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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| gidler Senior Member Finland Joined 6615 days ago 109 posts - 118 votes  1 sounds Speaks: Finnish* | Message 1 of 9 03 November 2007 at 10:28am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have been studying Japanese for about a year now, and I've used flashcard applications to keep track of everything I've learned. However, I am now seriously considering giving up flashcards. I have to spend so much time doing my reviews that I often have no time left for learning anything new. And I cannot keep myself from creating a card for every single obscure word I encounter, which means that I spend much time memorizing rare words while my basic vocabulary is still lacking in some areas. Perhaps I needed flashcards in the beginning to teach me self-discipline, but now I'm probably going to discard them and start reading more.
When reviewing my Japanese flashcards, I've always written down the Japanese sides of the cards. That too takes a considerable amount of time, and even though the perfectionist inside me has great trouble admitting this, handwriting is much less important than reading, speaking and listening. (Writing Japanese with a computer is considerably easier than handwriting, anyway.) I learned English mostly by reading, so I know I can do the same with Japanese. And after all, how many of the senior polyglots on this forum extensively use flashcards? :) It seems to me that most don't. As for English, I'm nowadays an undergraduate student in a Scottish university. What I've found out is that I often have much trouble understanding rapidly spoken informal English, especially in noisy environments. I've started watching TV series to improve my listening comprehension. Fortunately everyone speaks clearly at the university. :) Listening is the only thing that prevents me from setting English to advanced fluency in my language profile. I've also started (once again) relearning Swedish. I was able to read newspapers somewhat comfortably 2,5 years ago, but then I completely stopped using the language. I'm thinking of trying the listening-reading approach when I return to Finland for Christmas. Until then, I'll mostly focus on Japanese. Any comments, ideas etc. are welcome as always. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nhk9 Senior Member Canada Joined 6796 days ago 290 posts - 319 votes Speaks: English* | Message 2 of 9 07 November 2007 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If you are sick and tired of making flashcards, try online flashcards that others have already done. Sites such as "byki.com" (before you know it) should help
There are many obscure words/phrases in use today (and a lot of people would argue that there are many more obscure words in use today in Japanese than in English). These words are mostly remnants from classical Japanese. The key to efficient learning is to avoid these obscure words and to try to focus on the most commonly used ones. The obscure words would have to be learned one at a time. The gaijin will not be scrutinized because he/she doesn't know a 4-letter-proverb. Have fun! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| gidler Senior Member Finland Joined 6615 days ago 109 posts - 118 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Finnish* | Message 3 of 9 07 November 2007 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for your insights. Actually I'm tired of flashcards in general, not just of making them. I've now spent the last few days with a graded reader. I read and reread a text until I can understand everything without looking up words. So far I've been quite pleased with the results, although I don't know how well the words will stick.
I agree with you about concentrating on the most commonly used words and phrases, but on the other hand I am aiming for passive vocabulary wide enough to be able to read Japanese literature, so I don't want to neglect the more obscure parts of the language either. :) But indeed I'm hoping that reading more and using flashcards less will cause me to have more exposure to the more common expressions. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 Hencke Tetraglot Moderator Spain Joined 6886 days ago 2340 posts - 2444 votes Speaks: Swedish*, Finnish, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 9 08 November 2007 at 12:37am | IP Logged | |||||
It would seem part of your difficulties stem from what you say in those two sentences. With your aim in mind you will need to tackle the more obscure areas eventually but trying to bite off too much too soon is like trying to build bits and pieces of the roof before having the foundation and walls in place. Easy to say, I know, and I'm not immune to that temptation myself. Flashcards should not be the only technique you use of course. If they really take up all the available time it is definitely time to switch to something else. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6935 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 5 of 9 08 November 2007 at 1:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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I also like reading early on, and even simpler works require a relatively large passive vocabulary. I've never found a clear-cut approach for selecting words for lookup and memorization, but here are a few things I've tried:
(a) Look up, record, and memorize just about every word you meet. To make the task manageable, start with graded readers, then move on to unabridged sources, starting with some easy modern ones and gradually working your way towards harder and/or older works. (b) Look up only the words that keep repeating, the ones you think you knew, but forgot, and those critical for understanding what's going on. Leave out the rest for now. With this approach, one can try somewhat more challenging works earlier, but they have to be easy enough that you don't find too many words to be "critical for understanding". (b') Same as (b), but without recording the words. (c) If your text is in electronic form, and you have a good pop-up electronic dictionary, look up all the words indiscriminately, but record none. You will get to see the more frequent words more often and will memorize them sooner without having to prioritize the words yourself. The pop-up feature is fast, so in theory it should take no more time to look up the word 10(?) times, until you memorize it, than it would to enter it into a flashcard program and drill it over and over. (d) I find recording vocabulary in a notebook to be an interesting alternative to flashcards, since it provides for an additional review mode, where you look over the whole page of words and their translations at once. I find it a lot easier this way to spot the words that can be more or less ignored until later, i.e., those that should not have been recorded in the first place, or those that are just proving too hard to memorize at this stage to justify sinking a lot of time into them. With flashcards, it is one word at a time, so they all seem equally important, sinking a lot of your time on a few tough words. Basically, if you already know, say, 20 out of 24 words on a page, it's good enough to move on if you feel that the remaining four are just being stubborn. P.S. How could I forget. A number of people swear by bilingual editions, and later using a novel and its translation in tandem. I personally can't stand mixing languages like this, but it works for many people, including some very accomplished people. Edited by frenkeld on 09 November 2007 at 8:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| gidler Senior Member Finland Joined 6615 days ago 109 posts - 118 votes 1 sounds Speaks: Finnish* | Message 6 of 9 08 November 2007 at 8:26am | IP Logged | |||||
My previous approach was to pick every unknown word from texts I read, or occasionally from the JLPT word lists, and then make flashcards of them. The flashcards did not take up all the available time, but the workload from them often grew so large and tedious that I had no motivation left for further studying after I had finished my daily portion of flashcard reviews. At the moment, I think I'm better off using no flashcards at all. Interestingly though, I don't think that would have been the case a year ago. Flashcards helped me establish a routine for daily study. frenkeld, I'm currently using an excellent graded reader (A Japanese Reader: Graded Lessons in the Modern Language by Roy Andrew Miller), but nevertheless I like the sound of the notebook idea. I'm going to give it a shot starting from today. I especially like the fact that a notebook would allow me to utilize "lost moments" for revising. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| frenkeld Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6935 days ago 2042 posts - 2719 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German | Message 7 of 9 08 November 2007 at 8:41am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, it's good for that - one can always pull a notebook off the shelf and leaf through a few pages even years later. On a technical note, when you draw a vertical line on a page to separate words from their translations, since translations usually take up more space, I found it useful to make them of unequal width, something like 1:2 in ratio. The optimal ratio may be different for Japanese. Edited by frenkeld on 09 November 2007 at 8:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nhk9 Senior Member Canada Joined 6796 days ago 290 posts - 319 votes Speaks: English* | Message 8 of 9 13 November 2007 at 1:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
I have studied for the JLPT in the past and I did it a little bit differently I printed out the entire list and put the 100pages or so in a binder. I had only one word for each line. Then, I would first skim through the list to put an 'X' next to the ones that I don't think are necessary at the moment (such as words like かすみ、もや etc) Then I'd focus on the rest of the list. I'd use an electronic dictionary and then write down next to the words the reading and a sample sentence or two. It's important to remember that many expressions usually go together with other expressions, so having sample sentences in your studies is crucial. (eg によるとgoes with ということだ；なぜならgoes with からetc) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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