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Tips to get me out of a language slump? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| mjhowie1992 Diglot Newbie AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5181 days ago 24 posts - 27 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 5 24 August 2012 at 3:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am stuck in a slump with all my languages. I love learning languages, and so I try to
learn all at once (it's still fun, but inefficient!) I primarily study French and Japanese. French is going good, because I am in a beginner class and am keeping myself a few steps ahead of the class. However, Japanese is my weak point. I perform very well (mainly through good grammar), but I am not good at speaking, and my vocabulary is really bad. What am I not doing? What are some things I can do to dramatically improve my confidence in speaking and vocabulary recollection? I have this problem in other languages too. I reach a point where I just can't seem to take in any more words or grammar points. Can anyone give me tips as to what helps them get through slumps? Should I try flashcards, podcasts, shadowing? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 2 of 5 24 August 2012 at 4:50pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ouch! I wrote a long post and it got deleted due to connection trouble.
I'll try to rewrite it (and better than before). Firstly, my experience is based on European languages only, not on Japanese or another extra hard one. And a good news: it is possible to get out of the point where you have been stuck for some time, I managed to do this with my French. And it didn't hurt :-) Stuck in vocabulary: SRS is a wonderful invention. Popular is for exemple Anki or Memrise. Both have some content for Japanese but it is the best to make your own decks. Cover the gaps in the basic and intermediate vocabulary. You can learn advanced and rare words as well, so it is not a step back, but without dealing with the gaps, it is not the way forward. Ressources for vocab: A good thing is to go again through your past courses or buy/borrow another basic textbook, if you have none. Thematic vocabulary books or dictionaries are awesome. Verb book or verb list is a useful tool. And perhaps a thesaurus. And the native materials of course. For exemple wikipedia is a golden mine. Getting stuck in using the language: Both passive and active skills need you to THINK IN the language and A LOT of PRACTICE in the skills. Read real books. First one or two may be painful but around the tenth, you may not even notice it is another language when the story gets thrilling. Listen to native material. In just one series of a tv show, my rusty listening to French got to level better than ever before and sufficient for conversation with real people. Find a conversation partner or at least speak to yourself, shadow audio etc. Write to forums or on italki (a site where you'll get corrected by natives), write a diary or short stories (no matter it might not be a bestseller, just make yourself use the language). More languages: How many and which are you learning, added to French and Japanese? A good thing is to just maintain the rest and focus on one or two. It is not like dropping them completely and letting your skills die. And it is not spreading yourself too thin. It is actually quite necessary for many people who learn/know more than one or two foreign languages. 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 3 of 5 24 August 2012 at 6:56pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm not going to offer a specific solution, @Cavesa has that well covered. I am going to suggest something radical that, most likely, you will not want to hear. I think you should just learn one language first. It may not be as fun, but I'll wager that being in this seemingly recurring slump isn't much fun either. Get one language under your belt and then try to learn more than one at the same time. While it is indeed possible to learn more than one language simultaneously, many language learners run into the same problem you are having- vocabulary and grammar overload. My opinion is that learning two or more languages simultaneously before you have learned your first second language is overwhelming and tends to lead to an emphasis on too much "studying". I feel that it is also important to interact with a language on many levels- speaking, reading, writing and listening. In this way your lessons solidify into something concrete and not just a collection of vocabulary and grammar points. Give it a try for a month, I'll bet you'll be surprised at your progress and how quickly you'll get out of your slump. Edited by iguanamon on 24 August 2012 at 7:00pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Tamise Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom jllrr.wordpress.com/ Joined 5244 days ago 115 posts - 161 votes Speaks: English*, German, Dutch Studies: French, Japanese, Spanish | Message 4 of 5 26 August 2012 at 11:53am | IP Logged | ||
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For Japanese, I find iKnow.jp (was Smart.fm) to be very good - though you have to pay for it now. It's flashcards with a range of cards for each word, so E-J, J-E, audio to E and kanji to E.
Seeing and hearing words in context is also really useful, so reading and watching native stuff is good. I started reading in Japanese before I understood very much, and found it really good as kana practice and then vocab practice. If you pick a book on a topic you're familiar with it will be easier - in my case the first book I properly read was a manga about baseball. Watching the anime and reading the manga of the same series can also be good for reinforcement. For keeping up momentum, find something to do in your target language that you really enjoy - and for preference that you can't do in your target language, so media that hasn't been translated into your native (or stronger target) language for example, or something very specific to the target culture(s). I read a teen detective manga series and they've stopped translating it into English, so if I want to read them, I have to do it in Japanese. As iguanamon says, it may also be worth putting one language on hold for a while, but if you can, try to keep in contact with it in some way. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4848 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 5 of 5 27 August 2012 at 2:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Japanese is so difficult that you should either make it the only language you study until you reach an advanced level, or make it a priority over any other language. I study Portuguese on the side, but about 75% of my language study time every week goes to Japanese.
I struggle with what you struggle with: listening and speaking, as well as vocabulary. Try watching anime or Japanese movies/shows, if you can get them. If not, get some podcasts, such as JapanesePod101.com. They have a lot of English, but you can get the ones where the dialogs are suited to your level. If you are good with audio editing software like Audacity (free), cut everything but the dialog, make a playlist of them on your computer/smartphone/mp3 player, and listen when you have free time. If you can't use audio editing software, or if you are just lazy like me, no problem. Just use fast forward and rewind, and loop the dialog over and over. When you get bored, get rid of the podcast and get another one. For vocabulary, SRS works for me, but it's not for everybody. Try an SRS program like Anki or Mnemosyne and review vocabulary every day. Or use Iversen's wordlist method, the Goldlist method, paper flashcards, writing Japanese words on one side of a paper and English on the other, then covering one side and testing yourself, etc. Find out what works for you. Also (and this is my BIGGEST problem)... be patient. Picking up Japanese vocabulary will take longer than other languages. It's a long road, but if you do a little every day and believe that you will get there eventually, it will happen. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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