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Japanese from scratch TAC 2015 東亜 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1281 of 1702 06 February 2014 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks everyone for the feedback on the N3 合格. I might have a study partner for N2. I showed up for class Thursday (with a cold and sleep deprived) and my teacher told me おめでと and then something about another student (don't want to use the real name) doing it next/this year.. and then she looked at me like she was just as surprised as I was when she told me the N2.. apparently 先生 wants her to do the N2 since I did the N3 or something to that effect. She's a friend so we'll likely study together if she goes forward with it. I'm curious how she'll do. Previously she was telling me she wanted to do the N4 but now that the teacher is volunteering her for the N2.. heheh. Poor kid.
I'm wondering what's going to be my big routine for studying right now. I think reading is good but I've got to drill myself I think to more efficiently learn new vocabulary and kanji which probably means SRS. I've got Kanji in Context, The Core 7k sentence deck, and とびら and みんなの日本語. And manga and a 6th grade reader. I put the first few exercises from Kanji in Kontext into my SRS and it's kind of neat learning lots of vocab as associated by kanji. But there's not a lot of context going on since I'm not using sentences in my SRS. I could possibly make some from the workbook but it doesn't have all the words in sentences anyway. I could say screw it and do the Core 7k. It has sentences galore and native audio albeit not really advanced grammar but a lot of idioms are used and English translations to help. I could try doing both but I think that'll fail. Making good progress in either one will be time consuming. BTW I'm making myself learn to write words correctly from memory using kanji. I've found that I feel way too frustrated when I can't properly write a word whose meaning I'm pretty comfortable with. I mean, I can't write it a all. I come up blank, although I probably would recognize it ok. One example is 勉強. I was just thinking how the heck do I write that word out. I used to be able to write it. Mostly I crammed it in case our teacher put it on the extra credit final. But I forget it if I don't use it... I haven't really SRS'd writing kanji words. I get into studying them for a week or so and then worry I'm slowing my overall Japanese absorption. But if I am learning vocab along with kanji I think knowing how to write it will actually help the vocabulary learning process.. But I really like the core 7k sentences.. ahh.. Ok. I'm going to watch an anime and think it over. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5980 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 1282 of 1702 06 February 2014 at 11:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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The Kanji in Context sentences have one huge advantage over the core 7k sentences, in that they also incorporate a lot of non-kanji vocab, expressions and sentence patterns that you'll need to know at N2+ level. Just go through the workbook, throw all the example sentences with things you don't understand (whether it's vocab or grammar) into your SRS, look up what you need to in order to understand them (whether that's in the KIC Reference Book, an online dictionary or grammar book) and then grind away! There was stuff I learned (and not kanji, by the way) in just the first 4 or 5 chapters which came up on the N2 paper.
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| Hasi Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 6114 days ago 120 posts - 133 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 1283 of 1702 07 February 2014 at 12:15am | IP Logged | ||
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You guys make me want to get started with my KiC workbook as well. I remember it was one of the first Japanese textbooks I bought but at the time it wasn't really useful for me at all. I might be able to use it now.
Anyways, this post might interest you. It contains anki decks for both workbooks. I downloaded them and the sentences seem to be correct. The dexk contains the sentences from the workbooks as well as the reading of the particular target vocab. Sadly, the target vocab isn't highlighted in any way. But I think it might be useful as a base for creating your own deck. :) As far as Core is concerned, I enjoyed doing the first 3000 sentences but after that the vocab that was less useful (for me at least) started to increase so I haven't touched it since. There is a lot of business vocab that wasn't all too useful for me and therefore also really wouldn't stick, at least for me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1284 of 1702 08 February 2014 at 1:48am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm doing the Core 6k (I thought it was 7k for some reason) afterall. The deck is pre-made so I just have to sit down and do it and I like the audio. The pictures are nice too. I'm actually doing the whole thing from scratch since it's a sentence deck with a fill in the blank - I have to write the word using kanji. Side two gives an English translation if I can't recall what the sentence is missing. I've spent a lot of time on it the past couple days and I'm over 500 cards in already. I want to get out of the first 2k as soon as possible so it seems like it's taking forever but if I keep this up it shouldn't be more than a few weeks even when the reviews hit. Being able to actually correctly write out the kanji for all the words I know will be a relief. As for new words, there's a few. Not a lot. And I needed the review for counting days and the general counter. I'm also getting a lot of context for stuff I haven't seen yet or went over my head or whatever.
