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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6785 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 41 of 102 26 January 2010 at 12:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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The past few days I've gone on a video blitz--over the last four days, I've watched 642 minutes of video, compared to 434 in the rest of January (21 days). I also enjoyed doing it, which emphasizes the point of finding material you enjoy. And if you don't know much Japanese, something that's visually engaging. Visual gags and a little slapstick? Fantastic.
I've logged 49 hours of video time in the past four months, so the ten hours recently is a significant boost. Also, I had the funniest moment one of these days, when out of nowhere I have the thought, "All these people are Japanese!" Granted, I could have said that out loud among acquaintances and no one would think it out of character. For the purpose of generating useless statistics, I made up a spreadsheet to record my activity. If I were to do nothing for the rest of the month, I would still surpass an average of an hour per day since I started (Jan 7), by a full ten minutes. And presently I'm surpassing an hour per day counting from the start of the month, with the first six days as zero (which they wouldn't be, since I still had Anki time). Current average, from Jan 7 to present: 92.89 min/day. I don't remember exact figures for December, but I definitely feel more successful, and that's immensely important. Also, having a quality log seems fairly important as well (December's was written on a half sheet of partially used scrap paper, January got a full sheet in a notebook). I started learning the katakana formally immediately after making the previous post, and it already feels well worth the effort. In my video watching, there were plenty to amuse me. I think I had a grander point that I wanted to discuss, but I've forgotten it amidst the unnecessary statistics and self-aggrandizement. It's happened before. In which case, yesterday I was trapped in a dungeon by an evil ancient samurai ghost. He said things in some language I couldn't understand, then laughed heartily. I presume he was laughing at the fools who adopted guns in preference to swords. Eventually, I found my way to two doors. The first was unlabeled, the second was labeled with a single character: 亀. I recognized this as meaning turtle, and so I entered that room--turtles are less dangerous than the unknown, I figured. As it turned out, that was a room containing ancient Japanese snapping turtle ghosts. However, while that sounds dangerous, apparently they too were captives in the dungeon, and they were joyous at my releasing them. They were able to overpower the evil ancient samurai ghost and killed him, whereupon the evil ancient samurai ghost's ghost came forth and apologized. He was summarily devoured by the still vengeful ancient snapping turtle ghosts. I was too curious to find out what was behind the other door, however, so I opened it. It led to a kitchen. The ancient snapping turtle ghosts and I had sandwiches and they regaled me with their stories. Then we left the dungeon in a mysterious fashion. This is how I was saved by knowing the kanji 亀. Now perhaps you will understand what I said before, about this knowledge saving your life. (Although it could be argued here that it merely led to the evil ancient samurai's second and third deaths.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5955 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French | Message 42 of 102 26 January 2010 at 6:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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NuclearGorilla,
Two things: firstly, great log!. Secondly and more importantly, while I am glad things eventually turned out well, please remember that the ancient Japanese snapping turtle ghosts are not to be trusted. If not for the placating effect of the sandwiches, this might have turned out quite differently.... Edited by Spanky on 26 January 2010 at 6:20pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6785 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 43 of 102 30 January 2010 at 9:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for stopping by, Spanky. I was aware of the temperamental nature of ancient Japanese snapping turtle ghosts, but felt it was the best option I had.
Something that may be of note: why is it that I suddenly began spending a much greater amount of time on Japanese? It was not, as one might suspect, due to an increase in free time. It was, rather, due to an increase in my free free time, which is to say, free time that I'm not wasting on mindless crap. I was able to reduce it not through sheer power of will but instead by installing the Firefox plugin LeechBlock and limiting a grouping of sites I spent too much time on to an hour per day (this happens to be one of those sites). The amount of extra time I feel I have is likely testament to how much time I was letting get away from me. As well, simply doing this has made me more aware of my time usage in general, and as such, furthered my resolve to use it effectively. Although that can still be a bit of a struggle. To make a more general point, I recognize that it is much easier (for me, in any case) to prepare my environment for success than it is for me to remain successful in an erratic environment. It's more effective to avoid temptation than to overcome it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6785 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 44 of 102 01 February 2010 at 7:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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I guess I'll start with a summary for January.
