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Kuji’s Krazy Log II | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6597 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes  4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 545 of 706 04 July 2014 at 7:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Yeah the problem is that it's hard to explain at lang-8 :/ Native speakers hate confronting the fact that this is how they really speak :D Maybe someone from the HTLAL galera can do that, though.
I didn't mean it was intended, many discoveries aren't ;) But you did seem more excited about the vocabulary benefits. I think using English (or Japanese :)) words can be okay, afaiu Iversen does that. An alternative could be to use filler words like esse..tipo..coisa.. and imagine a native speaker telling you the right word. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4847 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 546 of 706 04 July 2014 at 7:42am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You're probably right about that. I noticed that on lang-8, I get many corrections, but some of them could be quite different from each other - which is probably related to my attempts at writing colloquially. That's one of the reasons I stopped using Lang-8, aside from the fact that I wanted to use the time I'd use correcting other people's English writings for other things. :)
It is exciting to remember things short-term, when that has been a particular problem of mine before.
I didn't think about using filler words! Great idea. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4847 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 547 of 706 07 July 2014 at 3:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I was showering at the fitness club on Sunday after a hard, sweaty aerobics class, when I was hit with an epiphany. Well, maybe "epiphany" is too strong or powerful of a word, but I realized something. For a long time, I haven't put a priority on learning Japanese.
Of course, I have been learning Japanese. But Japanese has been equal with Portuguese. Every day, I spend one commute learning Japanese and the other learning Portuguese. Although my intentions were to spend most of my time at home with Japanese, it's been 50/50 there as well. Same with weekends. No, this is not good. I believe I'm at a place in my Japanese journey where I can look far away on the horizon and see the point where everything starts to come together. From what I've heard from other, more successful learners, there comes a point when things "click." I think I'm far from that moment, but not so far... if you understand what I mean. But to get there, I think I need to start pushing myself in Japanese. I need to give a little more effort to reach that breakthrough. At the same time, I don't want to do anything too drastic, which would set me up for burnout. So I've decided to simply increase the amount of time I spend with Japanese each week, and reduce the amount I spend with Portuguese. During the week I'll spend one one-way commute doing Portuguese each of two days. I'll also spend one weeknight at home doing Portuguese. The rest of the time on weekdays will be spent on Japanese. On weekends, I'm going to aim to do one hour of Japanese each day before I do anything in Portuguese. If I don't reach one hour in Japanese on a day, then no Portuguese. These are just guidelines; I really don't know if this is going to work or not. But it's a start. I don't think going to regress in Portuguese by doing this. It will slow down a lot how much I learn and progress in Portuguese. But you know what? That's okay. Even if I do regress, I'm not going to stress over it. Portuguese is just a fun hobby. If I learn Japanese to fluency, then that is life improvement. Besides, if... I mean, when I become fluent in Japanese, then I can spend as much time on Portuguese as I want. Now, is this a grand scheme? You know what? It probably is. But at the same time, I'm not depending on any certain techniques or learning methods to make this happen. I'm just simply trying to rearrange my priorities. Anyway, I will keep all of you updated. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4847 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 548 of 706 07 July 2014 at 8:51am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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UPDATE: 6/7 July 2014
Along with my renewed focus on Japanese, I also want to set a weekly time goal. I'm aiming to study Japanese for 420 minutes a week, or 7 hours a week. When I first set that goal, I thought it was very conservative. An hour a day? Pffhht. That's nothing, I thought. And I wanted it to be somewhat easy at first. But now that I think about it, it might be more challenging than I thought. Looking back at the last couple of weeks, I was probably doing 500 minutes a week total for both Japanese and Portuguese. I'm still using some time a week for Portuguese, so 420 minutes for Japanese? Hmmm... I don't know. But I haven't been counting a lot of Japanese activities that I do and take for granted. For example, I watch two anime every Sunday night about daily life in Japan. Each one is 30 minutes, so that's an hour of Japanese every Sunday. Also, I watch a morning news show in the morning and the news in the evening. Unlike the Sunday cartoons, I'm watching those while cooking and/or eating, so I probably can't count all of it. But I'm sure there's plenty of attentive minutes I spend looking at the TV during those times. I'll count those as well. And I didn't even mention the World Cup games. So, for this mission, pretty much anything is fair game for the minute-counting. And I'm not sure at all if I'm going to be able to do this. I can't stand paying attention to such minute details like calculating my study minutes. So I don't make any promises. * * * * * With that in mind, today I did the following (up until 3 PM): - Paid attention to 15 minutes of the morning news - On the train, read an article about the four teams left in the World Cup. The article was very short, so I also listened to a JapanesePod101.com podcast (40 minutes) - During a break at work, wrote out some key sentences from the above podcast and looked up unknown words (10 minutes) - Wrote a quick monologue about what I read in the article today (5 minutes) TOTAL: 70 minutes (350 minutes to go before the end of Sunday) Heh, I've already done more than an hour... and I haven't even left work yet! I'm doing more Japanese on the way home (if I'm not sleepy). Is this going to be easy? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4665 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 549 of 706 08 July 2014 at 1:30am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes :-) There's an amazing amount of dead time just lying around, waiting to be picked up and used. All those commutes, all those times you walk somewhere, when you go shopping. Once you get into the habit of starting to use that dead time, the hard thing will be to stop and actually relax occasionally. