dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4668 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 185 of 256 02 September 2014 at 9:19am | IP Logged |
W/E 2014-08-31 32h31m
Audio: 11:01
Vocab: 3:16
Reading: 7:42
Grammar: 2:27
Video: 8:05
SC Books: book: 54 pages, film: 8h05m but 2h05m tweeted
SC "strict" excess: 0 pages + 46h.
RTK and Anki bubbling along quite nicely, although I still have a long way to go with the
vocab deck.
I've continued to read ほのかなひかり and managed another ~50 pages this week.
I've been watching quite a lot of drama, perhaps because I want to reach the end of 天地人.
I've quite enjoyed it but it's historical and so the language isn't as easy to follow as it
could be. I think I'll pick something modern next. the anime that I've been watching without
subs, 名探偵ホームズ, is for kids, but the language seems to be very straightforward; when I
get to the end, I'll probably try watching a few episodes repeatedly with and without subs
to see if that helps.
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4668 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 186 of 256 08 September 2014 at 11:55pm | IP Logged |
W/E 2014-09-07 34h12m
Audio: 13:30
Vocab: 2:46
Reading: 9:46
Grammar: 3:44
Video: 4:26
SC Books: book: 100 pages, film: 4h26m but 2h26m tweeted
SC "strict" excess: 0 pages + 44h.
I had a bit of a push with ほのかなひかり and managed 100 pages, which is twice my informal
target. I'll get to the end of this book in a day or two. At that point I'll decide whether to
re-read the graded readers (to see if there is some improvement) or whether to pick another
real book straight away.
having reached the end of 天地人, I have to pick something new. I've started 外交官・黒田康作 and
I'll also run some others in parallel for a little variety (such as 富豪刑事, perhaps). I also
want to finish 名探偵ホームズ and run through that again with subtitles. There's a strong theme
of "police" drama here, I guess they must be really quite popular in Japan.
I did my first shadowing (2 episodes) and made a proper start on the 新完全マスター N2 文法
lessons. Hopefully I'll find the time to keep both of these up.
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4668 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 187 of 256 16 September 2014 at 11:38pm | IP Logged |
W/E 2014-09-14 31h38m
Audio: 15:24
Vocab: 2:25
Reading: 6:49
Grammar: 3:20
Video: 3:46
SC Books: book: 123 pages, film: 3h46m but 1h46m tweeted
SC "strict" excess: 0 pages + 42h.
I've now finished ほのかなひかり. I re-read a few of the graded readers and found them to
be easier than first time
around. Part of that will be because I've seen the material before, but I think that
part of it is also that I'm
getting more comfortable with extensive reading so I don't need to understand every
word in every sentence. I've
now started to read 嫌われ松子の一生 上.
RTK and the Anki kanji deck are coming along nicely. The vocabulary deck has ~3300
reviews pending. There's not
much to say there, I just need to keep plugging away. I'm not putting as much time into
vocabulary as I can see I
have in the past (from looking at the spreadsheet) but I'm happy with the current
distribution of my study time.
I'm not sure that the current J-Dramas that I'm watching are that gripping, but I'll
stick with them for a little
longer to give them a chance. There are plenty more for me to dip into if I decide I
don't like the current ones.
I'm finding 新完全マスター N2 文法 quite interesting. I doubt that the grammar points are
sticking any more easily
than they did before, but the process of decoding the all-Japanese explanations is
proving to be oddly enjoyable.
I may choose to go back through the N3 book at some stage to see if the same holds for
the Japanese explanations
there.
I've not got into a rhythm with the shadowing yet. I don't need to do it every day, but
at the moment I just seem
to assess where I am every week and do 2 or 3 lessons together to catch up. I think I
should probably pick
certain days and make myself shadow on those days before using Anki or doing grammar,
to even things out a
little.
EDIT: Fix book title
Edited by dampingwire on 19 September 2014 at 9:03am
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4668 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 188 of 256 22 September 2014 at 11:41pm | IP Logged |
W/E 2014-09-21 35h31m
Audio: 13:42
Vocab: 4:04
Reading: 9:16
Grammar: 3:46
Video: 4:43
SC Books: book: 103 pages, film: 4h43m but 1h43m tweeted
SC "strict" excess: 0 pages + 39h.
I've started to read 嫌われ松子の一生 上: I hope to manage at least 50 pages each week, but I'll aim for ~100.
I'm keeping RTK and the kanji decks going and the vocab deck now has ~2777 reviews pending.
I've made good progress with 新完全マスター N2 文法, but I think that's mostly because the grammar points
haven't been too taxing so far.
Having finished 名探偵ホームズ I went looking for a new anime to start. The usual sites I use seemed to be
having issues, so I went over to crunchyroll and started アカメが斬る! (you can watch for free if you don't
need HD and can put up with a couple of adverts).
The two drama series I've been watching, 富豪刑事 and 外交官・黒田康作, haven't proved to be as dull as I'd
initially thought. Or maybe I just understand even less of the later episodes :-) Anyway, I'm going to
keep going with them for now.
One area where I am managing to make progress is with shadowing. I've not shadowed every day, but I
have done so most days, so I think I'm beginning to build a good habit. Time will tell whether it
helps me with understanding something other than the specific lessons I'm shadowing.