I recorded details from 01/07 to 01/31. (If you don't like statistics, I've kindly pointed out where they end. But shame on you.) During this time, some totals: Anki: 541m (9.02h) Tae Kim: 162m (2.7h) Video: 1802m (30.03h) Other: 80m (1.33h) Total: 2585m (43.08h) What catches my eye most is most certainly the video. I've now totalled 60h42m on my overall video total, which means that I've very nearly doubled my input over the past month. This is good. As far as Anki, in order to get something for the full month, I could add about two hours (assuming 20 minutes per day for the missing days, which is reasonable). I don't really care though. How much better could I do, reasonably? Let's take the average of the days once I really got on the trolley (I'm eliminating a zero day, since that was caused by yet another sleep adjustment day, which had it not existed, would likely have meant another 2.5 or more hours), which is nine days. This figure is 176 minutes, or roughly 3 hours. (Wow, that's a lot.) So, based on this, I could probably attain around 90 hours reasonably, unless the nine day span I took the average over was a fluke. A monthly goal of 50 hours would be weak, but an improvement, and I think I might go with that in the spirit of "it's better to shatter a weak goal than to fail a high one", which when written out doesn't actually sound right. ~End statistical analysis.~ It may be a personal issue, but I don't find 43 hours total all that satisfying. It's almost certainly the best I've done in a month since perhaps the RTK time (although the way I handled that, it might not be). It's good, yes, but I know I can do better. Wow, I'm actually feeling self-competitive. On something long term. Keeping a good log seems like it's been extremely helpful. On to more interesting things then. I read a book from ALG World, From the Outside In, about ALG (and some other stuff probably best skimmed over). I found this to be largely what I was attempting to emulate/looking for in a method, but I didn't understand the principles it was based on and why, specifically, it would work. In essence, I was fiddling with a blueprint without understanding architecture. From reading this, I believe I now know what it is that I'm trying. The idea is to not pay attention to what's being said, but to the entire situation as a whole. By paying too much attention to the words, one ends up with a translator's mindset, equating words in one language to the other. Instead, the words in the language should have their own set of patterns created in the brain, rather than piggybacking on one's existing for another language. I can't really say whether my understanding is reasonable, but I do enjoy anecdotal evidence, and there is enough for me to believe that the method is reasonable. The conditions of an ALG program are almost certainly better than anything I can create, but since I'm just screwing around any way, there's no harm in trying anything. Watching some video after reading this book allowed me an interesting view into what was happening. It was suggested that the more traditional study one does, the worse the maximum level they can hope to attain through the method. While watching, I noticed myself trying to recognize words, immediately translating them, and this was definitely hard to avoid. My solution to that problem: try to forget. By which I mean, stop doing anything that would reinforce the behavior, and then hope things fall away. The book illustrates that taking time away from the method provides time for the brain to process and (whatever). I actually experience this with German, which I had studied (along with some level of native material) for a number of years. When I returned to it after about two to three years of scant use, I found that while I forgot a lot of the vocabulary I had studied, my overall fluency felt considerably better after a short while. So, the plan that I might put into place is to take the month off from Japanese (with the exception of my RTK Anki reviews, since that doesn't really have anything to do with the process). I'll spend this time on French, and probably throw in some German since I really do neglect the poor thing (but it seems to work out). After this period, I can return to Japanese, hopefully refreshed and with some of the cruft forgotten. Actually, I'm considering whether this is a legitimate long term strategy, to alternate languages each month or so. With more traditional methods it would seem this would be a problem, but I don't think this one would have as much difficulty dealing with it. Of course if a language were left too long it would atrophy, but there is probably room for breaks of a certain length. Of course, the lot of this is speculation, but I see no reason not to try it. It's not like I have any real reason to learn these languages except for amusement and experimentation. I'll decide whether/how to handle this in the next few days, as I'm in the middle of watching a series and I want to finish it before abstaining from Japanese. This may well be my longest post yet, and for good reason. It represents a potential shift of sorts in how I'll handle language study in the future. At the very least, this is interesting enough that it'll keep me focused on my language learning for quite a while. Oh, and to clarify, my methodology for how I would spend my study time would be more or less exclusively watching video, preferably as level appropriate as I can get, and doing this until I reach a level where I could do something else (I like the idea of conversations where I speak in English and the other person in my target language, which is ideally their native language). (In the realm of tangents, my sound card works again. I think it's actually just my speakers' digital input that's hosed, which is a shame, but I'm glad to be rid of the complications and hazards of networked audio.) TL;DR: I fell in love with a chimpanzee, and now I must learn the language of the chimps in order to assimilate with their culture. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6785 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 45 of 102 04 February 2010 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Having finished my present commitments to Japanese, it's now time to take a break. I intend to do no Japanese, with the exception of reviewing kanji, until March 1.
