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Japanese from scratch TAC 2015 東亜

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kujichagulia
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 4844 days ago

1031 posts - 1571 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Portuguese

 
 Message 1489 of 1702
15 October 2014 at 7:19am | IP Logged 
I saw what you wrote in the koohii forums about the script dying after 170 or 200 images or so. I used to use a plugin for Anki called AwesomeTTS or something like that, which would download text-to-speech for languages from the Google Translate website. The plugin worked great, but after so many queries, the Google servers would cut off the downloads. I guess Google is afraid of bots raiding their servers. So the author of the plugin inserted a code into the plugin to make downloading pause for a few minutes after a certain number of downloads, and then resume later. Perhaps that is what is happening with that images code as well.

Be careful with that. With the TTS plugin, before the pause code was inserted, Google would ban the IP addresses (temporarily, I think) of the computers on which AwesomeTTS was used and was downloading too much too quickly. Might be a good idea to do a batch of 100 or so, stop, and resume later.
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kraemder
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Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese

 
 Message 1490 of 1702
15 October 2014 at 4:52pm | IP Logged 
Of course people raid their servers. It's Google. Yeah I don't know anything about
the scripting language or I'd have added a delay when I saw it stopped working to see
if that helped. I'm not too worried about being banned from Google but I suppose
anything is possible.
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kraemder
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 Message 1491 of 1702
20 October 2014 at 6:37am | IP Logged 
Well I got a copy of the core deck with pictures for every word. And I'm using that for my vocabulary now. I'm
testing both ways - but giving priority to production over recognition. I know I flip flop on that a lot but I seem
to enjoy studying it this way more than recognition and feel more confident in recognizing it when I hear it
which is really what's important. I'm not so confident in passing the N2 this year. Korean is definitely a part of
that but I still like the class a lot so I don't regret it. There's always next year I guess. I am studying still though
and undoubtably my Japanese is better than it would be if I hadnt signed up for this.
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dampingwire
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4662 days ago

1185 posts - 1513 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian*, French
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 1492 of 1702
20 October 2014 at 8:18am | IP Logged 
kraemder wrote:
I'm not so confident in passing the N2 this year. Korean is definitely a
part of
that but I still like the class a lot so I don't regret it. There's always next year I
guess. I am studying still though
and undoubtably my Japanese is better than it would be if I hadnt signed up for this.


Sounds like you are making great progress. I'm sure you'll be fine this December. I think
that Korean has JLPT-like exams too BTW :-)

Edited by dampingwire on 20 October 2014 at 8:21am

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kraemder
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 Message 1493 of 1702
26 October 2014 at 12:19am | IP Logged 
Thanks for the support but I'm not too happy with the progress. Korean is taking up too much time. Going forward, I don't think I want put myself in a position where I -have- to study two languages at once. Like having a Korean class with tests and homework and a JLPT test that is above my current ability and I have to improve myself if I want to pass.

I know why I decided to do it. JLPT is only once a year and I would never get out to socialize if I didn't sign up for a class of some kind. Well I could have signed up for something else I just happen to big a language junkie.

I returned my iPhone 6 today. I tried the 6 plus, it was too big, and ordered the 6 regular but it's also too big. If it were a bit smaller - IE the size of the Nexus 4, it would be awesome but they made it too long on top and I can't reach the top of the screen. If I'm standing up, I don't need such a good grip on the phone so can slide it around and still reach the top but if I'm lying down, and I like to play on my electronic gadgets before I go to sleep so that's about an hour every day, then it doesn't work so well. So I'm going back to the iPhone 5s. I have a huge investment in the app store and I still like iOS more than Android.

Just something to keep in mind if you're thinking about an iPhone but like to do flashcards on your phone one handed like me.

I had the mid-term for my Korean class. I knew it was coming but I didn't know exactly when. I don't know if this is because she speaks English as a 2nd language but she doesn't announce stuff in class. She has Power Point slides and just goes through them and doesn't even read them. So I might space and miss a slide (it's a night class and I work all day and Mondays I'm tired) or read it sort of but it doesn't really click. And then, surprise! there's a quiz or there isn't a quiz or there's a mid-term. I was surprised there was a mid-term last Monday when I showed up. I had studied somewhat since I know from spaced repetition that I need to study something several days over about a week (at least) in order to know it or I'll be a nervous wreck cramming before a test. Well I crammed for 30 minutes before the mid-term. It was completely oral. Which is really unfair to students I think, particularly beginners. Thankfully, the material was very limited so we could really focus on basically memorizing a script. We had to do a conversation with a partner in the class. I got everything down perfectly and didn't mess anything up. Except, after, to my surprise, the teacher asked me something in Korean and I totally didn't expect it. I don't know what she said. I didn't get a 2nd chance to figure it out as my conversation partner translated it for me. I admit, I have to be concentrating to understand Korean if you're saying anything beyond a basic greeting. And it's possible I wouldn't have understood if I were ready - I don't know what she said. As it happens my partner has been studying Korean for a year with Rosetta Stone and frankly, I think he's the strongest student in the class. Even including this korean-american kid who can more or less speak Korean even if his grammar is like a child's.

