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An attempt at Japanese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| mrhenrik Triglot Moderator Norway Joined 6077 days ago 482 posts - 658 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, English, French Personal Language Map | Message 33 of 56 16 July 2009 at 11:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Finished lesson up to lesson five of Pimsleur Japanese 1 today while driving. I really like Pimsleur right now. It's so boring I would probably die if I used it in front of the computer, but in the car it's perfect. It explained doko for me very well, I won't forget it now. Michel Thomas and Rosetta Stone has me confusing what/where/who/how and so on, but hopefully Pimsleur will clear that up.
I also practiced my English today! Written English I use more than Norwegian, so that's not very "big", but I spoke English also today with Bordeaux Boy on Skype. ^^ That was fun, a nice talk. I've noticed when I speak English with other non-native speakers, my English level drops like a stone. I speak with a dreadful accent and with horrible pronounciation of everything, and I'll mostly use very very basic grammar. That's all gone when I speak with a native speaker though, and I felt like I kept up alright. A bit mumbling here and there but hopefully that will be gone soon after I move to England. ^^ I just now completed another lesson of Remembering the Kana. 70% done, the book said. I'm not sure what lesson it was but I'm soon done. ^^ That was hiragana. After that I feel really ready to knock katakana out of the way and bury myself in the juicy stuff: kanji. Oh, and with hiragana/katakana down I can play Pokemon on my laptop. Woo! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrhenrik Triglot Moderator Norway Joined 6077 days ago 482 posts - 658 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, French Personal Language Map | Message 34 of 56 17 July 2009 at 8:32am | IP Logged | ||
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Alright, so I just finished the hiragana part of Remembering the Kana. I tried switching Rosetta Stone over from romaji to hiragana but I don't see what I was expecting. I obviously need to practice with it first.
So.. I decided to start writing a bit. What to write? I figured I should write something from romaji at first, so I found the lyrics from a Japanese song I like - "The Final" by Dir En Grey - in romaji, and began writing down. I have now finished.. the first line. ;p It's getting there. I'm having trouble with some characters, but I can't expect more without even having used them before. It's getting better though. When I have written down all of the lyrics in hiragana I will stutter my way through reading it. I have no idea what it says though without checking the English translation. Oh well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrhenrik Triglot Moderator Norway Joined 6077 days ago 482 posts - 658 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, French Personal Language Map | Message 35 of 56 17 July 2009 at 10:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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I started on katakana today. So far I'm quite confused. The first katakana lesson is quite easy since all the katakana are basically simplified hiragana. Still I can't help but see the whole katakana syllabary as completely useless. What exactly do they do with it that they cannot accomplish with hiragana? I've noticed there's one or two sounds you only find in katakana (apparently), but it seems to be much easier just to combine the syllabaries. Oh well. I reckon I'll understand later.
I've written down the first verse of the song now, with the chorus. It's time-consuming, but it speeds up as I go. I switched on to hiragana only on Rosetta Stone now, which significantly slowed me down. I am able to barely keep up with the voice recognition if I read aloud from the hiragana. I finished half a core lesson, but realised I am very very tired. I only had four hours sleep last night. Work early tomorrow, then to a friend's for beer. I'll squeeze in at least one katakana lesson before going to my friend's place, and hopefully I'll be able to do some Rosetta Stone in hiragana as well. Oh, and I get to do Pimsleur while driving to work! I'm actually looking forward to it. :) Well, time to get some sleep. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Yukamina Senior Member Canada Joined 6262 days ago 281 posts - 332 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean, French | Message 36 of 56 19 July 2009 at 1:02am | IP Logged | ||
Well, why do we use both lower and upper case? Katakana is used for loan words, animals, emphasis, onomatopoeia words, foreign names, and so on. It helps break up the text and makes it easier to tell where words end and begin too. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrhenrik Triglot Moderator Norway Joined 6077 days ago 482 posts - 658 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, French Personal Language Map | Message 37 of 56 20 July 2009 at 4:07am | IP Logged | ||
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Makes sense, thanks for clarifying. :)
I'm doing Rosetta Stone in kana only now, it's slow but getting faster. This is a good way to start out with reading I believe. If I'm having trouble with reading something I'll click the sound button and they read it again. Tried Pokemon now also, in Japanese. It's difficult, but manageable. I'm making a point out of forcing myself to read all text I find. I don't understand half of it, but perhaps I will later. In the mean time it's a good way to practice reading kana. Got past the game introduction so far, it takes time. ;p 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mrhenrik Triglot Moderator Norway Joined 6077 days ago 482 posts - 658 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, French Personal Language Map | Message 38 of 56 22 July 2009 at 7:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm halfway through the katakana part of Remembering the Kana, and I have to say I'm disappointed with this part. The quality is very low compared to the rest of the course. There are words used as key words that I have never heard of, so I find myself either dismissing the stories or having to come up with my own quite often now. There are letters that are introduced in practicing examples before I have learned them - apparently by mistake since the letters are introduced later in that same lesson. The entire second half of the book feels rushed, and this is quite discouraging when I'm depending on it to learn my katakana.
I'm starting to see the end of Rosetta Stone's usefulness now, it has played it's part. I've heard a lot of good things about Assimil's courses, and this is also what Sheetz used - he seemed to appreciate it - so I might order it later today. I'll try his approach of Remembering the Kanji + Assimil for this autumn. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Yukamina Senior Member Canada Joined 6262 days ago 281 posts - 332 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean, French | Message 39 of 56 22 July 2009 at 8:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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You don't really need mnemonics for learning kana. You could try this little game for drilling kana. It's called Slime Forest Adventure and it teaches kana and 200 kanji in the free version. http://lrnj.com/
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| mrhenrik Triglot Moderator Norway Joined 6077 days ago 482 posts - 658 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, French Personal Language Map | Message 40 of 56 23 July 2009 at 6:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks a lot for the tip, I'll try that one when I get home. ^^
I will go through the rest of the Remembering the Kana of course, I was just disappointed to see that the second part of the book didn't stand up to the quality of the first part. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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