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Japanese from scratch TAC 2015 東亜 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| 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 1689 of 1702 20 November 2015 at 11:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I haven't used the rhino recordings yet. Actually, I haven't gotten much of any studying done in a while. I'm just
thinking about getting ready for the move to Japan. I'm selling gadgets and other smaller items on eBay including the 13'' apple macbook pro I bought over the summer and then realized the 15'' is going to serve me tons better if decide not to get a dedicated desktop monitor. At the moment I'm waiting for Casa de los Ninos to come do a donation pickup. Getting rid of my furniture was somewhat worrisome for me: I live alone and don't have a best friend I can just tell to come over to my place to help move heavy crap. And there's really too much to put in a dumpster anyway. As I wait here for them to arrive, I've been throwing some stuff out and one of my neighbors dumped their furniture in the dumpster. Which makes me hope they actually TAKE it when they show up instead of looking at how heavy it is and declaring it of no value, taking the TVs and computer monitors and leaving. The TVs and computer monitors are bribes to take the furniture in my mind. I guess the worst worst case scenario is that I drag most of the furniture out to the dumpster myself and leave the biggest stuff in the apartment for maintenance to deal with and then get a bill later. I'll be glad when this furniture is gone. There will still be the bed though. I've been told they will 'only' charge me $30 if I leave just the bed. I haven't bene able to focus on Japanese much at all despite moving to Japan really soon. Just too much uncertainty going on. When I go to Japan, I have about 60k in the bank so I'm ok to live for a while and I thought it would be fantastic so I could focus on Japanese for a while and then find a job. I'll live as cheaply as I can of course. The rent is about $400 a month at the share house. As I fail to study at all currently, I wonder if the whole not having a job will distract me too much. I'm going to have to get my resume and do more research so as to set my stupid worrisome mind at ease as much as possible. Maybe I'll be fine however. I remember as a college student I was kind of stressed out not knowing what the heck I was going to do for a job etc. I still did homework I guess so it's probably not too much of a distraction I guess. Logically, I am sure everything will work out even if it means I come back to the States. So it should be good. Just want this damn furniture out of my life. Never buy furniture! As for studying Japanese with lots of time.. I'm not really sure how that will change things. I could increase flashcard time of course and probably will. What I really want to do though is lots of reading and listening. I have a couple of audio books. I've ordered the text to one of the books and I plan to go through that book a few times. Audio books are definitely easier to get through than reading text and since the written language has kanji, I think the audio books help you absorb the sound of a word in way that you don't get from reading / flashcards even if the flashcards have audio. The kanji meanings etc just get in the way too much. They kind of help but also hold you back. I'm not making sense. Anyway. I'll update after the furniture is gone and I'm hoping the missing furniture will help bring back my ability to focus. Edited by kraemder on 20 November 2015 at 11:39pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| 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 1690 of 1702 21 November 2015 at 3:21am | IP Logged | |||||
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The furniture is gone - they took everything I had to give haha. They couldn't believe I was giving them such a nice TV
too. It was a hell of a TV. So expensive. But it's for kids now. (the charity organization is for the kids) It's kind of lonely in my apartment without the furniture and my stuff.. my TV etc. But it's already a load off my mind. The date for leaving is coming up so it makes sense that I'm concerned about getting everything done - I've lived in Tucson 9 years so I have a lot of stuff to get rid of. But with the furniture gone I already feel like I could sit down and study now. So I doubt I'll have focusing issues going forward *phew*. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4663 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 1691 of 1702 21 November 2015 at 3:58pm | IP Logged | |||||
If only you had furniture you could sit on now :-) I guess this is when you practise sitting on the 座布団 in front of the コタツ. It all sounds pretty exciting. Do you have an overall plan for how long you aim to be out in Japan? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 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 1692 of 1702 21 November 2015 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
lol. I did save myself one chair and the computer desk. It's light and fits in the dumpster although it's a nice chair I think someone will take it if I just put it next to it. The overall plan is 6 month on the tourist visa, renewing it by taking a quick trip to korea or whatever is cheapest, then getting a job as an English teacher. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 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 1693 of 1702 21 November 2015 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Oh, and apparently the share house manager found me a gig as a Santa Claus (just one night) so I have a job sort of
lined up lol. God knows what that'll be like. I'm sure it will be fun. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 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 1694 of 1702 28 November 2015 at 5:41am | IP Logged | |||||
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Time marches on and my trip to Japan is approaching (finally!). There's still a lot of stuff to get rid of in my
