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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5526 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 17 of 21 11 March 2011 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | ||
ㅅ / ㅆ have been one of the hardest pairs for me to differentiate as well. They sound awfully similar to the English ear. :-/ 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mayfair Diglot Senior Member Australia theasiaanalyst.wordp Joined 5410 days ago 48 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Mandarin | Message 18 of 21 12 March 2011 at 5:32am | IP Logged | ||
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First of all, Osaka was lucky enough to escape the earthquake and resultant tsunami yesterday. Still, it feels strangely empty to be giving my weekly update when people a few hundred kilometres away are suffering so much.
Five days of this week were spent on trains travelling to Kyushu, which allowed me to get a lot of reading and review done. It would have been a perfect opportunity for some more listening practice, but my iPod was recently struck by a mysterious illness that ultimately proved fatal. I bought a cheap mp3 player yesterday as its unworthy successor. Japanese 9 hours 35 minutes - Anki reviews when I was home (458 cards now due across both decks) - A lot of reading Kató Lomb's book - Listening to OLECON podcast, which features two guys speaking Kansai-ben and talking about whatever they feel like. Study? Maybe not. Funny? Occasionally. - Acting as an interpreter for my parents, who are here to visit (I am being paid in train tickets and meals) - I didn't count this - JPLT N1 grammar study when I can bring myself to it - Unfortunately, a lot of listening to and reading horrible news stories Classical Japanese None. My bag already contained more books than clothes, so I was not about to lug a huge hardcover grammar book around. Korean 16 hours 6 minutes I suffered a bit from a lack of interesting reading material, although I reviewed the texts from the Lukoff book and Hyunwoo Sun's audiobook every day. I finally got some writing done and posted it here, to my lang-8 account and to my long-neglected blog. I recently ordered Kyeong-Eun Choi's audiobook from Talk to Me in Korean as well. My comprehension of Hyunwoo's was very low at the beginning, so reading it will be an interesting test to see how much I have improved. French 5 hours 19 minutes - Up to lesson 21 of Linguaphone - I read half of L'Étranger on the train - I bought the Penguin Parallel Text I'd been eyeing off, along with Boris Vian's L'Écume des jours. I assume that the latter will be far beyond my level, but it's a book I've wanted to read for a long time Mandarin 2 hours 19 minutes - Linguaphone Chinese arrived! I grinned constantly for a while, and after regaining my composure and copying the first tape to mp3, I went through the introductory unit - Tape 3 of the FSI Pronunciation and Romanisation module March challenge Japanese (goal: 1hr/day on top of daily conversations) - 14h 25m Classical Japanese - 55m Korean (goal: 2hr/day) - 26h 19m French (goal: 30m/day) - 7h 49m Mandarin - 2h 54m Days goal achieved - 11/11 Edited by mayfair on 13 March 2011 at 5:30am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mayfair Diglot Senior Member Australia theasiaanalyst.wordp Joined 5410 days ago 48 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Mandarin | Message 19 of 21 15 March 2011 at 6:43am | IP Logged | ||
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I've been feeling pretty helpless in the wake of the tsunami and nuclear fears, so it's been difficult to concentrate on my studies so far this week. Two of my friends are in Tokyo at the moment and my parents are heading there tomorrow, so news that radiation levels in Tokyo are higher than usual are unsettling, to say the least. I've at least managed to round up a few of my friends to donate blood on Thursday.
This update is to give some brief first impressions of Linguaphone Chinese. This course does not mess around. 121 unique characters used in the introductory lesson alone. I've been adding a recognition card for each sentence (or sometimes a couple on one card) to Anki and I plan to start reviewing them only when I've finished learning the lesson by listening, repeating and writing. In other words, I plan to use Anki to review, rather during the initial learning phase. When I get around half-way through the book, I'll select the cards from lesson one and make a production card for each (simulating an Assimil-like active wave). A perk of this method is that the Hanzi stats allow me to keep track of the dizzying number of characters that are introduced. The booklet recommends not beginning to learn characters until the first five lesson are mastered, but I'm starting straight away since there are only a handful of characters I haven't encountered before. The book uses some old expressions, like record, tape recorder and 'tongzhi' (comrade), which is now used in the gay community. Other sentences taken directly from the English translation in the handbook: "We have drunk and eaten to capacity," "Mr. Delegation Leader, let me get you another bowl of rice," and my personal favourite, "The people of your country really have subtle cooking methods!" The need to supplement this with a more modern resource should be a no-brainer. However, I think that any faults caused by the course's age (published in 1976) are outweighed by its thoroughness. The last chapter seems to be at quite a high level - I'd say this is the equivalent to perhaps three or four volumes of a more modern course. I hope I can post another review when I finish it. But please, don't hold your breath - I have a lot of study to do before that happens. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mayfair Diglot Senior Member Australia theasiaanalyst.wordp Joined 5410 days ago 48 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Mandarin | Message 20 of 21 29 March 2011 at 1:55am | IP Logged | ||
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If language learning is a marathon, I ran at full speed into a truck that was parked horizontally across the track.
