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5 years of 日本語 TAC 13 桜/Schnitzel

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436 messages over 55 pages: 1 2 35 6 7 ... 4 ... 54 55 Next >>
Jaseur
Groupie
United Kingdom
Joined 6080 days ago

50 posts - 51 votes 
Speaks: English*

 
 Message 25 of 436
16 January 2013 at 12:24am | IP Logged 
Sounds good!

僕も 最近 酷い風邪を 引いちゃった から、 あまり 勉強 していない。

それに、 仕事がありすぎる。 でも、 仕事のために 日本語を使わないと いけないから、 勉強の種類 の一つだ と思
う。

(Apologies if the Japanese is mangled!)
1 person has voted this message useful



yuhakko
Tetraglot
Senior Member
FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4633 days ago

414 posts - 582 votes 
Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese
Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin

 
 Message 26 of 436
16 January 2013 at 6:23pm | IP Logged 
When you need to jungle between 2 or more languages, I've found that the best is to have
certain days during which you concentrate mostly on one and just do some passive study
(TV, Radio, and what not) in the other one(s).
Then again, the probem is that if you're not careful, you could end up putting one of the
languages aside with even realising it.
2 persons have voted this message useful



g-bod
Diglot
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5983 days ago

1485 posts - 2002 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 27 of 436
16 January 2013 at 8:01pm | IP Logged 
yuhakko wrote:
When you need to jungle between 2 or more languages, I've found that the best is to have certain days during which you concentrate mostly on one and just do some passive study (TV, Radio, and what not) in the other one(s). Then again, the probem is that if you're not careful, you could end up putting one of the languages aside with even realising it.


Precisely. I tend to be quite a single minded person anyway, so I find it hard to deal with being involved in too many different projects at once. It's an amazing feeling when I can immerse myself in something completely, to the extent that my mind starts drawing connections all over the place and I can really feel progress. It's hard to do that with two languages at once, so I was wondering if I could perhaps find a different way of doing things, with maybe slower process but a different kind of benefit. Maybe I can, but I'm not in the best space to be carrying out this kind of experiment right now.

I'm going back to my hometown for a funeral this week. I've got lots of mixed feelings about this which are occupying my thoughts in my spare time rather a lot more than language learning is right now! I guess you could say that 2013 hasn't had the best of starts for me. I was carried for a while by a sense of positivity about how great 2012 was (and it really was, in many ways), but now I'm running out of steam. But a year is a long time, so I'm sure I'll be ready to get back on form sooner or later. At the moment I'm just feeling rather a lot more reflective, and I think, for now, that is perfectly ok.
1 person has voted this message useful



g-bod
Diglot
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5983 days ago

1485 posts - 2002 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 28 of 436
20 January 2013 at 2:37pm | IP Logged 
I'm on my way back from my home town now. South east England is covered with snow, but so far no problems with the trains. I just get a very pretty view as I travel!

My father tried to win me back over to British TV by showing me a couple of episodes of Great Continental Railway Journeys. Well, I guess I do like trains... It didn't make me want to watch more British TV but it did make me want to book a rail trip across the Swiss Alps, and also left me craving German some more!

I think I need to just commit to improving one language at a time though. I think I should leave myself open to dabbling with German when the mood takes me, but wait until I really want to stop studying Japanese before I focus on German properly. Even if I drop just the portion of my study time I spend on kanji, that would be more than enough time to follow a course like Assimil. But if I want to firm my Japanese reading up well enough to maintain through exposure only, I still have some kanji work to do. It's just so much easier when I can focus on one thing at a time!
1 person has voted this message useful



g-bod
Diglot
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5983 days ago

1485 posts - 2002 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 29 of 436
20 January 2013 at 7:30pm | IP Logged 
I'm back home now and getting back to grips with what I'm going to do to learn some more Japanese. I've been dipping in and out of a few random podcasts, and it's a very good indicator of how much more I need to stretch my listening! After advising Kujichagulia to focus on listening I think I'm going to do the same myself for a little bit. It's amazing how easy it is to let things slip when you can sit back and be happy "getting the gist". This is of course a really important skill in itself, but I think I also need to take some time once more to focus on getting the details as well.

Somehow last time I was a subscriber to JapanesePod101 I only downloaded the Beginner Series and the Intermediate Series, so I've signed back up again to get hold of Lower Intermediate and Upper Intermediate levels too. I think I'm going to dip around Lower Intermediate and Intermediate level podcasts for now, spending time focusing on the details and making sure to create a playlist of the dialogues to review regularly. When I signed up again they offered me a promo code to subscribe for another language for half price, so I thought might as well make the most of it, subscribed to GermanPod101 too and downloaded some 300 podcasts. They'll be waiting for me when I'm ready to do German properly!

I'll definitely need to do some more intensive, focus on the details type of work with my reading, but for now I think I'd rather combine study of kanji and (to a limited extent) grammar with extensive reading. I'm still waiting for my N2 results, but if I end up planning to take it again in July, I think I'll be spending June and maybe some of May really working on reading for details, so I don't want to overdo that now.

Speaking of extensive reading, I think I mentioned in an earlier post that I've made a start on my first novel. Well, it's not the first time I've made a start on a novel, but this time I intend to finish it! I was buoyed by my success with the 村上 short stories, however I don't own a full length novel by 村上 so I went with つぐみ by 吉本バナナ instead. The writing style is quite different to 村上 and I have to say I'm finding it a little tough. 村上 seemed to write in a way where the same thing was repeated quite often in slightly different ways, which was a real gift to a language learner like myself. 吉本バナナ seems to have quite a direct style, with less repetition! I have actually read the book in English translation, but that was nearly 10 years ago so I can barely remember the details of the plot, and right now I can barely understand the details as I read it in Japanese, but hopefully as I progress through つぐみ it will start making more sense.
1 person has voted this message useful



dampingwire
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4666 days ago

1185 posts - 1513 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian*, French
Studies: Japanese

 
 Message 30 of 436
21 January 2013 at 2:03am | IP Logged 
g-bod wrote:
Somehow last time I was a subscriber to JapanesePod101 I only downloaded the
Beginner Series and the Intermediate Series, so I've signed back up again to get hold of
Lower Intermediate and Upper Intermediate levels too.


The first thing I did when I subscribed was to fire up iTunes and download
everything. It's only 30GiB and I'll no doubt be going back over it all again and
again, digging deeper each time.

Out of interest, is their German site anywhere near as comprehensive as JPOD101? Is 300
the total number of audio lessons they have or just as much as you wanted for now?
1 person has voted this message useful



g-bod
Diglot
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5983 days ago

1485 posts - 2002 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 31 of 436
21 January 2013 at 9:40am | IP Logged 
There is a lot more stuff on JPod101 than there is on GPod101. But GPod101 is still has plenty of material to work with. Actually, I think in a way JPod101 has too much stuff, at least at beginner levels.
1 person has voted this message useful



g-bod
Diglot
Senior Member
United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5983 days ago

1485 posts - 2002 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 32 of 436
22 January 2013 at 8:05pm | IP Logged 
So, just as I am really feeling my resolve to learn Japanese weakening, as sitting down to review my KiC cards on Anki starts to feel like a real chore, as even sitting down in front of a TV show feels like too much effort, and as the lure of a shiny, new(ish) language gets ever stronger...I finally manage to find a Japanese tutor based in my local area. Not sure if the timing is good or bad. All I know is I need to start loving Japanese again - but I'm pretty sure being able to have face to face conversations again will help a lot with that!


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