Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6618 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish
| Message 625 of 1702 07 December 2012 at 8:03am | IP Logged |
dampingwire wrote:
Brun Ugle wrote:
The only thing you have to do is make a commitment to hold out for a
year, keep a log, and read the logs of your teammates in order to help and encourage
each other. It's lots of fun. Unfortunately, a lot of people drop out, but those that
stick the course usually have a good time, learn a lot, and become friends. |
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From browsing the first 50 messages in your TAC 2012 log it seems that TAC's enough to
get you from "I've forgotten everything" to "I can read HP with relative ease". So on
that basis, how could I say no :-)
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Wow! I did that!?
I don't really feel like I've made much progress. It's easy to look ahead and see how far you still have to go and forget to look back and see where you came from.
TAC has definitely helped me a lot. I'm not sure I would have studied quite so hard or stuck with it so long if it hadn't been for the help and encouragement I've gotten from teammates.
The first HP is "relatively" easy by-the-way. By the time I got to the last one, I was struggling. Actually, I think the mystery I'm reading now is much easier. It's not so dense as HP. HP seems to have rather long paragraphs packed with words. This mystery is for adults, but the writing is much more "light and airy" if that makes sense. There is a lot of dialogue in short paragraphs, so it just doesn't feel so heavy. Also the style is simple and straightforward.
I'm sure with a bit of hard work, you will make great progress.
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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 626 of 1702 10 December 2012 at 8:58am | IP Logged |
Man I'm tired. It's late and I'm cramming writing kanji for my final
tomorrow. I'm trying to learn how to write every word from the kanji
packet. I looks there's 146 words to learn. Of course I already know
several but not all by any means and I'm rusty having not practiced
this in ages. And I am really only doing it for the heck of it as it will be
part of the extra credit and not the real test per Se.
But it's fun to study. I'll be looking forward to the break between
semesters. And I'm hoping enough people sign up so they don't
cancel the class.
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Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4795 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian
| Message 627 of 1702 12 December 2012 at 9:10pm | IP Logged |
Are you still joining us for TAC 2013? Really hope you would, your log has been
incredibly inspiring, and it'd be awesome if all the old members band up again :)
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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 628 of 1702 16 December 2012 at 5:22am | IP Logged |
Yes of course I'd love to continue to be in TAC for the next year. Everyone here is awesome and I'm
flattered that people find this log interesting and motivating. Sorry I've been away for a bit. I'll probably
start updating more as I get back I the habit. I've been traveling and well posting to Facebook some.
Anyway, I spend just about all free time studying Japanese so it's inevitable I'd be back.
The course ended and after the final a group of us went out to eat. So we're looking forward to next
semester I think.. At least I am. Ironically a lot of them hardly study which can be frustrating for me since I
do as much as possible but I'm older and this is what I do to relax whereas they they have a look t of other
stuff.
I've started in on the next semester's work material. There's a concern that there won't be enough
students and it'll get
canceled. Which would be a big let down for me. There's really no substitute for it for me and the class has
really become a big part of my life and what not. But on the other hand I don't know that it really gets me to
study Japanese to the best of my ability. When the class is going at a set pace and I'm wanting to go
ahead there's really nothing ng I can do unless I were to skip class. Which I don't plan on doing. On the
other hand if I get distracted the class keeps me learning Japanese anyway so overall it's good + the
social aspect is great.
There's going to be a speech contest this spring. I'm obligated to sign up. I'm dreading it. I need to get
started ASAP on it lol. I'll be scouring the net for ideas on what to write about. I feel like everyone is xpecte
me not to suck so that us a huge amount of pressure. Not sucking doesn't come easy to me when it
involves writing a speech and going up in front of a lot of people. But I'm going to do it, sucking or not.
