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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 5983 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 65 of 436 04 February 2013 at 9:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well if I was minded to start memorising vocabulary, then of course I would be memorising the genders at the same time. I guess the question is really, do I need to start memorising vocabulary yet?
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| Evita Tetraglot Senior Member Latvia learnlatvian.info Joined 6553 days ago 734 posts - 1036 votes Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian Studies: Korean, Finnish | Message 66 of 436 05 February 2013 at 10:55am | IP Logged | |||||
I think the sooner you start working on your vocabulary, the better. Why wait? Unless you really hate it and don't want to do it... As for learning the articles together with nouns, yes, you should definitely do that. I studied German at school (for 8 years) and not knowing the gender of nouns (and also their plural form) was my biggest frustration. Of course, I didn't use flashcards back then so it was not a conscious decision not to learn the articles, I simply regarded them as less important than the noun itself so they didn't stick as well. 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 67 of 436 05 February 2013 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
Hate is maybe a little strong to describe how I feel about vocabulary study. I don't mind pulling out the flashcards if absolutely necessary (I can't imagine being able to have learned to read Japanese without Anki), however it's not something I find intrinsically fun so if I can avoid it, I will! I think I may move forward with a little compromise for now. I'll start memorizing articles for nouns as and when they appear in my life, but I won't go seeking out lists of nouns to memorize for the sake of it. 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 68 of 436 05 February 2013 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
Personally I don't think I'd get anywhere in a new language without actively memorising vocabulary. I probably know ~1000 of Japanese and it is painfully limiting. I've no idea how much French vocabulary I know but I can read a newspaper and understand maybe 90%.
Well when I was learning French at school, that's what I did (no electronic aids then, just rote memorisation :-(). My daughter is learning Italian now and my advice to her was to learn the article with the noun so that retrieval would (eventually) become automatic. In some languages there are broad rules (certain endings imply certain genders) that can help cut down the workload. 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 69 of 436 06 February 2013 at 9:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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When I was learning French at school I was exceptionally lazy about vocabulary, never mind gender. Set lists were learned for the occasional test, but that was it. I actually remember bringing home pages of vocabulary from my A level French classes, thinking to myself "so, what do I do with this then?" before filing and forgetting about them. It's a wonder I learned anything!
As for Japanese, I went the other way and spent too much time on wordlists in the beginning when I would have done better to spend more time building a stronger foundation in the grammar. I'm trying to learn from my "mistakes" with Japanese in my approach to German - ideally more grammar and less wordlists. Nevertheless, the gender of nouns seems to be one place where vocabulary and grammar colide! Anyway, with great timing there seems to be some more activity on this thread with some useful advice on dealing with genders. Also, one of the Warum Nicht episodes I listened to last night gave the first real explanation of definite/indefinite articles. So I think it's definitely time to start facing the issue head on. I'm trying to make the point of noticing what gender a noun is if it's obvious, or looking it up when it's not. This means paying extra attention to whether something might be in plural form, or a feminine noun in the dative case, which is all good grammar practice. I'm keeping a notebook of nouns when I study, so anything that comes up in my coursebooks where the gender isn't obvious gets written down, with article, so I can spend time deliberately studying/memorising them. I'm trying out drilling articles with an Anki deck to see if it helps, but I'm not so convinced about that yet. Interestingly, I noticed that in my Assimil, the gender of all nouns is given in the English text which I will be expected to translate from when I get to the active phase. So they at least don't expect you to remember all the genders right away. 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 70 of 436 07 February 2013 at 9:02pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Help! I passed N2 by mistake!
I've had such mixed feelings since finding out I passed the test. Do I feel proud of my achievement? Well, no, not really. In some ways I even feel like a bit of a fraud. I thought I had to be better at Japanese to pass the test in the first place. I've not studied even half of an N2 level textbook. Not even half the grammar patterns, vocabulary or kanji I thought I might need to know. When I sat the test, I sweated a lot. I had to guess the answers to some of the questions in a rush at the end. And yet I still managed to score 50% on both sections. My listening at least I trust a little better. All those hours I spent watching dramas definitely paid off. But as for the rest of the test, I feel pretty strange about it. And now, really, I feel totally lost about what to do with Japanese. I've achieved a big goal and yet it feels like a bit of a let down. My N2-level Japanese still sucks, but now I don't know what (if anything) to aim for next. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6621 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 71 of 436 07 February 2013 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Regarding genders, I can't say that I really bothered with them much when learning Norwegian. I don't really make any effort to learn vocabulary in the beginning. If you're using a textbook, vocabulary just happens. At a later stage, when you run out of good textbooks, then studying vocabulary might be necessary, but even then you will absorb a good bit from reading and listening. Usually there is some kind of pattern to genders and you will probably absorb it as unconsciously as the vocabulary, but if you find some overview somewhere that explains the patterns, then you will probably be able to use it to learn a little faster.
I know what you mean about feeling like a fraud. I always feel like a fraud at anything. And it is probably natural that you feel a bit of a let-down after the N2. I don't know what a good goal to aim for might be. There is always the N1, of course, but I don't know that aiming for a test is really ideal. Perhaps aiming to be able to do something you really want to be able to do? It's a little intangible though, so maybe that's not enough. I'm not sure I can help with this one. I have lots of goals: There are dramas I want to be able to watch, books I want to read, things I want to write, etc. But I suppose you can already watch and read most of what you want. It's a conundrum. And I'm tired so I'm probably not making sense anyway. 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 72 of 436 07 February 2013 at 11:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well maybe the point is that I shouldn't need to be setting any goals now. I certainly don't feel inclined to aim for N1 just yet. N2 is enough if I ever need to prove to anyone that I can do Japanese (to a certain extent) - even if I don't feel like I have proved it to myself yet!
I did actually sit down and watch an episode of a J Drama this evening, for the first time in several days. I think I was putting it off for fear that somehow I wouldn't understand anything, but turns out I didn't have too much trouble. It's just a silly show about people in my age group trying to find themselves, so no real technical or historical vocabulary to trip me up, but it was nice to just sit back and enjoy it. And actually, I think my approach to Japanese now perhaps really should be more about sitting back and enjoying it. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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