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It Begins - Intensive Japanese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| ryuukohito Bilingual Diglot Groupie Malaysia Joined 6228 days ago 89 posts - 98 votes  Speaks: EnglishC2*, Malay* Studies: French, Japanese | Message 41 of 65 18 January 2008 at 6:08am | IP Logged | ||
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This past week I have been intensely making use of that book I had bought about a week ago: Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar.
The book is great. The vocabulary is limited (and my personal Japanese vocabulary at this point, which is not that big, is still beyond the vocabulary I've encountered in the book), and the sentences are short, so one can get a grasp of them really quickly. Grammatically, each section builds on top each other, so not only do you get a stronger grasp of the grammatical illustrations of each section but you're also learning new ones at the same time, so it's a win-win situation. Also, as the translated sentences are right next to the Japanese ones, it is easy to check for understanding; I've taken advantage of this by making sure that I actively recall a sentence at all times. For example, if I come across three sentences: [sentence 1, in Japanese] - [translation] [sentence 2, in Japanese] - [translation] [sentence 3, in Japanese] - [translation] I'll read the Japanese version for all three, make sure I understand them, then I'll immediately peruse the English versions and try to mentally/orally recall the Japanese translation, as many times as needed until I am able to recall the sentences with ease, and perfectly. I do this on a page-by-page basis. This, I notice, has resulted in my being able to spout forth Japanese far more quickly than I was ever able to in the past few weeks. I will also be making a series of parallel text of Sherlock Holmes over the next few weeks. Once the parallel texts are finished, I shall upload and share them with everyone. They will be in OpenDocument or Excel format, but quite possibly I'll put them on Google Spreadsheets too. --------- In other news, I couldn't resist dabbling with French today. I have that textbook on my shelf, and flicking through it spurred a whole series of feelings, that "arghhhhhhh, I really want to start this now" sensation. But I'm resisting, because although I've heard some French I don't really know enough of how it sounds like, and I do not want to damage my pronunciation at this point. Someday... someday. Just you wait, French (language). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ryuukohito Bilingual Diglot Groupie Malaysia Joined 6228 days ago 89 posts - 98 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Malay* Studies: French, Japanese | Message 42 of 65 26 January 2008 at 8:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have been so busy I could not even attempt anything beyond my daily kanji reviews and random flicks through the pages of Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar. it's frustrating. I hadn't even the time to shadow.
I've covered all of everything in Tae Kim's Japanese grammar guide by now, and though I can't say I know them yet and can employ them at will, I've grasped a gist of how they work -- so all I need now, is time. I am looking forward to my holidays in March, during when I plan to invest at least 10 hours a day in Japanese -- shadowing, reviewing, and speaking (in line with Heinrich Schliemann's method). By now, I've already memorized Natsume Souseki's First Night (from his Ten Nights of Dreams), so I'd like to extend my memory to perhaps a Sherlockian story or two. I've noticed that having memorized the entire story makes it easy for me to 'voice' out a sentence and grasp its meaning, allowing me to focus entirely on the grammar; I hope to repeat this experience thence. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| atamagaii Senior Member Anguilla Joined 6198 days ago 181 posts - 195 votes Speaks: Apache* | Message 43 of 65 26 January 2008 at 9:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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You seem to be serious about it. Here's a little present I made for you.
It's password protected. It's up for you to figure it out. (It's very easy to guess). http://rapidshare.com/files/86923106/_L-R_Natume_Souseki_-_y umezyuuya.7z.html Edited by atamagaii on 26 January 2008 at 9:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ryuukohito Bilingual Diglot Groupie Malaysia Joined 6228 days ago 89 posts - 98 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Malay* Studies: French, Japanese | Message 44 of 65 06 February 2008 at 9:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for the offer, atamagaii, but at the moment I already have enough materials to study with. (Also, I do not have the time to attempt guessing a password-protected file.)
