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Long Summer - Getting some Japanese down | ||
Tags: Japanese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Spikeygal Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6371 days ago 21 posts - 22 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Japanese, Esperanto | Message 1 of 5 15 June 2008 at 1:01pm | IP Logged |
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I've been trying to learn Japanese on and off for about two years now, but I'll be honest, so far I don't feel that I have a great amount of skill. Being sidetracked with school almost constantly for that time has obviously not helped me to study at all. But now, here I am, with about three months leave before I start college, and I'm going to make a serious effort to get a lot of Japanese study in.
I don't know what would be a good goal for me, hour wise, so I'm just going to take it easy(ish) and do what I can a day, and then sort of set a goal from there. So, my knowledge of Japanese... I was confident in the 4kyuu vocabulary as of January, but I'll admit that about 25 school exams later, a lot of it has slipped my memory. My Kanji knowledge - a decent understanding of the 4kyuu kanji, and quite a few random ones here and there. I think that kanji is a big brick wall for me, so I'm going to be focusing on it as much as I can whilst learning vocabulary. My listening ability is okay, but it does take a few seconds to 'filter through' at the moment, if that makes sense. I'll be working on that a lot, since that's the section that failed me most in the 2007 JLPT exam. I'd love to take 3kyuu this year, in order to keep up with a friend that I made at the exam last year, but I am realistic and realise that with my memory and college starting in September, this probably won't happen. I scored 55% on 4kyuu, for those who are curious. My goal is to complete a 4kyuu past paper to a high standard, whilst getting some general japanese knowledge outside of that syllabus. Getting into the 3kyuu syllabus would also be a massive achievement, but as I said, we'll have to see what happens with that. I don't have a set list of resources, so I'll be adding them to my posts as I go. Here's hoping this all works! Today I've done about an hour so far, using the 正しい漢字かきとりくん Nintendo DS game, and the book 250 Essential Kanji for Everyday Use Volume 1. I've covered a few place names, school subjects and school vocabulary, and learned the correct stroke order and at least one reading for 10 kanji. Yes, it's a very very small start compared to those that a lot of people on here make, but I don't want to make myself sick, so I'm taking it slowly for the moment. Tomorrow I plan to try and translate a page or two of the new DOGS// Bullets and Carnage chapter, and review some grammar points, though I haven't decided which ones yet. They will most likely be some of the ones I learned later on in the 4kyuu syllabus, and I'll use my book (The Preperatory Course for The Japanese Language Proficiency Test Level 4) to do that. If anyone wants to throw some things my way, be my guest. :) Be warned however, that SRS programs, whilst they are useful, don't interest me enough for me to be able to sit and just complete repetions - I prefer to make my own paper flashcards to review. Here goes nothing. Edited by Spikeygal on 15 June 2008 at 1:03pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| magic9man2 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6572 days ago 149 posts - 153 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Arabic (Written), Mandarin, French, Cantonese, Russian, Korean, Taiwanese, Arabic (Levantine) | Message 2 of 5 15 June 2008 at 2:27pm | IP Logged |
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Good luck. If you have the money, you should give Assimil a shot. You can get both passive waves and one of the active waves done in three months if you do 1 lesson a day. The entire first volume is quite easy, so it can be done much quicker, leaving you time to learn the kanji from it. If one has mastered both Assimil volumes, they'll know a lot more kanji than needed for 3kyuu, and will know a large amount of the words necessary. Both volumes combined teach about 926 kanji and about 1,800-2,000 words.
Also, even though you dont really like SRS programs, it would take a long time to make paper flashcards for a large amount of kanji. At the 4kyuu and even 3kyuu levels it's not that much, but if you decide to take it further and go for 2kyuu and 1kyuu, you'll probably need to use an SRS to review kanji. You should try to get into habit of using an SRS now. This post turned out longer than I expected, so I'll end it now, GL 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Spikeygal Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6371 days ago 21 posts - 22 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Japanese, Esperanto | Message 3 of 5 15 June 2008 at 3:36pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks, I'll look into the Assimil course. :) Sounds helpful indeed.
I am trying to use the SRS program Memosyne at the moment, but I think a lot of the battle is that it's hard to use this when I'm not at my computer, and since my memory isn't fantastic to start with, I need many repititions. I don't want to spend all the time at my computer screen this summer! But, I hereby promise that I'll try to make it work. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Spikeygal Newbie United Kingdom Joined 6371 days ago 21 posts - 22 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Latin, Japanese, Esperanto | Message 4 of 5 16 June 2008 at 5:15am | IP Logged |
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Day 2 (so far):
Found a site that tests on 4kyuu vocabulary and did about an half hours worth (the timer says 62 minutes, but I had a visitor for a short time) of that. Here's my score: Quiz Score: 95% (190 / 202) Correct: 190 Wrong: 12 Game Points: 7025 (out of a possible 8080) To be fair though, it was multiple choice, and the kanji did help me get to the answer more easily. It was still a good recap on some of the vocab though. I'll be trying to do more of this to see if I can improve later on. The URL is: http://www.manythings.org/japanese/vocabulary/jlpt4.html Going to have a break for a drink now, and switch on some music (The Pillows should do nicely) and then I'm going to do the next excercise in my 250 Essential Kanji book. We'll see where things go after that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| magic9man2 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6572 days ago 149 posts - 153 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Arabic (Written), Mandarin, French, Cantonese, Russian, Korean, Taiwanese, Arabic (Levantine) | Message 5 of 5 17 June 2008 at 12:00am | IP Logged |
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Nice, seems like you're having fun, and that's key. Have fun studying and you won't burn yourself out. Pillows rule!
1 person has voted this message useful |
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