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Spanish by 30, Japanese NOW | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| HopeTea Newbie Japan Joined 4356 days ago 37 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 17 of 21 20 April 2013 at 4:01am | IP Logged |
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My goals went by the wayside pretty quickly. But that's not entirely a bad thing. I actually feel like I did a lot this week. I'm especially proud of how much ground I managed to cover in Spanish from YouTube videos alone. The main channel I've been watching is this one:
http://www.youtube.com/user/tontitofrito?feature=watch I've gone through all the Spanish I vids and am now working through the Spanish II ones. I even bought some notebooks and started taking notes! And practicing! And writing stuff! I know it sounds like no big deal, but it's huge for me. It's like "real" study, something I haven't done since...I don't even know when! I've been working through the manuals I checked out from the library. I've done almost 2 lessons in Japanese, 5 in Spanish. I already finished the Japanese graded readers. Hopefully this weekend I'll return them and pick up some more. I tried reading the chapter book I picked up, but honestly, it was just too boring. Books for kids are a lot easier as far as vocab and kanji go, but only a percentage of those can hold the attention of an adult (at least THIS adult). I guess I'll stick to shorter children's books and graded readers for now. After I've done that for awhile, I'll move on to books for teens. I've also watched almost an entire drama over the past few days. It's called パパとムスメの７日間. http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Papa_to_Musume_no_Nanokakan It's a Freaky Friday-esque drama wherein a father and daughter body-swap for a week following an accident. It's fun and probably easy to follow even for beginners. I guess I'll just keep going at my own pace. I do hope to finish the manuals by the 30th, though, since that's the day they're due back. I might be able to do it if I do multiple lessons a day. But it's not the end of the world if I can't finish. I can just check them out again if I need to. Hope everyone has a lovely and productive weekend! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| HopeTea Newbie Japan Joined 4356 days ago 37 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 18 of 21 30 April 2013 at 2:55am | IP Logged |
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This will probably just be a mini-update.
It's been a busy week! I returned my first set of manuals yesterday. I didn't finish them, but got far enough to call it a reasonable success. I've also read through a total of 5 graded readers now, and I have a stack of eight new ones here in front of me. I picked up a Japanese-Spanish phrasebook with three CD's of audio. Although it's a phrasebook and not a manual, I love having Japanese and Spanish together like that. Rather than being confusing, I find it helpful and easier to focus on. How about you? Do you like or dislike using multiple languages in this way? I also finally finished Pimsleur Spanish level 1! I'll try to post my thoughts on it sometime soon. Spoiler alert: I liked it well enough. I'm planning to start level 2 from tomorrow, since I registered for the 6 Week Challenge on Twitter. It will be my first time participating in any form of challenge, so I'm excited to see how I go! I know the second half of this month will be busy as we have family visiting, but I'm still hoping to make a lot of progress! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| HopeTea Newbie Japan Joined 4356 days ago 37 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 19 of 21 26 May 2013 at 1:52am | IP Logged |
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I haven't updated for a long time! I've been really busy, both with my son and studying Spanish. Thanks to the
six week challenge (I'm jackonskates over there), I feel I'm making a lot of progress. I realize that even while taking care of my son and being pretty busy throughout the day, I can still make quite a bit of time to study. Most of what I do is listening, but I don't really consider that bad thing. After all that's pretty much what taught me all the Japanese I know. I'm halfway through Pimsleur level two, I finished the Michel Thomas foundation course, and I've been listening to random radio broadcasts from Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries. I've also found a few TV shows I can watch and understand more than I expected to (Masterchef España, Letris, etc.) I've also been using apps to do grammar type drills and things like that (Duolingo, random verb conjugation apps - haven't decided yet which I like best and would recommend). I've already checked out other threads on this forum about apps, but I'll still go ahead and say if you have any recommendations, please let me know. I really think it's true that once you've studied one foreign language, you get better at studying languages in general. I feel like I learned from the mistakes I made while studying Japanese, and that Spanish is going much faster mainly because of this. For example, I've accepted the fact that studying from textbooks is probably something I'm never going to do. I'm the type of person who picks up on things more quickly when I hear it. Clearly listening a lot is the best way for me to familiarize myself with the language, and start to pick it up. Knowing this from the start, I wasted little time trying to force myself to use textbooks. From the very start I decided to study Spanish the way I ended up making progress in Japanese, and I'm feeling really good about it. I've gotten to a stage now where I know I'll continue on no matter what. The only downside to all this Spanish success is that I'm still not really "studying" Japanese. I still speak it a certain amount each day, and watch TV and live my daily live in it, but I haven't done much in addition to that. It actually kind of fell by the wayside when I started the 6 week challenge (of course during that time you feel a drive to spend as much time studying the target language as possible). I'm still trying to work out a gameplan for Japanese. I have decided to keep track of the time spent studying from next week onward (hopefully), in hopes it might have a similar motivational effect. I really wish there were back to back six-week challenges, and that you could do it with any language you wanted regardless of level, so I could do both Japanese and Spanish and keep track of it that way. Even though I'm not trying to compete with anyone, it's so motivating to see where you are on the list and have the number tallied right there for all to see... I am finally on the last level of Japanese graded readers. Typically, I put off reading them so I can have more time for Spanish, and then read them on the day they're due back to the library. My plan is to finish all of them, and then move onto…something else. Maybe more children's books, maybe some bilingual books, I'm really not sure yet. Tips? It's hard because although my vocab level might be able to handle teen books or some adult books, my kanji level cannot. Which brings me to my other main goal...spend at least 30 minutes or so a day on kanji. I don't know why I fight it so much when I know it's not that bad and that it will make a world of difference in my ability to read more level appropriate reading materials... I know this has been kind of a long rambling update. I just got an iPad mini and so for the first time I have Siri. Anyway, I know initially I said I'd update every two weeks, but I guess I'll just update whenever. Probably no one's even reading this, and I don't feel like it does much other than take time away from my Spanish. ;) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5347 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 20 of 21 26 May 2013 at 3:04am | IP Logged |
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You'd be surprised how many people read what you write! I love it that you're learning Spanish in Japan and kuji's learning Portuguese there too.
Maybe you should start checking out the NHK World Spanish news it has a transcript to follow. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| HopeTea Newbie Japan Joined 4356 days ago 37 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 21 of 21 26 May 2013 at 3:50am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the link! I've actually been getting this podcast via iTunes but hadn't checked out the actual site.
It's a great resource for me. I know already from watching TV what the big news stories are, so that helps me follow along with the Spanish. :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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