g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5974 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German
| Message 1049 of 1702 26 August 2013 at 9:35am | IP Logged |
With regards to vocabulary, it's not that Japanese has more words overall, it's just you
don't get the same discount you enjoy in European languages from cognates and loan words. So
unless you happen to know Chinese or Korean already, you have to work harder.
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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 1050 of 1702 26 August 2013 at 9:48am | IP Logged |
g-bod wrote:
With regards to vocabulary, it's not that Japanese has more words overall, it's just you
don't get the same discount you enjoy in European languages from cognates and loan words. So
unless you happen to know Chinese or Korean already, you have to work harder. |
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Yeah you're probably right. I think back to this "Kanji Game" we did in my Japanese class where the two Chinese students won hands down over us Westerners. They were NOT stronger than us in Japanese in general. They hardly participated in the class unless called on. So I asked one of the two Chinese students how she did so well and she said the sounds of the kanji are actually similar if a little different. So yeah. They have an advantage. Just like I would with French.
Man I got my work cut for me. Gonna take a good look at German again if I stick with this course. I hope it doesn't make me give up heh.
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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 1051 of 1702 26 August 2013 at 11:11am | IP Logged |
I was thinking I might try "renting" the German textbook for cheap and then removing the DRM to save myself
some money (from Amazon). It seems you can't remove the DRM as easily from rented books as you can
from purchased books. Which means Amazon is sort of letting people get away with removing DRM from
their books when they could keep us from doing so. I guess they're not so bad after all. Although I'd like to get
this German textbook for cheaper I think 55$ to "rent" it is plenty. drrr..
I use the trick to remove amazon DRM from my own books for stuff like text to speech and rikai-sama for
Japanese books but obviously I never used it to save myself money. And won't either. /sigh.
No I don't know people in real life who want to read my library of purchased books for free so I think DRM is
really silly to be honest.
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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 1052 of 1702 27 August 2013 at 11:38am | IP Logged |
Watching Grimm some more. This time they got a Spanish guy whose kid was abducted and he doesn't
speak any English. And nobody understands him, so they're getting a translator. Of course I understand him
fine. I could be a translator! Except I'm sure they dumb the script down so that English speakers like me who
have studied a little Spanish have a fair chance of understanding it and patting ourselves on the back. It is
making me wanna work in my Spanish some more though.
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g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5974 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German
| Message 1053 of 1702 27 August 2013 at 12:07pm | IP Logged |
Sounds like you're experiencing some serious summer wanderlust! I'm having the same problem
though. I'm trying so hard not to just rush out and buy a load of French stuff!
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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 1054 of 1702 28 August 2013 at 11:52pm | IP Logged |
Yeah I think you're right. I am tired of Japanese right now but I am not stopping. I get so hung up on progress
I make with Japanese but with other (easier) languages its really relaxing and I don't worry about progress at
all. Anyway, my German class starts tomorrow so I'm curious about it. And frankly I'm pretty happy with my
intermediate German so it's just fun.
But Japanese still has a way to go to catch up to German or Spanish. At least in terms of speaking. And
probably understanding too. I mentioned I was listening to Spanish on this tv show and my god it's easier.
Makes me so depressed because I really like anime and Japanese.
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g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5974 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German
| Message 1055 of 1702 29 August 2013 at 8:48am | IP Logged |
Maybe you should dabble with another language. I can still understand Japanese way better
than German and that at least is motivating.
Anyway, there's nothing wrong with using your German and Spanish. Really there's not much
point having them if you don't use them from time to time.
But if your goal is to understand anime in particular, why not focus your efforts on this?
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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 1056 of 1702 29 August 2013 at 9:03pm | IP Logged |
You make a good point. I think I should just read the Japanese transcripts available for the shows. I probably shouldn't go overboard with the flashcards - I think it's more important to read more.
I had the 1st class today. the beginner 102 class had a native teacher and I miss that. I didn't finish the course because the Japanese class was too demanding and i didn't have time even if it was just review. But I'd retake the 102 German class instead if I could because she spoke beautiful German and the intermediate German teacher is American. She is speaking fine German as well and it seems like the class will be conducted in German but it's not the same. I'll say this teacher is probably going to be easier to understand for the other learners who are learning this stuff for the 1st time. When foreigners speak a foreign language they don't have to try to grade their language, usually, it comes out using the most common vocabulary available.
I got to sleep I think at 5:30 am and woke up at 8:45 am. I almost didn't go. Now I'm gonna head to work for my full shift O.o
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