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旅立ち/Катюша-Woodsei’s TAC 2014 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| 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 17 of 162 23 January 2012 at 4:33am | IP Logged | ||
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UPDATE January 15
I'm still surrounded by boxes, U-hauls, and frozen food to no end. Oh well. Today, I move out, so this post will be short, too. Japanese 1. Kanji: Kanji covered for the week were 400, like last week. I haven't been paying particular attention due to all the mess, and I'm not happy with myself. That brings the total to 1076. I'm planning on taking a day off the coming week and devoting it wholly to reviewing, as I don't want to advance on shaky grounds. 2. Japanese Media: Still following Gokusen :) I can't get enough of Yankumi or the 3-D guys of Shiroken High School. Same for Hana Yori Dango. Incidentally, both series have the same actor starring in them, and after a little googling, I found out that his name's Matsumoto Jun, and he's a member of a popular Japanese band, Arashi. Those guys have hosted some variety shows, and the little voice in my head tells me to do some searching for them, because it will be great practice to listen to normal spoken Japanese in real time, not the scripted one of dramas. One of the shows has to do with food, I think, so I'm guessing maybe I'll come across some great Japanese food types that aren't sushi or tempura :) I'm a big fan of the previous two, by the way :) We'll see. 3. Quote of the Week: 関係ない。 In romaji, kankeinai. it means none of your business :) Not something that I would get used to saying, but I heard it so much on Gokusen, it just stuck! I guess because Yankumi sort of pops out of the blue when they're all hanging out :) She's the boys' homeroom teacher, but it feels like she's more of a student. It's an extremely funny drama, and I'm really enjoying it. Russian Still, nothing yet. I'll be moving in to my new home today, so hopefully, I'll have more time to devote to Russian. I'll definitely get round to it this week. I know I have a mountain of chores and unpacking waiting for me, but there is no more the rushed urgency of making sure nothing's left behind on leaving a place. I'll also start posting my plans for the upcoming week in every weekly post I make. Hopefully my future posts will be more informative and organized than this. Well, that's all for this week. Pretty disappointing, huh? No worries, I'll be sure to bounce right back! Later! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fortheo Senior Member United States Joined 5034 days ago 187 posts - 222 votes Studies: French | Message 18 of 162 23 January 2012 at 10:05am | IP Logged | ||
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The rate that you are going through RTK at is incredible. I am going to see if I can match your 400 a week :)
also, gokusen was really good! I didn't like the second season as much though. Edited by fortheo on 23 January 2012 at 10:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6083 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 19 of 162 23 January 2012 at 10:21am | IP Logged | ||
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Moving to a new place is exciting! I've moved more times than I'd care to count, but each time gave me new energy and a new beginning!
The boxes will be around for a while so remember to leave them where they are (except the ones with the frozen food^^) and take some time for yourself. It sounds like your doing great despite the move -- fortheo's right-- 400 kanji a week is incredible! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 20 of 162 23 January 2012 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Phew! Finally, posting on time! Well, not exactly, but compared to two weeks of
neglect, it is something! My log has been decaying, poor thing. But, fear not, I'm working into breathing life through it, and soon I'll charge through like a thoroughbred bursting into maximum speed in the final homestretch of the race :) Japanese And here are my numbers 1. Kanji covered: 500 this week, and I've been sneaking in revisions when time permits. I did take a day off to review my shaky kanji of last week, and then had a mad kanji bout the day after. I covered 120 kanji that day, then I told myself, whoa! I guess I felt absolutely bummed that last week was pretty low on studies, but, oh well. I can safely say I blame it all on my relocation :) Total kanji to date: 1576. Even though I fell off the kanji wagon last week, and I'm fitting to get back in, I did watch and listen to magnanimous amounts of Japanese dramas. I was doing that while unpacking, which was really fun. I got so used to listening to Japanese that when I think in English or Arabic, it feels kind of odd. I don't know, should I be worried? I was thinking a few days ago, and instead of the word "actually," the word "じつは" popped up in my head. This has been happening with random words and short phrases, so I'm feeling really happy right now. It's nothing, the rest of the 99.9% of spoken Japanese still escape me, but I'm happy nonetheless. :) Which brings me to something I would like to share. While I was watching an episode, I would of course read the subs to understand what is being said. Then I would just play it back and listen to it while doing other chores. And then I go back to doing the first step, then the second. Watch with subs, listen without subs. I'm not dong this deliberately or religiously, it's just that Gokusen I was following