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Japanese from scratch TAC 2015 東亜

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kraemder
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1497 posts - 1648 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese

 
 Message 1345 of 1702
21 April 2014 at 12:06am | IP Logged 
I'm back.. not sure what's up with the web site address but it seems most of the rest of you didn't even blink and never lost access to the site XD. Nice.

I saw the Super Challenge Bot is accepting challenges.. I haven't done any of these reading challenge things so I signed up. It looks ridiculous. 100 books by the end of next year. While this this is a great and noble goal I think setting a goal a little less far off would be more productive? Oh well. I signed up. I haven't used twitter so that's new for me. And I don't get how people can count a page from a manga as the same as a page from a real book?

I doubt I'll make the reading goal unless I do manga. As for the movie goal, if I count three episodes of anime as 1 movie then it'll be a cinch. I suppose I'll have to only count the anime I don't have subs turned on for though.

A lang-8 friend of mine has been posting short journal entries in German and it got me motivated to do the same. I wrote two entries already. One on my first break and another on my lunch break. The corrections came back and I definitely am getting corrected but I typed those entries off the top of my head really fast. It was easy. But as I said, they came back with corrections.

I did post some in Japanese on Lang-8 too. While it's nowhere as easy as German I think I could write something in Japanese almost every day - even just a few sentences counts and it's motivating.

I'm thinking about that language challenge. Some people are doing it for multiple languages. Nuts. The amount of time to read a hundred books in a foreign language... wow. Unless they're planning on cheating like mad reading only comic books... then it should be the comic book challenge though.
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dampingwire
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4663 days ago

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

 
 Message 1346 of 1702
21 April 2014 at 1:04am | IP Logged 
kraemder wrote:
I'm back.. not sure what's up with the web site address but it seems
most of the rest of you didn't even blink and never lost access to the site XD. Nice.


I think most people did blink - that's why the forum has been so much quicker these
last few days :-)

kraemder wrote:
And I don't get how people can count a page from a manga as the same as
a page from a real book?


I've never tried a challenge so I'm hazy on the rules but isn't there a fudge factor to
apply?

kraemder wrote:
I'm thinking about that language challenge. Some people are doing it
for multiple languages. Nuts. The amount of time to read a hundred books in a foreign
language... wow. Unless they're planning on cheating like mad reading only comic
books... then it should be the comic book challenge though.


I've just finished reading The Warden by Trollope: took me 5 days, and that's
one of his shorter ones. I think the last time I read a book in French it took me two
weeks and that's before I started studying Japanese, so I had plenty of time available
then.

Perhaps when I give up the day job I'll be able to participate.

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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 1347 of 1702
21 April 2014 at 1:14am | IP Logged 
hehe or you could just join to see how well you can do understanding you won't win. No I don't think there's a fudge factor. I was looking for it but if you read people's posts on here about participating in these challenges they talk about how either they or someone else just read a bunch of comics to get way ahead on the page count. I could maybe do 100 books in German. I think they count 50 pages as a book.. meh I don't know. I had a list of rules but can't find it now. I just posted my third German lang-8 post today. It's addictive! But not in Japanese! lol. I need to force myself to do a Japanese entry now.
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g-bod
Diglot
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1485 posts - 2002 votes 
Speaks: English*, Japanese
Studies: French, German

 
 Message 1348 of 1702
21 April 2014 at 10:50am | IP Logged 
50 pages counts as a book. It's more of a 5000 page challenge than 100 books but book sounds
better. 1 manga page will count as a fraction of 1 book page but I don't know what the
official ratio is. Anyway, you could definitely manage 5000 book pages in 20 months.

Oh and since 1 "movie" is around 90 minutes, I think you'd have to count 4 anime eps (or 2
drama eps). But do all that and your listening is bound to improve.
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dampingwire
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4663 days ago

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

 
 Message 1349 of 1702
21 April 2014 at 5:58pm | IP Logged 
g-bod wrote:
Oh and since 1 "movie" is around 90 minutes, I think you'd have to count 4
anime eps (or 2
drama eps). But do all that and your listening is bound to improve.


If 90m of watching counts as 1 film and the target is 100 films (without subtitles I
assume?) then maybe I might have a stab at it.

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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 1350 of 1702
23 April 2014 at 5:37am | IP Logged 
Well I haven't seen any Japanese subs uploaded for Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei since the 1st episode so my master plan is going to need to be reworked. I'm thinking of just going through all the 進撃の巨人 episodes. Then when the series picks up again I will be a great position to watch it without subs. I'm really enjoying the new anime this season. A lot of good stuff. The most recent show I got hooked on was the Bizarre Adventures of Jo-Jo. I didn't watch it for a while but I was really bored last weekend and thought what the heck. I really thought it might be gay anime judging by the artwork and the name. It's a little weird in that the artwork is very American I think. Superheroes in American comics are all jacked on steroids which is something that I hadn't really seen in Japanese anime with a few exceptions like Armstrong in Full Metal Alchemist. Anyway, it's not gay. It's got great action. It's a little cheesy but it's funny so it's ok.

I've been slacking on my JOI lessons. In part because of the 202 course I'm retaking at my local community college. It is a bit of a time sink. When the course ends I think I'll get lots of lessons in to make up for it. I did do a lesson this Monday. The teacher was gorgeous - not that I look for that sort of thing per se but I was a bit blown away. It doesn't hurt! Anyway, I'm getting told that my Japanese sounds really good. I think it does sound good until I want to say something that is a little beyond my comfort zone. I need to push my limits but at the same time I guess it's good that I'm getting complimented at all.

