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TAC Team あ: Luai’s Climb to Trilingualism | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5983 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 41 of 68 15 June 2011 at 9:53pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, I'm struggling with getting enough sleep at the moment and it's quite frustrating on how it impacts your ability to study. I wish I was one of those lucky people who can live on 6 hours a night!
Which textbook are you using for the course? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5829 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 42 of 68 16 June 2011 at 12:10am | IP Logged |
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I'm lucky to be able to get by on just 5 hours, but the more I get, the better I think, so I try to sleep as much as I
can. We're using Genki 2 exclusively. It's a very good course so I'm happy with that. They have all the audio and such available online so the students can listen to it as much as they want. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5829 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 43 of 68 22 June 2011 at 9:35pm | IP Logged |
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It's halfway through the second week. It's definitely gotten a little easier for me to complete all my work and
prepare for class. It's still very difficult and stressful but I'm learning so quickly I can't help but be happy! I just wish I had time for some other things too. ^_^; The sheer amount of time I'm spending speaking Japanese now has helped me to pick out my "problem areas" as well so now I really know what to work on. I still occasionally use the wrong particles (though no where near as badly as the other students, who seem to be randomly guessing) and I have a lot of trouble switching from short form to long form, even within the same sentence, which of course is critical for creating longer sentences in long form. I also have a lot of trouble with numbers. I'm thinking of making some paper flashcards and doing speed-reading exercises with number words (both things like "5,649" and "猫が三匹います" because I need practice with counters too). In terms of pronunciation there's not much for me to work on except intonation. I really don't get the tones. I can hear them but have a hard time replicating them. I'm starting to get a little better though. I also still need a little practice with quickly saying tongue-twister type phrases like "さそってていってたから” which was in our last dialogue practice. I'm slowly getting back on track with RTK. I had let my reps back up and stopped doing new kanji during my French challenge, but I'm now almost done working through my forgotten kanji pile (again) and will begin adding new kanji again, slowly, soon. As for Anki it's going well. I'm adding new words from Genki (mostly words I know the meaning of but not the kanji) and Kanji Oddessey 2001. Last weekend I finally found a little time for French. I completed one more Assimil lesson and one episode of FIA. I've also been keeping up on my Anki reps and I started a new deck for sentences which I'm currently only adding to and not actually using. Most of my sentences are from http://www.french-flashcards.com/index.php although I'm not actually using the website's built-in flashcard system. I hope I'll be able to find more time for French during the week soon. It won't be until next week though because this week I have my midterm and have to study Japanese constantly. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5829 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 44 of 68 22 June 2011 at 9:37pm | IP Logged |
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Oh, there's one more thing I should mention. Lately I've been very faint and often dizzy. I can't connect it to
anything in particular- I don't think I'm dehydrated or not eating enough, I take vitamins so it's not a deficiency (besides which I've been anemic before and it was different), and the only thing I can think of is that it might be sleep deprivation- except I've been more sleep-deprived than this before for longer periods of time without this problem. I'm going to see a doctor about it because it's been happening for long enough to be worrying. Hopefully I can get it sorted out soon- it's really screwing with my study abilities! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5829 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 45 of 68 07 July 2011 at 10:33pm | IP Logged |
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Well, tomorrow is the last day of the first class (Japanese 3) and the next one (Japanese 110) starts Monday. I
