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Japanese using Assimil | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| tpiz Diglot Groupie United States cvillepayne.blogspot Joined 6204 days ago 77 posts - 79 votes  Studies: Portuguese, English*, French Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 1 of 9 08 July 2007 at 8:39pm | IP Logged |
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I am going to keep the writing short, because I am not the type of person who has a whole lot to say unless I am actually speaking with you in person. Anyways, I know I am one of the 1st to use Assimil for learning Japanese, since it just came out a couple months ago, and I am also new to teaching myself anything(since I am still in high school and usually stay busy). But I have a passion for learning and one of those passions especially is learning languages. But back to Assimii...I decided to try Assimil since I've seen how many others have used it and thought it worked wonders. I also don't plan on using just Assimil to learn Japanese, but for the time being, I don't want to pile myself with materials and not use them all. If anyone has any tips for me please let me know. I am starting this log at Lesson 7, since the 1st 6 were done in a time where I was trying to figure out the best way to go about learning Japanese, as well as how I am going to use this in conjunction with other things, etc., so this is the first time I have done a lesson with some plan in mind. I am not sure what there is people may be looking for me to say, but at this point, the method is just worried about me understanding the structure of Japanese, which I have a little bit of exposure too since I began to teach myself Japanese a year ago but ended very early. The only thing at this point that gets me is the fact that it seems I am on my own which isn't something I am used to since I am used to being in a classroom with instruction, and Assimil is very good at leaving you hanging in a way, and is one of the early reasons I wanted to try another method than Assimil's when I first got it in the mail. I will continue to post my progress every 7 lessons, which will end up being pretty much every week, since I will be doing 1 lesson a day, approx. 30 min. each session, and I am an eager person so I might try to get ahead and have to backtrack. I think the most significant thing about Assimil's Japanese is the fact that it's a completely diff. language, with few(if any) similarities to Romance languages like English, and you have to take the steps slower than a language like Spanish where it's just a matter of strictly understanding how to read and contruct sentences and listen, but in Japanese you have to learn a whole new writing system. Also, I am not really worried about vocabulary at this point, but understanding sentences. That's that for today, I am definitely open for any comments/suggestions people have since I feel like that would only help me at this point.
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| tpiz Diglot Groupie United States cvillepayne.blogspot Joined 6204 days ago 77 posts - 79 votes Studies: Portuguese, English*, French Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 2 of 9 16 July 2007 at 2:20pm | IP Logged |
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I was not able to put up the update yesterday due to the fact I was very busy with a summer class I am taking as well as sleep AND trying to fit this in with portuguese. I seem to easily fit in time for Assimil, it seems once you get through the first 7 lessons, you can breeze through these lessons in 15 minutes, and I always look back the next day to the previous lesson and I still seem to always remember everything, except maybe a word or two which sticks in my mind when I look back. Anyways, I am now at Lesson 14, which is a review chapter(I am not sure if it is the same way for other Assmils or if it is something new since lots of people thought that after every 7 lessons there should be a pause) but I am planning on going back. Up to this point, I have started to learn and understand the particles, which I think Assimil has been trying to stress from the early lessons. Also, exposure to the verb tenses(Past, present, and a little bit of the Imperative) has been put into the text. I think Assimil has done a good job of simplifying the Japanese and it does not seem as hard as it did at first. Assimil is also beginning to try to teach some kana, but does not stress it too much(except a little in the review lesson). I do not plan on looking back very much until I get to the active phase, since I feel I have a pretty good memory and review for me is torture. Finally, starting yesterday, I have decided to start working on learning the kanji of Japanese using "Remember the Kanji"(not sure of the author's name), which I decided I should read after hearing good things about it as well as deciding to get as much hard stuff past me as possible so that I can really feel like I am learning the language. In Remembering the Kanji, I am going to try and do 2 Lessons a day(approx. 30-35 min, since it can take a while to write down the kanji on a flashcard AND put it on Khatzumemo, then start looking over them) depending on the amount of time I have on me, and at this point I probably will be done with it in a matter of months(which is good because football season is coming up). Comments are welcome, and other than that, till next week. Edited by tpiz on 16 July 2007 at 2:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tpiz Diglot Groupie United States cvillepayne.blogspot Joined 6204 days ago 77 posts - 79 votes Studies: Portuguese, English*, French Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 3 of 9 23 July 2007 at 8:40pm | IP Logged |
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I'm a day late, but I finished Lesson 21 yesterday. At this point, all I am worried about still is just understanding sentences. I think at first I was trying to memorize each word and make sense of it, but I think just understanding each sentence(thanks to information by alljapaneseallthetime.com as well as people on the forums) is the most important thing, especially since one little thing can change a meaning in any language. Anyways, my listening comprehension has went up even though Japanese, to me, is spoken MUCH slower than other languages such as Spanish and I have noticed that my Portuguese comprehension has greatly improved and it is like I am listening to english almost, I don't know if it is from exposure to so many languages that are making my ears get tuned or what. Finally, I have to also mention my use of Remembering the Kanji. The key-words and stories with each kanji works miracles, and it is crazy how easy kanji can pop into my head, even when I am walking around town and I hear or thing of a key-word. I have only got through 4 Lessons at this point though due to my busy summer and the length of time it takes for me to write down the kanji in my notebook, put it on flashcards, then work on them on Reviewing the Kanji, even though I am not sure all this is necessary and I def. am wondering if anyone has any tips for that, I am new to this self-study thing!
