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Japanese from scratch TAC 2015 東亜 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5982 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 369 of 1702 27 May 2012 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I remember that feeling of frustration too. For a long time, if I looked at proper Japanese text aimed at literate Japanese adults, the one thing that would stick out most to me was the sheer number of kanji that I didn't know. I think I learned how to read and write maybe around 400 kanji (including vocab) before I stopped feeling intimidated by them. These days I tend to find that if I see a kanji I don't know, it usually forms part of a word I don't know (yet) anyway. Naturally, if you study the most frequently used kanji, they turn up in the most frequently used words. So now my perception of "difficult" text is that it is full of words I don't know, rather than difficult kanji (and that applies to new words which are usually written in hiragana too). Vocabulary acquisition is a problem whatever language you study. It just seems like a particularly big problem for English speakers learning Japanese!
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| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6620 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 370 of 1702 28 May 2012 at 9:47am | IP Logged | ||
1200 is probably a bit low, but you also have to remember that a good part of my 2500 words are actually the same word or almost the same word in slightly different forms. For example, if you know that 追う means chase, which I'm sure you do, thanks to Heisig. Then it's not too hard to see that 追いかける has basically the same meaning. There is probably some subtle difference that I don't know about, but that isn't really important in understanding the story. Both can be translated to chase in English. And since those are two of my 2500 words and there are many other pairs like this, 2500 words is perhaps not as much as it sounds. One of the things I've found is that you just have to jump in and read. Don't worry that you barely understand anything, you might find that after a few pages you do understand enough. When I first tried to read, I read word for word trying to understand each word, but when I just read without worrying about understanding everything, it became much easier. Even now, it can take a few minutes before I get into the flow of reading, but after that, it goes well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5184 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 371 of 1702 30 May 2012 at 5:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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Indeed I could guess its meaning based on Heisig. I was just scanning some Japanese text and I found it
interesting how i a sense I could totally read what I was looking at since I knew Heisig for all the kanji. That doesn't really work of course its possibly worse than google heh. I really want to try doing potter but I keep thinking my grammar isn't good enough and I should read my text book instead. I'm sure I'll cave and give it a go soon though. (again) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5184 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 372 of 1702 01 June 2012 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ok I did Potter this morning. I finished chapter 1. I have it on the computer so rikaisama is available and I
use it tons. But I was pleasantly surprised how often my guess at a meaning of a word was correct thanks to Heisig. Especially words with just one kanji in them. I did add tons of words to my Potter vocab deck. I'm going to try using the Leitner method for a bit instead of spaced repetition. We'll see how it goes. It probably won't matter so much. I'd like it a lot if I found it more fun and not so much pressure. I've started in on Chapter 1 of my textbook for next year. I made a deck for all the vocabulary last Sunday and I know most of them already. It was like 120 words or so, some of which I knew or sort of knew already but the majority was new. The theme of the chapter is traveling so I think it's all good vocabulary. I'd like to go to Japan afterall - and even if I don't go, movies and stories often involve a lot of traveling and I also found the kanji use for the vocab interesting. IE 禁煙席 喫煙席. All kanji I've learned from Heisig. The first one prohibition smoke seat and the second consume smoke seat. I guess I like the little differences of how they describle smoking seat as a seat for consuming smoke. The grammar is going slow unfortunately. It's involving suggestions and obligation and prohibition. It's not hard to understand just doesn't stick so well with me. The vocab list at the back of the chapter included some vocab for this used and it seems I get it wrong every time. I read the chapter a couple times but I think I need to do the exercises to make it stick /sigh. I might make some grammar specific flashcards - the ones I made from the vocab are really just vocab cards and could be designed better to make me learn the grammar I think. And I could do the exercises in the chapter. There's an optional workbook you can buy to go with the book. It costs a mere $60. Seems prohibitive for a workbook so I haven't bought it. I didn't buy the one for Yookoso 1 either but I did it in a class and our teacher did in class exercises every day to drill the grammar into us. Not so when working on your own. Optionally I could just wait until the fall to do grammar. Seems like such a waste though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5982 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 373 of 1702 01 June 2012 at 10:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah just reading about grammar on it's own isn't enough for me either. I haven't found a way of making flashcards work well for learning grammar either. Some people like to make lots of flashcards with example sentences, but I find it doesn't work so well for me. I think things that have worked a bit better for me are:
- paying attention when I read or listen to Japanese so that I can pick up what I have studied recently - try to use the grammar patterns in my own example sentences - get my Japanese exchange partner to make some ridiculously memorable example sentences - use Japanese enough that I get into a situation where I need to apply the grammar form I have learned. For the last one, it really helps if I have a strong idea of what kind of situation the grammar is appropriate for, and what kind of English set phrases it equates to. For expression obligations and prohibition, this would mean being prepared for situations where you might have to say "you must" or "you must not". I also practiced saying things like しなければなりません over and over again until it rolls of the tongue, because it's a bit of a tongue twister at first! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5184 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 374 of 1702 02 June 2012 at 2:49am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm going to try the example sentence thing again. I had made some but I was testing myself side 1
Japanese and side 2 English. I only did the set a couple of times so doing it more would be better but I think doing it side 1 English and side 2 Japanese will better duplicate the class I took. And it'll be more of a pain in the butt heh. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5184 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 375 of 1702 02 June 2012 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well doing homework during summer break is a good way to get frustrated for lack of tutors to answer your
questions. I was thinking Lang-8... do I need to write the whole post in Japanese (I could manage with some effort I think) or can I mix it with English? I guess if I don't get a response to the post I just made I'll go redo it all in Japanese.. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6620 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 376 of 1702 03 June 2012 at 9:07am | IP Logged | ||
A lot of people write it in entirely in Japanese and then write what they meant to say in English at the bottom. Which is a good idea since I've seen some entries that are impossible to understand. And don't worry about how simple it is. I've seen plenty of posts that consist of just a couple of sentences and even then they have many mistakes. "Today I eated egg for brekfast. Then I go walks." So, it doesn't matter how short, banal or incorrect your entry is. There is sure to be someone even worse. Edited by Brun Ugle on 03 June 2012 at 9:08am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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