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Japanese from scratch TAC 2015 東亜 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5181 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 57 of 1702 27 June 2011 at 1:32am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm wrestling with verbs in the Oxford Japanese Grammar and Verbs and I've gotten a list of 80 kanji for JLPT N4 or N5. I'm not really clear if they're N4 or N5. When looking for learning material for the easiest JLPT around sites seemed to use the two interchangeably. Looking at the requirements for each they're both "Ability to understand basic Japanese." I would guess that the N5 is slightly more forgiving than N4 but they both seem to be oriented towards beginners of the language.
So it seems you're expected to be familiar with 80 kanji to pass this level. I'm starting with that. There's roughly 400 words of vocabulary too and I grabbed someone's list at quizlet. I also got a katakana set of cards for my ipad. I started in on katakana but then neglected it and it's holding me back from using a lot of learning material available. Regarding the kanji, there's lots of pronunciations for each kanji. Well, some more than others. This is obviously a pain. My understanding was that there were 2 readings - old chinese and modern japanese. Turns out some kanji have more. As I have a text to speech program I'm basically letting it decide for me which one I will memorize 1st. I assume it chooses the most common one when it reads it out loud. So I'm learning that along with the English meaning for the root kanji. Hopefully this will put me down the road to not hating kanji =). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| galindo Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5204 days ago 142 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, Japanese Studies: Korean, Portuguese | Message 58 of 1702 27 June 2011 at 3:02am | IP Logged | ||
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Since you dislike kanji, you should view the multiple pronunciations for each character as a blessing in disguise. Because one character can be used to write different words, you don't have to learn so many! The easiest way to learn the readings is to just learn a few words that use the same character, but with a different pronunciation in each one. Good luck with 生!
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| Lasciel Groupie United States Joined 5370 days ago 55 posts - 81 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 59 of 1702 27 June 2011 at 3:11am | IP Logged | ||
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LOL forget 生! Stay with 史, it will never cause you confusion with its one reading. Edited by Lasciel on 27 June 2011 at 3:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5181 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 60 of 1702 27 June 2011 at 10:52pm | IP Logged | ||
Funny that you bring that one up. It was the last one I looked at before bed last night. I think they listed over 20 pronunciations... I was very thankful of my initial plan to just memorize what the TTS program said along with the English! I believe the TTS calls it "se". I can't picture a beginner really trying to memorize all pronunciations from the getgo... Damn. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5181 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 61 of 1702 29 June 2011 at 10:07am | IP Logged | ||
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Still using Flashcards Deluxe. I thoroughly recommend it for the built in (beta) text to speech it does. Simply awesome. Like all flashcard programs it has a spaced repetition setting (along with a few others). Like some other learners I had a tendency to blow through huge amounts of flashcards (IE 1000 cards) and the spaced repetition would have me repeat those cards very quickly... it's not at all manageable. With my new deck I'm taking things a bit more slowly and going through the "due" cards first before hitting new cards. There's options for the spaced repetition and the forums are back up so I plan on figuring out exactly how the formula works so I can adjust it for me.
Also I was taking another look at jFlash an app for ipod/iphone/ipad. Initially I had hit up a set that had 2000 odd cards but exploring it some more they have more useful sets including a JLPT N4 set. The cards they use include kana/romaji and kanji. So they're good. However, there's no sound which is a drawback =/. I do like the romaji though - combined with the kana I'm pretty sure to not mispronounce something or get frustrated over not remembering one of the lesser used characters. Another nice thing about this app is that it includes example sentences (lots of them) along with English translations. Unfortunately I can't read the stinking Japanese sentences yet. I could probably struggle through them using the English translations but the stupid lack of spaces between words makes this just too much of a headache. Ugh. This language requires patience. At least for someone of my language ability. I was looking back at my initial entries here where I talked about not remembering watashi. heh - I am making progress because I sure have that word down pat by god lol. I truly feel like Mark Twain studying the Awful German Language. If you haven't read his language log on that I suggest googling it and reading up. It's hilarious. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5181 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 62 of 1702 02 July 2011 at 8:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Woot. Holiday weekend. I'll definitely get a lot of Japanese in since I have no life. I've just starting watching Bleach on netflix. It's a fun anime series that takes place in modern Tokyo but has a lot of fantasy thrown in. I really like this one supporting character. He's a black dude that stars in the a fictional tv show where he fights ghosts or some such thing. He's completely ridiculous but more than that 50% of what comes out of his mouth is English. Seriously. It varies from whole sentences in English to phrases or just random words but I'm damn sure it's beyond just using tons of loanwords - he's just speaking English. With a nice fat Japanese accent. Japanese isn't supposed to end a syllable with a consonant so when he speaks English if the word ends with a consonant he add's an "uh" sound. Which I find very entertaining =p. Of course this what all of the real English loanwords have in Japanese but as I said he's not speaking Japanese, just English with a fat accent.
Frankly i'm a bit blown away by all the English in Japanese. The borrowing is immense - but only very recent. You totally don't see it in the standard vocabulary like cognates in European languages where the borrowing can go back centuries to latin. But watching anime and what not English is everywhere. Getting more of a feel for the language I can recognize it a lot easier than I used to be able to. And it's just weird thinking of how this character could literally speak 50% English in this Japanese toon and expect to be understood by the target audience without subtitles.. would never happen in the USA. Edited by kraemder on 02 July 2011 at 9:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lasciel Groupie United States Joined 5370 days ago 55 posts - 81 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese | Message 63 of 1702 02 July 2011 at 9:19am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not sure most of the English used in anime is necessarily meant to be understood... some of it's just to sound cool. Some of the voice actors don't even understand what they're saying (which does not help pronunciation methinks...) I haven't watched Bleach in Japanese but most of the anime I've watched doesn't have that much English; just some stock phrases. Now jmusic on the other hand... sometimes I wonder what the point of listening to some of it is when half of it is in Engrish :P
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| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5181 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 64 of 1702 08 July 2011 at 10:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ok. New goal to learn this awful language. I am going to find stuff to read in hiragana or katakana. While I
do know of a converter to translate stuff to hiragana or romaji the translation isn't perfect and with my level unfortunately it seems to just make things too confusing. So I am going to locate stuff actually written in something I have a fighting chance of reading. There's not much out there I know. I did find a site called hiragana times which looks promising and I will check this out over the weekend. I'm going to look for stories too. I understand there's comics with furigana which is an option but I'd prefer just regular stories to start. Children stories would be ok as long as theyre not so dry as watch spot run etc. I hope to make some headway. I'm pretty confidant that reading will actually get my brain more in tune with the grammar and word order so I will get more out of watching tv shows. A side note - an iPad/pod app called accelastudy came out with an update that actually makes the app useful. It includes all native pronunciation and is a vocal program with about 2000 words. So Im optimistic about that. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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