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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 6358 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 17 of 115 24 January 2010 at 11:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
After reading this comment, I had to spend a few hours surfing the net for how to get fine japanese green tea. If my economy permits, this just have to be part of my grande study environment! TAC Log nr 4/52 Wow. Already a whole week.. Well, I haven't been studying as much as I could have done, but on the other hand, I've collected inspiration. I'm burning inside of inspiration and would just like to dive into some crazy immersion. This week, school starts for real and I'll move back to my study home - a nice caravan near the sea and the woods. After I've moved I'll be able to create my schedules exactly as I want to, so that's exciting. Kanji count: 508 I clicked into a japanese blog today and got the normal reaction of thinking "oh all these strange characters, I can't believe people can read and understand this stuff". But suddenly I realized that I could recognize most of the kanji, and with the help of a firefox extension pop-up dictionary and some imagination, I could makes sense of some sentences. Wow. The Heisig system really seems to work! I can't wait till I reach 2000.. Actions during the past week Never really got the time to write the russian journal, as I wanted to devote the free days to japanese scriptorium instead. My russian studies this week has mostly consisted of listening to music and audiobooks, looking up unknown words every time I get curious. Music lyrics stick pretty easily in my head, so I think I might want to collect more music in other languages. I've also done some japanese LR, and realized that I don't really enjoy the voice of the reader. Her voice is soft and sweet and lovely and all that, it's just that it sounds the same through the whole book - no matter what character is speaking. I think I need a slightly more theatrical reader in order to keep my interest up. So, to sum up this week. I'm in great need of collecting new and interesting materials. And since my life will be more scheduled now, I want to start logging hours as well. Current plan Collect new materials! Read read read in russian. Write a new russian journal. Do russian or/and japanese LR. Continue to study the kanji. ----------------------------------------------------- Team K - M. Medialis [/QUOTE] Edited by M. Medialis on 24 January 2010 at 11:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6358 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 18 of 115 31 January 2010 at 5:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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TAC Log nr 5/52
Alright. Things are getting exciting. I got a crazy idea early this week, which has affected the direction of my inspiration. I suddenly started to seriously consider the opportunity to study one year abroad - and I started to wonder if I perhaps could aim for getting into the Tokyo or Kyoto university (may sound completely ridiculous, but the exchange program of my university makes it very possible). Well, that's the idea, and I know I may change my mind. But if I actually would do it, I have ~18 months to get to advanced fluency in japanese. (I can't help to think of our grand master Khatzumoto..) Alright. So I will do an experiment with LR, scriptorium, passive listening and srs and see how far I can get in one year. If I've reached far enough, I may apply for an exchange year. If personal circumstances or other ideas get in the way, I will have learnt a lot of the coolest language in the world, so why not? :) New japanese plan So, I hereby modify my priorities slightly. Aiming to get to basic fluency and beyond in japanese before the end of this TAC. As a mid-checkpoint, in august, I want to have reached a level where I can benefit from having a real-life language exchange with a japanese student. Kanji count: 636 Actions during the past week Have started to LR Kokoro by Natsume Sozeki, and I simply love it. It really has captured me, and the actor who reads it really makes the characters come alive. When I'm in situations where I cannot read, I've started to listen to japanese audio, trying to visualize the words I hear in hiragana or kanji in real-time - some sort of mental script-shadowing. I hope this can help me to be set free from my internal romanization of the language, and possibly also aid my future fluency. This can probably also make my passive listening more effective now when my understanding is limited. So, on top of that I've been watching anime, listening to japanese radio and practicing kanji. This has been a japanese week. Current plan Continue to study the kanji. Find a way to get japanese text into my cell phone. Do alot of japanese LR on the train, and do at least 4 hours of scriptorium. Log hours. ----------------------------------------------------- Team K - M. Medialis [/QUOTE] [/QUOTE] 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 5557 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 19 of 115 01 February 2010 at 10:12am | IP Logged | |||||
Not crazy at all; it's a brilliant idea! :) I spent 3 months living in Tokyo and studying at Nihon University, and then travelled from beautiful tropical Okinawa all the way up through the length of Japan to end up snowboarding and chilling out in onsens in Hokkaido. Best time of my life, I could spend ages just chatting about it over an ice-cold brew of Asahi and a plate of takoyaki! I have several good Swedish friends from Stockholm University who actually landed funding to stay there for over a year (the beauty of the Swedish education system, lucky sods) and they utterly loved the experience too. Be warned though...two English colleagues of mine did exactly the same and returned with a Japanese wife as well ;) Seriously though...it's a great idea, and kanji is the key...so keep it up with the Heisig, and if you can, you've really got to get your hands on a laminated kanji wall poster (kanjiposter.com). I find it's so cool to mark off daily progress on the wall - das ist der absolut Hammer! If you need any advice about Japan or want to hear some interesting stories sometime, just feel free to drop me a line. Edited by Teango on 01 February 2010 at 10:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6358 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 20 of 115 03 February 2010 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
Teango: Wow. Thanks for the encouragement! It's cool that you've been to Japan. I'd love to hear about your experiences, but I think I save it to a day when my inspiration needs a boost. :)