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4668 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 189 of 256 29 September 2014 at 11:40pm | IP Logged |
W/E 2014-09-28 36h35m
Audio: 15:31
Vocab: 4:00
Reading: 8:47
Grammar: 3:57
Video: 4:20
SC Books: book: 101 pages, film: 4h20m but 1h50m tweeted
SC "strict" excess: 0 pages + 36h30m.
My reading is still quite erratic. Rather than managing 20 pages/day, some days I do
nothing and others I get through 50 or so. I have managed to slip in a few moe NHK News
articles. I should be able to manage more: I'm using some of my lunchtime in the office
to catch up on RTK, but that rarely takes more than 10m, so I should be able to manage
an article each day. I think I just need to be a bit more disciplined.
My RTK vocab deck now has under 2000 reviews pending. However I have another 400 vocab
items to add (mostly from grammar textbooks). They can wait though. I've started to go
through the vocab more slowly. Rather than pushing through and letting things suspend,
I've been writing down the new vocab in blocks of 7 and spending a few minutes
memorising them. This seems to be helping a little.
I don't really have time to do a little bit of everything every day, so I think I'm
just going to have to accept that some days I'll get some grammar done and other days
I'll get some shadowing done, or whatever.
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4668 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 190 of 256 06 October 2014 at 11:03pm | IP Logged |
W/E 2014-10-05 36h10m
Audio: 12:37
Vocab: 2:53
Reading: 7:24
Grammar: 4:24
Video: 8:52
SC Books: book: 103 pages, film: 8h52m but 1h52m tweeted
SC "strict" excess: 0 pages + 29h30m.
I managed quite a lot of video this week. However, I've now finished the two drama
series I was watching and the anime I'm watching on crunchyroll has reached the end
of the available episodes too. I'll have to hunt down something else to watch.
Anki and RTK are coming along.
I'm still listening to Japanese dialogues during the commute but I think I'm going to
switch to Upper Intermediate lessons soon. The chit chat between presenters in these is
at least 50% Japanese, if not more, so I think I'll probably be OK with that.
I'm keeping up the reading but I'm going to work in some 新完全マスター N2 読解 soon, so
my SC page count will probably drop. The calculator claims that at this point I need to
average ~64 pages each week or 74 pages each week if I allow myself a break of a few months.
I think I can afford that, so I'll definitely try out the reading comprehension book.
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4668 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 191 of 256 13 October 2014 at 11:25pm | IP Logged |
W/E 2014-10-12 38h49m
Audio: 15:16
Vocab: 8:36
Reading: 5:00
Grammar: 3;14
Video: 6:43
SC Books: book: 69 pages, film: 6h43m but 1h43m tweeted
SC "strict" excess: 0 pages + 24h30m.
I used some of my reading time this week to work on 新完全マスター N2 読解. Only the first
two pages, but from little acorns ... Apart from that I've only managed to read NHK
News once. I'll try a little harder to be less busy with other things at lunchtimes
this week!
I also took some time to cover some grammar from 新完全マスター N2 文法. I'm not ushing
through, but I do think I should still meet my monthly goal, even at this rather sedate
pace.
I now have three J-Drama series on the go and an anime series from crunchyroll
(although this one is being released in dribs and drabs and I've gone as far with it as
I can for now).
My shadowing has dropped by the wayside again, so I need to find some time for that.
Vocabulary is starting to take quite a bit of time now. I was finding it hard to get
the vocab to stick, so I've found myself a little notebook and I'm writing out the
words that aren't yet in my head. Then I go over a page worth of words (it's a small
notebook, so that's only ~18 words) before I dive back into anki. It seems quite
effective but it does take some time. Just like everything else in language learning I
suppose!
I've stopped listening to JPOD101 LI dialogues on the commute and I've switched back to
Upper Intermediate lessons. It's been a while since I tried these last and they do seem
more approachable (as indeed they probably should). The English is minimal and not
intrusive, so it's almost all Japanese, a few minutes of pure dialogue and then the
presenters talking amongst themselves. I think I'll keep repeating season 1 to see how
much more sticks each time round, rather than moving on to S2 later on this week.
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4668 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 192 of 256 23 October 2014 at 1:55am | IP Logged |
W/E 2014-10-19 38h28m
Audio: 14:06
Vocab: 12:05
Reading: 2:31
Grammar: 4:21
Video: 5:05
SC Books: book: 55 pages, film: 5h05m but 1h35m tweeted
SC "strict" excess: 0 pages + 21h.
I've stuck with season 1 of the Upper Intermediate lessons during the commute and the
repetition seems to be helping: I'm able to follow more of the dialogue and the chit-
chat and they're not becoming tedious to listen to.
I've managed to get the daily reviews for the vocabulary deck down to ~1000 (which is
the point at which anki starts to show a number in the summary rather than 1000+) so
that's coming along. I guess it'll take another month or more to stabilise and then
I'll go through the suspended words and see which ones I'd like to un-suspend.
I'm managing to do some shadowing, but not every day. I'd like to be more consistent
but the vocabulary needs quite a bit of time each day, so shadowing has to fit in
around that at the moment.
The grammar is coming along, albeit quite slowly. I should be able to meet my October
target without any problems, but I won't have gone much beyond it.
The reading is steady, but even though I'm now tackling much easier fare, the time
pressure means I'm only just meeting my 50 pages per week goal.
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