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Kuji’s Krazy Log II | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4836 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 49 of 706 17 December 2012 at 1:39am | IP Logged | ||
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KUJI'S WEEK IN REVIEW: 10 December - 16 December 2012
日本語 - JAPANESE JP - 先週は 教科書の練習問題は 全然しなかったんだ。 実は、 そうするのが面倒と思う。 練習問題が別に難しくなくて、 教科書が大きくて重いので いっぱい電車でできないし、 僕の家でも勉強するのが大変だから。 どう しよう。 EN - I'll start with what I didn't do this past week: textbook exercises. I planned to start Chapter 6 of An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese, but I didn't. I find it hard to study with that book. Basically the exercises are like this: * Listen to and read the three dialogs over and over (I suppose) * Learn new vocabulary and grammar points * Learn new kanji using the workbook for writing practice * Do a reading comprehension exercise (read some text, and answer questions based on it) * Do some grammar writing drills * Do a listening comprehension exercise (like the reading exercise above, but you just listen instead of read) * Do a short review exercise The exercises are not extremely difficult to do. (Especially after I stopped doing the role play and short essay-writing exercises in the book, which tend to be specifically focused on university life. "What classes do you see yourself taking next year at your university? Why?" C'mon, I'm in my mid-30s!) But the textbook was designed for university courses, and it is as big and heavy as a university textbook. So it is difficult to use on a crowded train. I can use it when sitting down, or if I am leaning against the wall of the train car. That way, I can use both my hands. But if I am standing in the middle of the train, I have to grab onto something so I don't fall down when the train goes around a curve. It's impossible to do any textbook work that way. Also, it's difficult for me to study at home with that textbook. Usually my wife has the TV on, and our pet rabbit is mischevious and I have to often get up and yell at him. Going to another room is out of the question, because my wife would complain about a higher electricity bill. So either I have to find a way to deal with the situation, or find some new material. Good luck with that; there are no other good intermediate Japanese study materials that I know of. What I can do at home is input new vocabulary, grammar, and kanji into Anki. I can do that even under noisy circumstances. But... well, I was lazy this week, so I didn't. Well, I wasn't entirely lazy. I had leftover words and grammar from Chapter 5 to input, not to mention vocabulary from podcasts, TV shows and other sources. As for the crowded train... I suppose I don't have to do textbook work on the train. I can review the recorded audio and listening exercises. But I do need to find a way to study at home. Besides not doing IAIJ, I kept up with my Anki reviews, and tried to watch more Japanese TV. That was helped by the fact that the FIFA Club World Cup was going on here in Japan, featuring two teams I have an interest in: Chelsea and Corinthians. PORTUGUÊS - PORTUGUESE There won't be a blurb here in Portuguese for a while... not until I start learning past tense. I finished Unit 4 of the DLI Basic Course and began work on Unit 5. It is so much easier to use DLI materials on a crowded train. Printed PDFs are easier to hold with one hand, and there is no writing to do (yet). Plus there is extensive audio, so in some cases I don't even need the PDF. It is so tempting to just do DLI Portuguese on the train, and Japanese study at all times. But I fear that could lead to me studying Portuguese more than Japanese, when Japanese should be my priority. It's all about the ratio, my friend. Besides that, just Anki reviews, podcasts, and online audio. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5971 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 50 of 706 17 December 2012 at 10:03am | IP Logged | ||
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I couldn't study with IAIJ either. Mainly because I found it both patronising and irrelevant to my own life beyond belief. Even the grammar practice is all about talking about your university life or problems with your host family! I've come to the conclusion that there is no single good intermediate textbook out there though.
Sounds like you do need to negotiate some home study space with your wife though. I guess she's just keen to spend her evenings together with you, but at least if you could get a limited amount of time to yourself, maybe you could explain that it's only until you get good enough to enjoy TV shows together with her! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4836 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 51 of 706 17 December 2012 at 2:37pm | IP Logged | ||
Hehe... the problem nowadays is that my wife is watching mainly English-language dramas. But yeah, maybe I can get her to give me some "alone" time... if I'm extra good to her and give her a lot of presents for Christmas. :) You are so right about IAIJ being patronizing! I never, ever, had to motivate myself to do the exercises in Genki I and II. But IAIJ is different. Sometimes I'm ready to give up on that book. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5971 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 52 of 706 17 December 2012 at 7:45pm | IP Logged | ||
Well why don't you try giving up on it? I felt quite guilty for dropping it myself. It cost a lot of money, some of which was in the form of Amazon vouchers I'd received for my birthday. Plus I'd promised myself at the start of the year I'd pick an intermediate course and stick to it. But I think it really is such an inappropriate book for anybody who isn't a university exchange student! The thing is if you can't motivate yourself to use a specific course like that, it's too easy to turn that into not being motivated to study Japanese at all. There are other options for intermediate study, depending on what you want to focus on. You're just unlikely to find everything you need wrapped up in one book, unfortunately. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5251 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 53 of 706 17 December 2012 at 9:44pm | IP Logged | ||
I did a little searching and I think you may find this link form the Reviewing the Kanji forum useful- Can anyone recommend a good intermediate textbook
Congratulations on getting so far with Portuguese in such a short amount of time! Parabéns pra você! Too bad the DLI Japanese course isn't available to the public anywhere I can find. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4836 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 54 of 706 18 December 2012 at 4:01am | IP Logged | ||
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@iguanamon - Ah, Tobira! I looked at that a long time ago when searching for good intermediate materials, but made the ill-fated decision to go with An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese. It's probably time to look at Tobira again. Thank you for the link and info!
Oh, and about DLI.... oops, I meant Lesson 4 and 5, not Unit 4 and 5. I have to remember to get that straight. Anyway, unfortunately I'm still in Volume 1. I would have been in Volume 2 by now - perhaps Volume 3 - if not for the back-and-forth switching between DLI and FSI. I'm committed to the DLI course now. @g-bod - Yeah, that's exactly it; I feel guilty for dropping the money on IAIJ, so I feel like I should finish it. To be honest, the kanji exercises in particular are really useful to me. So are the grammar explanations, although the example sentences are crazy sometimes. I should probably drop everything except the kanji exercises. I could go through those and be done with IAIJ. Or I could get Tobira. :) Ugh... the road to mastering intermediate Japanese is a tricky one. There's no GPS for you; you have to make do with a bunch of different paper maps to reach your destination. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5971 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 55 of 706 18 December 2012 at 7:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah I think the grammar explanations are one strength of IAIJ. Assuming you can find the motivation, I think there's no harm in using IAIJ for grammar and kanji practice if it suits you. Maybe you could just try picking up another book for listening/reading practice which has broader appeal to use as well. I think the Unicom N3 books for listening and reading are particularly good, and were useful for me beyond just exam preparation. Or you could just get Tobira (I've never looked at this, so I've no idea how good it is).
I agree, intermediate Japanese is tricky and it often feels like its taking a long time to get anywhere with it. The vocabulary mountain is so high! But I find occasionally I have breakthroughs, like being able to read a text aimed at adults, or follow a particular drama series, and then things start to get interesting and it all feels worthwhile. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6609 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 56 of 706 18 December 2012 at 8:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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If you are looking for some good explanations of grammar, you might want to look for A Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar by Seiichi Makino and Michio Tsutsui. There is also an intermediate and of course advanced. All three are 600+ pages!
I like to use it when I've gotten corrections on lang-8. It can tell me why my けれど、 was changed to が for example. You can look up each of them and there is an explanation of how to use them, examples and notes explaining when you should use the one and when you should use the other. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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