It's a weird feeling, deciding that. I'm sure it'll work out fine, though. I don't feel burned out in any sense at all, and feel I could certainly carry on. But, the break is part of my larger plan, and I think it's a good idea. At the very least, it'll be somewhat interesting to see what happens. So, the following month is for French, which I've been neglecting quite a bit. (It seems I have trouble dealing with more than a single language.) I'm intending to handle it in roughly the way I've been handling Japanese, with the delightful benefit that I can actually read French and understand some things. But, input is the goal. Which has always been the case, really. I'm aiming for an hour a day, a familiar and very achievable target. (I considered taking the rest of the month to tackle Swedish, but have somehow managed to show restraint. It's possible Swedish will be my "next language" for the rest of my life.) I've already considered setting a long term goal for Japanese though, once I return to it. I might think it down a bit by the time I get there, but my thought is to try to have 1000 hours of input by the end of the year. This would average out to roughly three hours per day for the days affected--which is, really, quite a bit. Considering how poorly I did when I set that goal for just a month, and with that including other time as well, it may be foolish. It's possible that I'll do something a little less intensive--800 hours is still a good number, after all. But it's not like it's not an enjoyable venture, and I wager it should actually progress in enjoyability as I've done more due to hopefully increased understanding. As an aside, I've quite enjoyed approaching all of my languages, even if they've failed spectacularly (e.g., Hindi). I've seen some pretty neat and interesting stuff that way, and I certainly feel better off for seeing it. I've never come into a language thinking, "This will be useful for X," or "Now I can enjoy Y in the original!" It's always been about getting started and finding what was neat, what I enjoyed. This might just make me weird or short-sighted, but I've stuck with languages longer than many people who actually have a reason to. I guess it's because I'm interested in getting to know the languages, rather than just trying to get them to do things for me. Treat languages like people: get to know them, like them, love them; the joy you'll find there is of greater value than that of using them for personal gain. (Note: I am and have always been off the hinges.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6785 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 46 of 102 01 March 2010 at 5:35am | IP Logged | ||
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It's been roughly a month without posting. I suppose the question is: how did I do with my near month of French? No.
My offhand goal was to do about an hour a day. I managed to exceed the one hour mark by the 19th, by which I mean on that day I finally exceeded 60 minutes for the month, and that is where I stand, having averaged 2.57 minutes per day. Apparently my momentum with Japanese did not carry over to French. From this I learn the importance of having immediate access to something you really want to do/see/x in the language. I am not all that concerned, as long as I can do my Japanese fruitfully. Ah, Japanese. I return to it now, which I am quite looking forward to. I definitely would like to see if I can notice any difference in how I process what I watch. Which I'm sure I will record here. (An observation: if I'm not posting regularly in this log, I'm probably not doing anything relevant to this log, not even mundane.) I should be thinking (and should have already thought about) my current goals for Japanese. I threw around the figure earlier "1000 hours by the end of the year" which I still worry is overly ambitious, but is a nice number. If I accomplished it, then I certainly would feel I had accomplished something, regardless of whether or not it provided me any benefit in the Japanese language. (Hopefully it would.) However, while I sort out this long term goal, I'll set the tentative goal for the month of March at 50 hours. I do like round numbers, after all. I wrote a post out a couple weeks ago but didn't post it, since it didn't seem very important. I stand by that decision, although part of it was interesting. Another time. And now for the month's totals:
Less immediate statistics: I have now surpassed 20000 correct reviews in my RTK deck. And I estimate that within the coming month I'll have surpassed 25000 total reviews. Since I think I write each kanji an average of at least twice per review, and I'm sure I wrote each at least five times when learning, it means that my estimate is that I've written out over 60000 kanji. That's a pretty big number. And all this time on kanji has done very little for me. But I won't stop, since I'll need them eventually. I think. In about two hours I can do Japanese again. I'm sure I'll waste those two hours. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6785 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 47 of 102 07 March 2010 at 11:27am | IP Logged | ||
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I haven't really failed yet, so far as my goal was set, although I'm not on pace to reach it. I've been watching for 45 minutes per day, which isn't enough at a steady pace, although it could certainly be worse. I attribute the slowing of pace compared to my previous run not to any sort of inherent loss of momentum in stopping and restarting, but rather to the relative lack of interest in my current material. It's not bad, hence not bad enough to start, but it's not captivating in quite the same way (and the episodes aren't multi-part, which leaves less incentive to watch more than one).
