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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6376 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin | Message 105 of 197 06 November 2007 at 10:15am | IP Logged |
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Audacity has become my best friend. By slowing down the playback speeds of the recordings, I've discovered that I can greatly increase my comprehension of the material. The only drawback is that the altered recordings seem to take up an enormous amount of hard drive space.
I'm still working my way through Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar, and I'm finding it to be a really incredible book. I think that using this book alone can take a beginning student to a solid intermediate level of grammar. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| snozle Newbie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6362 days ago 16 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto | Message 106 of 197 13 November 2007 at 11:29pm | IP Logged |
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I would just like to say thank you for your posts, they are a great inspiration for my Japanese studies. I began learning Japanese over a year ago and got through Pimsleur and to about the 400 kanji mark in RTK before I got burned out. I didn't have a set method and for me that is essential to keep me going. Your posts seem to outline a course of study that would work well for me.
That being said, I have several questions for you to help clarify how I should go about following the method you outlined here. First, how did you employ the sentence method before finishing RTK. This is one of my main obstacles as I want to start the sentence method but I don't want to have to get through RTK1 before beginning. Do you simply replace each kanji that you haven't yet reached in RTK1 with kana or do you look it up and add it to your SRS? Also, how are you formatting the dialogues and sentences you encounter in Assimil and elsewhere in your SRS? Are you doing a direct Japanese -> English translation (J on one side, E on the other), or are you having one sentence of the dialogue on one side and the reply on the other. Or are you simply using the kanji sentence on one side and the reading on another, or a combination of all the aforementioned methods? Furthermore, are you adding notes or just a translation? Next, are you studying vocabulary in isolation at all? I have seen wordlists advocated elsewhere in the forums and thought them to be an interesting method of amassing a large vocabulary. I understand that vocabulary out of context isn't the most useful, but I also realize that if I have any understanding of a word, no matter how weak it will assist me when I encounter the word in sentences. If you did in fact study vocabulary in isolation how did you integrate it with the sentence method in your SRS? After completing RTK1 and Assimil do you recommend going on to the listening-reading method or the parallel text method? For these methods how do you use the SRS? Again, do you just use a J->E translation? If so, do you review both ways? Finally, for the L-R method, were you reading romaji the entire time? Sorry for the excruciatingly lengthy post but your posts really got me excited to start my Japanese studies full force again. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6376 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin | Message 107 of 197 14 November 2007 at 1:44am | IP Logged |
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snozle, for entering sentences, I do
Q: Japanese A: kana and English translation I enter the sentences as they are in the Assimil book, whether I've covered the kanji in RTK or not. Remember that Assimil was designed to be used by beginners with no knowledge of kanji, so it's not a real problem. I've also found it extremely helpful to use a web based SRS so I can use a popup dictionary like Rikaichan to look up any unknown vocabulary. So far I haven't attempted to learn vocabulary in isolation, but if you think that would work for you then go for it. I'm not sure what you mean by the "Parallel Text Method." Is that reading parallel texts without an accompanying audio? Because the L-R Method is just reading parallel texts with audio, and that is why I advocate L-R after RTK and Assimil. At that point you should also be able to understand simple Japanese texts with the aid of a dictionary, so you could start trying some manga. Post Assimil I haven't bothered entering any additional sentences in the SRS, at least so far. But if I were to enter sentences it would be from Dictionary of Basic Japanese Grammar. Unlike with vocabulary, it's been harder for me to pick up grammar only from context, and that book just explains everything so well. The only reason I haven't started adding sentences from there is due to laziness on my part. Finally, for L-R I've not used romaji at all. There's no source for romaji text of real Japanese literature, and by the time you've completed Assimi and RTK there's no need for it. Hope I've answered your questions. Edited by sheetz on 14 November 2007 at 3:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ? Groupie Joined 6219 days ago 43 posts - 40 votes Studies: Belarusian* | Message 108 of 197 14 November 2007 at 7:10am | IP Logged |
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If you use Windows
http://wakan.manga.cz/ Wakan has an offline pop up dictionary, and it's free. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ? Groupie Joined 6219 days ago 43 posts - 40 votes Studies: Belarusian* | Message 109 of 197 15 November 2007 at 12:41pm | IP Logged |
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As to Japanese literature in roomazi (romaji):
http://www13.ocn.ne.jp/~k-net/ You can easily change it to hiragana. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6376 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin | Message 110 of 197 15 November 2007 at 4:55pm | IP Logged |
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Wow, I'd never imagined people would bother translating Japanese literature to romaji. I've added the link to the first post. Thanks. I noticed it even has stories of a few audiobooks I've listed, but I'm not sure how much practical use it is. Perhaps I might try reading the romaji along with the audio a few times before switching to the original Japanese text. It could help with learning the pronunciation of unknown kanji.
How would you recommend converting it to hiragana? Is there a program to do this? Edited by sheetz on 15 November 2007 at 5:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| gidler Senior Member Finland Joined 6622 days ago 109 posts - 118 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Finnish* | Message 111 of 197 16 November 2007 at 8:02am | IP Logged |
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There are some applications that can do kanji to kana conversion, but they are far from perfect. Computers have a hard time deciding, for example, whether 間 should be かん, ま, あいだ, and so on. Some utilize dictionaries (時間 is じかん) but the results still need to be verified by people proficient in the language.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6376 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin | Message 112 of 197 16 November 2007 at 1:52pm | IP Logged |
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I was actually talking about a romaji to kana converter, which is far simpler than kanji to kana. But in any case I'm not sure that text in romaji is of any use to me. I tried listening to the audio while reading the romaji text and I didn't feel like I was learning anything. I think the only way to make it useful would be if I could place the romaji/kana underneath the original Japanese text as a pronunciation guide, but that's just too much trouble for too little payback. It's far easier to simply use audacity to slow down the audio enough so that it can be shadowed while looking at the Japanese. Still, I've included the link in the first post for anyone interested in it.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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