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Japanese from scratch TAC 2015 東亜 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6618 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes  Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 665 of 1702 01 January 2013 at 7:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey Kraemder!
Can you post a little summary of how this year has gone? The people on the voting thread want everyone to write one before judging. Also, I assume you are keeping this as your TAC log for 2013. Is that right? I want to add links to the team thread and the main TAC thread. 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 666 of 1702 01 January 2013 at 11:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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A brief summary of the year.
I quickly looked back at some entries from a year go. Specifically to look for my goals and expectations. I saw the entries regarding my cramming of RTK 1. And I gave a broad goal of wanting to be able to read manga without help from outside sources. Well that bit didn't happen. I was looking at some Manga roughly a month ago and I'm definitely better than I was before but the vocabulary and language level just isn't there yet. If I had been studying a European language or even one with just an alphabet I'd have been there a while ago. But when I study I have to divide my time reviewing and learning Kanji along with grammar and listening and vocab and everything else. It's another time sink. What I did achieve this year was to join an awesome Japanese language class at my local community college. I was fortunate that my work schedule changed allowing me to take it. I jumped into 2nd semester Japanese without formally taking the 1st semester and it was really rough getting up to speed with everyone else. The biggest problems were being able to understand the teacher and the TA form of verbs. They had reviewed that at the end of the last semester (I'm told not thoroughly but still they reviewed it). I joined a study group for the class and made friends with other students and it worked out really well. The class was a boon for my motivation to study and with the focus on grammar (my weak point in Japanese) I made a lot of progress. Unfortunately I didn't sign up for the speech contest they offered and missed that opportunity but I went to both the Phoenix and the Tucson contests and it was still a good experience. Over the summer I watched a lot of anime and improved my vocabulary some - focusing on the words that would be used in the textbook in the fall. I didn't learn much grammar except a bit of Chapter 1 in the new book. It was very relaxing. The fall semester we started up again but went pretty slow. The curriculum assumed the students would forget a lot with such a big break and we had three weeks of review and only did 3 chapters in the book rather than 4. The class was even smaller than in the spring which disappointed me a little but it was still a good experience and I continued to improve my grammar. Being used to the classroom environment this time I didn't have any catch up and with my learning vocabulary ahead of time I had a big head start over everyone else (I couldn't believe nobody did that much even over the break). I think the pace of the class was a bit too slow for me. I'm a little annoyed that I didn't push myself more outside of class to learn more stuff and really solidify my knowledge. I didn't get called on in class so much so I guess I didn't feel the pressure. I think the professor called on students he was more worried about falling behind to make them focus and learn. I also signed up for the JLPT in September. I played with the idea of pushing myself for N3 but opted for N4 as more realistic given my skills at the time. I think that was the right choice since I was taking two courses and I have a full time job, and to get a pass on N3 or even feel like I wasn't wasting my time I'd have had to study a tremendous amount. So I took the N4 (old N3). The N4 turned out to be a bit beyond where the class was in terms of Japanese skill. Just a little bit more vocabulary and more grammar than we had covered in the classes. IE I hadn't studied the passive voice yet (we do it 4th semester) and the vocabulary list is definitely more extensive than what our professor and Yookoso expected. I found the test very challenging. I guess they'll mail me the results end of February or so. I have a lot better idea of what kind of progress to expect going forward now than I did a year ago. It's slower than I anticipated, given the amount of time I've put in. But I still want to learn, and I know I will make progress if I keep going as I am. So I am continuing my studies again in 2013. I don't have the goal to read manga without a dictionary this time. I don't know if that will happen. I am making finishing Harry Potter book 1 a formal goal however. I hope to read it by the halfway point this year. It's very doable with Rikai-sama and the ebook copy I have. I'll be really busy when the class starts again I think and there's a speech contest which I'm going to participate in. (I have no idea yet what my speech will be about which is nerve wracking). So I don't know what sort of progress I'll make until the class ends. When it's done my time will be my own I expect and so I plan to finish by mid summer. Aside from Potter I am also planning on taking the N3 or N2 next December. I don't know which. One of the other students that took the N4 with me in Los Angeles said he planned to retake the N4 again regardless of his results because he wanted to ace it before moving on to the next level. Not me. This time I want to sign up for a test that will push me to learn more. N2 would be a very good goal for that but I'll evaluate my skills in September and decide. Failing your first attempt at N2 is pretty normal but still, I want to feel like I have a chance. I'd also like to start speaking Japanese with someone - anyone. Probably via Skype. I'll see. I don't have a specific goal for that and I've made no attempts to do so yet. I want my Japanese to be more conversational before doing this for obvious reasons, and it's not there yet. 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 667 of 1702 02 January 2013 at 12:28am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm going to have to run to the gym to workout before it closes.. (I'm avoiding the shower in my apartment.. don't ask) but wanted to post again real quick.