I'm going to be posting a lot more on lang-8. Writing an entry, while not exactly easy, is much easier than a year ago. By a lot. It seems like writing is a good way to push you out of your comfort zone and make you use more complex grammar than you're used to.
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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 1351 of 1702
27 April 2014 at 6:06am | IP Logged 
We had the Southern Arizona Japanese Speech contest even today. It's run by my Japanese teacher at Pima Community college so it was pretty natural to help out. I helped with decorating yesterday and with some small things today. Mostly it was a pain in the butt for me because I had to stand up the whole even while everyone else got to sit down... But I got a lot of Japanese practice. The preparation is handled mostly by Japanese speakers - at least the ones in charge. They really prefer to speak Japanese. One lady speaks Japanese almost exclusively because she's just not a foreign language person. So it was helpful. Although I'll admit I did more listening in Japanese than speaking since I know they understand English. Except today. A guy who was a former tutor when I was in Japanese 102 a couple years ago was back from Japan where he'd studied abroad for a two years. And another student who was a year ahead of me helped out and he's going to be taking the N2 this summer in Japan.

So after the contest today we were chit chatting and Michael who had been in Japan was exploiting the opportunity to speak Japanese with the native speakers and somehow that motivated me too and I finally got going. I was pretty impressed with his Japanese though. He was really fluent and seemed to use their expressions very skillfully. Living there really seems like it helps a lot.

They still haven't posted any Japanese subs to the anime Mahouka Koukou no Rettousei.. 劣等性.. poor student. Good word to know I think. I haven't started in on making flashcards for 進撃の巨人 yet. So if whoever posted the 1st episode decides to post the newer shows.. I'll be happy to go with those.

I'm doing ok with my core 6k deck. I kind of forget what I mentioned here already about it but I had to reset my stats not too long ago and so I'm foregoing the suggested learning order of the deck author and just having it add cards randomly from the 6k. This gives a good variety of words that are totally new, words I've studied only a little, and words that are really easy. Going through from beginning again with all of the words being known words for the 1st 1000 at least would have driven me insane. Surprisingly, after 1000 I think they get a lot harder since it's based on the kanji instead of the Core 6k order. Or something like that. Or I'm just rusty as hell?

Anyway, I'm going to catch up on the new anime episodes on Crunchy waiting for me. Starting with 魔法科高校の劣等生.


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kraemder
Senior Member
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1497 posts - 1648 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese

 
 Message 1352 of 1702
02 May 2014 at 12:52am | IP Logged 
I was told to check out iTalki and so I did. It's interesting. They hook you up with language tutors and or language partners. Some of the tutoring is really cheap, like they are doing it as a hobby or to pad their resume or something. Some is more what you would expect of course IE 10-20 US Dollars. Which is still cheap but not a dead give away like 6 dollars an hour is...

Anyway, I signed up for a trial lesson with a Japanese tutor that was recommended and I'm looking forward to the lesson. She costs just 8 dollar an hour which is a nice discount over the private tutors at JOI. JOI tutors are very good tutors though with education and experience (and not too expensive at about 20 bucks an hour I forget).

I also signed up for a German lesson which was just 6 dollars an hour. The German is for tomorrow and the Japanese one is for Saturday morning at 6 AM. Yeah, well technically I get up for work at 5 AM anyway but weekends I tend to sleep in.. a lot. But unless I wanted to wait it was really early or really late per my schedule. The good times were taken.

The German tutor is actually an American who studied for several years in Germany. I guess I'll ask her more about her background at the lesson. I initially thought she was a native speaker per the search function which I checked off native speakers only but her video she clearly says that she learned as a foreigner in Germany and lived there for five years or so. Her accent sounded good and I'm sure she knows her stuff but I'm slightly disappointed she's not a native speaker. But then again, she's charging just 6 dollars while the others are charging closer to 20 dollars.

I don't anticipate spending lots of time studying German anytime soon. I'm mildly curious though about where my level is or would be if I brushed up. And I might want to do a certificate similar to the JLPT. They actually offer the test at the University of Arizona which is where I live so it would be really convenient. I'm guessing if I did some studying I could go for a B2.. too much studying would interfere with Japanese though which is my focus.

I looked online for a list of vocab for the different levels of German - B2, C1, C2 etc. I found nothing. Or next to nothing. There was I think one deck in Anki that looked a little promising but it had just over 1000 words so I'm doubtful about how comprehensive it is. I suppose it assumes B1 knowledge and it's just the deck the author used to get from B1 to B2. The general consensus seems to be to go read and just make your own lists. Which is what I would have said were I asked a few years ago but with Japanese there's all these lists available so I guess I was hoping to just do that. Reading in German is loads easier though. Even if you're reading a bit over your ability.

It's a little funny that my italki Japanese tutor immediately asked me if I would be ok to pay the trial fee even if I didn't go to the class. I kind of thought that my payment was locked and I couldn't control it after the deadline or whatever but I guess that's not the case. The 30 minute lesson will be costing a whopping one dollar. I replied that I would happily pay for the lesson no matter what. She told me how she gets a lot of new students but they do not go to the 1st lesson and then won't pay for it. She added that she was glad that I seemed to have common sense (which made me laugh). I can't believe someone would stiff a tutor over a lousy dollar. I would feel terrible about missing the class if she showed up and only got a dollar out of it and didn't even get a chance to show me how awesome her lessons were to sell me on the regular full price lessons etc. It would never occur to me to stiff her out of the dollar because I stood her up. Crazy.

She didn't really have an idea of my Japanese level and seemed to assume it was a lot lower and asked me if I knew the hiragana and katakana yet... She seemed pretty impressed with passing the N3.


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