Hahahha. That last line actually made me slightly scared. Well, in a somewhat positive way.. ;D ;D Well, after having read your last post, and discussing it with my family, I've decided to make this announcement to the whole world (which equals this forum): I, M. Medialis, hereby declare that I will go All Japanese All The Time. Earplugs in, silence has left the building! (this obviously means that japanese has moved up a notch, aiming for advanced fluency in 18 months, while french and russian are set on low priority since I can't see any immediate use for them). Time to do some serious LR. Japanese, here I come! Edited by M. Medialis on 03 February 2010 at 10:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Kubelek Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal Joined 6853 days ago 415 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 21 of 115 04 February 2010 at 12:04am | IP Logged | |||||
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Careful mate ;)
I was an exchange student in the US when I was 16. That was around 5 years ago. I'm still with an American girl I met in French 101 there. I feel almost like a part of your team. I enjoy your logs, because your study methods are similar to mine. Unfortunately my next semester looks like it's going to be intense. Hopefully I won't turn into a mere supporter of other TAC contestants. Take care. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6358 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 22 of 115 09 February 2010 at 12:24am | IP Logged | |||||
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TAC Log nr 6/52
This has been a perfect week in all aspects, except that I've been so much into the TAC that I've almost neglected my university studies. Well, I'm not really far behind yet, but I definitely must catch up. I got a great feeling when watching subtitled anime today. Doing LR has taught me to listen to the details in the speech at the same time as I read the translation. I don't think I would have been able to do that one year ago. Kanji count: 795 I am currently trying to rely less on the verbal stories and use abstract associations more when learning new kanji. It will be interesting to see the result, which will be evident after some weeks of SRS reps. I actually think I've begun loving SRS.. Actions during the past week Last monday, the train was 2 hours late and I heard people swearing all around me on the platform. Well, I was probably the only one smiling, as that gave me 2 extra hours to LR. As a TAC:er, I can actually enjoy waiting for trains! So it's been alot of LR on the train rides every day, and as much passive listening I can stand (which is about 4-6 hours a day before I get stressed). I've found that I can have one of my earphones in on low volume while attending lectures, without losing focus. -But that may change when the course material gets harder.. I still find it extremely hard to log hours when I LR. I think I did 4-5 hours this monday and tuesday and somewhere around 2 hours the other days, but I quickly lose track of time when it gets scattered throughout the day. And I've come to the conclusion that I'm still not ready for japanese scriptorium. I did one hour, but it felt like swimming upstreams. I think I'll try to devote 30-45 minutes/week to scriptorium, and only use those sessions to track my progress. Current plan Continue to study the kanji. Continue doing LR on the train, and as often as possible during the days. Get the book "Jekyll and Hyde" at a library (or simply buy it). Do 30-45 minutes of scriptorium. ----------------------------------------------------- Team K - M. Medialis Edited by M. Medialis on 09 February 2010 at 12:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6358 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 23 of 115 19 February 2010 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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TAC Log nr 7/52
Well. I haven't done very much the last 1.5 weeks, except that I've taken the opportunities to LR on the train, and some at home. But piano practice and course work have simply stolen my time and inspiration. But fear not! I'm ready to get back on track. This weekend I'll go to my parents house where I have no internet download restrictions - so at last I get the chance to fill my cell phone with new, fresh japanese content! That will probably be enough to restart my engines. (From my piano playing, I know that taking a couple of days off really can do wonders with my progress. But I wouldn't want to do it more often than perhaps once every second months). Kanji count: 875 Actions during the past week Finished LR Kokoro by Natsume Soseki four days ago. It was a great book, and I'm still deeply touched. I miss the book....need to find more good LR literature. I'm also experiencing an early stage of natural listening where I sometimes naturally can feel where the words are supposed to be when I LR. it feels like my brain is slowly straightening out, picking up more and more of the grammar, sounds and structure of the language. It's a wonderful feeling, and I feel sorry for everyone who hasn't experienced it. ;) Thanks to this, my vocabulary is naturally increasing every day, and I think I understand 10-30 % of the texts I'm LR-ing. But I'm still lagging behind quite a few seconds from hearing a sentence until I can sort it out and automatically interpret it. Heh, Does anyone here understand what I'm talking about? Did scriptorium again the other day, and realized that it's not as hard as it was 3 weeks ago. Current plan Get back on track with the kanji. Fill my cell phone with japanese content. Create habits of listening to japanese radio while doing course work. Seriously. I need more things to LR.. Do 30-45 minutes of scriptorium. ----------------------------------------------------- Team K - M. Medialis Edited by M. Medialis on 19 February 2010 at 4:21pm 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 5557 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 24 of 115 19 February 2010 at 6:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
Don't worry, I'm even worse, my output's almost fallen off the radar recently. I guess the main thing here is to dust ourselves off and get back on the horse as soon as possible. Don't lose the muse! ;)
Superb - that's the Medialis I know! I need a full tank of gas and a jump-start myself haha :) Incidentally, kanji number 875 in my version of Heisig is "restore", which is quite appropriate considering your planned restoration to full-throttle kick-ass study next week...good luck with this! It's great to hear you're making some excellent progress in Listening-Reading. As that LR ball starts rolling and gaining more and more momentum, this feeling for the language and ability to pick up new vocabulary becomes even stronger...it's all very rewarding. Regarding Japanese literature suitable for LR, I know there's plenty of good stuff out there. I've got Breaking into Japanese Literature on my shelf, which has parallel text, kana notes over new kanji, and free MP3s that can be downloaded over the Internet. I've also come across several great sites in the past, as well as various useful posts on this forum from time to time. Siomotteikiru (aka nandemoii) provided an impressively extensive list of Japanese resources a few years back, along with some other posts - worth checking out. If I remember or come across any others, I'll of course let you know :) Edited by Teango on 19 February 2010 at 6:33pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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