/Kat
Joined 4341 days ago

284 posts - 387 votes 
Speaks: Polish*, English
Studies: Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 2 of 9
15 October 2014 at 12:24pm | IP Logged 
Another avid Anki user? Great! Welcome to the forum.
As for your question, it's your choice. It just depends on how strict you want to be about it.
Though, personally, I'd pass a card as long as I understood it. Also, there's no real need to
translate it, just see if you understand.
18 seconds per card? Have you tried limiting your time per card (like with the
"Automatically_show_answer_after_x_seconds" plugin)? Think how much more you could do in
your 80 minutes (or how much less time you'd need to do what now takes those 80 minutes), if
you'd be doing each card in just a couple seconds. Also, switching to single word cards can
accelerate it too, as you don't have to read a whole sentence in the target language, and then
another sentence for the translation.
1 person has voted this message useful



OysterPancake
Newbie
United States
Joined 3688 days ago

10 posts - 11 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 3 of 9
16 October 2014 at 9:53am | IP Logged 
Yepyep starting to become one!~ :D

Thank you for saying that, makes me feel a lot better about marking them as correct. (Is always something I've worried about but never asked before)

I know 18 seconds looks bad xD (it was at 22 seconds, and today it's down to 17.7 so slowly but surely it's going down, but I wouldn't expect to get below 15), I'm gonna guess that I'm answering the majorityyyy of my cards within 1-10 seconds.

Part of the reason it's taking me 18, is because I'm typing sentences twice when I get them correct.
If it's a sentence pattern I could see me understanding with any word changed I'll type it once or not at all, it just depends on how simple I see it.

I know it's slower, but I'm getting quicker at typing by doing it, on words with しょ or しょう, it helps me realize what words have the added u and what ones don't.
It also kind of helps me realize when I'm going to want to put the wrong particle in a sentence. Like for example with "空港までリムジンバスで行った" when I go to my notepad I'll perhaps want to type "空港までリムジンバスを行った" (regardless of just hearing it read to me, while also having the text right there.) the more I catch myself in a mistake like that the less I do it.
(I ignore typos that I think were from accidentally missing a key or from a neighboring key.)
If it weren't for me thinking it's possibly helpful (I still question weather it is though), I would probably skip the typing.

I use StickyStudy for pure vocab. (granted I haven't used it for awhile, since I mostly use that on car rides, but recently I've been reading my Read Real Japanese book instead.)



Edited by OysterPancake on 16 October 2014 at 9:59am

1 person has voted this message useful



dampingwire
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4657 days ago

1185 posts - 1513 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian*, French
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 4 of 9
16 October 2014 at 8:29pm | IP Logged 
OysterPancake wrote:

I do have a question, if anyone was able to answer, so lets say I get this flash card "今日は北風が吹いている。" Now the written answer for that
question is
"The north wind is blowing today." but let's say I answer "The wind is blowing north today." Would this answer still be considered correct?
Because I keep doing this with quite a few of my cards, I'll know what the sentence is saying, but I'll get the order of the words mixed up.
Since I feel I basically got the same meaning (I guess just a different nuance) I've decided to mark them as correct anyhow? Should I be safe
with doing that?


In English (but maybe not American English??) a north wind blows from north to south. So the two English sentences mean different things. I
think that the Japanese in this case means "north wind" in the sense of "a wind that blows from the north".

Normally, however, I'd say that trying to remember the exact translation that you (or someone else) chose for a given sentence is a fruitless
exercise. As long as you correctly understand the meaning, the exact words chosen and their order don't matter.

OysterPancake wrote:

Another thing:
例えば、このソフトで日本語を勉強すること ができます。
Card: You can use this software to study Japanese, for example.
Me: For example, you can use this software to study Japanese.
(there's a lot with the pattern where they have a word at the beginning, and I just leave it at the beginning, but the answer shows it at the
end.)



This I'd say is one where the different word order makes no real difference. In fact, if you think about going the other way (English to
Japanese) then there are clearly various more or less equivalent ways of saying that sentence.

1 person has voted this message useful



YnEoS
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4246 days ago

472 posts - 893 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Russian, Cantonese, Japanese, French, Hungarian, Czech, Swedish, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 5 of 9
16 October 2014 at 9:46pm | IP Logged 
Interesting log, I'm always interested to see how other Anki obsessed learners end up using it. I've found lots of great Japanese decks for Anki.