Anki reviews have been taking rather little time, less than fifteen minutes a day. I expected little difference in my perception of the material after my break, and this expectation was met. After all, I didn't understand anything before and I don't understand anything now. However, to some extent at least the goal of the break has been successful: some words that I had previously learned definitions to, I've forgotten. It's possible I may have totally forgotten some (which I wouldn't be able to notice by definition), but I've noticed that I might recognize a word, but am unable immediately to translate, and am able to catch myself and stop trying to translate. Which is good. Although maybe I should have just kept going through February. But I did what I did and it was at least a little successful, so that's not bad. I'll want to pick up the pace for my 50 hours of input for the month. If I succeed, there shall be waffles. Failure means a lesser amount of waffles. A horrifying fate, indeed. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| NuclearGorilla Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6785 days ago 166 posts - 195 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Japanese, French | Message 48 of 102 04 May 2010 at 7:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I have not been posting. This means I have not been acting.
I even lapsed in my RTK reviews. Several times, actually. And with that looming, watching anything seemed right out of place. (Although technically, watching is the more important part, or should be.) But I have righted that which ought to have been righted long fore. I have cleaned my reviews down to done, I have resumed regularly watching. These things, as of yesterday. I intend to fail no longer. Or at least for now, I intend not to fail. When my spirit wanes and the heart grows weary, I always set forth my eyes upon that gleaming beacon, that scintillating point of light at the end of the great path. For it is not for the learning of the language I do this, but for the learning of how learning goes, which is far more important in the larger of schemes. A proof, to myself and perhaps the world, as to the merits or their lack of this methodology. This is overly dramatic and overstated, but why not. I must reach 100 hours before the month's end. MUST. Else I don't know what I'll do. Perhaps some sort of pagan ritual? I've presently seventy-three point six six six repeating hours in, which leaves a mere twenty-six point three three three repeating hours for the remainder of the month, making the pace to beat fifty-seven minutes per day. Obviously should be doable, but let us not forget the goal of March, of which the same was stated and whose putrid odor tainted the entirety of the month it preceded (of which we shan't, nay mustn't, speak). I think I need some more compelling content, really. I'm meaning for me to watch, not for me to write. People don't read this because it's compelling, they do it because it's the Right thing to do. It would be quite an un-<adjectival form of reader's preferred nationality> thing to do, really more of a(n) <adjectival form of reader's preferred nationality's ideals-hating enemy's nationality> thing to do, don't you think? I think we can do better than that, here. (There, I'm covered, except for those without national pride or who are above petty appeals to nationalism.) Yes, in any case, I haven't come across much in the way of good media lately. Of course, lately I haven't been looking so much, but the lack of excellent media has led in part to my failure (or "setback", if you will), so I would do well to find some. It's hard to find appealing media when you don't understand a word. Usually I keep my rambling for the end, but this time the rambling actually occurred in the middle of it, as if I were actually distracted instead of just running out of anything interesting to say. Must be the mind going. Oh well, it had a good run. (Note for posterity: changed thread title. "Occasionally" seemed an overstatement.) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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