have made HUGE progress over the last four weeks. This class has been extremely stressful, draining, and demoralizing, but damn, I have gotten so much better at Japanese, I know I'll be able to look back on this as a worthwhile experience. The biggest problem I'm facing right now, probably, is my health. The dizzy spells I mentioned may, possibly, be hypoglycemia. More over, I'm definitely also sleep deprived, despite getting the same amount as ever; I suspect that the strain on my system right now is just so great that my usual 5 hours is not enough. I'm going to bed earlier, but so far I'm sleeping the same amount and waking up earlier, rather than sleeping longer! Hopefully my body can sort things out soon. ;) As for the potential hypoglycemia, I seem to be fine as long as I 1) eat an excellent breakfast, 2) eat a lot of cheese, and 3) don't go longer than four hours without eating *something*. I can even handle sweets and desserts just fine if I'm following the above. The sleep problem is actually worse than this because a poor night's sleep makes my hypoglycemic spells worse and causes extreme headaches and a nasty crash in the early afternoon, right when I ought to be doing homework or pursuing hobbies. But this is a language log, so, on to my languages: Japanese Obviously I already said I'm making progress here. I want to talk about what's happening outside of class: I'm still chugging away at Anki, with great results. There's not much vocabulary in the Vocab sections of Genki that I don't know, but I discovered there's a lot of great words in the Kanji section that we're not actually expected to learn- they're just examples of the different readings. Of course I've been putting them all in Anki. I'm also adding from Kanji Oddysesy 2001 periodically. I'm up to just over 200 cards and taking a little break from adding new ones, just for a couple days, which should help the number of reviews go down. I add 10 new cards a day. On the Kanji front, I'm still not adding new kanji from RTK. I'm keeping up with reviews just fine, but when I tried adding five new ones a while back, I couldn't recall them at all, so I'm waiting until August, when my classes end, to start again, because there's just too much for me to be learning right now and something has to give. That said, I have to learn the Genki kanji for my class. Although it messes a little with my RTK plans, I don't really mind. A lot of them I already have studied so it's just a matter of learning readings and compound words. As for the others, I find it easy to learn them now that I have a good understanding of how to break them down visually and a general sense of what kanji are like and how the parts work. I just have to be careful not to invent new primitives with their own special significance just to me- that will definitely interfere with my RTK-ing down the line! I'm not getting a lot of native input right now outside of class. Because of my frequent migraines, I'm not watching much anime, and when I do it doesn't really seem any clearer than before. I think I would need to stop using subtitles to clearly gauge how much I'm understanding. That said, I know my grasp of grammar has vastly improved. I hope to start reading soon- probably extensive rather than intensive although when I read I have a tendency to do something somewhere in-between the two. In August, upon finishing the class, I intend to start reading Yotsuba and Doraemon on the recommendation of gsbod. I hope I'll finally be able to make some progress in reading comprehension then, as well as reap the benefits of extensive input. French Sadly my French has gone to pot the last few weeks. I'm not doing anything to maintain it, let alone improve it. There just isn't the time or energy for it. This worries me a little- because I hadn't really gotten that far and I don't want it to stagnate- but I keep reminding myself that it's about time Japanese got such attention and I can go back to French any time I want in the future. In August, when the class ends, I'm going to study all my languages as evenly as I can. In Japanese I'll be doing RTK, Anki, and reading; in French, I'm going back to my previous plan of Assimil, FIA, Anki, and reading. Additionally I'm going to add two things: A sentence deck, and a website that teaches French via song lyrics (lyricstraining.com). The real challenge here is going to be balancing it with my third language... German ... a new language?!?! What am I thinking! I must be crazy! Not only am I starting regular college classes at the end of August, I already have a beginner-level language on my hands, AND I'm moving into a new apartment at the beginning of August, too.... I have a lot on my plate. But German is calling to me. I love this language, I can't wait to learn it, there's a 6 Week Challenge coming up, and most exciting of all, my boyfriend has finally, seriously, committed to learning it with me. He's taking classes in it next semester and wants to be ready ahead of time, and knowing that I'll be studying it with him, supporting and helping him, makes him feel less worried about it. I can't express how wonderful I think it will be for us to have a language we share- even if we never take it past A1 or so (but I think we will). The plan for this (for now) is similar to what I did with French, because it worked. I'm going to start with Michel Thomas and just power right through it quickly. Then I'll start Assimil and whatever else I can get my hands on. I'm looking into different courses. I'm hoping I can find something that uses sentence diagraming, because my boyfriend likes that method, and he's looking to me to find resources for both of us. Besides that I would like something visual, because he's a visual thinker and it might help. Ultimately, I plan to have him try a lot of things and we'll see what sticks best! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5983 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 46 of 68 08 July 2011 at 7:25pm | IP Logged |
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German too? You must be mad... I was just browsing the 6WC thread and thinking "hmmm, maybe..." but I know deep down I must get my Japanese to a higher level first, I just don't have time for both.