I am excited to see other Japanese language logs popping up to get in on the challenge for the new year. Just seeing other people also studying is more motivating than I expected XD. Really cool. I want to make a few more goals. My first goal is to get through the first 2000 words on iKnow by... hmm.. lets say by February 15th. I'd push it for sooner but I have my class and I'm working hard on that and the material overlaps a little but not a lot. I'll go back and do the 1st 1000 just to make sure I'm not overlooking any words but the first couple decks from that were so easy I don't expect more than 20 or so new words out of the 1000. 1000-2000 is different. About 50% of them are new. I've worked on 1000 to 1500 some and made significant progress there but still haven't mastered them. Per the progress bar on each deck I'm about 70% there (for each). I've made a grammar SRS deck from chapters 4 and part of chapter 5 from Yookoso. I think it's really helpful and my goal is to go in and study the decks so they're up to date at least 5 out of 7 days a week. Speaking of which I started the honorific and humble language sentences a few days ago (maybe a week now not sure) and well they're being a pain about sticking in the head. Drilling every day should fix that. I'm gonna make a more specific goal for the Yookoso grammar sentence SRS later. I've been pretty laid back about my studying just saying I'll do this for a while and see how it goes. I'm gonna try to meet some goals instead coming up and well see how that goes instead ;). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4630 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 668 of 1702 02 January 2013 at 1:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Well you may not have reached your goal for 2012 but now is a new beginning and being
aware (through your posts) of your motivation, I'm sure you'll reach it this time around. Going for N2 in a year might be a real challenge too, but (I know as I did the same) it is worthwhile. The efforts you can put are always going to stay with you and pushing yourself like that makes your level increase many timesfold. I failed by 5points last year but it gave me a confidence I am still thanksful for. Anyway, good luck for 2013! And 明けましておめでとう！ 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 669 of 1702 02 January 2013 at 4:53am | IP Logged | ||
I think N3 would be a real challenge to be honest. I think N2 is more than I can handle... how cool would it be if I did it lol. My goal isn't N2 right now. It's N3. But I don't sign up until September for the test so who knows.
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 670 of 1702 02 January 2013 at 7:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Just doing some late night studying and well I sometimes wonder if I'm dyslexic. I think Japanese would
be the worst language if you were. It being a syllabic language and all. So easy to reverse the syllables and I'm its a totally different word. And it's so easy to do for these Chinese sounding words. Seriously. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6618 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 671 of 1702 02 January 2013 at 9:38am | IP Logged | ||
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I think reading HP is probably a better goal that reading manga. Manga are much harder than they look. Even the ones without much slang are hard. Maybe it is because there is only conversation and no narrative to help give you more context. Or maybe it's because there are comparatively so few words in manga that if you miss a few, it's a much bigger deal than if you miss a few words in a book. Also, I think there is more to learn from a book since there are so many words.
I have the same shower problem :) Perhaps it's good for your health though -- forces you to go to the gym and workout. At least, that's how it is for me. When you are doing iKnow, if you already know a word, you can just check it off as "mastered" and it won't come up again. It will get you through the decks much faster and there is no point in reviewing words you already know. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 672 of 1702 02 January 2013 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck with Harry Potter! I was probably at your level, maybe less, when I read it. I didn't understand a lot of it, but somehow that didn't matter...
I think working as if you will take N2 in December, but then deciding on the level in September, is a really good approach. If you aim high initially and push yourself throughout the year you may surprise yourself with what you can achieve. Reading and listening are really important, both in the exam and in real life, so don't neglect these in favour of just cramming vocab and grammar. As you start reaching deeper into intermediate Japanese, more and more possibilities for using the language will present themselves, and life will get a lot more interesting! About the honorofic and humble expressions, I guess it takes time to get used to them. At N4 level, all you are really getting is an introduction to the basic principles and forms. I got the feeling, particular on the N2 test, you are just expected to understand it as a matter of course so it turned up quite a lot in context-appropriate situations on the reading and listening tests. Well, once you get a bit more familiar with keigo forms you'll start noticing them everywhere, and once you start noticing them it will be easier to get used to them - which is where I am at now. It's helpful watching dramas about people in workplace situations for this. I've really enjoyed following your progress this last year, and look forward to working with you again this year as part of Team 桜! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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