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Kuji’s Krazy Log II | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4837 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 505 of 706 21 May 2014 at 4:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hmmm, a club. That might be the way to go. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4837 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 506 of 706 29 May 2014 at 6:54am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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RANDOM THOUGHTS
* I've been recording my language time for about a week now. Nothing specific - just an estimate of how many minutes I spend time with my languages every day. I'm including both intensive and extensive activities (the latter of which I've been doing more and more each day), but not passive "background" activities, like when I have the TV on to a Japanese news program while I'm doing the dishes. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these records; I know some people post their time totals on their HTLAL logs every week. Right now I'm just interested in how much time I spend with my languages, because I feel like it's not as much as I think, and I need to work on that. * I used to read news articles like I studied from my textbook - that is, every time I find a new word, I look it up, then write down the word and definition and sentence it came from, then put it into Anki. If I saw some complicated grammar, I would find an explanation online, then write that down, then make Anki cards for it. Nowadays, when I read an article, if I see an unknown word, I look it up... and that's it. I go back to the article. I'm finding this to be more enjoyable. And if I see any complicated grammar, I just skip it. The hardest thing for me to do right now is to break myself of the habit of dissecting and examining every single part of the language. There are times for that, but not to the point where it takes away from the fun. * I expect my schedule to free up a little bit more in June, but I want to get back to reading other people's logs, so I might not be able to write here too often. But I miss perusing other people's language-learning stories and the confidence and motivation that brings to me. Edited by kujichagulia on 29 May 2014 at 7:13am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4837 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 507 of 706 10 June 2014 at 8:55am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I realize that I have an interesting situation - to some degree with Japanese, but especially with my Portuguese. Doing DLI, reading stories and articles, listening to radio, etc. - I feel like I'm holding a cup, and somebody is throwing a lot of water at me while I try to catch it in my cup, but the water is flying everywhere, and I only get a few drops in my cup while the rest of the water lands on the ground. That is how I feel. Sometimes I feel like there is a ton of Portuguese words just floating around in my head, but they are not really organized.
I don't really know if this is normal or not. If it is, that would be great. But I'm kind of assuming that it is not. This imagery of words floating around in my head without being attached... that leads me to believe that I don't really have a foundation in my Portuguese skills. Why is it that I can easily recall and use the word "manifestação" (thanks, Brazilian media!) but have trouble conjugating "vir" in the present tense? I can easily remember how to say "Do you have an apartment for rent?" (Você tem um apartamento para lugar?) but I still get the words for left and right confused. I think the solution is pretty much straight forward. I need to work on my weak points. When I played baseball when I was 10 years old, my throwing and fielding was great, and I was a natural runner (hard to believe it now!), but I was extremely terrible at batting. After some very bad performances which cost my team some wins, my coaches took me aside and worked with me on my batting. I never became a great batter, but I became good enough to stop causing my team to lose. It was thanks to working on my weak point: batting. I'm going to start working on my weak points in writing. I schedule some time every week to write something in Portuguese, usually what happened to me that day. But that is a very broad topic and encompasses a lot of grammar. While it is good for learning what I need to know, I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself sometimes. Instead of trying to broaden my horizons so much, why don't I use that time to work on my weak points? I tried that this morning. Instead of writing about my day, I wrote a fictional conversation in which I tried to use every conjugation of "vir" in the present and simple past (preterite). That was nice, and there was a lot less English on the paper as well (when writing on the train, if I don't know a word in Portuguese or can't remember it, I just write it in English and look it up later). Now the question is what to do with what I wrote. I'm thinking about getting it corrected at Lang-8, and then use it for some speaking practice or maybe even memorization. I'm hoping that this method helps me solidify my language foundation, and those words will stop floating around my brain unattached. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4837 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 508 of 706 11 June 2014 at 3:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Japanese
I've hardly touched An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese the past few months, as I've been doing other activities. But I'm in the middle of the fourteenth of fifteen chapters. I think it's time to push myself to finish the book once and for all, and toss it aside. It collects dust on my kotatsu anyway. (A kotatsu is a Japanese coffee table with a heater and blanket attached to the bottom to keep warm in the winter. Of course, in the summer, it is just a table.) The last few nights, I've worked on Chapter 14 for a few minutes each night, and I think I'll be done with it in a week... unless the World Cup derails me, which it very well might. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5174 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 509 of 706 11 June 2014 at 3:48am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Have you tried just reading as much as possible in Portuguese? I studied German conjugations for class but
they didn't really stick but just reading really drilled them into my head. Audio books are good too if possible. I totally get where you're coming for thinking you've got some missing link holding you back as I feel that with Japanese. Thankfully as my listening skills improve I'm getting more and more from anime. I liked the baseball analogy. I miss playing ball. Reminds me of a little league game when I was a kid. I was pretty good at hitting in general but not necessarily good under pressure. I remember my team being so happy that the kid ahead of me got a walk because I was supposed to be good. I totally had a bad feeling and ended up just popping out. Damn that sucked. Heh. Wish I had a kotatsu. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4837 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 510 of 706 11 June 2014 at 8:54am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Now this may be the other part of the problem. Now that I think about it, I don't read quite enough Portuguese lately. I've really gotten behind on this task, and it's something I will work on from now on. But I do want to do the "targeted" writing practice as well. Thank you for pointing that out!
That's funny. My team wanted me on base because I could run fast and steal bases, but I couldn't hit the ball! The opposing pitchers used to hit me with their pitches and I'd get on base, then I'd steal a few bases and score runs. That changed quickly; the other teams just started throwing the ball away from me, while I swung and struck out every time.
Japan has this image of cranking out high-tech electronics and such, but I will tell anybody that the kotatsu is the most genius of all Japanese inventions. I'm surprised that it has not caught on around the world! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5156 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 511 of 706 12 June 2014 at 1:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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You may like these 4 Habit
Killers . 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4837 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 512 of 706 12 June 2014 at 5:59am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Expugnator, this is freaking awesome! Thank you very much for that link. Since I've done this log, my main problem has been forming good habits. For the most part, I have been consistent - that's true. But that link has helped me to see a major problem. I think of these grand schemes to study, grand routines/schedules, grand activities, and my motivation is so high, and I start to do them... only to get burned out and tired of them. Then I move on to the next grand scheme/routine/activity... and so on. I look at my log and I see that I've thought of this and that, and how that is going to make my language learning so much better(!!!), then I end up changing things after a few weeks. I "attack" that grand thing with a lot of willpower and fervor, but like the link above says, "enthusiasm wanes over time." So my next big scheme is to try not to think of big schemes anymore. To be honest, the rotation system I have is pretty good for me. I need to just stick with that and try to make it a habit. I've been re-reading your log, Expugnator, and I was intrigued by how you timebox your activities during the day. 15 minutes of this here, 15 minutes of that there, etc. (The Pomodoro Technique came up once on my own log, and I was intrigued by that, but never really put it into practice.) I've been experimenting with that in my own studies the past week, and the results seem promising. I think timeboxing is a good way to help form habits... I hope so. We'll see. But other than a certain technique, I need to lower my daily expectations and my expectations of language learning in general. I have a tendency to get really emotional about it. "Using this method and that technique, I'm gonna RULE! I'm gonna be the best freakin' Japanese speaker out there!" It's good if it's controlled, I suppose, but I can't control it. Rather, I need to think of things in simple ways. "Can I watch some online Portuguese videos for 15 minutes every day? Sure. Let me see if I can do it for five minutes a day." Hehe... now that I write this, it sounds like another big scheme. I need to be careful. :) 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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