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 65 of 82 06 October 2011 at 11:46pm | IP Logged |
After a good night's sleep I thought it might be a good idea to have a go at the "upper intermediate" class tonight anyway. It was much better, however I am not sure if there will be enough people for the course to continue running. I really hope it does.
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Lexii Senior Member United States Joined 5224 days ago 162 posts - 194 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese
| Message 66 of 82 07 October 2011 at 12:09am | IP Logged |
Fantastic news regarding the upper-intermediate class, g-bod! Fingers crossed that the class will continue.
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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 67 of 82 14 October 2011 at 11:15pm | IP Logged |
It seems that there are enough people for the class to keep going, which I'm really happy about. This week's class went pretty well and at long last I seem to be activating some kind of latent speaking ability which I'm really please with.
In terms of my self study, I've dropped Assimil after just a week and a half. I think three years ago it would have been really useful for me but now it's a better use of my time if I do other things. Plus the audio is really slow. I know it speeds up after a few lessons but even listening to the recordings at the end of the book is quite painful for me now. I might donate it to my husband, who has been quietly self studying Japanese for the past six months or so but still won't try using the language with me.
I'm still plugging away at Japanese: The Spoken Language and I am finding it really helpful and I think it has contributed to this latent speaking ability which I am finally tapping into. Basic conjugations are tripping off my tongue so much easier now.
I'm also carrying on with Japanese for Busy People II. We are using book III in the classes but as it's all revision of grammar concepts I've met before I don't mind taking my time going through book II on my own as well. The focus is always on making sure I can actually use the grammar points I study.
All in all I am pretty happy with how my Japanese is feeling at the moment. I just wish I had more time. This dissertation nonsense is driving me crazy!
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fortheo Senior Member United States Joined 5038 days ago 187 posts - 222 votes Studies: French
| Message 68 of 82 15 October 2011 at 1:29am | IP Logged |
That's awesome that your spoken japanese is getting better! also i hope your husband gets enough confidence to talk with you in japanese! that would be lots of fun :)
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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 69 of 82 26 October 2011 at 8:00pm | IP Logged |
I haven't done very much study this past couple of weeks as real life has gotten in the way again. I suppose it will be fits and starts until December now.
I did, out of curiosity, sit a practice paper I had on my shelf for N3 the weekend before last. I guess I must have been really bored. But the good news is had it been the real test, I would have passed. My vocabulary is still rubbish and I can't say I felt any real improvement in the reading or kanji sections (which were my strongest in the past). However my listening skills have definitely improved by a huge margin, except for the one question type where they don't give you the question until after you've heard the material which is still a disaster. I need to decide whether I'm going to try and sit a JLPT exam for real next year...
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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 70 of 82 03 November 2011 at 10:48pm | IP Logged |
I've recently set about learning how to recognise the names of every prefecture which should help with reading as names are something I really struggle with. I'm already able to pick out a few from Asahi Shimbun's Twitter and it helps give things a bit more context! Now I have a better idea of what some of the kanji mean it makes the names a little more memorable, some are quite poetic in a way. I wonder if there are herds of horses in 群馬県, baby deers in 鹿児島県 and bears in 熊本県.
Classes are still going well although I wish there were more of them.
And I wish I had more time to study, but I guess that's going to be a regular complaint over the next six weeks if I can be bothered to update here. I'm getting a few ideas together about how I want to approach Japanese and push on to the next phase in 2012, but perhaps I should save that for next year's TAC!
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Lexii Senior Member United States Joined 5224 days ago 162 posts - 194 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese
| Message 71 of 82 08 November 2011 at 3:34am | IP Logged |
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...I suppose it will be fits and starts until December now. |
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Same here, g-bod, same here.
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...I've recently set about learning how to recognise the names of every prefecture... |
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Fun exercise! Obviously, as an upper beginner, I can't recognize them all, but I'm starting to recognize a few (Tokyo, Kyoto, Hokkaido and a few more). I can write a few, too. Coscom has a nice section with all the prefectures, cities, etc., basic information about each one and links to their individual websites. Is that one of the places you're using?
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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 72 of 82 08 November 2011 at 2:01pm | IP Logged |
I'm not doing anything anywhere near as exciting as that. There is a map of Japan showing the prefecture names in one of my textbooks so I studied this concentrating more on the kanji than the geography, before putting the names in Anki! I'll see if I can follow up with coscom when I have more time.
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