I've been wanting to get my new phone setup properly but kind of dread the learning curve. I bought it
rooted already which helps. Android apparently still hasn't fixed the Japanese fonts thing for phones sold
outside of Japan. Not sure why it's so hard. I guess they don't have Japanese employees outside of Japan
who can even tell the difference. I did find an app just be re writing this called Morelocal 2 that sort of fixes
this. It let's you change the local office your phone beyond what the setup has and switching to Japanese
fixed it. But only when it's in full blown Japanese mode. I'm gonna give that a try and see how it goes.
Wish there were an option for furigana on the kanji :-) but whatever.
So I have my srs app on Android now (hooray!) called flashcards Deluxe. It's pretty stable but occasionally
it crashes but the author quickly released updates to address that and it's pretty good. I like the
convenience of not having to carry an ios device around too. I'm also getting better at one handing this
oversized phone (Samsung note 2). And it looks like I'll get the fonts thing worked out. It's not like I can't
read the Chinese fonts.. I can.. But I'd hate to start misdrawing them as a result. They're just slightly
different and you could start un learning stuff if you're not careful.
I'm trying to make some grammar flashcards for the srs to go with the vocab. Srs is great in that it keeps
stuff I your head and won't let you just stop using it. Whereas some grammar tricks I could read about and
then not use and forget about if I don't go back and I like having an app remind me how lazy I'm being. A
lot of grammar you'll see constantly so it's not an issue but some of it not so much.
I talked about studying with my study buddy over the break and she's all for meeting up to talk but I don't
know how much studying shell do. She asked me several times don't you need a break? We just had the
final! I feel like the break is the best time to study since I can go at my own pace and do what I want for a
change of pace. I don't want to waste that!
And then again I'm not getting younger either so squandering time seems silly to me. They're all way
younger.
Oh in addition to the book I'm using iKnow. I actually used rikisama to make good audio flashcards with
my srs program. I trust the srs program more but I love the multimedia stuff they have. So I think it works
good that I can alternate between the two since the vocab will be the same anyway. Well see.
Edited by kraemder on 16 December 2012 at 5:25am
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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 629 of 1702 16 December 2012 at 6:05pm | IP Logged |
What I need now is a good dictionary for Android that let's you draw
kanji and a web browser with a furigana option and an easy way to
lookup vocab....
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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 630 of 1702 16 December 2012 at 6:24pm | IP Logged |
If you haven't already done so, download aedict. You can search for kanji by drawing recognition or by skip code. Although the drawing recognition is a little sensitive, so I often find it quicker to go by skip code.
Can't help on the web browser thing, but if you find something I'd be interested to know!
I found your comments on the other students on your course quite interesting. To tell the truth I found it hard work at times not to get frustrated with some of the other students on my course at times. Like when they'd return to class after a break and complain they'd forgotten stuff over the holiday. I guess I used to be the same kind of person, which is why I'm really glad I did a lot of self study before starting a formal class in Japanese. But unless you actually take responsibility for your own learning, get in the habit of practicing nearly every day and then see the benefits, I guess it makes sense to just see Japanese as something you only do in class. It's a shame, because learning Japanese is much bigger than just studying to pass a test. And that's what makes it so much fun!
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dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4663 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese
| Message 631 of 1702 16 December 2012 at 7:30pm | IP Logged |
g-bod wrote:
If you haven't already done so, download aedict. You can search for kanji
by drawing recognition or by skip code. Although the drawing recognition is a little
sensitive, so I often find it quicker to go by skip code. |
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I'm using my son's old iPhone 3GS as an MP3 player. If there's an app (preferably free)
that let's you draw kanji and recognises them (or better yet, finds words that start with
that kanji or two kanji or whatever) that would be a great 2nd string to its bow ...
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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 632 of 1702 16 December 2012 at 9:14pm | IP Logged |
I don't know about free but my favorite ios dictionary is midori. It
costs money... I forget how much. I've used it a ton and would love to
buy it again for Android but it's not available. I grabbed aeddict
though
and tried the kanji drawing feature. I think it might work. Midori is
prettier though but this is free.
Edited by kraemder on 16 December 2012 at 9:15pm
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