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TAC 2011 Team あ g-bod and 日本語 | ||
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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 73 of 82 13 November 2011 at 6:03pm | IP Logged |
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Well I caught my first cold of the winter this week, even though I don't have time to be ill right now. So apart from doing the day job, I haven't done much this week other than sleep and I even missed out on Japanese class.
I rewatched some Hana Yori Dango this weekend. It's quite nice coming back to a familiar show as you start to notice that you can understand more than you used to. I even started to disagree with some of the subtitles, which is surely a good sign. I also started flicking through the first volume of Doraemon. I bought it ages ago (three years maybe) as some people recommend it as good for beginners. Actually, it's pretty difficult for beginners and on the odd occasion I've tried to read it previously it felt pretty impenetrable. This time, however, it was actually pretty readable. So I guess that means I have levelled up! Yay! I've decided that once my dissertation is finished I'm going to treat myself to a box of books from Japan. It will probably be a mixture of graded readers for elementary school kids and a few volumes of manga. I'll be starting the new year with an extensive reading frenzy! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 74 of 82 03 December 2011 at 11:09pm | IP Logged |
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I'm pretty excited because I managed to get an ebook reader on my phone set up so I can now read Japanese txt files and look up words directly through jisho if I don't know them. I guess I've really entered the 21st century now! The only downside is that for some annoying reason Android defaults to Chinese characters, which means that characters such as 直 and 誤 don't display as I would like them to and I have no idea how to fix this. It's one of the reasons I stopped using Anki on my phone.
Last week's Japanese class was pretty good. For some reasons lots of Japanese English students turned up, which meant there was plenty of opportunity for practice. In fact I don't think I've ever been in a room with so many native Japanese speakers before. If I could go to classes like that every night, it would be amazing. I guess I just need to save up my money and my annual leave and make a trip to Japan for real. I think I need to start working more on my pronunciation though. It's not exactly bad, but it could be a lot better. I think as my ear is getting better tuned into Japanese, my own accent grates on me more, which I suppose is the first step towards fixing things. But for now I think I need to stop procrastinating my university work and get back to the task in hand. Two weeks to freedom! Edited by g-bod on 03 December 2011 at 11:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 75 of 82 13 December 2011 at 12:37am | IP Logged |
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I was hoping I'd have my uni work submitted by now but I still have a few bits to finish off, although it's mainly administrative stuff and proof reading left. Not taxing, but it will probably take up the whole of tomorrow evening.
I ended up briefly chatting to one of my Japanese friends (in English) about the nature of my research. He sent me to a related page on Japanese wikipedia which I started to explore and picked up a few bits of relevant vocabulary before realising that even though it was related to my uni work, Japanese wikipedia is not an admissable or relevant source and I really was just procrastinating. I will definitely return to it later, it might help me pick up some more vocab so I can talk about my job and my academic background, which is specialist enough to be quite difficult to describe in Japanese - I normally just go with 公務員です! I'm also plotting over what Japanese materials to take with me on my travels next week, which will see me visiting the two other countries on my little island. I'll probably be spending around 20 hours on a train (not all in one go!) which means I'm inclined to travel light, but also will need entertaining. I guess I just need my phone, mp3 player, and a couple of volumes of よつばと. I might photocopy a few pages from one of my textbooks too, to save carting the whole thing with me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 76 of 82 18 December 2011 at 10:16pm | IP Logged |
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I'm at my parents place this week so took the opportunity to take a day trip to London today, for the first time since starting my Japanese studies. I dragged my poor husband round all the Japanese shops and came back laden with wagashi and manga. He had to literally pull me away from the textbooks in the Japan Centre, warning me we couldn't carry back too much on the train. Spoilsport.