Out of curiosity, where are you watching Shimajiro episodes? I've found a good number on youtube, but I know the series is bracketed up into different age ranges and youtube doesn't seem to have these clearly marked, nor have much variation available. Just curious if there are other sources for finding this show that's perhaps a bit friendlier to learners.
1 person has voted this message useful



OysterPancake
Newbie
United States
Joined 3688 days ago

10 posts - 11 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 6 of 9
24 October 2014 at 3:02am | IP Logged 
dampingwire wrote:

In English (but maybe not American English??) a north wind blows from north to south. So the two English sentences mean different things. I
think that the Japanese in this case means "north wind" in the sense of "a wind that blows from the north".

Oh really? I didn't know that! Thanks for letting me know, cuz' that helped me remember what it is now.

dampingwire wrote:

Normally, however, I'd say that trying to remember the exact translation that you (or someone else) chose for a given sentence is a fruitless
exercise. As long as you correctly understand the meaning, the exact words chosen and their order don't matter.
This I'd say is one where the different word order makes no real difference. In fact, if you think about going the other way (English to
Japanese) then there are clearly various more or less equivalent ways of saying that sentence.

Yeah that makes a lot of sende, so it's good to know I'm not doing things too incorrectly.~




YnEoS wrote:
Interesting log, I'm always interested to see how other Anki obsessed learners end up using it. I've found lots of great Japanese decks for Anki.

Out of curiosity, where are you watching Shimajiro episodes? I've found a good number on youtube, but I know the series is bracketed up into different age ranges and youtube doesn't seem to have these clearly marked, nor have much variation available. Just curious if there are other sources for finding this show that's perhaps a bit friendlier to learners.

Same it's much more convenient than making my own decks. (if I try to make my own I feel like I'm wasting a lot of time. Then again I'm probably trying to make too many cards in one sitting than necessary to the point it's card making vs learning.)

Well originally I was going to buy this set of dvd's I saw on ebay, but then found it on youtube.
I was personally unaware there were series of it for different ages, I just assumed "well I'm sure this is a kids show, so it should probably be easier language compared to other things."
So yeah sorry about that, I'm using the episodes they have on youtube too.~




========================
Anki log picture of the week (sort of a few days past a week though. Only reached my 80 minute goal once since my first log, but didn't miss any days at least.~)

1 person has voted this message useful



OysterPancake
Newbie
United States
Joined 3688 days ago

10 posts - 11 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 7 of 9
31 October 2014 at 8:34am | IP Logged 
Yesterday I took this kind of intriguing quiz: http://japaneselevelup.com/test-your-japanese-might-levels-1 -20/

I'm not sure how well it records your level so I'm taking it more with a grain of salt (it relates to comprehension vs output anyhow.), but I'm probably a level 14 Elementary according to their scale, which sounds better than I was expecting. (I never know how to really gauge where I fit on the spectrum of how much I know, but it makes me happy to be at a medium place in the lower end of things. -since they have 2 other pages where they have up to level 99, so level 14 is almost nothing in comparison ahaha.-)
Probably what surprised me most was I knew how to draw 75% of the kanji's on their list. (A lot were simple, but I really don't write any of those often often enough except maybe 二、日、and 中)

And then today I rewatched these videos I watched about a year ago. (but took notes this time around.) http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=18808&PN=1
And so I've started working on a list of the 'keywords' he gave at the bottom of his post (put them in alphabetical order) and using my physical dictionary to look them up.




=======
Anki log:
Down to 14.9 seconds answer time now!~ :D
Looks like I'm getting better with young cards and worse with new cards.

1 person has voted this message useful



OysterPancake
Newbie
United States
Joined 3688 days ago

10 posts - 11 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 8 of 9
08 November 2014 at 9:52am | IP Logged 
Joined the 6 week challenge so I've been keeping track of time of my activities for now. (only a look at the clock record the time started and again whenever I mentally think it's been about 10-15 minutes.)
Watched a Movie this week Jose and the tiger and the fish!~
Used my textbook one day. (only 20 minutes)
Read my Read real Japanese book. (10-15 minutes each time I read it, which was only like 4 times.

Yepeyep!
So since the bot is recording all my time I've spent 12 1/2 hours the past 8 days.~ (so without doing any accurate math, seems to add up to only a little over an hour everyday I guess.)

=============================
Well here's this weeks anki pic!~ (Today I actually did 1 hour worth, but I switched to another deck that was nothing but listening because my arm was starting to hurt from the typing, and I didn't want it to obstruct the flow of how I was doing the series of decks.)




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