kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 961 of 1702 24 May 2013 at 2:05am | IP Logged |
Well my first post with my iPhone. It's a little annoying that my Japanese dictionary flashcards don't synch...
At all. Modori does but it doesn't have the features that the Japanese dictionary has. So I'm entering them in.
I am gonna add words from potter as I go I guess. I like the phone although its wicked expensive. The
screen is smaller but that has benefits and I'm focusing on the apps and actual support for Japanese fonts
built in without having to have the phone to entirely in Japanese or be rooted/jail broken. I'm not too into that
although I seem like a phone junkie probably. Oh I have a new computer desk. It was a cheap one for a little
over a hundred bucks including shipping from amazon but its nice. It has a raised shelf for your monitors (I
use 2) and a keyboard tray too. Not a whole lot of room on that tray to raise your fingers while you type but I
can put a textbook on there and do some light typing and it's nice. So gonna sit at the new desk with the new
phone and read more potter after I get back from buying food. And maybe beer. Which might hinder studying.
Btw entering this log on the iPhone is a bit easier than on my android phone.
Edited by kraemder on 24 May 2013 at 6:20am
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kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 962 of 1702 26 May 2013 at 5:05pm | IP Logged |
My new swivel desk makes it easy to study while watching anime. I don't know yet if this is good or bad.
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kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 963 of 1702 27 May 2013 at 7:57am | IP Logged |
I had my first study session with my language partner from class. We agreed to do とびら together and I
wasn't sure how it would go. It's working. It's kind of like how we studied for class. We do it by phone since
unfortunately our schedules aren't too compatible. I'd rather do it in person but this works. Our teacher gave
us a suggested syllabus that we can follow so we're doing that. We did the kanji workbook for week one. It
was kind of a pain. The book is teaching the components of kanji which the textbooks in the first two years
didn't do at all. It's a lot like Heisig but in my opinion, not as good but so much better than nothing. I'm hoping
it helps her. The book is a good review for me to learn the sounds although not the way I would so it
personally. I'd make flashcards if it were just me. I like them better and the SRS algorithm does a good job of
making me review stuff so I don't forget. But she doesn't work well like that and it's fun havin someone to
study with. I kind of struggles to finish the exercises by our deadline and I sort of figured that she hadn't
finished everything and she hadn't but she didn't reply when I asked.. If I knew she skipped stuff I would have
probably skipped too heh. Some of it feels like busy work. And some is just to teach you to write Japanese
using kanji from memory. I struggled with that since I don't study vocabulary with the intention of learning to
write it. Yeah with Heisig I learned to write a ton of kanji individually but that's a different animal. Especially
when you try to write Chinese sounding words. I hate those. One thing we talked about is how we study kanji
and learn it. We have very different styles and I think we could both do well to adopt some of what the other
does. She pretty much learns the Chinese sound of a kanji so when she sees that kanji it's what first jumps
into her mind. It's the kanji's name to her. I did RTK so I think of meanings first. Except for kanji I've seen and
used many many times and then whichever Japanese sound is more common will come to mind. Usually
that's the 訓読み but occasionally it's the 音読み. And the RTK meaning is right there at the fingertips too.
I'm trying to have anime playing in the background more. I used to always listen to ambient radio when I
studied German or Spanish. I haven't done that so much with Japanese. No convenient radio channel to tune
into. So I'll just be cycling through anime on Crunchyroll I guess.
I'm still liking the iPhone. I'm trying to find ways to extend the battery life but the interface is more tactile and
the OS is snappier and more polished. I like how I can quickly switch to typing 日本語 if I want to. とても便利
です。
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kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 964 of 1702 27 May 2013 at 10:28am | IP Logged |
I'm sort of playing with the idea of improving German or Spanish while learning more Japanese. But I'm
convinced per my previous attempt that its not too effective, even if fun. I guess if it's fun then that's pretty
good but until I'm happy with Japanese I think I'm gonna just stick to it and only it. It's hard to be sure when I'll
be happy with my Japanese. Some goals are N2 and understanding most anime without subs and reading
Harry Potter without much help from a dictionary. Or being able to read a newspaper or talk to a Japanese
person effectively without using English or feeling like I'm not getting my point across. And being able to hand
write stuff in Japanese using kanji. There's so much. I'm pretty sure I'll settle for one of those goals and call it
even. I would like to go back to one of my other languages at some point. I just need to feel like Japanese is
at a good place first. I wonder when that will be.
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g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5980 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German
| Message 965 of 1702 27 May 2013 at 10:47am | IP Logged |
I thought N2 would do it for me, but once I got there I still wasn't satisfied. I guess
learning a language isn't really a project that can be finished. Did you ever reach a point
where you were satisfied with your German or Spanish?
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kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 966 of 1702 27 May 2013 at 11:04am | IP Logged |
Enough to stop studying them, yeah. I was pretty happy with being able to read what I wanted and only use a
dictionary if I chose to, not because I'd be lost without it. I guess I'm looking for that with Japanese. A problem
with reading Japanese is that I like reading so that I hear the language in my head and I'll need to learn a lot
of kanji sounds to hear the language in my head while reading. I think I could be happy with skipping a few
words though.
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kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 967 of 1702 28 May 2013 at 9:29am | IP Logged |
I changed my RTK deck to include sounds. Chinese sounds mostly but occasionally Japanese sounds if
they're used in compounds or the Chinese ones just aren't used. I'm tryin to keep it to 1 sound per kanji to
make it more doable. But I'm letting a few exceptions. I went through about 40 cards tonight. I'm not really in
a hurry so if it takes a while its ok. If it gets frustrating I can ditch the sounds and go back to regular RTK. But
I think the sounds are doable and well I think I can do it this way now.
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kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5182 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese
| Message 968 of 1702 29 May 2013 at 10:52am | IP Logged |
Slowly doing the sounds. I don't know how many kanji I already know sounds to but the deck is obviously
easier when I hit those kanji. I'm doing it Heisig order and not based on frequency so the ones I know come
up sporadically.
Anyway, I'm pretty happy with the vocabulary deck I have going the way I have decks setup three times so
that test cards three ways.. It's going well. As I was doing this I was just thinking that Japanese would stink
without SRS. Mostly due to kanji I think. I wonder if SRS would help my other languages out a lot. It'll be a
while though before I do them. I tried briefly doing German and Japanese and wasn't happy with it. I did have
the pressure of doing it in the classroom which might have been a problem. Back to bed. I didn't get a lot if
studying done due to being really tired yesterday.
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