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Sunja’s Newspaper/TV Challenge --TAC 09 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes  1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 209 of 232 08 September 2009 at 12:04pm | IP Logged |
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I'm doing worksheet chapter 8today.
I did a JLPT 3 kanji practice test at the MLC website. I got 90% of the questions correct. Judging by my earlier quizzes at this level my ability has not changed, but then again, I haven't been actively trying to memorize kanji. I've only used a handful of them in my writings and I've been reading them passively.) I want this benchmark to show whether my kanji reading level improves after about a month of doing these worksheets (from level 1, first book). I want to do these worksheets to dig a little deeper into this range (JLPT4-JLPT3) before I move farther into more advanced vocabulary. It should only take about two months. Then I can see where I am in terms of reading comprehension. I'm shadowing, reading outloud at the same time -- sort of a two-pronged attack at improving my over-all skills. EDIT: JLPT Kaji Practice Test . The answers are at the MLC website under all that great free stuff. Just keep scrolling.. Edited by Sunja on 08 September 2009 at 12:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 210 of 232 09 September 2009 at 10:46am | IP Logged |
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I'm doing worksheet chapter 9 today.
I just wrote a reply message to Tomomi. I'm asking her for a homemade chicken ramen recipe (as "homemade" as you can get with ramen. My family had to order just the plain noodles in order to get them without all the little msg. packets.) she's telling me about Francfranc, a very IKEA-looking Japanese store for stylish household decorating things. Look how much English they use! I have to write mails to Kana, Yuka and Yukari at some point. Look what Kana gave me. (I'm going through her email right now.) we were talking about typing, and she gave me the order of keys on a Japanese keyboard. Of course, it's not like you can't just google "Japanese keyboard" and not find a picture of it on the internet...well, it's kinda cool to hear her talk about it.. top: Qた/Wて/Eい/Rす/ Tか/Yん/Uな/Iに/Oら/Pせ middle: Aち/Sと/Dし/Fは/Gき/Hく/Jま/Kの/Lり/れ/け' bottom: Zつ/Xさ/Cそ/Vひ/Bこ/Nみ/Mも/ね/る/E3/ろ (my penpal wrote) I have never thought about why the keyboard orders like this. As you can see above, each key has Hiragana as well as English alphabet, so there’re 2 ways of typing Hiragana with Japanese keyboard. If you type “ha”, it changes to “は” automatically (This is what you do when you write to me, don’t you? ). Another way of typing is just to type “は” button. It might sound much easier as all you’ve got to do is to push only one button, but I guess there’re few people to do this. This keyboard order might be good for us, Japanese, who push 2 or 3 buttons for one hiragana, since 5 vowels that we use pretty often are separated on 2 sides. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 211 of 232 09 September 2009 at 10:57am | IP Logged |
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oh, oh, check this out-- this is much more interesting. I asked her about he Japanese glottal stop awhile back and here's some great examples
(my penpal wrote:) はやっ！（^^;）(早い) When I get a very quick email response on my phone or when my husband comes back home much earlier than usual. マジッ？！！(really?!) It comes from the word “ほんと?/ マジメに（言ってる）？”. When you’re surprised. わっ！It’s just like English “Boo!” or when you’re frightened or surprised. いたっ！（痛い!!） あつっ！（熱い!!） こわっ！（怖い!! / 不気味(ぶきみ）) These words listed above are sometimes too casual, so you’d better be careful who you’re talking to. You said that to pronounceすっっっっごく is hard? When you pronounce it, you hold the breath and the base of your tongue and uvula is closed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 212 of 232 16 September 2009 at 5:19pm | IP Logged |
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I've been trying to get back into French, which is why I haven't been logging in. I had mostly listened to Lessons 1-38 (or so) of my Assimil Französisch Ohne Mühe, and discovered that I have a great ear for mimickry, but I can't really dissect any of the words from the context. I can shadow every sentence but sometimes I'm left asking myself, "what did I just say?" Major word power is needed. I've been trying to memorize the whole bleedin' Assimil glossary with Anki and wordlists.
