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TAC 2010 - Team K: M. Medialis - RU JP FR | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| 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 105 of 115 13 November 2010 at 4:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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TAC Log nr 27
I missed a whole day of studying the last wednesday. I think the reason is quite fun now when I look back, so I thought I could share it: So, we were on a mission to pick up our little boat (as in, putting it on land, so that it's not in the water during winter-time). Well, guess what happens? One of us (not me!) manages to drop the key to the car into the sea. A quite problematic situation.. We spent the first hour trying to reach down with our arms into the ice-cold water without success. The next hour (after we had given up), we stayed in a non-warmed up trailer to wait for a taxi. When we came home we had to wait two additional hours on my mother to drive to us with the other key to the car. And then, of course, they had to drive to the boat-place and unlock the car and drive it back again. Lol. This must be one of the most hilarious reasons I've had for not studying.. ;D ;D Japanese trip put on the future Now when everbody's about to wrap up this TAC year, I should mention that I will choose not to take the exchange year in Japan next year. The reason is just that I don't want to miss some really cool courses that are given in Sweden during that period (robotics!). So I just put the trip on the future. "Den som väntar på något gott, väntar aldrig för länge". (Swedish proverb: "When you are waiting for something good, you can never wait too long."). M. Medialis' Adventures in the Scriptorium Paradise Japanese Song Scriptorium I've become an official addict of doing Scriptorium on pop songs. It was quite fun; In the first song I picked, the phrase 語り明かす turned up (which is defined by my dictionary as "to talk all the night"). -"Interesting, that they have a set expression for that." Okay, and guess what? - The next song I pick, a completely unrelated song, by another (female) artist: That same expression turns up again!! I mean, what are the odds? Either, Japanese girls are somewhat obsessed with the idea of staying up all night talking, or I simply managed to do the statistically impossible. It doesn't matter which, now I definitely won't forget that phrase (I put it on my list of "survival phrases" ;). The stats for the two last days: ------------------------------------ * Kanji Writing Practice: 60 + 127 min = 3 hr 35 min * Japanese Song Scriptorium: 95 + 58 min = 2 hr 33 min * Japanese Sentence mining (SRS): 30 min * Japanese Parallel text: 43 min * Japanese Watching Anime: 55 min * Russian LR: 32 min * Russian Parallel text: 15 min Total: ~9 hours To be continued.. -------------------------------------------- Team K - M. Medialis Edited by M. Medialis on 13 November 2010 at 4:45pm 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 106 of 115 14 November 2010 at 7:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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You've put in excellent hours over these last few days, especially considering your icy swim. ;)
A bit of "musical scriptorium" is a great idea too. I really enjoyed doing something along these lines with Yabla in Spanish last summer, as well as noting down a few choruses in Russian along the way for good measure. Fun active listening is the way to go, I reckon. Robotics sounds pretty interesting, and I completely understand where you're coming from on this decision. I remember doing a bit of robotics in some of my AI and VR modules (donkey's years ago now) and it was fascinating hands-on stuff. Once you've enjoyed this cool course and you get the next opportunity, I still thoroughly recommend you try to get yourself over to Tokyo and see it in real practice (e.g. crazy exhibitions in Akihabara (aka Electric Town), tour of Fujifilm HQ, etc). Really, it's hard not to find robotics in use around every corner in a city where even the toilets speak to you and people do their shopping in Harajuku dressed up as Darth Vader (lol). Onward and upward, comrade, and best of luck in achieving further progress towards your goals over the coming weeks! :) 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 107 of 115 26 November 2010 at 1:39am | IP Logged | ||
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TAC Log nr 28
I was away from my computer this weekend. (gasp!). Actually, I didn't even have Internet access. (GASP!). And, I actually think I survived. (G-A-S-P!!!) ;) So, I spent those days doing some offline studying. First I warmed up by doing a couple of hours of intensive LR from Breaking into Japanese Literature. Intensive as in pausing after each sentence and make sure that I didn't miss any words (quite similar to Teango's soon-to-be-legendary Study-and-Click method). (Parenthesis; Did I ever mention that the Study-and-Click method is completely genius? Enjoying exciting literature, getting rapid fluency, AND get sweet statistics (the click count) at the same time! в один прекрасный день/en vacker dag (one beautiful day), I will definitely try it out myself. :) Where was I? Yes. Then, whenever I got a chance, I just read a few pages in my parallel text (a New Testament - perfect level for me). Japanese Adventures My Japanese reading progress The offline reading gave me a major level-up in my Japanese reading