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5 years of 日本語 TAC 13 桜/Schnitzel | ||
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| 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 153 of 436 07 April 2013 at 5:46pm | IP Logged |
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Well, the good news is that after 3 weeks of completely avoiding Japanese, I haven't (completely) broken it. I Skyped my exchange partner today for the first time in about a month. I warmed up beforehand by watching an episode of a TV drama, which was enough to ensure that my comprehension was as good as it's ever been. Speaking, while not on top form, was still what I would consider adequate. I got stuck a few times, but learned a few new words as a result. So I feel a lot more confident about moving Japanese into maintenance territory, with an emphasis on listening/speaking over reading/writing, and really going for it with German.
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| 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 154 of 436 08 April 2013 at 11:16pm | IP Logged |
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I've updated my Sharedtalk profile to include German as the main language, and I've even written a short (and probably terribly grammatically wrong) introduction in German too. I haven't actually tried to chat to anyone in the language yet, but it's a step forward!
I'm onto lesson 16 in Assimil's active wave now and it's starting to throw in the cases now. I've already made some really stupid mistakes with the accusative, and I'm sure I'll make many more as the course progresses! I also decided that since I'm not going to be studying my textbook with my husband any more, there's no point completely going over the first chapter again. I've mined what's left of chapter 1 for vocabulary, plus the first couple of sections of chapter 2, and plan to pick up roughly where I left off before my holiday tomorrow. After playing around with Memrise I've decided to revert back to Anki. I've also upgraded to Anki 2. I'm so glad I didn't do it when I was trying to stuff my head with Japanese pre-JLPT N2, as I think it would have been quite traumatic. As it is, I'm still feeling around for the boundaries of what and how I want to drill German, so getting used to the new setup is not so painful because I don't quite have a routine yet anyway. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4848 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 155 of 436 09 April 2013 at 8:15am | IP Logged |
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Seems like a lot of people are dumping Memrise. I heard somewhere that there are some problems with the site, too.
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| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5185 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 156 of 436 09 April 2013 at 8:23am | IP Logged |
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I guess I missed where you stopped studying German with your husband. 残念です。How do you like
anki? I rather like the new version but like you said, I'm so used to my original srs program that learning a new one is really a pain. And it doesn't do everything as well. Was there something about memrise that you didn't like in particular? Personally I like my srs app the best because I have more control over how I study. 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 157 of 436 09 April 2013 at 9:53am | IP Logged |
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Well the only thing I really didn't like about Memrise is that since it's web based only, I just don't trust it not to disappear, taking my data with it!
And yeah, as for studying with my husband, it took him all weekend to finally decide he didn't want to study together with me any more, which was really annoying! Grr. Well, I think maybe he has to figure it out on his own anyway. But he's convinced he sucks at learning languages just because he doesn't get everything straight away. Plus he's really struggling with pronunciation, which was the cause of our row in the first place. He seems quite self conscious about attempting sounds that don't exist in English. The thing is I tried to explain to him that it's important. It's ok to have trouble with one sound, but if you have trouble with three or four and consistently replace them with alternatives from your own language it can make it difficult for other people to understand you. But I guess it wasn't something he wanted to hear or understand and he just took it as criticism and, well, it didn't work out. I guess I've learned so much from trial and error in the time I've been working with Japanese. So even though we're both near beginners when it comes to German, I already have a headstart in terms of strategy. But I'm a lousy teacher and I'm not very good at explaining things. Well, I didn't want to be 'teacher' in the study sessions anyway, I'm still only at a level I would call 'A1 with benefits' so for me to teach would be totally inappropriate. But as soon as I mentioned the pronunciation thing the mood and dynamic between us changed and I didn't like it. So maybe it's for the best. I hope he works it out on his own though. Even if we can't study together it would be nice if we could share other stuff, like watching TV shows! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5185 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 158 of 436 09 April 2013 at 3:34pm | IP Logged |
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Aww that's too bad. I generally don't get too worried about the pronunciation myself until I find myself in
situations where I'll need to speak it a lot. IE when I went to Germany lol. Then I quickly rued the day I that I thought the ü sound was funny and refused to learn it in high school. Nothing makes up for bad grammar or using funny words in a context better than a good pronunciation. Oh well. If he's interested in German I'm sure it'll work itself out. 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 159 of 436 13 April 2013 at 12:03pm | IP Logged |
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I have discovered a couple of German radio stations which seem to have a similar remit to BBC radio 3. Classical music and culture in German sounds like a wonderful combination so I've been tuning in to see what I can pick up. Assimil has given me a basis on basic verbs, connectors and grammar patterns so once you throw the shared vocabulary on top the radio sounds almost comprehensible. Almost. It's almost too easy just to sit back and listen without taking anything in, so I really need to keep on and do my homework too!
I finally got round to reading one of the graded readers I bought last year when I was just flirting with German. It's one of the Lernkrimis published by Cornelsen for A1/A2. I have to say I was rather disappointed by it. It was level appropriate, but the story was not exactly spannend. I think even sticking to that level of language they could have done better... It certainly wasn't worth what I'd paid for it. Well, it's back to doing my homework again, so I can get on and start reading real books! 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 160 of 436 13 April 2013 at 7:34pm | IP Logged |
I have gone and bought myself a new language learning tool which I think will really help me to keep track of grammar notes. Behold, the whiteboard!
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