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JC’s Jumbled Journey! | ||
Tags: Italian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| JCTranslator Pentaglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4137 days ago 19 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, Mandarin, Italian, French Studies: Japanese | Message 1 of 5 12 August 2013 at 6:28pm | IP Logged |
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So I guess this will be my language log. It is more for me to track my progress than for anyone else, but feel free to read my ramblings nonetheless! I hope to be good and update regularly, but I know myself well enough to know that it might remain just that; a hope. My free time fluctuates from being abundant to non-existent in very quick step, so my language study is similarly boom and bust.
Anyway, I suppose I'll start with Italian. I have been studying for about a year on and off, though over the past two months I have begun studing 'properly', preceding, during and following a trip to Sardinia with my partner. He is Italian so my motivation to learn the language is mostly to be able to converse with his family, and also with him at home! His English is coming along in leaps and bounds, so I can only hope that my Italian does the same! At the moment he reckons I'm a B1, though I am convinced that I'm A2 at best. Then again I find that my aqcuisition of Italian is progressing way faster than any language I have studied before, probably due to its shared heritage with French and Spanish. Right now I have a couple of things I'm trying to do every day. -I have two decks in Memrise on Italian verbs which I am getting through fairly quickly. -I have a simple Italian reader on my Kindle which I am working through slowly and I have recently boughy a complete Italian grammar of the Practice Makes Perfect series which I plan to dive into the first chance I get. -I have an audiobook of 'Le avventure di Pinocchio' which I am listening to. -Pretty much every Saturday my partner and I watch an old episode of passepARTout on youtube and I try to comment on it in Italian. -Finally I try to have at least one proper convesation every day with my partner at home in Italian, depending on how tired I am after work. I will add a second post chronicling my shaky past with Japanese and what I'm doing now, again, when I get a moment! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JCTranslator Pentaglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4137 days ago 19 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, Mandarin, Italian, French Studies: Japanese | Message 2 of 5 14 August 2013 at 7:19pm | IP Logged |
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Well that is an indictment of my own free time if ever I saw one! I couldn't even scrape together 10 minutes to update my log on my other language. Fantastic. Freelance translation is not all it's cracked up to be folks!
Anyway, Japanese. Yeah... Japanese. It has been a very long, bumpy, on again off again type relationship. It was my first east Asian language, before Chinese came along. I've come back to it with all of the enthusiasm I could muster countless times, only to find life cutting in line, causing my Japanese studies to grow ever distant, to the point that every time I start it again, I have to start from scratch. Every time. Granted it can take me less than a day to get to grips with the Kana again (the Real Kana app is amazing), I do remember bits of grammar and my passing knowledge of Kanji is quite good owing to Chinese. Nonetheless I doubt I have ever escaped A1 Island. I don't know why. Every time I come back to it I say to myself "this is it, this is gonna be the one. The attempt that sticks." And every time I find myself justifying giving up. "I'll do it tomorrow." "I don't have time." "I'm really tired." All excuses that have worked, time and again, for over 12 years. I want to say, "no more". I want to say "this is actually it". In fact this time I did say these things, with renewed vigour. My partner is learning Japanese too, so how could I not do so as well? I have a wealth of Japanese language learning materials I have shared with him, why not dive back in? It's easier and more fun if there is someone else along for the ride! All of that is well and good, but this past week I have found myself putting Japanese off. Because of work. Because I'm tired. Because I'll do it tomorrow. I've given serious thought to paying an unholy amount of money for a course, which would force me to make time for Japanese, simply because I paid for it. Is that really the only way I can progress? By throwing money at the problem? Having ruled out the 'throw cash at it until it goes away' plan (turns out I don't have £9,000, isn't that fun!?), I am left with this. Using Nukemarine's post on the RTK forum as a guide, I set up three Anki decks. One of vocabulary, one of cloze deleted sentences from Tae Kim's grammar guide and another of "10,000 sentences". (I have since decided not to use the 10,000 sentences, well not yet anyway, as it is just plain dumb and it WILL cause me to burn out quicker than ever.) I have also set up flashcards on my iPhone with the readings of the Kanji that I come across as I study each of these decks, which I try to study on commutes. Every day I try to do a section of Tae Kim's grammar guide and make the corresponding flashcards. Then later I study on Anki. Additionally I try to watch Japanese films or animé in Japanese with subs with my partner at home, time permitting. I also have a few Japanese short stories I used to do L-R with in times past on my iPod, which I try to listen to during the day. During one of my more recent attempts I completed the advanced Michel Thomas Japanese course. I doubt that I will listen to those again though, I found that the female student in the recordings was rubbish and kept making silly mistakes. It was nice to be able to learn from her mistakes and all, but listening to her being prompted and encouraged over and over again became more than tedious. Plus that course only teaches polite forms, which isn't exactly representative of the whole language! I have less than an hour before I have to get ready and go out, so I will try to study as much as I can. We are meeting some friends, two of which are trying to convince me to join them in learning Danish, of all things! I may well take them up on it, so my next post might be me updating with that adventure. Let's hope not though, eh? Too many languages and no play makes JC a VERY dull boy! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| JCTranslator Pentaglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4137 days ago 19 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, Mandarin, Italian, French Studies: Japanese | Message 3 of 5 17 August 2013 at 3:27pm | IP Logged |
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Yesterday I sorted through my iTunes and made a playlist of songs sung in Japanese, which I listened to during the day at work. I also worked on my Kanji flashcards a little during breaks.
Today I had some time for Italian. I managed to; -watch passepartout and had a long conversation with my partner about the guest speaker who had a serious sibilant s (he pronounced his soft c like a Welsh 'll') -work through a chapter of Complete Italian Grammar for about an hour and a half. -read my Easy Italian reader for about half an hour. I wanted to do some Japanese today but we have to go visit my family so that is all I can manage! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JCTranslator Pentaglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4137 days ago 19 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, Mandarin, Italian, French Studies: Japanese | Message 4 of 5 19 August 2013 at 9:11pm | IP Logged |
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Japanese
Yesterday I tore through my Anki decks and made a bunch of new flashcards. It's getting a little difficult to retain Japanese vocab, but the grammar is fine. I also watched Pom Poko in Japanese with subs with my partner. Unfortunately my DVD (bought in HK) has the work ethic of a typical Chinese DVD. The subs are terribly translated and sometimes only appear for a split second, usually nowhere near the utterance it is describing. Italian Today I worked through the remainder of the first chapter and the entire second chapter of Practice Makes Perfect Italian Grammar. Dem nouns, huh. I also had a bunch of Italian verbs and conjugations that needed watering in Memrise. French Coz why the heck not? Yesterday I finished reading a short novel I started a few weeks ago just to see if I could still understand prose in French. It turns out I can, and I am happy with my comprehension after such a long break. I plan on reading more in French, so watch this space! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JCTranslator Pentaglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4137 days ago 19 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, Mandarin, Italian, French Studies: Japanese | Message 5 of 5 21 August 2013 at 11:58pm | IP Logged |
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Japanese
Today I worked through another of Tae Kim's chapters. In so doing I had to create a few new vocabulary flashcards, which led me to studying those for at least an hour, which really helped. I have thought up some effective mnemonics to help with the readings. There are still a few which escape me, I shall have to persevere! I then fired up Anki and worked through my decks, scriptorium-ing the sentences as I went. I am working tomorrow so I shall have my Japanese playlist on repeat all day, which should help! Italian All I have managed to do for the last two days is water my decks on Memrise. Slow and steady wins the race! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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