The last two weeks have been filled with things other than language study, so while I've been doing what I can, looking back on how much I've studied is rather deflating. I was on holiday with my parents for a while, I spent a few days with my girlfriend away from study, and I had to prepare to move to a new apartment this Thursday. All of this directly involved Japanese, since my parents and I were staying with friends from ten years ago who had forgotten their English, and my girlfriend doesn't (or perhaps just refuses to) speak English. The moving process has improved ten-fold my ability to read masses of seemingly pointless forms. With these things considered, the last two weeks were extremely helpful (except the form-filling abilities), but my Korean study has suffered in comparison. I've posted my application for the JLPT N1 this July, and I've come to the decision that an N1 certificate coupled with intermediate Korean is more helpful than near-N1 Japanese and upper-intermediate Korean. I tell myself that these are the mature decisions I need to make. Japanese 12 hours 16 minutes - Reading a lot of 湊かなえ's 「告白」. I don't normally like thrillers, but I see their value for language study - it's always hard to put down in favour of my beginner's Korean materials - Working through an old JLPT N1 vocab book, 日本語能力試験1級に出る重要単語集. It has sentences for each word and does a good job of explaining the differences between similar expressions. Although it's a bit old, I would recommend it over the 完全マスター book for general preparation, and then perhaps recommend moving on to a more up-to-date book for the last month before the test Korean 15 hours 44 minutes The audiobooks from Talk to Me in Korean still haven't arrived, possibly because I emailed an address that never gets checked. I'll have to overcome my fear of being a nuisance and ask again. I found a way to get rid of my heavy Ganada books before I leave: a friend just went on a short trip to Korea and now wants to learn Korean. I'll glance over the two beginner's volumes and note anything interesting, and then offload them to her. Genius. French 7 hours 4 minutes Assimil Using French arrived and it looks great! I've consequently been rushing through Linguaphone, which is getting tiring. Only six chapters (18 days) left. I was planning to begin from chapter 10 and translate to English and then to French, because I don't think my active skills have increased much. I'm itching to get onto Assimil, though, so perhaps I'll do this only when I have spare time after each day's Assimil lesson. Mandarin 1 hour 50 minutes (mostly concentrated in a two-day period) I was away from my room, and consequently my Linguaphone books, for most of this period. If I ever hope to improve, I need to get into the habit of doing some every day. March challenge Japanese (goal: 1hr/day on top of daily conversations) - 26h 41m Classical Japanese - 55m Korean (goal: 2hr/day) - 42h 3m French (goal: 30m/day) - 14h 53m Mandarin - 4h 44m Days goal achieved: 17/25 (or 6/14 for this period - ouch) これからも頑張ります。 Edited by mayfair on 29 March 2011 at 2:06am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mayfair Diglot Senior Member Australia theasiaanalyst.wordp Joined 5410 days ago 48 posts - 74 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Korean, Mandarin | Message 21 of 21 31 March 2011 at 1:22am | IP Logged | ||
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I doubt I will be updating this log more than once a week from now on, at least until August when I go back to Australia. I'm moving into an apartment and choosing not to connect the internet, even though it's available for free, to see my productivity increases. The internet, while useful, is also a black hole for my spare time. The Cricket World Cup is on at the moment and if I spent as much time on language study as I did checking the scores, I would be Sir Richard Burton by now.
I can still use the computers at my university, so I'll make time each week to post my progress. Edited by mayfair on 31 March 2011 at 1:23am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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