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| ryuukohito Bilingual Diglot Groupie Malaysia Joined 6228 days ago 89 posts - 98 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Malay* Studies: French, Japanese | Message 45 of 65 09 February 2008 at 9:09am | IP Logged | ||
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These days I've been trying my hardest to just keep up with my kanji reviews, as I have little time for anything else what with the abundance of university projects coming along. Sigh. I foresee a holiday in one and a half month's time, and I look forward to it! I will be doing 10-14 hour language studies per day, rotating between Japanese and French (with Japanese being given more priority, of course), and I will peruse the remaining 6 hours for sleep and the other 2-4 hours for social matters :P
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| ryuukohito Bilingual Diglot Groupie Malaysia Joined 6228 days ago 89 posts - 98 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Malay* Studies: French, Japanese | Message 46 of 65 23 February 2008 at 11:02am | IP Logged | ||
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Very happy! For the past few weeks I've been doing my daily kanji reviews, and grammar readings. Been cutting back on the drillings, since I've reserved those for tackling during the holidays. I've been doing some amounts of shadowing as well; I do find Japanese pronunciation to be quite easy. (Usually, what I do is that I soften the English consonants to make myself sound more like a native -- e.g. the English word 'boot', with the hard 't' at the back; I soften the 't' (i.e. I don't really emphasize it, so it sounds like a cross between a 't' and a 'd') and then I add the compulsory 'o'-ish sound; which thence becomes 'boo-to'.)
I had borrowed the translated version of the Densha Otoko novel from the Japanese library I am a member of. I found that I enjoyed the book. (I had slight reservations about the protagonist's... inclinations though, but I shall keep my thoughts to myself.) And today, I visited Kinokuniya, and got for myself Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, in Japanese. I already have the audiobook for for it (performed by a speaker who speaks with a very bassy, and educated, tenor) so I'm looking forward to shadow that; better yet, I find the Harry Potter sentences to be very simple in structure; so, in other words, it'd be easy to extract, digest and reproduce the sentences. But basically, I've stumbled upon one whole novel full of sentences just waiting to be mined, in accordance with the 10,000 sentences AJATT method. I'm excited. Edited by ryuukohito on 23 February 2008 at 11:08am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ryuukohito Bilingual Diglot Groupie Malaysia Joined 6228 days ago 89 posts - 98 votes Speaks: EnglishC2*, Malay* Studies: French, Japanese | Message 47 of 65 08 April 2008 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm back!
The exams are finally over. While I'd like to dive into my language studies right here and right now, it isn't possible as I still have some post-exam priorities to clear up. But once that's done (which, hopefully, would be by the end of today), I intend to begin with my language studies as soon as possible. I'm planning to dedicate 6-8 hours a day with Japanese, and whatever remains (and in between my Japanese language studies) will be dedicated to French. (Estimation: 3-4 hours for that.) I'm planning to take up, and memorize, at least 100 to 200 new words a day. This may or may not include new kanji. I think it's definitely possible. (Stuart Jay Ray mentions that whenever he picks up a new language he goes for a 2000-3000 word vocabulary even in the first week itself.) I'm using both active and passive methods of learning. I'm currently working through the Sherlock Holmes series, and have a collection of parallel texts/kanji lists/word lists for them, printed out nicely. I read, and try to reproduce as soon as I can. (The reproduction in Japanese is guided by the English text -- I'm not trying to reproduce blindly off the top of my memory. The English part helps with the meaning, which, as I've written here, helps with the words and sentences.) Also, in order to spend time effectively, I am utilizing mnemonics extensively. I am also writing down everything. I do not intend to move to Harry Potter yet; I find that it is quite difficult, and I'd rather amass a huge vocabulary first by the above Sherlock Holmes method before I move on to anything else. Also, I am using Understanding Basic Japanese Grammar to get a strong foundation of Japanese sentences. I intend to go out and acquire 'A Dictionary of Intermediate Japanese Grammar' this week or the next too. I intend to be at least fluent, and have a huge vocabulary and be able to write somewhat naturally in Japanese, by the end of 2 months. Edited by ryuukohito on 08 April 2008 at 7:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Thomas Newbie Japan rhinospike.com Joined 6251 days ago 38 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Swedish | Message 48 of 65 11 April 2008 at 5:10am | IP Logged | ||
Where did you acquire the audiobook? I've been thinking about buying the first Harry Potter book in Japanese, but I don't want to do it if I don't have the audio. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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