ability. :D I realized it yesterday when I LRed a few chapters of Alice in Wonderland again. I could easily follow along in the written text without getting lost. And when I read Japanese (with furigana) without audio, I can keep a smooth and steady rhythm without getting stuck. The word boundaries are also becoming more and more obvious. Before, I've always had great trouble following along in the middle of sentences. I got the first and the last words (often the subject and the verb), but everything in-between was hidden in a cloud of grammar and vocab. Now, every part of the sentence is equally easy/difficult to understand, and I'm quite happy. BTW, if anyone knows the person who invented parallel texts, I'd be happy to invite him on a cup of coffee anyday. (Note that my vocabulary is not as impressive. I'm only speaking about my ability to read Japanese texts, (with an inner voice as explained by Prof. Arguelles)). Improving my kanji stroke Lol. On a morning lecture last week, I was incredibly tired. So in order to stay awake I started to practice my vertical and horizontal kanji stroke. I spent about 30-40 minutes trying to draw straight lines out from every possible starting angle of my hand. (When I write out my kanji, I usually have to reposition my hand every second stroke in order to get them down perfectly.) And what do you know, I actually found out some cool hand movements I wasn't aware of. By exploiting the fact that my pinky finger rests firmly on the paper, I was able to find a close-to minimal transition between a horizontal and a vertical stroke. I let the supporting fingers do the large-scale work, and just let the other fingers (i.e. the index finger) follow along. Example, try to write the character 十 as fast as you can, maintaining the straight lines. That little exercise proved to be very effective, and my kanji writing has already become faster and more accurate. Lol. This must be one of the most obsessive thing I've ever written. ;D ;D Russian Adventures And at last! My dream since four years has come true. I am simultaneously studying both Russian and Japanese without /confusing/ them. A beautiful feeling. (*EDIT: I've actually never had any issues with "confusing" languages. My problem has been that one language completely dominates the other, making it hard to progress.) I'm still LRing Crime and Punishment, and it often feels like I'm understanding 98 %. (in the LR sense of 'understanding'. I could probably not do it without the Swedish support). I believe I have progressed beyond the state I was in in January (when I put Russian on hold). Except for one thing - the grammar. Almost all the grammar rules are missing in my head. Now, it's no big deal since I never really knew them well enough.-And after having re-read Antimoon's take on grammar, I think I'll just try to load grammar example sentences into my SRS later. Hour collection mania I've realized how dangerous it is to log hours. The risk is that nothing else gets done (and that would be fine, if it wasn't for those darn exams that have a tendency to move closer to me each day). Therefore, I'll only log hours for a limited set of days every week. The other days, I'll just take my daily load of parallel texts, kanji reps, lr, immersion etc. The stats for the three last days: ------------------------------------ * Kanji Writing Practice: 60 + 67 + 110 = 3 hr 57 min * Japanese Song Scriptorium: 45 min * Japanese LR: 50 + 47 + 50 min = 2 hr 27 min * Japanese SRS: 19 min * Japanese Parallel text: ~30 min (?) * Japanese Watching Anime: 25 + 90 min = 1 hr 55 min * Russian LR: 55 + 70 + 63 min = 3 hr 8 min * Russian Parallel text: ~30 min (?) Total: ~14 hours To be continued.. -------------------------------------------- Team K - M. Medialis Edited by M. Medialis on 29 November 2010 at 8:12pm 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 109 of 115 06 December 2010 at 4:17am | IP Logged | ||
^u^ (*blushes*) Nice progress in Japanese and kanji this week. I'm particularly impressed how you're balancing Russian and Japanese studies at the same time (those inner voices must have sat round a table together over vodka and saki and come to an agreement lol). And to top it all, you can even understand up to 98% of Crime and Punishment...Medialis, you're fast developing superpowers...I'm so jealous (in a good way)!! :D Edited by Teango on 06 December 2010 at 4:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aloysius Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6238 days ago 226 posts - 291 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: French, Greek, Italian, Russian | Message 110 of 115 19 December 2010 at 5:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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M. Medialis!
What an amazing Japanese year you’ve had! Reading through your log retrospectively has been a real pleasure, and I really think you should be proud of what you’ve been achieving. And on top of that some progress in Russian as well! I’m really impressed. What sticks in my memory most of all is how you experienced Swedish in a total different light, upon returning from Asia. I can have small moments like that in a milder form with both Swedish and English. Those are languages that shouldn’t be neglected and taken for granted when we are busy discovering new territory… //Aloysius 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 111 of 115 23 December 2010 at 12:53am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey Aloysius!