is so hilarious and adorable, I couldn't help but rewatch it again. I started to notice that when listening every time, I'm picking more words and phrases, and understanding what I previously managed to grasp before. But I'm guessing most of you already know this, so I won't speak too much on that issue. Russian I've been mulling on how to approach Russian, and toying around with a few ideas. I got a generally good idea of the Cyrillic alphabet ( I guess I should say Russian, since cyrillic covers more than that) and listened to some sound files to get an idea of the pronunciation. Again, that was during the first week of the challenge, and last week I did nothing. My fabulous Russian teammates are already scheduling Skype sessions, and I really did want to join in, but I really do question the usefulness I will get, as will as bring, to the table. I toyed around with a few ideas, and here are some of the plans I made for myself: Plan A: Track down a Russian textbook with audio and maybe slowly cover lessons over the course of the next 6 months, for 30 minutes a day, or every other day. Or maybe something like Michel Thomas to begin with. The pro is that I'll pave a way for myself for when I earnestly start Russian, and L-R. The con is that I really like to immerse myself in the language, and get used to listening, reading, speaking and understanding natural Russian, and most of the time I feel that for the amount of time I put in going through a textbook, I glean little, and it's usually not the natural language either. I know I may be wrong here, but I don't know. Any kind of study at this stage would definitely be beneficial. We'll see. Plan B: Track down podcasts, listen to them repeatedly, and get a general idea of the grammar. Again, this is just to do a few minutes every day or every other day, so as not to encroach on Japanese at this point. I'm liking this idea much more, but I'm still not sure. Plan C: This one is actually the one I'm leaning more towards. The idea is to know a list of 10-20 words every day. It'll train me in getting used to reading Russian alphabet (when looking at Russian, I feel like I'm looking at English letters in a mirror in reverse. I don't mean to butcher the language, but that's truly how I feel .) I know studying words out of context is rarely if ever a good idea, and I'm not a fan of this, but it isn't going to be my main approach in climbing that steep Russian mountain. The idea is to familiarize myself with general word meanings and pronunciation, while keeping in mind that words can and do have multiple meanings. It'll make diving right into L-R as well as grammar that much easier. Maybe as I get better I may upgrade to short phrases. That way I will be getting some Russian in without learning anything odd, as well as giving Japanese the upper hand in the first half of TAC. Ok, this is basically what I've been doing. Goals For The Upcoming Week 1. Japanese: Stay at the 400-500 mark. I really want RTK done by the end of January. And of course focus on reviews. Keep up with watching/listening to Japanese. 2. Russian: Start with one of the above-mentioned plans, most probably the last one. We'll see how that works. Food of the Week I did mention in my last update that a popular Japanese band, Arashi, have hosted several variety shows. I tracked one down by the name of "Arashi no Shukudai kun," which presents everything from food to sports, comedic moments, everything. I found out about yakiniku or 焼き肉. It's a term that generally means "grilled meat" in the broad sense, and, according to Wikipedia, is derived from Korean roots. I'm scouting for recipes for it, so I will post as soon as I find one. If anyone knows, you awesome Team い guys, let me know! I'm also loving my iPad more and more. I found a nifty little application called Midori that I really like. It's a dictionary and kanji index, and has tons of example sentences. I use it to get words when I'm watching something without having to log onto my computer. And I also really love that I can practice writing kanji on it, plus translate paragraphs by inputting them in a page and have the dictionary generate all the words in the passage. Pretty useful and fun to navigate. I found another dictionary one called Kotoba, which is free, but it's only for iPhone. I have it on my iPad, but the resolution isn't as great since it's a blown-up version. But it's easy to use so no trouble. Oh, and I just found out there's a built in device dictionary for Japanese if I do happen to highlight text while browsing online. I'm spending more time with this device than with my computer :) That's all for this week! じゃ、また (see you) Edited by Woodsei on 23 January 2012 at 8:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 21 of 162 23 January 2012 at 9:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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@SolfridChristin: Nope, I haven't yet started any Russian except to familiarize myself with the alphabet. You're absolutely spot on with writing letters. I'm trying to write down short words to accustom myself to the language. Thanks for the advice, I'll be sure to follow it! @Brun_Ugle: I plan on slowing down once I hit RTK 3. I do want to devote some time to reviewing the Joyo kanji while learning new ones. I don't know about my retention rate, I've always been good at remembering things, and also probably because I attended med school, where you're drilled into studying unfathomable amounts of info in such a limited amount of time. Oh well. No more medicine for me, but I'm thankful