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| GoddessCarlie Newbie Australia goddesscarlie.com Joined 6177 days ago 21 posts - 21 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 4 of 9 25 July 2007 at 6:41am | IP Logged |
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Hey tpiz! Thanks for your posts. I've just ordered Assimil for Japanese and hope it will arrive soon! I'm looking forward to it, even more now that i've heard a bit more about what is in it.
I've been doing Remembering the Kanji too but have had to stop. I'm taking Japanese class and they teach kanji in their own order, so for now I'm learning the kanji they teach, and over the summer holidays (Dec - Feb in Australia) I'll get back to RTK. There is a great website, I don't know if you know it: Reviewing the Kanji http://kanji.koohii.com/ Instead of making your own flash cards you can just use the site. Another program I use is Anki: http://repose.cx/anki/ I put in sentences, one side Japanese (it automatically fills in the Hiragana) and the other side english. I'd love to move away from English but I don't think I'm ready because I'm still very much a beginner. Keep your posts going :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tpiz Diglot Groupie United States cvillepayne.blogspot Joined 6204 days ago 77 posts - 79 votes Studies: Portuguese, English*, French Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 5 of 9 25 July 2007 at 8:03am | IP Logged |
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Yea I use the Reviewing the Kanji site but I don't feel like it tests me enough since once you go through the cards, the ones you get wrong get put into a stack and instead of them testing if you understand them or not, you just click a button saying learn once you have fount a good mnemonic for it, which doesn't really test your memory. I think I am going to start using that sentence program you talked about above, I think that the sentence method will probably help alot (alljapaneseallthetime.com also talks alot about a sentence method).
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| tpiz Diglot Groupie United States cvillepayne.blogspot Joined 6204 days ago 77 posts - 79 votes Studies: Portuguese, English*, French Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 6 of 9 29 July 2007 at 11:55pm | IP Logged |
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Just got to Lesson 28, and I feel like I took a step too quickly. The sentences in Lesson 27 are very long, and there are 14 of them, and I had to go over the dialogs about 4 or 5 times before I felt like I had them fixed in my brain pretty well. Then, I go over them about 2 more times listening to the audio, and this was difficult due to the fact that I had to pause to think about what the sentence meant for at least 5 or 6 seconds. Also, the dialog went pretty quickly and I couldn't keep up. ADDING to that, when I sat the book down and tried to listen to the audio only, it felt like I was listening to egpytian or something. I barely understand 3 or 4 of the 14 sentences, and I was sitting there stunned by how lost I felt. I thought looking at the review notes might help, and I think I am going to have to slow down a little on the pace and go back and backtrack. Also, to make sure I remember sentences, I have started putting sentences into Mnemosyne(like I posted earlier), and so far it has helped out a little bit, but is extremely difficult. I am going to see how things go this week and will post next week on how fast I have determined I should go.
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| sheetz Senior Member United States Joined 6217 days ago 270 posts - 356 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, French, Mandarin | Message 7 of 9 30 July 2007 at 1:59am | IP Logged |
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tpiz, I'd agree that around where you are the sentences start to get much more difficult, (lesson 32 was a killer) and I'm trying to figure out a way to work through this problem. One thing I'm going to do is hold off from putting them in the SRS for a day, and just keep listening to the lesson over and over again for 24 hours. Also, I think it helps to go back to review earlier lessons as well, since the new lessons build upon the material learned previously. Edited by sheetz on 30 July 2007 at 2:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tpiz Diglot Groupie United States cvillepayne.blogspot Joined 6204 days ago 77 posts - 79 votes Studies: Portuguese, English*, French Studies: Mandarin, Japanese | Message 8 of 9 02 August 2007 at 11:01am | IP Logged |
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Yea, what I think I am going to do is go over each lesson for 2 days, listening, reading, understanding it. I hate putting it in the SRS, but I think it's essential so I am going to put select sentences in, but just put the question as the romaji and translation at the bottom, but no vice-versa. I had a busy week so today will be my first day completely back at it.
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