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5 years of 日本語 TAC 13 桜/Schnitzel | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5987 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 81 of 436 10 February 2013 at 7:34pm | IP Logged |
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Revising Goals for 2013
Since passing N2 a year early has really turned things on their head for me, it's time I went ahead and revised my goals. I just reread the first post of this year's log, and funnily enough I make the bold claim that I wanted to learn German but would stay focused on Japanese until passing the N2. See, I didn't expect that to happen so soon. Anyway, I think it's time I set some goals with respect to German, as I really want to see it out this time beyond the scope of just the 6WC. I have also been thinking long and hard about what I want to do with Japanese from now on, and now I think it's time to set out a different set of goals for this language too. Japanese: From Studying to Using So, what am I going to do with Japanese now? I used to think I wanted to be "fluent". Then I changed my mind about fluency, and decided I wanted to be JLPT N2 certified. I used to think that in order to get certified, I'd need to fill my head with a shed load of information... ...I'm kind of embarassed to admit it, but I somehow managed to pass N2 without studying more than a few pages of any of my JLPT (or other intermediate level) textbooks. So to all of you people out there who are spending hours of your life over massive SRS decks and word lists and drill books, well, maybe it's not so necessary after all. I wish I could tell you how I did manage to pass though. I'd like to know the secret too. Anyway, although there still is a place for some structured study in my Japanese life, I've started to think much more in terms of how I can actually use Japanese. I started learning Japanese simply as some kind of macho geek project. I guess I've proved myself there (N2 is the macho geek trophy, right?), but I've also managed to develop a skill, and by doing so I've gained access to people, media, culture and ideas which I would never have had if I'd stayed in my monolingual English-speaking universe. (The craziest thing is I've done all this without ever actually visiting Japan - I really have to fix that one some day, but at least I've already got enough Japanese to survive as a tourist!) So what am I going to do with this ability from now on? What do I enjoy doing with it already? What would I really like to do (rather than imagine I ought to do, or even worse imagine what other people think I ought to do), but can't do already? Some very common (and sensible) advice I hear for intermediate language study is to use your language to do things you are already interested in. The sad thing is that for quite some time in my four and a half years of Japanese study, most of my free time was occupied either by studying Japanese, or studying for a qualification related to my job, or procrastinating either of those things. I rather lost sight of other hobbies and interests. In the process of learning Japanese, I've discovered rather a soft spot for Japanese TV dramas, so as low brow as it is, it definitely counts as a hobby. And although work is work, there is a lot about my field of work which would interest me whether I was being paid for it or not (I guess I'm very lucky in that respect) and I would find it genuinely fascinating to start properly exploring how they do 都市計画 in Japan. As challenging as watching a period drama in Japanese is, after watching a few episodes of Gou I wanted to learn more about Japanese history (real history rather than the TV version!). And after reading the Murakami short stories over Christmas, I discovered I don't mind reading fiction in Japanese, even though I lost my appetite for English language fiction a while ago. I enjoy watching documentaries about things like astronomy, earth science and geography in English, so there's no reason for me not to try watching that kind of thing in Japanese - in fact the only barrier here is finding a source of Japanese language documentaries (NHK Schools/Koukoukouza is great but the streams can at times be a bit unreliable). But even if I can't locate documentaries in Japanese, there is absolutely nothing stopping me from reading about these things. I tend to at least scan the news in English every day, plus I enjoy reading articles in The Economist, so if I could find similar reading material in Japanese, why not? It would certainly add a different viewpoint on current events. So, to distill this into more meaningful goals for Japanese, I have come up with the following: * Increase the range of TV dramas I can comfortably watch: Fluffy rom-coms are now generally no problem for me at all. But what about period dramas or crime dramas? For most of 2012, I worked on the principle of just watching stuff I can understand without any subtitles. For 2013, I'm going to continue watching stuff I can understand, but I will also push myself with more challenging material, building my vocabulary with the help of JP subs. This year I will watch at least 3 drama series which feel outside my comfort zone, with the help of JP subs, and to include at least one period drama. * Increase the range of real Japanese I can comfortably read: This year I will get through at least 4 contemporary novels. This year I will get more comfortable reading essays and opinion pieces, and develop a more nuanced understanding than I needed to get through JLPT N2. This year I will actually finish reading that ドラえもん history book. This year I will read something about 都市計画 in Japan, even if it is just an article from Japanese Wikipedia. This year I will start getting to grips with online news articles (I have a textbook that can help me with that) * Refine my active use of the language This year I will not take for granted any opportunity to actually use Japanese This year I will always make the effort to prepare something to talk about with my language exchange partner This year, as my reading improves, I will start exploring how to write well, and I will write ten short essays * Work with study materials in a constructive way This year I will not stress about how much vocabulary/grammar/kanji/expressions I think I am supposed to memorise (since I don't actually need to memorise anything) This year I will continue studying from Kanji in Context to support my reading goals above, but following the principle that reading comes first This year I will continue studying from an intermediate textbook, to draw attention to grammar and expressions I might not otherwise have noticed, in order to support my reading and writing goals above. Again, I will follow the principle that reading comes first. German: Building the Foundations I think I actually made things harder for myself in Japanese by trying to hit the native materials and vocabulary lists too soon as a beginner. I'm really going for the "find a good elementary course and stick to it" approach with German, to try and build a more solid grammatical foundation upon which I can later hang everything else. In some respects this seems even more pertinent with a language which shares so much with English in the first place. I've dabbled with a few different resources over the last couple of weeks but I think I've settled on two or three that I would like to stick to. I have also decided I would like to limit how much time I spend on German to 7-10 hours a week (or 1-1.5 hours a day). This is to encourage myself to study as efficiently as possible, while also getting used to living with two languages at the same time (rather than doing all of one and none of the other). My main materials are Assimil, Warum Nicht and Begegnungen. At the very least, this year, I would like to have completed the passive wave of Assimil (I'm not commiting to the active wave until I've tried it!) and listened to the whole of Warum Nicht. Textbooks, grammar, limited time on task...it looks like I'm going anti-AJATT with German, doesn't it? 