So on my mid-term I got 4/5 pronunciation and 4/5 on vocabulary. And 5/5 on the other two categories, whatever they are. For Japanese, and now for Korean, when it comes to pronunciation, I just go with the English equivalent sound and don't worry beyond that. So I'm understandable but there's an obvious accent. 4/5 pronunciation I was happy with. But my vocabulary was perfect, except for her random question I wasn't ready for so I'm miffed at that. The result was a 90% so I can still get an A in the course.

For studying Korean vocabulary, I'm mostly using my own flashcards I make that go along with the book. I've found the most effective flashcards are the ones I make using mems from Memrise but I only want to focus on vocabulary for class for now so I'm not using the Memrise sets. I intend to go back to using them after the course ends. The mems help so much I find.

As for Japanese I went back to using Japanese Flash a few days ago. There's a few things that drive me crazy about SRS. The main thing of course being when I have tons of overdue cards. What's so hard about that isn't just the amount of time you have to spend catching up, it's the exhaustion of getting through those reviews. Because if you're behind you're probably getting stuff wrong on the 1st try most of the time. And getting it right can take a few tries. So it's really frustrating. Japanese Flash isn't SRS - it mixes in cards you know well with stuff you don't know so well or are new. Unless you're brand new to Japanese, or studying solely from a set where you don't know any of the vocabulary, you're -not- going to get tons of cards wrong in a row. And this makes studying so much more enjoyable. SRS isn't always a big frustrating monster but when it is, it really stinks.

So I went back to Japanese Flash. The reason I stopped was that the app is no longer updated and the feature to backup your progress doesn't work (with iphones 5 and up I think?). So I can only use it one device. Unless I want to start over. Well, I just sent back my iPhone so I am going to start over on my new phone again. Not the end of the world but annoying. Thankfully the app still works with iOS 8 except for the feature to backup your progress (and download it to another device etc.)

I've looked hard for a generic flashcard app that has a similar learning algorithm. I haven't found one yet. Everything is all SRS now. I was going to try Anki App out however. It was sort of in beta before when I was looking but maybe it's coming along better now. I'd like an app that also allows uploading lists of cards, preferably tab delimited, and audio. And pictures but audio would be more important.

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kraemder
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 Message 1494 of 1702
27 October 2014 at 3:44am | IP Logged 
Several people ask me if it's harder to read Japanese written in romaji and I say that I'm not used to it so maybe just a little but that I'd get used to it quickly. I'm watching this series on Netflix, The Bubble Gum crisis, and the opening theme song song has the Japanese in romaji subs. I think it took me one minute before I was speed reading it with perfect comprehension - faster than I would if it were written with regular kanji I think.

Oh well. Back to the battle against the aesthetically beautiful but stupidly archaic and difficult kanji. I've heard Japanese like kanji because it lets them speed read. Must be nice.
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g-bod
Diglot
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United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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1485 posts - 2002 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 1495 of 1702
28 October 2014 at 6:52pm | IP Logged 
kraemder wrote:
Korean is taking up too much time. Going forward, I don't think I want put myself in a position where I -have- to study two languages at once.


I can totally relate to this. I made the mistake of signing up to a French class at around the same time I signed up to do JLPT N2 and my brain nearly melted. It's one thing to study two languages at the same time, another thing entirely to study two at once to somebody else's standards and timetable. I'm sure I would have found a way if I was still a full time student, but mixing all that up with a day job as well just became unnecessarily stressful.

I would say focus on Japanese until after the exam - but I am biased!
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kraemder
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Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese

 
 Message 1496 of 1702
31 October 2014 at 4:50am | IP Logged 
Am I crazy or did the new iOS introduce the android bug of displaying hanzi fonts instead of proper kanji
ones?

*edit*

I double checked my iPad which I've been using a lot lately since I had sent my phone back.. and the fonts look fine on there although it's the same version of iOS.

I'm bummed right now. Why does Japanese have to be so esoteric that programmers think it's ok to use Chinese fonts instead? They don't even care!

Edited by kraemder on 31 October 2014 at 5:07am



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