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Tackling Japanese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Akalabeth Groupie Canada Joined 5522 days ago 83 posts - 112 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Japanese | Message 1 of 5 29 April 2010 at 7:06pm | IP Logged |
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I've been studying Japanese for a while, but several times I've ended up taking a week
or so off, so I'm hoping this will help ensure I don't stop. So far, I've managed to learn the first 2000 kanji from Heisig's Remembering the Kanji, and am about a third of the way through Essential Grammar in Tae Kim's Guide to Japanese Grammar, going at about a lesson per day. I'm mostly studying with Anki, using the input-only sentences type method, and it seems to work really well as long as I'm really strict about failing any card where I don't perfectly understand the grammar. I've stopped adding cards for the RtK deck, but will continue once my reps get below 50 per day, which should happen in the next two weeks. Then I'll add about 5 per day until finishing RtK 1&3. I'm finding Japanese grammar to be much much simpler than Russian and French, which I've previously studied. I don't know if it'll get more complicated later on, but everything so far seems very formulaic, and the exceptions have been easier to learn than in Russian/French. Maybe that'll change once I get further though, or maybe it's just because I'm being really strict about making sure I understand the grammar in my reviews. I've heard bad things about counters. Vocab (pronunciation in particular) is my biggest stumbling block right now. I find I remember things a lot better when I can hear them spoken, rather than just see the reading spelled out in hirigana. After Tae Kim's I've got an Anki deck with audio, so I think that'll help a lot. My goal is to be at an advanced level of Japanese by the end of the year. We'll see how well that goes, but I think if I can keep up my pace I can make it. I do plan to start the L-R method/shadowing/lang-8 once I get to an intermediate level, in addition to the input-only sentences stuff I'm doing in Anki. Edited by Akalabeth on 07 May 2010 at 5:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5831 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 2 of 5 30 April 2010 at 3:01pm | IP Logged |
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Well, it sounds like you're doing really well so far! :)
If you find yourself dissatisfied with your Anki deck with audio, you could also try the website smart.fm for learning vocabulary. After making it through 7 of their 10 "core 2000" steps, I can catch about 60% of the vocabulary in your average anime or drama. I imagine that making it trough most or all of the 6000 words in their core 2000 and core 6000 series, one would be able to understand nearly all the words that one would hear on a regular basis. The smart.fm system is a kind of modified SRS system using sentences and audio as well as the individual word itself, which some people find more effective than a normal SRS and some people find less effective, but either way you can at least use the lists to find useful words. Counters are annoying but they're really just one more thing to memorize, they're not particularly tricky. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Akalabeth Groupie Canada Joined 5522 days ago 83 posts - 112 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Japanese | Message 3 of 5 01 May 2010 at 6:53pm | IP Logged |
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Incidentally, the audio deck I have for Anki actually is the Core2000/6000. I think it's missing about a half dozen sentences, and a maybe a few dozen of the audio files, but it's pretty much complete as far as I can tell. I had tried using it before doing Tae Kim's, but I couldn't really understand the grammar, so I tabled it for the time being. I can still remember a fair amount of the vocab from what I studied though, so I'm anxious to finish Tae Kim's and start it again.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5831 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 4 of 5 02 May 2010 at 4:10pm | IP Logged |
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Wow, what a coincidence. ^_^; I didn't know such a set was available for Anki.
Most of the Smart.FM sentences are relatively basic and once you get through Tae Kim's you should be fine. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Akalabeth Groupie Canada Joined 5522 days ago 83 posts - 112 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Japanese | Message 5 of 5 07 May 2010 at 5:20am | IP Logged |
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I've had a lot of difficulty finding Japanese music that I liked, and I've found no
music that I'd consider as good as my favorite English/German/Russian song. But this week I still managed to find a few songs that were pretty good, so I'm pretty happy about that. I'm worried that I won't be able to find more before I get bored of what I have, and unfortunately my internet is too slow to really stream music in real time, so it's hard to find new stuff. Still, nice to have something new. Still doing one lesson a day out of Tae Kim's. Four more days and I'll be done Essential Grammar, and moving onto Special Expressions. Really want to move onto more advanced stuff. I've got an SRPG for the PSP and a kanji dictionary for the DS, and I think I might start trying to play it. I'm hoping I should be able to understand enough grammar to stumble my way through, even if I need to consult the dictionary constantly. I've had them both since January, so it'd be nice to get some use out of them both. I've also got some manga, but they're mostly kana, which makes it harder to look things up. At least with kanji I can make a good guess to where each word ends. I've also started copying out things from Tae Kim's into a personal wiki, which seems like a good format for grammar notes. Lots of mini-articles on individual grammar points, with lots of cross-linking. Very disorganized right now, mostly just cut-and- pasting, but I've rearranged some stuff to make it more logical (in my eyes anyway). Will make it halfway decent once I finish Tae Kim's; kind of hard to know how to organize it when I don't have a full understanding of what kind of stuff I'll need to add tomorrow/next week/next month. Just putting it together itself seems to have helped quite a bit. 1 week 3 days of consecutive study. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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