apartment but I could do it in a day easy. Mostly stuff in the kitchen and I've donated several trunkfuls of clothes but there's still too much to put in a suitcase - even a big one. It was my last day as a claim adjuster for GEICO. Woohoo! I've been told if it doesn't work out and I come back to the US and apply it's highly likely I will get a job again. But I hope I don't. I hope I teach English for years to come in Japan instead XD. I'm really curious to see how my study routine goes with lots more time on my hands. I leave Tucson in one week so technically I could get started tomorrow but there are still a few things to do to prepare for leaving. I'm still selling stuff on eBay although I've gotten through most of it. I didn't get top dollar for my MacBookPro 13'' =( but just the fact that I am able to see lots of other old gadgets for any money at all helped make up for that. And I plan to live really cheaply so I don't have to go back to work anytime soon... BUT I succumbed and bought something online. Uqique Digital Voice Activated Recorder USB 8GB - Ultra Portable Mini Voice Recording Audio Device with MP3 Player Basically, I found my old Olympus DM-420 and started thinking I might actually use it. The rechargeable batteries are gone and I think I tossed the clip on mic that went with it so I went on Amazon to see how much replacing that would be. It's pretty cheap - mostly shipping costs. But then I saw the above type of items and it got my interest.I was thinking I could record my conversations with shop keepers so I can learn -every- word they use and expression. There's some things in a language you want to get down pat and shopping is one of them. Apparently, there's a big new wave of gadgets that combines USB drives, MP3 players, and voice recording devices. There's tons out there by several companies. The one above is one of the more expensive ones. It's totally inconspicuous and unlike the others it has a clip so you don't have to keep it in your hand (or pocket which might hurt the recording capabilities). The one above has a feature where it only records if you're talking and apparently it works really well. So I could just put it on, go out exploring / shopping, come home, pull it up on the computer, and start studying. Nice!! (I'm not asking people's permission to record their voices but I think I can live with the guilt) It seems like it was personally built for my going to Japan? I don't know what use I would have for the recording capabilities in the otherwise. It's just not that interesting recording people usually. Maybe college lectures or something. Most of the reviewers were happy with it being a nice USB drive and an MP3 player. Even though we all have smart phones I guess a super light weight MP3 player can still be useful too. Edited by kraemder on 28 November 2015 at 9:10am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| 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 1695 of 1702 30 November 2015 at 3:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well I got the voice recorder thing in the mail today (on Sunday no less.) I tried it out a little.. the 'voice' activation is
really sound activation. I turned it on in my apartment then drove to the convenience store with it on my belt to do an errand. I could -barely- make out the conversation I had with the cashier. If it were Japanese I think it would have been impossible. I think I'm gonna try clipping it to my sleeve instead and maybe it'll pickup better? We weren't speaking up and when Japanese people talk to me they do speak a little louder than usual so it might be ok to get a conversation at a shop. A little underwhelmed at the moment though. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 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 1696 of 1702 01 December 2015 at 9:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I logged into iKnow for the first time in ages. I was trying to convince a friend to study using it since it's the only
study tool she doesn't hate for improving vocabulary but she hasn't used it (I was going to let her use the subscription because I've been using Anki instead anyway). I don't think she'll make any attempt at Japanese in the next few years (foreseeable future) so I'm just going to use it. They have some nice study tools that you don't get with anki - although if you tried hard to setup Anki right I suppose you could come pretty close. Since I haven't used iKnow I reset my progress and did their placement test. I know I don't know all of the iKnow vocabulary solid which is why I think it's worth it to review stuff still. They put me in the top course they offer however: Core 6000 Advanced. I didn't answer everything right on their placement test and I didn't even let myself guess if I didn't know. If I didn't know I just marked it wrong. They still put me here. So I guess I'll go backwards. Core 6000 then Core 5000 etc. I know I'll have to suspend a lot of the vocabulary as I go since it's probably just 20% or so on each list that I really need to study. As for Anki I have a pretty solid vocab deck going on in addition to my sentence deck. I have 3 "Cards" for each vocabulary. To test me on reading kanji, reading hiragana, and then producing it. I am adding a picture to each card, mostly for the production cards since the picture queue is better than an English queue. Of course production is great but I've always questioned if I should do it or not since if you space it out enough it seems like you'll eventually get it wrong almost no matter what. But since I really want to live in Japan for a while production is tons more important for me so it's good. And card 2 or the hiragana recognition cards are really good too I think. This isn't the case for all vocabulary but there's a lot of kanji compounds that I seem to recognize only when I see the kanji and not listening or whatever. This seems to help that. 3 cards is a lot of reviews but I'm making a lot of time to study. Although I don't feel like I have tons of time yet - I'm still packing and getting rid of stuff for the move. I'm going to call a neighbor to ask him to come over and take stuff... including this desk and chair. /sigh. Then it will be the floor for me. But I leave so soon I need to -empty- this apartment asap. I don't wan to be doing that tomorrow night at bed time. I leave Tucson 8 AM Thursday morning. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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