Anyway, as your post implies I would wholeheartedly recommend you jump into reading Yotsuba&! It's a pretty easy read, plus the artwork is very cute and I still have moments of feeling incredibly clever when I get the jokes... I'm not so sure about Doraemon though. The two Japanese history volumes I've been reading are ok, but they are more about teaching history through the Doraemon brand. I have a couple of the original Doraemon manga and I've never gotten past the first few pages. The language used is definitely trickier than something like Yotsuba&, plus the stories are just not quite so much fun. クレヨンしんちゃん is also a pretty easy read, but I don't know if it would appeal to your sense of humour. Anyway, sounds like you need to work at taking care of yourself as well as working at your languages. I envy the people on here who can get by on little sleep and thus pack in more hours of language learning, but sleep deprivation really messes me up, physically and mentally, so I try my best to get 7-8 hours a night now. Keeping my sleep patterns regular has also really helped to keep my migraines in check. Although it hasn't cured them completely they are now more of an occasional nuisance than a regular one. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5829 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 47 of 68 10 July 2011 at 7:43pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, the sleep problem is definitely an important thing to work on. I didn't realize you weren't reading the actual
Doraemon manga- I guess I didn't read very carefully! ^_^; I will look for the history books you mention and see if they suit my needs. I downloaded the first 10 volumes of Yotsubato today and read the first few pages. It's definitely in a good difficulty range for me- some stuff is easy as pie, others I can understand after a moment's thought, and others I need to look up a single word to understand the whole sentence. So it's challenging, but not so tough as to be unpleasant. In fact I really enjoyed the bit I read. I'm looking forward to starting it as a regular thing as soon as I have time. I'm currently hoping to devote at least 30 minutes a day to reading in each of my four languages once my classes end- more if I find I have the stamina for it. I downloaded a pack of graded readers for German that I found by chance, and I have about 200 Esperanto e-books sitting in a folder on my desktop, so now I just need to find some good materials for French that are at my level and I'll be set. :3 Today we were told our move-in date for the apartment has been pushed to the 15th, so I'm not going to have to worry about moving during class... but this also means I won't be living with my bf for the first half of the German challenge. I'm not sure what impact that will have. We'll have to study separately. I had hoped I could be near him so I could motivate him more. I fear he won't do it at all if I'm not there to help... well, we'll see. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5829 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 48 of 68 30 July 2011 at 8:48pm | IP Logged |
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Next week is the first week of the 6WC and the last week of my classes! We're wrapping up the last chapter of
Genki 2 and spending the rest of the week focussed on our final projects and prepping for the final, speaking exam, and the presentation of our projects. I've made a huge amount of progress over the last two months. Although I've stopped RTK completely, I've been able to learn a lot of new vocabulary (current Anki card count: 280) and my speaking skills have soared. I have a much, much better grasp of grammar now- nearly automaticised- and when I get into my extensive reading in another week I'm sure I'll cement it even more thoroughly. I also have a better sense of where I'm going. My studies had petered out before because I didn't really know how to approach them, but I know what I'm doing now. I'll be making a big push on RTK while I still have some free time before starting school and then it'll be back to trying to add 3 or 4 new ones a day. I need to get ahold of some nice dramas without subs... I can find anime without subs just fine, but I find the new vocabulary and grammar I've learned shows up more in dramas (at least, one's that aren't high school romcoms or otherwise nothing but casual form and slang) so I'm hoping to find some nice mystery shows or something. So far everything has subs though. Even with the subs, however, I can tell my comprehension has gone up. I wrote earlier (way back in my other log I think) that I can catch between 60-70% of the words in any given drama (less if there's lots of technical talk) but couldn't understand what was being said. Well now I can understand much longer and more complex sentences a lot better, and once again my main hurdle has become.... vocabulary. I need to up the amount of new words I'm learning, and maybe start exploring some more advanced words that relate to my interests. As for German, despite the fact that I'm doing the 6WC for it I don't have big goals in mind. I'm doing 6WC for personal motivation but don't expect to make it very far up the rankings (at least not in my main language; overall I might). I want to make sure my French is in good shape too, so I'm not going to do an all-German-all- the-time thing like I did for the French 6WC. Instead I'm going to be doing every language fairly equally. I'm also going to be pretty busy despite not having class, since I have a lot to do to prepare for moving and for the fall semester, plus I might be going to NYC for a few days. So I'm not expecting a huge amount from myself for this 6WC. I'm hoping in will motivate me to do all that I can though. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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