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TAC 2010 - Team K: M. Medialis - RU JP FR | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 89 of 115 25 August 2010 at 8:07pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
What you're calling 'minimal natural listening' sounds like part of what atamagaii suggests reaching in step 2 of the original post on L-R. It is indeed important. It's a skill I find that comes extremely quickly to me (being able to more or less distinguish the parts of utterances, but only understanding when I know enough relevant words/grammars/phrasings). I seem to pick it up within a few hours of just listening to audio in the background - I did for Hungarian and Japanese (and my concept of sound shifts in borrowings/names/international words generalizes quite well too). Given this, I guess I tend to take it a bit too much for granted. I strongly and fully agree with you that this aspect of listening ability is independent of vocabulary size. I'd consider it a prerequisite for natural listening, but it's quite distinct from it - natural listening requires having having a critical core of the language live (passively) in your head. Enjoy your Japanese! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6355 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 90 of 115 26 August 2010 at 12:56am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Thanks for sharing your experiences and thoughts! Always appreciated. :) I have a feeling that the thing I try to describe is more than just 'catching words from speech' (even though I definitely made it sound like that). This is the second time I've had this epiphany moment (had it with Russian one year ago). -I think it also consists of knowing 'where' in the sentence the word is. The thing I try to explain also includes a grasp of the general grammatical structures of the language. It's like knowing exactly how to build a thought in the language, but lacking all the details to fill it out. I recall Atamagaii identified this as a part of the 'incubation period'. For most languages, having mastered words like 'this','that','therefore','but' etc. would probably be a requirement to get there.
I believe 'minimal natural listening' also requires a critical core of the language. But the core is much smaller (strip away most fancy grammatical elements and most of the nouns and adjectives etc.). Hope it's okay that I'm speculating like this. I really have to struggle to put my thoughts into words. :) Edited by M. Medialis on 26 August 2010 at 11:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6355 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 91 of 115 26 August 2010 at 1:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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TAC Log nr 19
----------------------------------------------------- Dear Log. Dear Team. Dear Forum. This is a glorious day. Yes, this is indeed a Glorious day!! ===================================================== For this is the day, when I, M. Medialis proudly can announce one of my life's top 10 greatest achievements. I have carried out many big tasks before. But always with external pressure - an upcoming exam or a test of some kind. This thing is special, since it has required daily commitment without pressure. Accomplishing great things only by using enthusiasm, curiosity and the mindset to 'not stop' (and may I add: the sweet support from my great Team K and this forum). As you may have guessed, today was the day when I with shaking hands.. ..Finished the last of the 2042 kanjis of Heisig's RTK1!!!!! As a reference for myself, and anyone else who'd like to give it a go, I thought I could add my personal summary of the quest and my methods. Take the parts you like, and discard the rest. :) M. Medialis' RTK thoughts Just so you know, I've started to learn the kanji many times before, but always quitted because I lacked endurance, inspiration and good methods. Now I started anew at the 1st of January thanks to this Team TAC! Results and visualization First of all, what does it feel like when I read Japanese (parallel) texts and recognize all the characters? Unlike before, all the characters become crystal clear in my mind when I read them. They all have a specific place in my memory, and they almost jump out of the page in a very pleasant way. Since I've been reading a new page of a parallel text almost daily, I can compare the feeling of seeing a kanji that I understand, and seeing it after it has gone through the srs: it's significantly more clear. Explaining the feeling is hard, but non-Heisig kanji seems to be slightly blurry in comparison. It's like comparing two computer or cell phone displays that have different quality and resolution. The one of less quality seems to be perfect until you look at them at the same time. I theorize that the real power of Heisig lies in the visualization. I've read that virtually all profesional pianist and athletes use visualization in order to get a nearly flawless memory. BTW, I've gotten great results on the piano by using mental play and the methods of this excellent book. Reading comprehension I still mostly read parallel text materials, and the sentences start to make sense now. Huge difference. :) One of the biggest advantages is that I can be completely sure that that the character is linked to this specific word or concept in the English translation. Being a mathematical person, I'm almost unable to learn things that I'm not convinced are correct. The Heisig stories In order to get good stories, I always scan through the other people's suggestions at http://kanji.koohii.com/. But in order to create better associations, I always check the additional definitions from the Perapera-kun pop-up dictionary extension to Firefox. -Making sure that the story catches "the sum of the concepts" of the kanji. This makes going from keyword to kanji slightly harder; But on the other hand I can avoid pitfalls such as linking virginity with trash or something else (can be a memorable story, but definitely contaminates the real texts that I want to read). The keywords I still want to avoid going from kanji->keyword when I read texts and can't figure out a character from context. Instead I just continue my reading and accept the ambiguity. Bringing up the keyword in my mind has still never helped my understanding, but the passive abstract concept of the story does! Root memorization I often bypass the story making by simply root memorizing some of the components of the kanji. They can get to mean whatever I want them to, and then I let the srs take care of the long-term memory effect. Writing down the kanji Yes, I can write all the 2042 kanji almost perfectly- with the right stroke order. :D I get the stroke order from Zkanji. I only write out forgotten kanjis and I'm certain that this helps my memory greatly. Post-Heisig LR As I've strengthened my kana reading abilities during the process, I can now follow along in the texts with greater ease. I strongly feel that it helps to have the instant recognition of the characters, and it becomes so much easier to align them to the Japanese speech. I do still have trouble with multiple-character words though. Since the meaning of the characters are not completely hidden anymore, they assist in pointing out what part of the sentence that's coming (a part of Japanese that's been eluding me until recently- they often turn the English sentences upside down, creating a seemingly random word order). Closing words Became a long post; Hope I wrote something useful. :) Thanks for all the support. Now it's time to move forward to even more exciting things. Japanese!! ----------------------------------------------------- Team K - M. Medialis Edited by M. Medialis on 26 August 2010 at 1:16am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6437 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 92 of 115 26 August 2010 at 5:40am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Congratulations on finishing RTK1!