Kanji in Context is sitting right no the desk next to my iPad while I do it. I really want to work on it too but I don't want to squander my focus between two many resources at once. The big reason I'm not using it for now is that the native audio seems to make stuff stick in my head a lot more - the sentences are pretty simple too which is good for remembering the vocabulary. I was watching Magi on Crunchyroll /subs yesterday and thought to myself, I don't tune out the Japanese at all, people say you don't listen to the Japanese w/subs but I am.. and then I thought that's because the stupid dialogue is so dumbed down I don't need the subs. I turned them off and I'm not missing much. Maybe part of it is just my attitude - I'm studying for the N2 now and I feel like I -should- be able to understand a lot anyway. And I am also thinking I need all the help I can get to pass the test so it's time to stop slacking. I started watching a series from Netflix (DVD, not online) Speed Grapher and I'm not using any subs at all and I feel pretty comfortable. I might try watching 進撃の巨人 again in a bit just to compare from a few months ago and see if there's any difference. I'm guessing there won't be much. That anime was hard. I'm also looking to watch のだめ again, all of it. Without any subs. I hope the fill in the blank SRS thing works out. It seems like it makes me read the sentence more carefully and I have to visualize the word too. People talk about kanji being a boon to learning new vocabulary and I think that being able to write it (and picture it in your head) kind of goes along with that. Since I'm definitely doing N2 this year, I'll probably not be SRS'ing random vocab I find reading like I've been doing for a while. Like half of that at least won't find its way onto the test I'm sure. I'm gonna focus on stuff that's in Core or Kanji in Context or other prep material. I'm positive it'll be more useful. For the JLPT I know there's a pretty big margin for error to pass versus really doing well on the test. Like getting a D+ or C- versus an A. I'd really like to pass with more breathing room than the N3 heh. My studying for the N3 wasn't too focused on the test though - I was more into anime and manga in general. I'm hoping to do better. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1285 of 1702 14 February 2014 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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先週、私は風邪を引いたしまったので、よく 勉強出来なかった。悔（くや）しかった。前 、私がチュツォンで病気になることがないと 言ったが、残念（ざんねん）、嘘（うそ）だ った。でも、二週間後に、また、元気になっ た。
Just gonna finish up in English. It's not too bad writing in Japanese but I got other things I wanna do heh. So I'm back to studying and taking JOI classes. I took two classes last night. The 1st was a kanji class (N3 level) and it was super easy. There's really no way to predict if it's going to be easy since I don't know what kanji they'll do but they focused on colors and shapes. A few new vocabulary but mostly just review. Who hasn't studied colors? Then I had an N2 level grammar class. If you haven't done JOI the classes are pretty focused. This class was on the しかない structure. It's super easy and I'm sure I've seen it and understood it but never really broke it apart or thought to use it. It's just dictionary form of verb + しかない. It's almost the same as saying しなければいけない.. you have to do ... except with the nuance that you have to do something because you've run out of options. The 2nd class was just me so I had a lot of speaking practice with the tutor like a private lesson (for cheaper!) and that was really awesome. Having conversations in a foreign language is really fun. At least for the person speaking a foreign language hehe. The pace of the conversation was pretty fluid and I was really happy with that afterwords. If I were talking to a normal speaker and not a language teacher used to speaking to people like me it probably wouldn't have been as good but I can tell I'm getting there. I'll have to go check on Benny's log. He hypes his challenges up a lot but a big goal is just to have a decent conversation in the target language with a native. If the other person is a little patient (not everyone is but if someone is say stuck with you waiting for something like a plane, a bus or whatever, they are more likely to be at least a bit patient) I think I can pull it off. After I don't know.. 3 years of studying? And he tries it after 3 months. Crazy. Speaking of random conversations with natives. A while back I remember a girl striking up a conversation with me in German on a bus and it was great until she said something that I didn't understand at all. And then I just pretended to understand and I hate that. Anyway. Oh I am still doing the Core 6k SRS deck. I modified it now so that side 1 I hear the native audio sentence and just try to understand it. If it's not a new card then this is usually pretty easy but there's some that aren't - I am 800 cards in now over two weeks so that's a lot. Then side two has the audio plus the sentence minus the target word and I can draw on the screen. I have to draw/write the missing word using its correct kanji spelling, and understand its meaning. Not the meaning of the whole sentence though. Then side 3 has the sentence/audio/english of both the word and the sentence. There's a lot of review words but surprisingly some new words for me too. Or ones I just forgot a long time ago. I'm pretty sure the ones I am not getting are