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6090 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 82 of 436 10 February 2013 at 11:20pm | IP Logged |
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I just read you conquered a major goal! Revising your goals after your success must fun! オメデトウ ( ^ _ ^)∠☆PAN！
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| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5987 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 83 of 436 11 February 2013 at 10:39pm | IP Logged |
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I've just finished the first chapter of my "regular" textbook, Begegnungen A1. It focuses on more standard A1 material, such as where you live, your job, your marital status and hobbies. Not especially interesting, but it's a nice foil to the exceptional quirkiness of Assimil and Warum Nicht. And unlike in Assimil, I haven't spotted any typos (yet), which is reassuring.
I also rather like the format so far. The chapter has four sections. The first is like a workbook, and you learn the main vocabulary and grammar points by doing a range of different type of exercises. This also includes reading and ample listening exercises, and a little bit of work on pronunciation. Every time a new grammar point is introduced, you are also referred to the relevant bit of the grammar section (third section), so you can read up about it at that point. I'm not quite sure what the precise point of the second section is, but in the first chapter it contained activities and quizzes about characteristics of different German speaking nations. Then the third section, as mentioned, is the grammar section. Since you've already read about the grammar points once and done the exercises in the first section, coming round to the third section feels more like revision, and is so much the better for it. The fourth section just sets out what they think you should know by the time you finished the chapter, so it's nice to help evaluate yourself. The only negative is the fact that the book is in German only. Apparently you can buy a separate book with notes in English, but since I already have plenty of English explanations thanks to Assimil and Warum Nicht, at least for now it doesn't feel necessary. I could figure out from context alone that "der bestimmte Artikel" is "the definite article" which has to be some kind of textbook-tadoku win! I've had to make good use of a dictionary, because there is no glossary or vocabulary list in the book, but this is actually a good thing as it really forces me to pay attention to the bits I don't really understand. The lack of vocab lists also makes me feel even less inclined to Anki anything, which is, for now, a good thing. For anyone thinking about learning L3 via L2, it seems that the Warum Nicht series is available in some 30 languages on Deutsche Welle. It's a shame that this doesn't include Japanese. But if you wanted to learn German through Chinese, you'd be good to go. I even started to listen to the first episode in French. The French host speaks very clear radio French, but nevertheless I found it quite disconcerting how much I could understand. It totally interfered with my ability to concentrate on the German bits of the the episode though. Well, I have issues with French... I'd love to find something similar with a Japanese base though, just to see whether or not my brain could cope with it! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5014 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 84 of 436 11 February 2013 at 11:42pm | IP Logged |
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Congratulations on your Japanese exam! Your plans for and with Japanese sound like fun!
And I've been watching you on the 6wc. You're one of my inspirations there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5987 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 85 of 436 14 February 2013 at 7:44pm | IP Logged |
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Cavesa, thanks for your support. But I'm not sure that I'm a great role model, to be honest.
Nevertheless, I shall have to make sure you don't overtake me in German hours! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5987 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 86 of 436 14 February 2013 at 11:09pm | IP Logged |
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Urgh I've caught yet another cold. Or maybe it's just the same one, just going round in round in circles around my office, mutating slightly every time to keep catching us out...I seem to have spent more time sick since Christmas than I've spent not sick.
It's quite frustrating and definitely had an impact on my will and energy for study this last couple of days. I guess it can't be helped. I just wish I could hurry up and get healthy again. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5987 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 87 of 436 15 February 2013 at 7:27pm | IP Logged |
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I got my N2 certificate in the post today, and I finally feel like actually celebrating! I guess after having a couple of weeks to digest the information after finding out online, actually seeing the paper certificate in front of me made me finally realise that I really did it. And seeing the paper score card in front of me made me finally feel like I actually deserved it.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sunja Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 6090 days ago 2020 posts - 2295 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Mandarin | Message 88 of 436 16 February 2013 at 12:11pm | IP Logged |
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I think you should treat yourself! No books or study materials, but maybe a nice dinner out somewhere. That's what I could imagine for myself if I passed a big hurdle..^^
1 person has voted this message useful |
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