for the practice, even though I hated it then ;) @fortheo: Good luck with your attempts at 400 kanji! I'm sure you can do it. It does need motivation and trials at not going crazy to do so. What I try to do between hours of study is that I slow down for an hour or two, play a Japanese drama during that time, and study a new one every few minutes or so. Or I stop and review in chunks. Or I try to recognize any word I hear in the drama and of which I know its kanji and try to visualize it. Or I simply take a break. I approach it as a game, really. Like deciphering code, or little secret messages on a treasure trail. It helps! And sometimes when reviewing, I try to group kanji I know that share the same primitive. Just food for thought.... In regards to Gokusen, I agree wholeheartedly that season 1 was the best. I had a hard time forcing myself to watch season 2, then 3, when I found out they didn't have the original 3-D cast. And I didn't like them nearly as much. I was so disappointed. I was kind of hoping they'd expand on the Yankumi/Sawada relationship :) I know, I know, a teacher-student relationship will kind of send the wrong idea to high schoolers, and it is unorthodox, but I thought they were cute together. Plus in the manga he did tell her he loved her. Oh well. At least the manga proved my lingering suspicions :):):):) @Sunja: Thanks! Moving IS great!!! I'm so excited. A new place gives you unfounded motivation, that is oh so true. And the one I moved to is so cozy and homey in a really cute location. I'm on cloud nine right now :) And yes, I'm only unpacking what I need, and leaving the rest in boxes, which will be stored in a nifty little storage closet I found. It was really painful packing everything, and I can't see myself going through that again anytime soon. So the boxes are here to stay, although out of sight, and DEFINITELY out of mind :P Hey, all, I forgot to add another really great resource I had that was collecting dust on one of my shelves. I got it a few months ago when I was still collecting material for my studies. It's a TV course called "Let's Learn Japanese" by the Japan Foundation. Now, I know I said I don't follow courses unless I feel like it, but this one is really entertaining. I didn't try to open the accompanying coursebook and read it, all I do is just play the episode on my laptop while I'm doing my kanji, since I feel at times like breaking the boredom that seeps on me with prolonged kanji study. I originally thought I'd play it as a little sampling of Japanese to keep me motivated and going, but I really enjoyed the skits so much, I ended up seriously watching them. The Japanese is spoken by native speakers in natural speed, and the skits are hilarious :) I listen to each episode twice, but I don't try to memorize or repeat anything. In fact, I play it to only explore new things about the various subtleties of spoken Japanese. It's really cool. If anyone has it at hand, I suggest giving it a try. Gambare! がんばれ! Edited by Woodsei on 23 January 2012 at 10:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aloysius Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6238 days ago 226 posts - 291 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: French, Greek, Italian, Russian | Message 22 of 162 23 January 2012 at 10:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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A common way to learn the Russian/Cyrillic alphabet is by reading and listening to
"international" words like касса and метро. That way you're familiar with the meaning and you can easily map the Russian letters to their Latin eqvivalents while assimilating the Russian pronunciation. This approach is used in many textbooks like for instance Assimil. Or you can have a look at the Russian FAST course I linked to in the team thread. Looks like you're doing great with your Japanese. Keep up the good work! //aloysius Edited by aloysius on 23 January 2012 at 10:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| fortheo Senior Member United States Joined 5034 days ago 187 posts - 222 votes Studies: French | Message 23 of 162 24 January 2012 at 3:15am | IP Logged | ||
you were not kidding about the " going insane part " lol. I calculated I would need to do around 66 a day ( since Sundays are strictly review days for me ). Anyways, I did 66 today and I thought my brain was going to explode. You have a very strong will to be able to keep this up!! Also, Majo no jouken is a drama centered around a teacher/student relationship if you are interested. I also need to recommend Orange days, simply because I loved it. I cant say that either of them are comedies, but Orange days has lots of those " feel good " moments. Edited by fortheo on 24 January 2012 at 3:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 24 of 162 24 January 2012 at 8:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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@aloysius: Thank you! Your advice makes sense, and a good way to start. I previously
checked FSI, and did like the drilling approach, so I'll be sure to look at at it again, more closely this time. @fortheo: I have to say, it's not specifically a teacher-student relationship that interests me, but the Gokusen plot and character development, as well as the comedy elements, made it somewhat attractive :) But since you really liked both the two dramas you recommended, I'll take your word for it and look them up:) Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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