Ooh, I see what you're saying now. Yes - that is firmly between what I originally thought you meant, and actual natural listening. I suspect the requirements are substantially higher than knowing 'that' and 'but' and so forth, but trying to characterize what parts of the grammatical structure need to be known isn't a task I plan to take on.
Speculation is always fine, and this is indeed hard to put into words. It's just best to explicitly mark it as speculation; it inhibits it somewhat from becoming dogma. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5554 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 93 of 115 31 August 2010 at 12:32am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I've only just got in the door, back from my hols in the beautiful Emerald Isle, although somewhat bedraggled and travel-leg-weary, and thought I'd very quickly check in to see how everyone's doing before I hit the hay.
I'm really delighted to read that you've finally cracked the RTK I, and would simply like to send you a virtual high-five for this fantastic achievement, M! If I could click on one of these buttons and send you a celebratory kanji cake now, I would! :) "The Fundamentals of Piano Practice" also looks like an interesting read. I never finished grade 8 (RSM) in my teens, and think this book might come in real handy when I eventually get round to practicing again. Cheers for the link. So good night and a big congrats once again on this indeed glorious achievement! Now it's time for me to collapse onto something soft and familiar and dream of having grown up in a gaelscoil... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6355 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 94 of 115 05 September 2010 at 2:11am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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TAC Log nr 20
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Thanks man! :D
I actually bought a semi-expensive digital piano three years ago just to try that book, and I've had some baffling progress! I always find new things in that book, and I can wholeheartedly recommend it. ----------------------------------------------------- My university studies have started again, which means that I'll get almost an hour of public transport time every day that I can use for LR. And of course, I'll once again be loaded with course work. -But this time I shouldn't have to drop my language logging as I had to do earlier this year. :) Perpetual repetition/Song Scriptorium This is a thing I've been thinking about for quite a long time (at least 6 years), but I believe this is the first time I've started to exploit it for real. At every waking minute I'm having songs playing in my head. That's just how my brain is wired (don't know if this is a common phenomenon?). Because of this, it's very easy for me to remember lyrics - once I learn some of the words, the song will play continously in my head and I'll get endless repetions with plenty of opportunities to fill in the missing spots. So, I found this neat little site that has English translations of Japanese pop songs. So I just look up the matching song at Youtube, and perform an Arguelles' style Scriptorium exercise. It's a sweet feeling to do J-Pop Scriptorium since the rhythm of the happy up-beat songs almost forces me to do 'just one more verse'. So after having completed a couple of sessions, I now have a Japanese song playing in my mind constantly. And if I just wait (i.e. doing whatever I want), the words will eventually become overlearned so that I easily catch them naturally in other contexts (yes, this is happening! :) (note that the song continues to repeat itself even when I read other Japanese things, it's like a parallel process in my brain. Does anybody else work like this??). Actions during the past week Had a cool day yesterday. Did 3.5 hours of LR and watched anime for 2.5 hours. On top of this I read parallel texts and just enjoyed my Japanese life. This added quite a lot of words to my vocabulary, and when I woke up this morning, it felt like my mind was swimming in Japanese. And my improved reading speed makes LR sooo much more exciting. Some thoughts I'm beginning to feel that my current way of studying suits me pretty well. It's all about enjoying real Japanese media (together with translations), and make sure that every new word gets a chance to get into my head. If I'm ready for the word, it'll come to me automatically. :) Learning languages in this way is so extremely rewarding. I just compare the dry feelings I had when I studied French in school 5 years ago to the excited feelings I get when I explore Japanese or Russian. I think it is the massive input of native media that makes the difference. (btw, I told my sister the other day that I don't mind waiting for trains. I then realized that the reason is that my Japanese immersion makes every passive situation in life fun.) ----------------------------------------------------- Team K - M. Medialis Edited by M. Medialis on 05 September 2010 at 2:13am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6355 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 95 of 115 19 September 2010 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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TAC Log nr 21
----------------------------------------------------- A short little update so you know I'm alive. ;) I've been sick for 2 weeks, and have had quite much to do in my courses, which is the main reason I haven't updated. My Japanese Habits I have managed to create a pretty nice immersion habit now. I never have my earphones in when I'm around friends, but as soon as I get a moment when nobody is around, I plug in my Japanese podcasts and get some listening for free. Those minutes add up fast. My reading speed has also increased, enabling me to double the amount of Jap-Eng parallel texts that I read every night before I fall asleep (from 1 page to >2 pages / day). This has proved to be an immensely powerful habit for me, which I've kept up for two years (did it with Russian before). Reading in bed just seems to have a zero cost for me. Actions during the past weeks Discovered The Little Prince the other day. I just happened to start LR it and was completely drawn into the story. For everyone who is interested in Japanese LR, be sure you don't miss the awesome voice-acting by Kokoro-jin (Storyteller Book). He manages to give every character in the book a completely personal voice, and captures so many feelings and nuances in the text. Plans for next week Actively collect more Japanese materials. ----------------------------------------------------- Team K - M. Medialis 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5554 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 96 of 115 19 September 2010 at 10:27pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Wishing you a speedy recovery and a lighter in-tray soon. Listening to Kokoro-jin reminds me how much I love Japanese, and it's a real struggle to keep the language on hold for now. The fact, however, that you're making so much progress, makes me feel much better and almost closer to this goal by proxy. Which books have you read/lr'd so far? :)
1 person has voted this message useful |
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