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Kuji’s Krazy Log II | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4849 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 577 of 706 02 September 2014 at 3:28am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I had a long post written out, but, as is often the case, the HTLAL site crashed on me. It can be a bit annoying sometimes. Anyway, I'll quickly talk about the main stuff. I didn't write any journal entries for Japanese or Portuguese yesterday, and I didn't do a Portuguese one this morning, because I felt a bit tired. Missing one day of writing is okay, but two in a row? That could be the start of a bad trend. If I have time today at work, I'll try writing one.
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| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5168 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 578 of 706 02 September 2014 at 8:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I was wondering about something and I wrote at my log: I want to choose small portions of texts for reading intensively for Georgian. How do you chose these? Do you go for any particular section of news and 'rotate' sometimes, so you can get different vocabulary? I was thinking about other sources for short texts besides news, but really can't fout what that'd be, as Georgian has no 'podcasts'. Maybe picking three paragraphs at once from an easier novel would work? I'm more concerned with the 'practical' issue of selecting, copying/pasting and keeping track of it (like: I paused reading today at page &&, 3rd paragraph). Or should I just pick a random news item everyday and just take care not to overlap when my source hasn't had news for a while (which is unlikely even for a Georgian newspaper, I believe).
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| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4849 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 579 of 706 03 September 2014 at 2:34am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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@Expugnator - What I do is just go to a news site every week, scan the headlines, and see if there is anything interesting that I might want to read. If I will read it on the computer, I bookmark it. If I'm going to read it on the train or elsewhere, I'll print it on paper, print to a PDF, or save it to Pocket on my Android device. Then later on, if I have time, I'll read them.
Because I'm looking for interesting articles, I tend to choose sports-based articles, but they can also be about celebrities, lifestyle, travel, etc. Lately I'm not choosing many "hard" news articles about current events like war, politics, etc. So, the subjects of the materials are quite narrow, so I don't get a wide variety of vocabulary. But to be honest, my vocabulary is not so advanced in sports, etc., yet. I suppose that once I master those, I'll move on to harder material like politics. I used to copy-and-paste all unknown words and sentences for studying later. But at my level, that can be quite tedious - especially so on an Android device (it's easier on a computer). So now I read articles semi-intensively; I only worry about sentences that seem very interesting to me, or sentences with only one unknown word or grammar point. I still have to copy-and-paste a lot, because there are a lot of unknowns, but it is somewhat easier. For those articles, sometimes I can't finish reading them in a session, but that's okay. The next day, I try to just remember where I left off, and continue from there. If I need to, I might go back a bit and review the last few sentences. Once I've gone through the entire article, I review by reading it again, trying to remember the new words without looking at my notes. Then I trash it. I like your idea of reading a few paragraphs at a time in an easier novel. I'm planning to do that myself for my next Japanese novel... whenever I have a chance. But I think it depends on the novel. It's easier to read intensively if the novel is very interesting. Also - and I haven't read many novels in my L2s yet - I start off by reading somewhat intensively, but once the story "starts moving", I start to read more and more extensively, stopping only when there is an unknown word that prevents me from understanding more or less the story. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5168 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 580 of 706 03 September 2014 at 9:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Very elucidative post, kuji! I think it is important to narrow down the topics a bit for what you like most, that also brings adds more motivation. As for reading a novel extensively, my problem is I've been doing this even when I don't understand the story (well, I actually do thanks to the translation, but I wouldn't considering L2 alone).
I have to experiment with articles. I'm used to working with 'countable' and 'divisible' items such as books and films and I need to do more 'smaller' tasks,mini-challenges and the like. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4849 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 581 of 706 14 October 2014 at 2:30am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I wrote a few things in this thread about whether or not people study languages for fun. To summarize, I wrote that, while I do want to learn some languages, the learning process itself is not much fun, even if I do activities that I think are fun. But it turns out that, seemingly, I'm the only one here that feels that way. Most HTLALers actually enjoy the learning process, and - and this is more surprising to me - many people enjoy learning the languages more than using them. I was blown away by that.
