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| Biene Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 6227 days ago 71 posts - 73 votes  2 sounds Speaks: German*, English Studies: Dutch, Japanese | Message 9 of 39 11 March 2008 at 9:20am | IP Logged | ||
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@rob
Yes, using a black textmarker or better yet white Tippex would be the best solution if I decide to buy the course(s). I guess the publisher wanted to save some money by not printing an extra book (which would lack the romaji) for the boxes that include the audio-CDs. When there are no audio CDs it makes some kind of sense to try the tell the reader how the kana are pronounced by using sound the readers already know, but with an audio-CD there is no need for the romaji or the assimil-pronunciation. Great to put the romanisation under the translation... in cases like these one wonders what the editors are thinking about. Incidentally how did you tackle learning Japanese? @volte I guess when I really have to start admitting misconceptions to myself I'll have a hard time ahead of me, so I'll stay a wimp and avoid admitting them. ;) My main problem with French texts is that I have a good idea about the grammar and can get the gist of the texts quite easily, but I'm plain lacking the vocabulary. So no matter what text I'll choose I'll have to work hard on the vocabulary. I'm planning to look up as much vocabulary as possible before Easter and than read and listen through H-P over Easter. After that I'll move on to "Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours" and do a more serious L-R-ing. I've been following your Polish-log and wanted to ask how you go about the L-R. Currently I'm trying to hear and understand all the words that are spoken I move on to a new part of the book. It seems that you tackle that a bit differently. Could you elaborate a bit on that; either here or on your log? Ta! Edited by Biene on 11 March 2008 at 9:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rob Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 6170 days ago 287 posts - 288 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 10 of 39 11 March 2008 at 11:25am | IP Logged | ||
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For the record, I've answered in a PM rather than talking about myself on your personal log.
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| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6444 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 11 of 39 11 March 2008 at 5:55pm | IP Logged | ||
Given that you've invited me to discuss it here, I'll take you up on that. I've tried several approaches with L-R. Perhaps my most successful L-R was with German - every time I'd do an hour of it, I'd think for about equally long in the language. German is also the language I have the strongest background in, of those I've L-R'd. All of the German L-R I did was with an English text and German audio, no German text; this forced me to concentrate on meaning, rather than specific words. With Polish, I've tended to be fairly analytical, within the limits of what I can do without slowing down or pausing the audio. I read works from the beginning to the end. I occasionally rewind a minute or two, if I've lost my place or missed more than a few sentences in a row, which sometimes happens when I get distracted (for instance, when someone comes to my door). I'm currently trying to be less analytical (ie, with a focus on each word and construction), and to take in the meaning of phrases; I should post what I've written on that already, rather than continuing to tweak or ignore it. So far, I've found some benefits; rather 'blurry' words, like the particle 'na', become less confusing this way. I've found, with L-R, that if you focus on something in particular (ie, particular grammatical features, use of specific common words, vocabulary acquisition, etc), you do tend to do better with that particular aspect. I'm not sure what cost it comes at, though. Edit: I've posted the notes in my thoughts on L-R thread. Edited by Volte on 11 March 2008 at 6:05pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Biene Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 6227 days ago 71 posts - 73 votes 2 sounds Speaks: German*, English Studies: Dutch, Japanese | Message 12 of 39 16 March 2008 at 9:46am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the answers.