We went into Mitsukoshi Department Store and I think we were the only non-Japanese in there. It was great just hanging around pretending not to eavesdrop on the conversations. I also managed to locate the secondhand book/manga shop in Soho. It has a completely unrelated shop sign, I don't think you would ever find it without the address, but it was packed floor to ceiling with Japanese books. I was like a child in a sweet shop. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 77 of 82 26 December 2011 at 3:57pm | IP Logged |
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What with Christmas, visiting people, plus the real need to take a proper break (I had a whole week away from the laptop!), I haven't really done much Japanese the past week, apart from reading some of the amazing pile of manga I brought back from London. I feel so switched off from real "study" right now, I'm not quite sure what it will take to get switched back on, although I'm sure once I get back to the normal routine again it shouldn't be too difficult.
My brother in law is at medical school and is studying like crazy for his exams. I asked him what techniques he used to memorise things (med students seem to have to fit a whole load of information into their brains) and was quite surprised when he told me he'd been using the dreaded Anki! However, he also said that the most helpful thing for him to do was to note what he already knew, often in the form of mind maps drawn from memory, and to draw in links and connections. I'm sure there's a lesson in there for my language studies. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6087 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 78 of 82 26 December 2011 at 8:17pm | IP Logged |
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You make me want to go scout out some Japanese stores! I'm afraid I'm kilometers away from anything as big as the Japan Centre. I've ordered from them before! It sounds like you're getting a nice break. I've also been doing a lot of reading. Are you about to wrap things up with your uni work? Edited by Sunja on 26 December 2011 at 8:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 79 of 82 26 December 2011 at 8:30pm | IP Logged |
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Yeah uni work is all wrapped up and forgotten about (although I don't find out if I passed until March) and I am experiencing my first taste of freedom for two and a half years. For the first time since mid-2009 I've been able to take time off work without worrying about having some bit of coursework or other to do in that time as well, which is why I'm not really pushing myself that much with Japanese (except I do have Japanese: The Spoken Language open on my lap right now at the pitch accent explanation bit, I guess you can't keep me away for too long after all).
Going to the Japanese shops was nothing short of awesome, the only thing that would beat it is a real trip to Japan. When the guy on the door of the Mitsukoshi department store greeted me with an いらっしゃいませ I think I nearly died! The sad thing is the mark up on most of the books is so great you're not really saving anything by going to the shop and buying rather than ordering direct from amazon japan, at least if you buy in bulk (and I never order less than half a dozen books at a time for that reason). But it was great just being able to pick things up and browse. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| 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 80 of 82 28 December 2011 at 4:06pm | IP Logged |
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I've finally managed to swing myself right back into studying mode. And despite all my protestations I'm kind of using Anki again. Silly me. But it only took me three quarters of an hour to catch up on the 700-odd reviews that were waiting for me after 3 weeks away from it. However I really need to move my studies beyond a daily Anki review/data entry grind. I've already promised my husband one day off languages a week so we can just spend some quality time together now neither of us is wrapped up in a university course. So if I can manage Anki on a regular (but not daily) basis, rather than having it managing me, I will keep using it. If not, I shall drop it. With no regrets. Honest.
My stinking Christmas cold has turned into a horrible sore throat and cough and I am periodically losing my voice, so I have had to postpone a Skype exchange I had planned for today. I tried shadowing from Japanese for Busy People yesterday and today but only lasted for around 15 minutes a time before my voice gave up. This trivial illness is most definitely an enemy of the language learner. I backed up my shadowing from JfBP II by going through the reading exercises and vocabulary sections for the same chapter (chapter 8 at the moment). I also revised some kanji from Basic Kanji Book and read yet more よつばと. I prepared a short piece of writing to use in the language exchange (which I then had to cancel, so I'm not sure what I'll be doing with that now). I also spent some time studying the difference between ～くなる/～になる and ～くする/～にする and can't believe I never really twigged before that する could be a transitive equivalent of the intransitive なる. I hope my voice returns soon because I can't wait to get back into Japanese: The Spoken Language now, after going back through the pronunciation chapter. I think I need to periodically review this one as it has quite detailed information about pronunciation and intonation and each time I've read it (must be three times so far) it seems to make a little bit more sense. I guess that's quite a lot for only two days work (with a cold). Back to the day job tomorrow though. I guess I should save myself for one more update here on Saturday, before I switch to my Team い log. It's all very exciting. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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