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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 689 of 706 10 July 2015 at 7:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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Serpent, iguanamon, Expugnator:
Wow... just wow. It's been a couple of days, but I'm still picking my jaw up off of the floor, amazed at the clarity of what you guys wrote. Now, I know I've been told in this log what you guys said about extensive reading and listening time and time again, but for some reason these posts have really made an impact. You're right, I really don't have faith that gaps will be filled and vocabulary and grammar will be learned if I don't try to squeeze every drop out of a text or some audio. I always felt that if I moved on from something, and I didn't understand every last bit of it, I failed. I suppose this comes from how I studied Japanese before, when I first came to Japan, or at least not doing it the right way. My first few years in Japan, all of my language studies were limited to beginner textbook work. I would do 30 minutes perhaps four times a week. I would do a lesson or part of a lesson from the book. Listen to and read the dialog, do some writing exercises, some kanji work, and then I was finished with the lesson. Once I did my 30 minutes of book work in a day, that was all the interaction that I had with Japanese. I didn't do any other Japanese activities. And later, when I went back and looked at lessons I had previously done, I found that I didn't remember everything. So that discouraged me. It also discouraged me that, even though I was studying, I didn't really notice any improvement in understanding the Japanese I was hearing and seeing around me. Of course, I was still a beginner at the time, but I wasn't really reminding myself of that. It's funny when I think about it now: a beginner comparing his Japanese to natives. That's probably what led me to going off track and going months between any kind of dedicated language study. Anyway, fast forward to three or four years ago, when I made a commitment to consistently study every day. I read somewhere about somebody taking his podcasts and transcripts and listening to them over and over, and then looking up all the words and putting all the words into Anki, and I got it into my head that that was the way to progress fast in Japanese. But it seems like I'm not really progressing fast; I'm progressing very slowly. So yeah, I do need to have a little faith that things will fall into place. What you said about studying material less and less, and moving on and progressing quickly through material in order to get that "snowball effect", makes a lot of sense to me. I just need to step forward and have faith that it's actually going to work for me. Ha, a mid-year resolution! Okay, now that I know what I need to work on (or not work on?), it might be redundant to give another example about what frustrates me when I study languages, since it is somewhat similar to my frustrations reading bilingual Portuguese texts. But I'll do it anyway: (JAPANESE) Watching TV shows I haven't really done it for a couple of months now because my TV time has decreased, but every Sunday I made it a point to watch two Japanese cartoons which deal with everyday Japanese life and has Japanese that, while native, is not as complex as, say, a prime-time drama geared towards adults. One is called Chibi Maruko-chan and the other is Sazae-san. Actually, a lot of families in Japan traditionally watch those two shows, and when I moved in with my wife we did it as well. I watched those two shows for years - even when I wasn't really studying Japanese. While I hardly understood the Japanese, at least I could follow the story by what was happening on the screen. In fact - even after watching it for years prior to that - I didn't really start to understand anything the characters were actually saying until I made a full commitment to consistently study languages back in 2012. And I felt like I was improving not because of the shows, but because of other activities I was doing, like my intermediate textbook. I saw the shows not as material to learn from, but as something to sort of reinforce what I already knew. I could see how many words I knew while watching an episode, but I felt like I wasn't learning new words and phrases from them. So earlier this year, I thought, Why not find a way to study from those shows? And this is the process I came up with. (1) Watch the two anime on Sunday evenings with my wife, and at the same time record them. (2) Later on, when I have time, play the recordings with the closed captioning on. (3) Whenever I come across an unknown word/phrase, unpause the video, look at the closed captioning, make a note of the unknown word/phrase, then unpause the video and continue. Repeat whenever I come across another new word/phrase. (4) When I finish the video, I look up unknown words and phrases in a dictionary. (5) Next, I go through the words/phrases and decide if I want to put any of them into Anki, then I put them into Anki. (6) After that, I watch the recordings again with the closed captioning on. I try to see how much I can understand. If I'm not satisfied with how much I understand, watch it again. (7) Now I'll try watching without the closed captioning on and see how much I understand. Can you see the similarities with what I was doing with the Deutsche Welle Portuguese radionovelas? I should mention that I rarely finished (3) on this list; I don't have much TV time to myself and (3) is quite time-consuming. On the rare occasion I finished (3), the farthest I went was (5), because I was burned out on those episodes and wanted to do something else. Now that I think about it, and considering what you all have posted here, perhaps just (1) and (2) might be enough. I could also amend (3) and only look up words that I absolutely need to know to follow along with the story. But at my level of Japanese, I can pretty much understand the plot of the vast majority of episodes, especially Sazae-san. So there might be something to be gained by just going completely extensive and doing (1) and (2). That would be sort of like what I did years ago, but at an intermediate level it might be more helpful this time around. And adding more and more TV shows to the mix, time willing, might be a good thing as well. 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 690 of 706 10 July 2015 at 7:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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Okay, I just thought of another example:
