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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4599 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 1 of 5 09 May 2012 at 8:22pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I figure I might as well make a log of my own.
Native- English, Studying- Japanese, On the List- Mandarin, Spanish, Korean , Thinking About- German, Italian, Portugese, Cantonese been studying Japanese for a little more than two months now, and at a quick glance I think Im beginning to push into an A2 level. Ive been doing Pimsleur courses (currently working through the second phase), FSI (less regularly), And I have bought a book which is kind of like a structered and categorized dictionary. I watch Lots of anime, and listen to a lot of music in the language, And I have many discussions with my friends (throwing around basic sentences that often make no sense) who have followed my lead in taking a facination to language learning. as of yet, I feel my ability is to ask and respond to simple factual and direct type questions (nothing that involves very much reasoning, or explaination of beliefs or uses "why" or "how") as for reading and writing, ive picked up Hiragana very quickly, katakana passively (for the most part) and am working through Kanji, particularly studying the ones I see most often (my goal being to read more fluently, the material I already know) My current goals are to master the Material covered in my pimsleur courses, and know enough kanji so that I dont have to pick every sentence apart... My aspirations for This language is a C1 level (at least) so that I have no trouble communicating on a wide variety of topics. advice, tips, comments, experiences are welcome... (in English and Japanese) Edited by zerrubabbel on 04 December 2012 at 3:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4599 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 2 of 5 04 December 2012 at 3:39pm | IP Logged |
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Update:
Japanese Just passed my nine month period, and rereading what I wrote before helps in some ways... took a trip to japan, and I think I was pretty successful with the language... there were some difficult times, but I very seldom had to rely on English, however, abstract discussions are still beyond my scope of understandin [ but if I knew I was going into a difficult situation, I brought a dictionary with me] ... reading skills- enough where I didnt go hungry :D can read both kanas well enough I can sing any character at [christmas carol] speed... and I'm up to over 220 kanji. as for the pimsleur lessons, Ive slacked off... here its 7 months later, and Im still only half way through phase two... no plans to stop studying though... --------------------------------------------------------- Spanish began Spanish a few days ago, still cant do a lot tho... stuck with "I'm american", "i speak English and japanese" etc... however, current thoughts are: vocabulary seems easy... easy to make connections with words used in English [perdon, mucho, norte] ... pronunciation seems more difficult than japanese, but I dont think it will take too long to get used to... and over all, I think Im generally less interested in Spanish, so I plan to study it intensively for a short time... till march or april... but who knows, maybe it will grow on me, especially after Im able to have conversations in Spanish, even if its just small talk... -------------------------------------- Next plans right now are, when I put Spanish back in the inactive category, ill fire up my Mandarin... however, I dont really know how long it will take to be satisfied enough with mandarin in order to tone it back a bit... I still want to get to other languages as mentioned in my previous post [Korean, and now Cantonese]... as always, comments and advice are welcome if there are any out there [ this time in English, japanese, and Spanish] :D probably will make a new update at the end of march 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Dagane Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4510 days ago 259 posts - 324 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2, Galician Studies: German Studies: Czech | Message 3 of 5 04 December 2012 at 4:20pm | IP Logged |
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I see you are very eager of learning languages. Yours is a true love!
It could work, you know, your plan of picking languages for a few months before dropping them. Surely, it's a good method not to get bored. Mind you, perhaps it is a time when you'll want to master a number of languages, and I don't know if yours if the easiest way to do so. I don't know what your age is. I don't think the age takes so much influence in learning languages, but it could slow you down, because the eagerness for taking multiple things and the eagerness for mastering a few ones could change a lot since you're a teen. If possible, I wouldn't take more than two languages from scratch at a time. Also, note that saying things like "soy estadounidense" (I'm American) and the like is far from having any level of Spanish, though I can't speak of your Japanese, of course. My advice is just the aforementioned opinion: no more than two languages at a time from scratch, especially if they're your first ones, ir order not to get crazy! Of course, many people here will have a different or very different opinion. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4599 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 4 of 5 22 December 2012 at 4:56am | IP Logged |
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hey thank you for the advice :D just to cover anything you may be wondering im 19, and I do need a way to keep my
mind interested and enthusiastic... and even if its initially only an intermediate level between languages, I really would like to experience what it feels like to be a polyglot... since beginning language learning, the incredible ignorance about multilingualism of people around me has really begun to get under my skin, and hopefully I can lead by example away from that... for the more common languages, I think I would like to have a level of mastery eventually, but so far, japanese is my prime priority, though now ive made time to study Spanish, and I hope I can at least be pushing intermediate level by april... thats my initial goal as for Spanish right now, I dont even consider myself at a beginner level yet, call it A0 I guess but as long as I keep at it, hopefully it wont be too long before I start gaining understanding in contrast, for japanese, including the time I spent in japan, I was able to function in the household of a host family, partaking in dinner and explaining things about my home, and asking questions about their culture, however, on more abstract situations I still need work... for that, and coupled with the sheer number of words I dont know, I think my japanese is low intermediate for spoken skills, and A2 maybe for written in which respect I can function about as an elementary school child 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| zerrubabbel Senior Member United States Joined 4599 days ago 232 posts - 287 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 5 05 April 2013 at 1:12am | IP Logged |
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Update time :P
Well, the time I had planned for Spanish has expired, and it was quite a failure. In retrospect, I would say I just didnt have the right motivation to make it very far. Despite failing, I did achieve a small victory, I can very basically suggest speaking in other languages... not functional for Spanish itself but It may be a life saver in some obscure situation... Am I going to give up on Spanish? No. Im going to leave it on the back burner, because I think sooner or later, I will just develop the motivation it takes to become conversational in Spanish For the time being, my original plan was to focus on Mandarin... I do feel that my motivation is better for Mandarin than Spanish, so at that, I hope to see better results. Also, as strange as it seems to me, here in my middle of nowhere neck of the woods, I actually have more opportunity to practice Chinese, than... anything else it seems, so I hope thats also a plus. -As for my plan to actually improve the method, Im going to take Mandarin at half speed, hopefully preventing burn out. I feel that really two weeks was all the interest I had in Spanish at the time, and it was one of the determining factors in the failure My Main language [by use, not necessarily study time] will remain Japanese. A lot of interesting things are happening lately. I find by habit, my mind starts to think in Japanese automatically about 3 hours or so, before I go to bed, Im suddenly understanding certain things seemingly at random. Just a few hours ago, I had a Parable in my head that my Japanese journey was like an airplane. I feel like Im doing 600Mph [1000Km/H] cruising along, but it will still be hours before I reach the finish line. If that visual makes any sense, that is. -Writing still below my speaking, but I just downloaded anki, I know its a popular tool to use, so I hope it will help me play catch-up in the reading/writing department... questions? comments? advice? all welcome in English, Japanese, ... or Chinese [but go easy in that one lol] and they are appreciated as well :D I also wish you the best of luck in your own endeavors :D 1 person has voted this message useful |
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