I'm experimenting with the Iversen's lists to see what works best and I've decided on colored card stock. I cut a strip of one color and place it vertically in the middle of the other color. That's my translation column; both side columns are French. Red and blue cardstock is quite an eye-sore. I think looking into the sun would be preferable to most people, so to remedy that I've taken a white sheet of paper and cut a sentence-sized window. I use that window to focus on one line at a time. I've also put the most hard-to-recall words in Anki. To be on the safe side. That's my French experiment. I've just finished catching up on two of my emails. I have another two waiting in the wings. I'm a bit behind on my Japanese worksheets due to printer problems. I'm currently on #13, and I really need to review 1-12, but I've been so busy with my French vocab. That means I have to prioritize things a bit. In order siphon all my free time into my studies I don't plan on logging in more than once a week, at most. That way I won't run the risk of getting locked in here, where time just seems to stand still as I read, read, read other peoples' posts. I imagine all those minutes being used for French -- well. enough said. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 213 of 232 23 September 2009 at 11:14am | IP Logged |
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Japanese:
I have one email that I need to translate and my printer is working again, so I can starting printing out those worksheets. I'll try to catch up before the weekend. I've been really busy with work this week. Goal for Saturday: review all worksheets 1-13. Use the scriptorium technique for 2-3 dialogues. Respond to tomomi's email. French: currently reviewing lessons 1-22 of Assimil. I haven't been to Anki in two days. I'm heading there now. Goal for Saturday: reach the end of where I left off at the beginning of the summer. That should be at lesson 32. Get through half of the glossary with Anki and wordlists. basically I'm trying to get caught up so that I can begin some new material on Saturday. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 214 of 232 25 September 2009 at 10:13pm | IP Logged |
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I'm having to regroup for Saturday.
I've started building a cabinet for my bathroom sink (strange plumbing = customization) and this little carpentry project is taking up all my study time. I should probably --sink-- more time into my studies *chortle*. Sorry. Japanese: I've made it through some 160 flashcards, vocab from worksheets 1-13. I went from English to kanji and surprised myself. I was able to recall most of them well. Most of them I didn't even have to think twice. Been there, learned it. So -- onward! The problem is I have 3 emails that I haven't even looked at. I have to translate them, correct the English (my explanations are quite lengthy; I'm surprised they haven't dropped me yet) and I have to formulate something for my studies. I've learned a couple of new constructions that are used a lot, so I think I'll try to get some practice with those. I've ordered yet another book. I'm not able to invest the time necessary to learn from my Kanzen Master series. What with penpals and worksheets and my renewed French endeavor, there's just not enough hours in the day. So I've downgraded myself to a book that's supposedly not quite so challenging as Kanzen Master. I'm hoping to catch a spark with it and hopefully ignite some of that passive, latent knowledge that keeps getting pushed aside by life. Steady but sure. I just have to organize a course around the kids, the job, ...the bathroom sink. French. I'm still working on lessons 20-23. It will go fast. I just have to sit down and do it. The time with grammar is crucial. I'd like to get into another groove like I did last weekend. That was sweet. I learned a lot. Tonight is lost. I just got off work and all I wanna do is watch an episode of Star Trek : La Nouvelle Génération. The ones from the UK have the French language option. Great fun! I've seen them a painful number of times in English so the subtitles are not necessary. Only-- I like to have the French subtitles. What they say is not always the same as the titles but it's still discernable. Edited by Sunja on 25 September 2009 at 10:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 215 of 232 27 September 2009 at 5:23pm | IP Logged |
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I've updated my profile and added French and deleted Spanish. Now I see "Spanish" is a tag word in my log. Hmm. I guess I have to pick Spanish up again!