Volte, somehow I got it in my head that you're already extensively shadowing and that you moved on to the L2-text plus L2-audio. Now I have a better idea where you are and how you are working on the texts. As for my language-studies for the past week... French: I did my first more or less successful shadowing with the first few Assimil-lessons. Yay!!! Before I haven't really understood how shadowing can work, so how one can almost simultaneously repeat after the speaker, but now I think it's possible. Don't get me wrong, I know that lots and lots of people here on the forum successfully shadow, I just thought I'd never be able to do it. It seems that I didn't use the right material to start with. I've still a long way to go, but I've managed to shadow one or two full sentences and several half-sentences. After a few minutes of shadowing though, I got really annoyed with strange and long pauses of the Assimil-audio and am now editing them with Audacity by hand. I also agree now that shadowing is quite trying on my concentration, so 5-10 min will be the maximum at the beginning. The next week will be an French-only week, with a lot of Assimil and some leisure time with H-P. Japanese: Didn't do a lot for this the past week and didn't do my reviews after about mid-week, and won't do reviews the upcoming week. So the week after I'll be buried in expired cards and failed cards. Life sometimes springs nasty surprises at you... Edited by Biene on 16 March 2008 at 9:47am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Biene Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 6227 days ago 71 posts - 73 votes 2 sounds Speaks: German*, English Studies: Dutch, Japanese | Message 13 of 39 30 March 2008 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Not much to report, but I'm still at it!
French: I'm about half way through H-P for the first time - only listening to 15% reduced speed of the audio; and have currently suspended looking up the vocabulary. I'll finish listening to the whole book before I'll go through it a second time will reading along with the audio in the book. I'm not sure if I'll look up all the vocabulary that I don't know, since that's quite a lot... With Assimil I'm in lesson 10 and am trying to go at a steady even though slow pace. I wasn't very successfull to finish more than one lesson per day. Though I've started to use the scriptorium method alongside. So far the scriptorium is actually the thing that slows me down, but also the thing that shows me that I need to practice writing as well as listening and speaking. It seems to be the best indicator if I've studied a lesson well or not. Japanese: Finished my pilled up review cards (>450), and am now back to reducing my stack of failed cards (<200)... So I hope to be adding new cards by the end of next week. I'm starting to daydream of what I'll do when I've finished RTK1, but I know it's no use. First to finish those Kanji and THEN see whats next. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tpiz Diglot Groupie United States cvillepayne.blogspot Joined 6369 days ago 77 posts - 79 votes Studies: Portuguese, English*, French Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 14 of 39 31 March 2008 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck with the Kanji. How many have you gone through? I finally got it done and trust me, it feels really good once you can say that you did it. What are you planning on doing once you have finished?
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| Biene Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 6227 days ago 71 posts - 73 votes 2 sounds Speaks: German*, English Studies: Dutch, Japanese | Message 15 of 39 06 April 2008 at 4:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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French
I've finished lesson 10 and listened up to lesson 14 repeatedly, but didn't to a scriptorium. Thinking a bit about the Assimil-method (meaning active and passive wave) while reading though several posts here on the forum, I'll now skip the scriptorium and repeating after the narrators until I'm in the active wave. I'll also skip the writing/active exercises but will still do the comprehension exercises. I've also gone through audios of 1 - 20 again with "audacity" and cut them manually. The last time I didn't leave long enough pauses to listen to the audios comfortably. As for H-P1, I've listened at least trice to the audios up to chapter 8. I'm not comfortable with them yet and will continue with them the coming week, until I'll change the audios on my mp3-player to the other half of the book. The book itself has not been opened since last week, and won't be opened until I'm more comfortable with the audio. I got parallel-English-French-texts for the two Jules Verne novels "Around the world in 80 days" and "The journey to the center of the world" (thanks jonilinga). Currently I'm slowly going through the first novel and change the English to a more literal translation of the French text, since I really want to do some serious L-R with the book. I only change the text where I'm confident about the translation and leave the parts where I doubt alone. Since I won't start L-R with this book before I have finished the Assimil course I