Thanks for the kind words. :D Yeah, appreciating languages that you are already proficient in is probably an overlooked thing among polyglots. That's sad since it is so rewarding! 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 112 of 115 23 December 2010 at 1:13am | IP Logged | ||
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TAC Log nr 29
At last, it's time to sum up 2010 and look back at the goals I set, and what I managed to accomplish. This year was indeed an exciting and productive year, and I feel extremely happy with my results. Things that didn't change I just have to accept this blunt fact: I'm still as busy at the university as I've always been. No matter how I set my priorities, there comes periods when I need to devote all my energy into studying. -Nothing new here. Things that did change! With that being said, joining this Team TAC has given me a new superpower - an antidote curing the perpetual problem of keeping academic results high and still get language progress: ->The ability to get up and run again. ->And again. ->And again. -> And again. This is the magic that let me finish all the kanji and get to the point where I'm at in both Russian and Japanese. Before, a break in my momentum usually implied several month of dry periods of zero-study. Now, I have managed to restart every time I fall. This makes me proud, and I know I wouldn't have carried it off without the great support of my team and this forum. Other thoughts about the Team TAC Before, learning languages has been a very lonely task. And suddenly it became transformed into a highly social hobby. I always know that I have my friends out there who support me in my all so geeky pursuits. Having Teango as my ever-present team mate has been wonderful. And it's always a pleasure to read his cleverly composed posts, his trivia from every-day life, and also his breath-taking hyper-speed projects. \o/ To my other team members, I can just say that I know exactly how it feels to lag behind in logging. But in our world, everyday is a New Year's eve, and I wish you the best of luck with all your plans for the future. As Teango, I also want to thank you for your great initial support! Quote of the year Lol. I need to bring up this quote from Teango again about writing out kanjis. Every time I write out kanjis in my hand, this picture comes up and I burst out laughing:
2010 Results Since I changed my goals in February, my results are quite far from my initial goals. Here's what I've achieved: *Studying two languages in parallel was way harder than I anticipated. So my plan of squeezing in some French disappeared. ->But in November, I finally succeeded in combining Russian and Japanese studies without getting any problems whatsoever. The last thing I do before I go to sleep is to first read a page of parallel texts in Russian/English, and then read another page of Japanese/English. I can even switch between Russian and Japanese LR. The diplomacy has finally been successful, Japanese and Russian have settled down, forgotten their old disputes, and accepted each other as respected business partners. *Japanese was way harder than I anticipated. Russian was so much more natural to me in its word order and the way the words are constructed (man, those short kanji readings - shyu, shyuu, shyo and shyou, it's a wonder that anyone can tell them apart at all). *But I managed to finish all the 2000 Heisig kanjis! After more than 22000 repetitions and a whole lot of writing practice: I can now proudly say that I can recognize and write out all the kanji I know almost perfectly. (I've spent about one hour daily the last months on writing out kanji, and it's done wonders with my proficiency). *I've picked up some sweet study habits, such as podcast immersion, and listening to Japanese radio while I'm doing other things. *And I have discovered the most pleasurable way of doing intensive studies: Song Scriptorium! There's a wealth of translated Japanese (and Russian) pop songs out there, just waiting to be processed by my greedy pen. The magic is that I can easily do it for one hour without even noticing that time's gone by. And when I'm done, the song often can continue to play in my head. Win! -------------------------------------------- When I looked back at the past year, I actually felt a bit disappointed for a second - thinking I didn't progress very much. But then I realized that I actually can read Japanese smoothly, hear the words inside my head, seeing the invisible word boundaries, understanding many written sentences naturally without translating in my head. On top of this, I recognize all the characters, and I sometimes understand parts of the conversations in my podcasts (given that there are enough words that I happen to know). --Wow, Japanese is such a fascinating language - there are so many treasures everywhere - every word and every syllable seems to carry a hidden message - small little gems glistering in the sentence. Still, the language is so simple, minimalistic and beautiful in its form. Mmm I can't wait to continue my Japanese adventures. So, now it's time to dive into the Christmas holidays. Merry Christmas everybody! -------------------------------------------- Team K - M. Medialis Edited by M. Medialis on 23 December 2010 at 1:18am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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