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4847 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 550 of 706 08 July 2014 at 2:09am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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@dampingwire - Good point. I mentioned writing a quick monologue yesterday at work. I was sitting at my desk, having trouble concentrating on my lesson planning because it was too darn hot and humid in the office, so I pulled out my Japanese notebook and scribbled a monologue. BAM! That's 5 minutes towards my total. The same with writing down some key sentences from that JapanesePod101.com podcast. That was another 10 minutes. If I can get into that habit, I will obliterate that goal every week, and have to think about a new goal. :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4847 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 551 of 706 08 July 2014 at 2:28am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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UPDATE: 7/8 July 2014
OK, after the last update, this is what I did for the rest of the day on Monday: * On the train ride home, I finished listening to the JapanesePod101.com podcast, then I listened to just the dialogue one more time. Since it was a beginner's podcast, the dialogue was really easy. I just learned one new word: 女性専用車両 (women-only train car. I'm surprised I didn't know this word before.). But it was good listening practice. After that, I listened to an NHK News podcast. Didn't understand a lot, but I could pick out some words. 40 minutes * I had the evening news on during dinner, but I was talking with my wife a lot, so I didn't really pay attention. Had a lot of chores to do, so I didn't get to watch any Japanese TV. * After chores, I was able to get the computer and read a Japanese article on the Netherlands' soccer team's troubles getting a hotel if they make the World Cup Final. I had Rikaichan (pop-up Japanese dictionary on Firefox) on, but I only had to look up five words; I don't recall looking up so few words in a regular-sized article. It's paying off to read sports articles consistently. 35 minutes * Finally, I did some Anki input. Inputting new Anki cards is definitely study, as it requires you to pay attention to the sentences that you are inputting, and what everything means in the sentence. 15 minutes TOTAL MONDAY JAPANESE TIME: 160 minutes TIME LEFT TO REACH WEEKLY (MONDAY-SUNDAY) JAPANESE GOAL: 260 minutes My goodness! 大成功！ Of course, I shouldn't get too carried away. Tuesday won't be like that, because my PM commute is reserved for Portuguese. But I'm very, very happy so far. It's a bit of a pain to keep track of minutes, but having such a weekly goal is forcing me to go the extra mile and get some studying in. That Netherlands article... before, I probably would have stopped after the first two paragraphs and done something in English, like play Football Manager 2014 (less effort). But having that goal in mind encouraged me to keep going. * * * * * Now for Tuesday morning. Up to now (about 9:30 AM), this is what I did: * I paid attention to 10 minutes of the morning news today, especially the part about a very powerful typhoon approaching Okinawa. If it goes as predicted, that typhoon will probably pass through the Osaka area by the end of the week, so this is of big concern for me. * On the train, I reread the Netherlands article from last night. I remembered all new words except for one. After that, I listened to a Japanese news podcast from the Korean broadcaster KBS. My mind wandered away from time to time, so I wasn't paying attention the whole time, but... what the heck, I'll be nice to myself and say I did 40 minutes. Edited by kujichagulia on 08 July 2014 at 2:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4847 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 552 of 706 09 July 2014 at 4:36am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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UPDATE: 8/9 July 2014
Unbelievable about the Germany-Brazil game this morning. I'm still in shock. Anyway, back to my update. Yesterday, after my last update, this is what I did: * Tuesday afternoon was for Portuguese, but I unexpectedly was able to get a seat on the train. And what did I do with that golden moment? I fell asleep. I don't know why I was so tired. I'm getting eight hours of sleep a night this week, as opposed to six or seven the past couple of weeks. Maybe it's the extreme heat and humidity that has hit Japan this week. So I slept. But I did get some Portuguese chorusing in while cooking dinner at home. * At night, I did the listening exercise from Chapter 14 of An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese. 15 minutes TOTAL TUESDAY JAPANESE TIME: 65 minutes TIME LEFT TO REACH WEEKLY (MONDAY-SUNDAY) JAPANESE GOAL: 195 minutes Not bad at all. Tuesday evenings are quite busy, with chores, dinner, fitness club and all, but it was important to get those last 15 minutes in to reach one hour today. I'm happy with myself. * * * * * * This morning (Wednesday), I turned on the Germany-Brazil World Cup match. I woke up at six o'clock, so I missed the first half. Apparently, the game was quite over by then! Any interest I had in the game was quickly deflated as soon as I saw what the half-time score was, so I probably paid attention to only 20 minutes of TV this morning. Thanks a lot, Brazil. I could have had a good 45 minutes or so of Japanese listening instead of 20, but you had to ruin it. * On the train to work, I started reading the Japanese translation of the short story "Sleeping Beauty" (眠れる森の美女). I can't always read about sports, now, can I? I should be somewhat well-rounded. Even though looking up some words slowed me down a bit, I enjoyed it more than I thought I would, and I was actually disappointed to have to get off the train, because I had a good flow going. 40 minutes I'm beginning to appreciate the website Hukumusume (where I got "Sleeping Beauty" from) more and more. The douwa (fairy tale) section, especially, is a tremendous resource for intermediate Japanese learners like myself. They have both Japanese tales and international tales that are translated into Japanese, including a separate section for Aesop's tales. They literally have several stories for each day of the year. I can't even read one of those stories in a day yet, so there is a ton of material for me to work through the next couple of years. Some of the stories even come with audio, so you can listen while you read... or listen without reading. The website is all Japanese, but if you can navigate it, it might be helpful for you. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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