(JAPANESE and PORTUGUESE) Reading News Articles One thing I often do, especially with Japanese, is save news articles I come across to my Pocket application or to a PDF, and read them later on my iPad or on a computer. This is what I usually do. (1) Start reading the article. (2) When I come to an unknown word/phrase/Chinese character, I highlight it, then I move on. (3) After I've highlighted five unknown words/phrases/characters, I stop reading, then I look up the unknowns in a dictionary. I write notes somewhere. (4) I start to read again until I find five new unknowns. (5) After finishing the article, I decide if any of the unknowns would be good candidates for Anki. If so, I copy the sentences they appeared in into Anki. (6) Now I try reading the article again and see how many of the new words I remember. Repeat as necessary - although I usually read through the article no more than twice before moving on. This is actually the most successful of my activities - especially if the article is short. I can usually do this without burning out. Still, even with a short article, it can take a week or more to finish, and that's assuming I'm doing some of it every day. And as I am working my way through it, it starts to feel more and more like work. I should also say that, from time to time, I do an alternative version of reading articles at night on my computer. Basically, I find an article online that looks interesting, I'll read it once with the help of a Japanese or Portuguese pop-up dictionary, and I'll be done with it. I don't make any notes, and I don't add anything to Anki. It's much quicker, less work, and somewhat refreshing, but I wonder how much I learn from it. And again, that's from time to time - perhaps once or twice a week? I wonder if it would be beneficial to make an effort to read more using that style. Edited by kujichagulia on 10 July 2015 at 7:35am 2 persons have 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 691 of 706 10 July 2015 at 10:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Again this leads to the same issue of not creating 'momentum', Kuji. You spend a lot of time on accessory activities (like adding words to Kanji), on pauses and on watching the same thing again (I personally wouldn't be able to stand that).
Alternatively, you could adopt one listening technique with each video: you could watch one of them with subtitles in L2, another one with subtitles with L1 (its efficiency is severely underrated by most learners, especially at an intermediate stage), another one without subtitles at all. The most important thing is to generate comprehensible input. Getting to the point of understanding everything isn't really efficient because it makes you lose time with side activities and prevents you from creating momentum. If you are watching a series, the context of the series, situations that repeat, people that meet over and over again already works as an SRS. Same goes for reading a novel or, better, a trilogy. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| The Real CZ Senior Member United States Joined 5639 days ago 1069 posts - 1495 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 692 of 706 11 July 2015 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Kuji, I just think you need to find the right balance in your studying. There's no magic
formula, as I'm still searching for it. However, I can vouch for what the others are saying. I've read dozens of novels in Korean and watched numerous dramas, films and variety shows in Korean without the help of translations/subtitles. While I didn't understand everything at first, I kept going and going and things become easier to understand over time. Of course, I also spent some time drilling vocab and grammar in Anki and trying to use the words and constructions in many different sentences while just thinking throughout the day, but just going with the flow without trying to understand everything in certain activities can do wonders for your confidence and motivation in the language. 2 persons have 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 693 of 706 11 July 2015 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I really liked the post about building momentum. I think you should take that to heart completely with
Portuguese - it uses the same alphabet as English and the grammar is a lot closer to English and there's a lot of cognates. It's just an easier language. Building momentum should work really well. Japanese is a whole different animal. I'm in the same boat with you trying to find the right balance. Right now I'm spending a lot of time on N2 grammar and 新完全マスター文法N2 and I it feels like I'm doing the right thing. flipping through the N2 grammar book I have to say just watching anime and reading news and stuff hasn't helped me learn any new grammar whatsoever. So spending extra time drilling grammar makes sense to me. I'm on the fence on how to handle vocabulary though. I would like to get a good snowball going with Japanese and I think I would do well not to SRS vocabulary to death and try to consume more material at this point. Japanese is such a pain. It's no wonder it takes 3 to 4 times as long to learn as an easier language like Portuguese or Spanish. Anyway I'll keep reading your journal and see how your progress and system goes. I'm glad I'm not learning two languages at the same time =p. 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 694 of 706 13 July 2015 at 5:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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Expugnator, The Real CZ, kraemder:
