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Sunja’s Newspaper/TV Challenge --TAC 09 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6451 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes  Studies: German | Message 49 of 232 12 January 2009 at 1:24pm | IP Logged |
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Hey Sunja
You're well on your way to a great learning journal and to some great results! Good luck with your further language studies. I was also toying with the idea of "short, intense "bursts" (my words exactly) as it's the only way to do several languages at the same time and still hope to do a little Japanese. Sir Richard Burton on breaking into a new language: "I never worked for more than a quarter of an hour at a time, for after that the brain lost its freshness." 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 50 of 232 12 January 2009 at 3:03pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks reineke!
(I was almost just getting used to the idea that it was just me alone with my log but it's nice to see someone else's voice in here again for a change :)) Burton said that eh? It looks like I'm in good company. The shadowing worked well today -- no complaints. Well, maybe one. It sure is hard keeping track of these shorter intervals. After I logged out I started doing my mundane, daily lunchtime routine, finding that I was needing to hear something. So I put on some sentences that I'd done before -- just for recognition really. An hour later I did some "real shadowing" with Level 8 of the IKnow! sentences. I clicked once to hear it and twice to hear/shadow. That was no more than 10-15 min. Just now I did 15 minutes with シャドーイング 日本語を話そう and it was really intense. The units get progressively harder, Unit 1 being very basic with dialogues like "How much is this? It's 210." I got half way into Unit 2 and I started to stumble a little bit with sentences like are? anmaritabenaina~ (which is easy enough, but then comes the really long string..) u~n, kyoowaonakanochooshigaamariyokunaindesu. It will take me quite a few more times before I'm able to rattle that off the they do. ;-) I haven't done any reading or grammar today so I'll tackle that next. I've got somebody here that wants to use the computer -- gotta run.. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 51 of 232 13 January 2009 at 12:32pm | IP Logged |
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I wanted to do grammar last night. I sat up in bed with some sentences that I'd copied and I was so tired, 30 minutes passed and I had only read 10 sentences. I started to drift off... *YAWN* 眠くなってきた。 (and then I was tickled that I'd thought it, since it was part of the dialogues I've been studying.)
Today I made copious notes while shadowing with the IKnow! sentences on the computer. 9:16-9:39; 10:03-10:17; 15:30-15:54...then I went ahead and recorded the amount of time I was at IKnow!, doing vocab..16:00-16:43 I even tried to make a note of some words (some of them "stumbling blocks") along with their particles from the sentences. I'm attempting to see them as one unit so I "clustered" them together as a reminder of how best to approach their pronunciation.. ..nitsukimashita. ..hayashinonakani.. ..kaigino.. (which I found really hard to say within the sentence..I couldn't get the "gn" to sound clear, along with..) ..denwaganatta. ..nihikkoshimasu. (gotta hit that double consonant) ...samukutefurueteimashita. (this one I stumbled over before. It's that additional vowel sound in the verb that's tricky) Please excuse the use of romanji. I'm in bit of a rush...I just needed to write it to remind myself. I'm hoping to do some more study as soon as the Haus quiets down. It's pure "before bedtime chaos" at the moment. I've done enough with IKnow! today. I'd like to tackle some reading next. -- if I can stay awake this time... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6451 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 52 of 232 13 January 2009 at 1:14pm | IP Logged |
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Hello again. Could you please describe IKNOW a little better? Why do you find it useful? What can it do? I checked the website but I sort of lost patience with it. The website is not as easy to Google btw as most other websites so here's the link:
http://www.iknow.co.jp/ 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 53 of 232 16 January 2009 at 4:27am | IP Logged |
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Hi reineke, sorry I was out for a few days...