have plenty of time to work on the texts. If you get the impression that my French-studies are quite chaotic, your impression is right. Still it's been the longest and most productive French-studies-time I had in years. And this time I actually enjoy studying this language. Japanese There are still about 40 cards in the failed stack but I'm quite confident to get them out this week and add enough cards to reach the magic 1500. Going through the RTK1 gives me the nice illusion of pretending to learn Japanese. After all, if I don't finish it or don't continue with some serious grammar, vocab and reading studies after I'm done, I can't really say that I have learned Japanese. I'll only have learned several hundred interesting characters... But starting with RTK1 was my way of telling myself that I'm really serious about learning this language. I don't just want to learn to speak this language but also want to be able to read and write it, and RTK1 seemed to be the best option. So what are my near (daydream)plans after I've finished RTK1? Well there is a copy of RTK2 sitting on my book shelf and collecting dust. I plan to dust it of and get as far with it as possible when learning the readings of the kanji. Though I understand that quite a lot of people didn't really like it or didn't finish it. In addition I might try to combine learning the readings with learning vocabulary to enhance the recall rate. For basic grammar, vocab, and communication skills I want to give the Assimil courses a serious try - after I've edited the audios. And then one far-away-day, I'want to do some serious L-R-ing with the audio/books sheetz has provided in his log. Ups, that's quite a long post... EDIT: Several typos Edited by Biene on 07 April 2008 at 5:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Biene Diglot Groupie Germany Joined 6227 days ago 71 posts - 73 votes 2 sounds Speaks: German*, English Studies: Dutch, Japanese | Message 16 of 39 13 April 2008 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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And another week gone by. Time certainly flies like... a banana!
French I've finished lesson 21 and am currently editing the audio up to lesson 27, so that I can go through them over the comming week. The level of the lessons is rising quite fast and it becomes quite challenging to do them. Since so much new vocabulary is cropping up so fast I'll better go over the last 21 lessons in addition to the new ones. Somehow it feels a bit strange to learn with Assimil, since it doesn't really feel like learning. It's only understanding at the moment and I don't feel too confident that I'm really retaining what I've learned. But there has been discussion about this on the forum already and I'll just continue and hope for the best. I've listened on an off to HP1 and am now in chapter 9 (Halloween?). I'm finally anoyed enough that I'll put the audios anew on my mp3-player. When I've uploaded them before, somehow I managed to mix them up. So at the moment I'll be listening to Harry having his first lesson with Snape and suddenly it's back at the Dursleys... Not sure if I should just delete them and upload the rest of the book and later go back to the first part... Currently it seems that I don't get much else out of that part of the book by just listening; and for reading I still need to look up a lot of vocabulary. Ah, I guess I'll decide on a whim. As for Jules Verne, I haven't done much with it. Free time is quite limited at the moment and I prefer to invest it into Assimil, HP-1 and Kanji. Dreaming in French is occurring more frequently now and it's most of the time bits and pices of Assimil or HP-1. Those bits and pices also float round the head during the day. Japanese Surprise! I've actually managed to get up to frame 1507, and hope to finish frame 1600 in the next 8 days. I'm planning to add about 20 cards a day, which should leave me enough energy to tackle the missed-cards as well. Procastination is hitting hard, and I've got to keep myself from buying Assimil-1 for Japanese, else I'll waste time on editing audios in stead of finishing RTK1. Oh, and I had my first dream in Japanese... well, kind of. Some Japanese teenagers annoyed me no end and I told one of them that he was a "てめえ", which shocked him and the others. So I thought that "てめえ" was probably a bit too rude and changed it to "ばか" which shocked them even more. After that I resorted to German which was more rude for sure, but they accepted those words without batting an eyelid. Japanese are strange! I'm still not sure what "てめえ" and "ばか" actually mean, since I thought they both meant "idiot" (I wouldn't use them in real-live though). A Japanese friend said that "てめえ" was actually not a real swearword, but that "ばか" was a bad one, but she couldn't elaborate what "てめえ" really meant. I guess it's a bit like "shit" in English and "shit" in (North)-German; in English it carries a much stronger meaning than in German. EDIT: Rikaichan helped a bit in clarifying "てめえ". So apparently it's a vulgar form of saying "you", and it's used by males... and not females. ups! Edited by Biene on 28 April 2008 at 5:25am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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