Thank you very much for your comments. It's becoming clearer and clearer what my problem is. These words keep popping up in all of your comments: flow, momentum, snowball. Looking back on the way I study, it's amazing that I've made any progress at all. Seeing words like flow, momentum and snowball made me think of something odd. One of my favorite albums of all time was a 1996 album from the British band Jamiroquai. It had a clever title: Traveling Without Moving. Thinking about my study methods, I feel like I've been moving without traveling. I picture myself running in place, legs pumping, arms swinging, sweating... but going nowhere. That is probably what is happening when I continuously break my flow when reading a story or an article to concern myself with the details of a new word/phrase. * * * * * I tried all of your suggestions over the weekend. Before, I had worked through the first page or so of the fourth episode of the Deutsche Welle Futebol em África radionovela, highlighting unknown words, trying to comb through everything, etc. But on Saturday, I just took the fourth episode and read it through. When I didn't understand something, I just looked at the English version. I only used the dictionary for one word that didn't really have an English equivalent and seemed somewhat out of place. I still don't understand its usage there, but I moved on. Then on Sunday, while on the stationary bike at the gym, I listened to the audio while reading the Portuguese text, then I listened again without the text. And that was it. On the one hand, it was more... relaxing, I guess. It felt good to just read through the story and enjoy it, without worrying about studying it. And when I listened to the story without the text, I could understand a lot of it at that point, although I couldn't understand everything. But it was a good feeling knowing what they were saying and knowing what was happening, even though I can't really say I learned the new words in that episode. That leads me to the other hand. I feel like I'm not quite done with the episode, like there is more work to be done. That probably comes from the fact that I've done so much work on previous episodes. In fact, I feel like I... cheated. I just read the Portuguese, used the English to understand what I didn't understand, read it again and listened to it a couple of times. It doesn't feel like work; it feels like... I don't know, fun? It was relaxing, and the story was nice. I'm excited to not have to wait a while for the next episode; I can start on Episode 5 today! But then, the other part of me worries about the unknown Portuguese words in Episode 4. What if I come across those words/phrases again? I'm going to have to look them up all over again. But according to you all, once I get a good flow going and read more and more material, everything will fall into place and the gaps will be filled. So I'm just ignoring all of those worries, and I'm moving on with the faith that it will all be fine. This is newly-chartered territory for me. I tend to not trust things so much or have faith in things. I don't have faith in myself or anybody else. I tend to want to know that something will work 100% before I try it. Of course, the world doesn't really work that way, and I have to change my thinking on this, and my language learning is a part of that process. Anyway, I'll keep you updated! 5 persons have 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 695 of 706 13 July 2015 at 5:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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When I studied German I reached a point where I could understand enough without a dictionary that I just
went with it. I focused on what I could understand rather than what I couldn't. Sure I"d still look up a couple words but I didn't drill them to death or anything, it was like you described. And I had the attitude that whatever I read next I would understand even more. You could just call it having a positive attitude. I've had a hell of a time doing that with Japanese but Japanese is a lot harder language. I think I'm actually there now though. I can watch most anime and understand the plot pretty well. The sci-fi (my favorite) anime often have some parts that get too advanced for me but even so I feel positive about what I -can- understand and it's finally feeling like German did to me way back. Anyway - I hope it works out for you. It's not so much that you're smarter but more of an attitude change that slowly makes things just easier for you I think. ( I stil want to drill the N2 grammar but I don't think I -need- it to understand anime) Edited by kraemder on 13 July 2015 at 5:59am 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5252 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 696 of 706 13 July 2015 at 1:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, you will, but it's not the end of the world. You'll see those words again the more you read, the more you listen, the more you watch and read about football in Portuguese, the more you do your course.
That's the point! It can, indeed, be fun! Just don't expect miracles overnight. It takes some time. You are going to feel like you aren't "working/studying" for a while because you are so used to your previous routine. Try to avoid falling back into it and get through this radionovela. Then, after finishing, pick a next one. I recommend Queres que te conte mais? Fábulas africanas para uma cultura de paz for which you should alreay have bilingual text and audio. It's a very fun series of tales and should help you to build momentum. Parabéns, kuji! You are now obeying the first rule of holes, "when you are in one, stop digging". You've stopped digging. Edited by iguanamon on 14 July 2015 at 4:35pm 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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