That got me to thinking a lot about my situation and its uniqueness here at HTLAL. For starters, everyone here is here because they love learning languages, but it seems that nobody has an acute need for any of the languages they are learning. I need to learn Japanese. I can't think of anyone else here at HTLAL that is currently learning a language because they need it. That by itself sets me apart, and I wonder why that didn't become clear to me earlier. Of course, as I've said before, I'm far from the smartest person here, and I realize that I'm treading among geniuses here. This must be strange to see written at HTLAL, but I wonder what it would be like to just study languages for fun, with no pressures, deadlines, etc. Yeah, I study Portuguese for fun, but even that can be stressful sometimes because I always have the thought in my mind that I shouldn't be doing Portuguese, that I should be using that time for Japanese. Guilty pangs. I think if I didn't need to study Japanese, or if I was already fluent in Japanese, Portuguese would be a lot more fun. I know that's hard to understand for you all. Ideally, I should be able to separate my Portuguese from my Japanese, i.e., not think of Japanese at all while doing Portuguese. But the subconscious mind is powerful. However, the first year or so I studied Portuguese, I didn't feel as guilty. Portuguese was a welcome break from Japanese. I think those guilty pangs are a byproduct of "bigger stresses" that I have with Japanese. I know the following is probably "par for the course" for more experienced learners, but here it is anyway: I feel like I'm studying Japanese more efficiently than I ever have before, and I'm at a higher level, but I feel farther away from fluency than I ever have before. I can shop for groceries, ask for directions, or make a clinic appointment or order a pizza on the phone with no major problems. But I still have trouble understanding the daily news or the more popular dramas on TV, and when I eavesdrop on people's conversations when I'm out and about, I have a lot of trouble understanding them. Of course, from my time here at HTLAL, the solutions are clear. Work on news vocabulary, or conversational Japanese - whatever it may be. Target those specific situations and work on them. But finding the solutions is not the problem. The problem is the pressure I put on myself. It's been two years into my "recommitment" to Japanese, and I expected to be at a basic level of fluency by now, and yet I'm not. But what does "basic fluency" mean anyway? When a person at HTLAL learns a language in two years and moves it from "studies" to "speaks", what does that mean? Does that person live in a country where the target language is spoken, comparing himself/herself to native speakers every day, and thinking that they measure up? Or are they just confident in their ability to do what they need to do in their L2? (These are rhetorical questions, by the way. You don't need to answer these for me.) Perhaps my concept of basic fluency is different from, and my expectations higher than, most HTLALers, because I need the language and am not doing it just for fun, and also because I'm around native speakers everyday and I compare myself closely to them. I wonder if I am beating myself up because I haven't gone from a low B1 to C2 in two years. Put that way, it sounds ridiculous. I'm comparing myself to native speakers every day, but they are C2. How long did it take them to get to C2? Perhaps I just need to be B2 to be able to do everything I need to do in Japan, or maybe a low C1? That sounds more manageable, and less stressful. (And something else that occured to me right now: I'm comparing myself to native Japanese speakers that speak a regional dialect of Japanese - quite different from what I read in books and hear on TV.) That's not to say that I shouldn't want to be a C2 someday. But becoming C2 will take a long, long, long, long, long time, and that probably shouldn't be my goal. In fact, my goal should probably be to just study Japanese - not to get to a certain level by a certain time. (In fact, I shouldn't even target certain situations like I mentioned before. I didn't spend time learning how to order a pizza on the phone. It just happened.) Just study, and do it every day, and not worry about the outcome or what happens in the future. And I shouldn't worry about how long it's going to take before I understand everything around me, or before I can join in on anyone's conversation, or understand every single thing I hear on TV or in a song. Anyway, just some thoughts I wanted to write down to clear my head. Sorry about the long post. Edited by kujichagulia on 14 October 2014 at 2:40am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5264 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 582 of 706 14 October 2014 at 4:10am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Good to see you back, Kuji. Looks like we're both dealing with hurricanes/typhoons at the moment.