here's some info, IKnow! has many different "Courses". Home--) Featured Content --) Featured Courses to browse them all... The one I started with is "Japanese Core 2000" which are the first 2,000 most-used Japanese words. (They also have Japanese Core 6000 which is -- yup, the 2,000-6,000 intermediate range.) Japanese Core 2000 has Steps (levels) 1-10 -- each level has about 200 words. Core 6000 has Steps (levels) 1-12. It doesn't matter what level you begin with. You can choose to bypass the beginning levels, but Step 3 of Core 2000 is really challenging for some reason, Step 4 not. It helps to look at the word/item list of each Step/Level Featured Courses --) Japanese Core __: Step __ --) scroll down to item/word list That being said, for those who want to test without signing in, Home --) "Learn with IKnow!, Test out IKnow!" (yellow "launch" button with the text bubble) --) "welcome guest"/Set Study Mode --) pick from "kana only", "full kanji", "specifically kanji", "romanji" --) Start --) Item Preview Screen This basically shows you the ten items you'll be covering in the lesson. Each lesson is always 10 items. --) Start Studying To the left it shows you your course progress. In the large blue screen you see the first word from the list. Down below you can toggle between "Study Item", "Sentence", "Spell Practice". --) Next and it basically takes you step by step through the lesson which is to pick from multiple choice lists for each word. The lesson makes sure you know the word forwards and backwards. If you're doing the "full with kanji mode" for example: It gives you "はじめる" you pick the corresponding English from a list "start out, begin". Next round, it gives you "始める" you pick from a list "はじめる". Next round, it gives you the English "start out, begin", you pick "はじめる". The very last step of each lesson is to spell the word, The FAQ for how to type Japanese from your keyboard is very helpful. The default for how many words you cover per day is 22 or so. Once you get signed in and set up with a course you can change that. I like to give myself a schedule of completing a Level in 30 days (give or take a week) by setting a target date with "Goal Mode" (see below). I'm doing two levels at the moment. That comes to about 50 words per day. (I've discoverd that once I'm at 60% (completion) I've covered all the words and the rest is just review.) If I get busy and can't do so many words per day I just change the target date. --) Japanese Courses --) Main, "Course Name" --) Launch IKnow! --) Set Study Mode Page Then up at the top --) Settings --) Course Schedule Mode; "Goal Mode", "Long-Term Mode" I like Goal-Mode better because Long-Term, I've discovered, will keep throwing the words back at you even after it shows you've completed the course (100%). I haven't mentioned Brain Speed or Dictation. Those are other activities that you can do outside of each lesson. I don't do them anymore because I wasn't getting enough kanji practice (they're in kana only.) Sorry, this turned out to be really long! (I'm a really thorough person by nature.) Anyway, I like "IKnow!" because I need extra vocab (kanji) practice. The study with my books is so random in terms of vocabulary. I started learning Japanese "kana only" and I found I had a sizable vocabulary but I couldn't read anything. IKnow! really helps me to fill in those gaps left by my "not-as-good-as-Assimil learning materials". Each level completed brings me one step closer to my TAC goal. I have a schedule and as long as I don't get behind, I feel like I'm accomplishing something. Basically an SRS. Only better, I think. The sentences they give are excellent for my kanji recognition practice, AND for my listening practice. I record the sentences on an old dication tape machine and shadow them when I'm not on the computer. It works great for me. As for logging in, I have what I've done written out on little pieces of paper scattered all over the desk here.... it will take me a few hours to get organized. A friend of a friend says they may have a DTP job for me to do in the mornings and I've been putting together my docs. It's a perhaps a real long shot since the guy with the job hasn't gotten settled in town yet...anyway it's one of the reasons I haven't been here.... Until later. The weekend is when things quiet down. Edited by Sunja on 16 January 2009 at 9:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 54 of 232 16 January 2009 at 9:34am | IP Logged |
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okay, I think I've gotten my desk cleaned up. Here's what I've done the past few days.
As one might expect, I've been at IKnow!, trying to wrap up Levels 7 and 8. I adjusted my target date to Sat. a few days ago and it's been giving me 100 words per day -- for each level. It's actually no big deal. I've learned them and it's just a matter getting through the review until the course is finished. I could quit now, but it's kind of nice to see that "100%" green bar on all the Levels from 1-8. I guess I get carried away with this stuff. Time at IKnow! Today: 1:52 - 2:00; and 3:20-4:11 Yesterday: I shadowed some sentences for 7-10 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the afternoon and about 10 min. in the car. I reviewed 36 sentences (written from my grammar text) while I was waiting to pick up my daughter from her tumbling class... Day-before: Time at IKnow! 2:16-2:33; 5:40-6:00. I shadowed with my book in the afternoon for about 10 minutes. I still plan to do shadowing today (it's only 4:00). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6451 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes Studies: German | Message 55 of 232 17 January 2009 at 12:54am | IP Logged |
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Hi
Thank you. I am sorry that you had to spend precious study time on such a detailed explanation. Good luck with Japanese! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6089 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 56 of 232 17 January 2009 at 1:05pm | IP Logged |
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Oh I know. :D I do get a little bit carried away with my responses, don't I! I have to really force myself not to go into the forum -- before I know it I've spent an hour writing and reading posts. I used to type for a living so it's really easy for me to just ramble on and before I realize it I've filled up an entire page. I wouldn't do it if it wasn't fun. (*'v'*)
But today wasn't so good. I won't kid myself. I managed to listen to Japanese quite often but my heart wasn't in it. I have so many things on my mind that it makes it hard to focus. (Watch out, here's where I start to vent..) There were two different couples here today looking at our apartment. The landlord has been trying to sell our apartment for a almost a year and it's always quite nerve-racking to have people walking through here. We're not ready to vacate and I realize they can't just kick us out... well, not unless they want to get sued...but still, I spend so much time thinking about it. It's a situation that I can't change easily. And then of course there was the day's shopping that had to be done and the Christmas stuff had to (finally) be put away. Anyway, NOW I feel like I'm ready to do some studying but it's *SIGH* already 7:00. While driving and listening to FNN I wondered if dictation would help me to understand more of the news. So far I've been doing dictation using stuff I've already heard over and over. I have to try it with the news. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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