from the core 2000 set. The order is modified so that vocab with similar kanji are grouped together. However, I believe the deck author wanted to keep words of similar difficulty grouped together at least to an extent so the first 2000 words won't have any words from the other 4000 even if they have similar kanji. Everything is grouped into sets of 2000.. I think. Sticking with this is a little challenging since it's easy to doubt it's the best way and just scrap it and do something else, like go back to kanji in context. A few days ago I had 300 reviews due (I think I was a couple days behind maybe) and that stank but I got through it and that's motivating me. Because of the way the deck is setup, 800 cards in but I haven't really had to make myself write all that many different kanji out. At least that's how it seems. A lot of words are katakana or hiragana only though. But I kind of need the katakana writing practice too. I've been really good about not using English subs. As in I haven't used them at all. Even shows where I am really into the plot and character development and thought I wouldn't be able to stand missing out on stuff, it's ok. I guess watching some easier stuff to get myself motivated and also the idea of being ready for the N2 helps. And I'm getting used to just understanding a story through the visuals. You can not understand a lot of the dialogue and if you don't panic and just watch the characters you'll still get the gist of everything. It's not that bad at all when you get used to that. And then it's a little like having English subs where you pay attention to what's going on to understand and just listen to the dialogue to get a little more feel for the characters emotional involvement and emphasis. And obviously you'll also understand some of the dialogue too. The latter is best hehe. Edited by kraemder on 14 February 2014 at 6:51pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1286 of 1702 16 February 2014 at 2:19am | IP Logged | ||
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新完全マスター読解 arrived today. Way ahead of schedule. It turns out my copy is used but I don't really mind at all. It's the new version and that's what's important. There is no CD and I don't think there's a website with audio anywhere. I'm a little disappointed but I suspected that to be the case anyway. JOI uses this series too so that's a good reason for me to also use it. I did see that Minna no Nihongo Intermediate level 2 is out now and the English translation is also on Amazon. That series has audio to go with it. It would be cheaper if I had gotten it too.. I'm struggle through this book some first though and then decide if I want to buy that book to see if I like it. Audio would be really nice. Yeah, I know there won't be audio on the reading section on the test.
I figured out how to search for words in my SRS deck and make them active. So when we use words on JOI or maybe in this textbook I can search for them in the core 6k and add them to my pending instead of just waiting for them to come up in order. That's really nice. I also was browsing on anki and see there's a huge deck that rips almost 10k words from the sensei ios app. Just like core it has native audio for words and sentences. That looked really sweet. And since I can search and manually activate cards I am now downloading it to supplement the core 6k. I won't be just working through it however. I'll just manually add choice words from it. To be honest I haven't really made real progress in a Japanese only textbook. I've only dabbled. But I'm going to really give this 新完全 a try. I was reading through とびら and it's really easy. Granted if I skip the 1st half the book maybe it gets harder. The initial impression is that it's N3 level though and not N2. I was really comfortable with 90% of the vocabulary in the chapters I read last week and the other 10% I had seen already just not yet really comfortable with them. I have a couple of classmates who want to use this book though to study together so I'll be going through it regardless. Although slowly I think. They don't seem like self learners and the way our teacher teaches Japanese is to have us translate Japanese to English. If they did this ahead of time it wouldn't a problem but they're doing it as we go and well writing it down.. I dunno. I could see spending a good amount of time translating a few choice bits that had interesting grammar but not everything I read. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4663 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 1287 of 1702 16 February 2014 at 11:24am | IP Logged | ||
読解? I don't think that 読解 has a CD (my N2 読解 is with my tutor at the moment so I cannot check for sure). 聴解 has a CD, but not 読解 and 文法. Mine came directly from whiterabbit and are brand new. If somethings's missing, do let me know :-) EDIT: what a difference a "not" makes :-) Edited by dampingwire on 22 February 2014 at 8:13am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5980 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 1288 of 1702 16 February 2014 at 11:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Of course there is no CD, it's an exam practice book for reading comprehension! The Kanzen
Master N2 Kanji book comes with a CD for dictation exercises and the listening book obviously has a CD, but that's it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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