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日本語 and me the next round TAC 2012 Team い | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5984 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 329 of 333 31 December 2012 at 3:53am | IP Logged | ||
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I've done it! I've finished reading all of the stories in レキシントンの幽霊. And the あとがき. I've finally finished reading a whole proper book (rather than a children's one) in Japanese. I guess the next challenge will be to read a whole proper novel, but I think that can wait until 2013 now!
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| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5984 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 330 of 333 31 December 2012 at 2:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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It’s the last day of 2012 and the time has come to sum up, reflect on the year, and close this log. Thanks to everybody who has given up some of their time to actually read some of the nonsense I wrote here. Many more thanks to those of you who were kind enough to contribute with friendly words of advice and support.
I would also like to say a big well done to all of my Team い team mates who saw out the challenge until the end of the year. Some of you have made some really impressive progressive in your target languages, which has been very inspirational, and each one of you “TAC Survivors” is a winner, as far as I am concerned, regardless of the outcome of the voting. In short, 2012 has been an amazing year for me. I started off my log with the brazen claim that :
Well, a friend convinced me to put my money where my mouth was, I sat N3 in July and passed. The same friend then somehow convinced me to aim for N2 and I attempted the test in December. I don’t think I passed this time, but my proximity to N2 level has moved from “a long way to go” to “within reach”. Edit: Turns out I was wrong about that - I passed! But many more important and exciting things have happened than simply taking tests. I had my first real face to face conversations in Japanese with people outside of a classroom environment and made friends with people that I would never have been able to connect with were it not for my learning the Japanese language. I progressed from being able to read simple manga with furigana at the start of the year (e.g. よつばと, クレヨン しんちゃん) to reading a book of 村上 short stories aimed at adult readers in its entirety in December 2012. More than just reading, I found myself really touched by some of the stories in a much more personal way than just the mere intellectual excitement of being able to understand something in a foreign language. But to be touched directly by the words of a writer in his native tongue, without being passed through the filter of a translator, is certainly a very special thing. I have switched English subtitles off for good, as my listening has improved to the extent that I can follow many TV dramas without needing them. A side effect of this is that my listening seems to improve even more, now that I have a steady source of comprehensible input from native materials. Of course some shows (like the linguistically awesome Tiger and Dragon), films, and especially podcasts (I think it’s the lack of visual clues to assist with context) are still too difficult for me, but that just means I’ve still got lots of exciting things to tackle in 2013, possibly with the help of Subs2SRS, my most exciting discovery this autumn! When I started out this year, I made the comment that I always seem to judge myself on my weakest skill, which was, and I have to say still is, speaking. However, I have come to understand that as a language learner, I value my own passive skills an awful lot more than active skills. This applies both in the comfort of my own home country and also on the occasions when I have ventured out into the European mainland, which I was lucky enough to be able to do twice this year. I guess the value of Japanese passive skills when I’m sat in my home in the UK is obvious. All I have to do to get the opportunity to use them is put on a TV show or pick up a book, and I get a great amount of enjoyment from doing either of those things. I can’t just pick up a native speaker with such ease, unfortunately! But even when I was in a foreign country and having to try and get by as a tourist with my rusty French and fledgling German, I realised that I found it far more annoying (or frustrating, or even stressful) not to be able to understand what was going on around me than it was to not be able to express myself elegantly (or clearly, or even comprehensibly). Obviously speaking is fun. Connecting with someone in their native language can be such an uplifting experience, especially if alcohol and/or good humour is involved. But I think there is a limit to what I can do with Japanese to improve my speaking as long as it remains a hobby language, because of a sheer lack of opportunity to talk regularly with different people. But my conclusion is, at the end of this year, that I am ok with this. The whole world of Japanese TV, cinema and literature is starting to open right out in front of me and I am so excited about the chance to explore this further. The speaking skills I do have are just lying in wait for any opportunity I can get to use them. I guess I need to spare a paragraph or two on my rusty French and fledgling German, as mentioned above. To tell the truth, I studied too hard and too narrowly in preparation for the N3 exam (I did not make the same mistake prior to taking the N2), and by the time I had sat the test I was so fed up of Japanese study that I took a break. Then I booked myself a holiday to Germany and started studying the German language. After all, how else would a language geek take a break (except I think most self respecting language geeks probably have some German skills already). Anyway, I had a wonderful introduction to the German language, I certainly fell in love with Germany and I think I would have fallen in love with German too, but as it was I started missing Japanese too much and eventually my study of German tapered off. I also discovered a lot of great German music, and bands like Die Toten Hosen and Die Ärzte still regularly brighten my day even though I am not studying German right now. I then made one of the biggest mistakes of my linguistic life and decided to sign up for a French evening class at the same time as registering to sit JLPT N2. Trying to reawaken my latent B1 French while at the same time pushing my B1 Japanese forward for the sake of passing the test did not work out, and I got my first real experience of “interference”. I learned that if I spend some time immersing myself in using one language, I then have to spend some time “warming up” the other language. As I had already spent money on both the class and the test, I was determined that I couldn’t coast in either, but the only outcome of this was that I felt I was permanently “warming up” either my French or my Japanese, making progress in neither, and furthermore just feeling stressed and exhausted and guilty about wasting the money. I signed up to the 6WC with French thinking that perhaps if I could keep track of my hours and languages I could somehow make sense of it all, but in the end I dropped French completely and spent over 100 hours on Japanese (and loved every minute of it!). This doesn’t mean that I intend to be a one-language-only person who is terrified of interference ruining my Japanese experience. I am not averse to the idea of trying two languages at once again sometime next year, and with a longer term view I am very keen to get more familiar with some of the languages of my European neighbours. But what I will not do again is make two competing language commitments (i.e. spend a load of money to put myself in a position where I am to be assessed on my skills by an external organisation) at the same time. So that’s it for 2012. The story continues with my TAC 2013 Log Edited by g-bod on 31 January 2013 at 8:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4634 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 331 of 333 01 January 2013 at 9:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Nice conclusion of your year! You've progressed well and we can see that clearly here.
Just continue enjoying your study and as you said, the day you'll have opportunities to speak Japapanese regularly will definitely come ! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5186 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 332 of 333 02 January 2013 at 3:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Nice summary. I like yours better than mine XD. And I think you did great studying Japanese and I look forward to reading your journal again this year.
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| Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6554 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish | Message 333 of 333 02 January 2013 at 9:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Even though I'm not studying Japanese I've enjoyed reading your log this year. Good luck in 2013!
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