Well. The day's not over yet but I have to really nail these last few remaining hours of the day. I've been terribly lazy this weekend and I've already spent too many hours here, enjoying all the cool new stuff the admin is creating for the site. It would be nice to upgrade myself but I just bought a new (rather expensive) Japanese book + Hallenschuhe for my daughter so she can do sports -- And that was my paycheck for the month of October (T.T) Any thoughts of a membership will have to wait. There's always somethin'. I'm up to reviewing chapter 25 in my Assimil book. I've gotten into a pretty good grammar groove. I'm very carefully going over every bit of the text, making sure that I understand every single thing. I still need to do Anki and input as many new words from the glossary as I can. This really helps. The words ressonat sooo much more meaning when I've studied them prior to coming across them in my Assimil lessons. (Funny, it's what I always tell my students, "read the vocabulary before you read the text". Why didn't I take my own advice from the beginning? It's like night and day. I figure the faster I can memorize this glossary the faster I'll get through these lessons. I might actually make my TAC goal for French! I expect a major hill once I get off the beginner slope. To extend the metaphor, I hope I don't get snowed-in. I won't be making my tack goal for Japanese. Oh, I shouldn't say that. There's all kinds of things that could happen that would enable me to find more time to study and I could miraculously do it. 明日は雪だね Nope- I have to stay positive to the very end. Otherwise I might as well give up now. My penpals seem to like what I do -- even though it's almost never correct the grammar mistakes are minor and they understand well what I want to get across. Let's say I'm satisfied with my ability to look up words. What's disappointing is my reading level. These worksheets should help with that. My listening comprehension is probably where it should be. okay, okay. How many hours do I have left? *grimace* I'd better get to it... Edited by Sunja on 27 September 2009 at 5:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6085 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 216 of 232 29 September 2009 at 8:40pm | IP Logged |
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Chapter 15 sentences I'm putting into Anki tonight. There's only seven, but the typing is slow. I'm going from English to Japanese. I have to read the sentence in English and translate into Japanese -- and write the proper kanji. I've added this kanji-writing additional challenge to help me improve my reading level.
I've written Tomomi and tomorrow I have to write Mariko. She was on holiday and wrote me something really long. It will take some time to process. I'm 5 days late to respond so it's priority #1 when I get back to my computer tomorrow. They've had 敬老の日 in Japan. She translates it to "Silver Week" which is from 和製英語 Isn't that pleasant?^^ Wiki calls it Respect for the Old Aged. Anyone want to know about Japan and how they throw away their garbage? Straight from Mariko: First of all, here's what I wrote, describing the German separation of garbage: 黄色のリサイクルコンテナは、アルミホイル のゴミで、茶色のリサイクルコンテナは、コ ンポストのゴミで、青いリサイクルコンテナ は、紙のゴミです。グレーのリサイクルコン テナは、"rest garbage" です。電気料金とガスもたかくなるので、エ ネルギーを無駄にしないようになります。日 本でエネルギーはも高いですか? Here's Mariko, talking about ゴミの分別 the Japanese separation of garbage (drum roll?) 日本はエネルギーはさほど高くはありません 。しかし、ゴミの分別は同じく厄介です。そ れも地域によって全く違うので、大変です。 祖母は鎌倉に暮らしていますが、ノート一冊 を捨てるにも、表紙と裏表紙は硬い紙なので 分けなければならないし、ノートを止めてい る針金も取らなければなりません。 それに比べて私が暮らす、埼玉県の和光市( �こうし)は燃えるゴミとプラスチックゴミ � ��ン、缶を分ければいいだけです。 ゴミ収集所のリサイクルする機械が地域によ って違うことから、分別の仕方を変えてるよ うです。 She's responding to my question about energy prices and says that it's not that high. At the same time, they have the same cumbersome level of separating their garbages as (I assume) most EU countries do. It varies depending on which prefecture you're in. She compares Kamakura, where her grandmother lives, and says that when they throw away a book, for example, they have to take off the cover and separate the wire binding from the pages before they can throw it away. Mariko lives in the Saitama Prefecture and says there's "only" burnable garbage, plastic garbage, tin cans and bottles. There are bins stationed in each area but the bins/containers for the recycling are not always easy to get to. That's my first reading so if there's anyone that sees a mistake in my translation please don't hesitate to say something! Also, is there anyone who'd like me to break that down (no pun intended)? I don't mind breaking it down if it would help anyone. I don't do it automatically because I really need to get to my French tonight, but I'd do it if someone were to ask. (there's some great vocabulary --words like 厄介 やっかい "burdensome" and さほど which means "not really") Those are new ones for me. I have to put them in Anki tonight. It seems there was something else.. oh yeah. French! uhm. What did I do today? I'm still reminiscing on that great Star Trek episode from last night, even though I understood nothing, I loved hearing it. I haven't done any vocab, but I did so much work yesterday that I think another "passive" episode of Star Trek won't hurt my TAC any. Edited by Sunja on 29 September 2009 at 8:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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