Exactly, that's a zenhabits approach! It's difficult to do and hard to accept working with "no goals" (so to speak) but I find it incredibly freeing and more productive than "B2 in six months or else". Some people seem to need, or think they need, that type of motivation because they can very easily do something else (because it's a choice not a must) with little or no daily life consequences to their person if they were to quit. If youquit Japanese it will still be around you whenever you step outside. You're right, you don't need to compare yourself to other forum members. Take me for example, I would not have advanced nearly as far and as fast in Portuguese without the experience of learning Spanish to a high level and the similarity discount of the two languages. Even Haitian Creole is easier for me because of cognates with my other languages and English (plus the French I remember from High School). If I took up French or Italian tomorrow I would (not bragging) advance more quickly than a monolingual because of the advantages I have. To compare yourself to the rest of us with languages already under our belts, that's apples and oranges. I'm not learning Japanese! The only advantage I would have in learning Japanese is my experience in learning other languages. I would get little to no vocabulary/grammar discount and couldn't even hope to read right off the bat as I can in my other languages. Native speakers aren't "C2", they're C-gazillion with a lifetime of experience living their native language. To compare ourselves to them is madness. I am happy when a native speaker tells me, "not bad for a gringo" and gives me the respect of not switching to English and speaking to me as if I'm just another human. I will never reach their level in this lifetime. I'm ok with that. That doesn't mean I won't always strive to be better, I will. I just won't beat myself up over it. You're probably a little too tough on yourself. Reaching an intermediate level in Japanese is a huge accomplishment for a westerner, a massive achievement of which you can be proud. You're only going to get better, but it's going to take time. Edo wasn't built in a day. Edited by iguanamon on 14 October 2014 at 4:21am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 583 of 706 14 October 2014 at 5:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Nobody needs languages? I think almost all non-natives had a pressing need for English, but most have learned it already. Also, need can be subjective. I needed Portuguese to read Fernando Ribeiro's poetry. I needed Finnish because all my favourite bands were from Finland and I wanted to discover even more. Sometimes it can be more pragmatic even for me - I need Swedish because I want to have a multilingual job in Finland and I don't want to translate/interpret from or into Russian. I also think I'm capable of learning Swedish to a higher level than Finns typically do, and I should take advantage of this.
As for basic fluency, it seems like the consensus is that it's active B1/passive B2. Seems like you're not that far from it, really. And as you're guessing, most don't compare themselves to native speakers when deciding on the level. I admit that I've never had an oral conversation in Portuguese, only written ones. (and scripted conversations during a month of beginner classes) But yeah I'm confident that I'll do fine when I get an opportunity to speak it. Also, incredible how both me and iguanamon immediately responded, but focused on different things from your post :D I agree that native speakers are more than C2. But at the same time less than C2. If you actually look at the definitions, you'll see that those for C1 and C2 favour academic skills. Not every (literate) native speaker has them. And every native speaker has skills that aren't covered by CEFR. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4849 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 584 of 706 14 October 2014 at 8:03am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Hehe, when I first saw this, I thought you meant the "typhoon" that is the language learning problem I wrote about. Ha! That was more difficult to deal with than the typhoon that came through here last night. The eye of the storm passed by only a few miles from my home (the closest I've ever been to the eye of a typhoon/hurricane), but other than some strong wind and rain, it wasn't too bad. The storm must have weakened by the time it came here.
Wow, you are right! I didn't even realize it at first.
You are right, and when you put it that way, what I was doing was even more insane. I need not try to be a native Japanese speaker. I'll never be a native Japanese speaker, but I was trying to be one in a couple of years. Madness. I just need to concentrate on learning the Japanese I need, and that is certainly within reach. Haha... I am literally laughing out loud to myself. I was comparing myself to native Japanese speakers and I was actually frustrated because it was taking a long time for me to be one! I'm laughing because that was a crazy thing to do, but also because it is freeing in a way. It's like some big rock I put on myself has been lifted off of me, and I feel really good right now. By the way, iguanamon, I haven't forgotten to reply to your email. Even though I have the time right now, I can't use my personal account at work. When I get a chance at home, I'll write back ASAP. * * * * *
Sorry about that. I felt like everybody in that thread was saying that they were learning languages just because. If someone wants to read poetry or listen to music in another language, that's a good enough need for me. Music is one of the reasons I started learning Portuguese.
This makes a lot of sense. And it once again highlights to me that it is insane to compare myself to native speakers. I feel really liberated right now. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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