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TAC 2010 - Team K: M. Medialis - RU JP FR

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Teango
Triglot
Winner TAC 2010 & 2012
Senior Member
United States
teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5345 days ago

2210 posts - 3734 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Russian
Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona

 
 Message 49 of 115
06 March 2010 at 8:14pm | IP Logged 
Glad to hear the caravan electrics are all back in order and that you're really getting to grips with LR. I have fond memories of spending several summer holidays with my family in a caravan, flipping over the foldaway breakfast table and sofa cushions into a bed each night.

And I'm totally with you on AniaR, she was very helpful during her brief visit recently, and her welcome wealth of experience and resources in Japanese will be missed.

The Tea Ceremony is of course pure brilliance, you must be buzzing with kanji by the end of the day! I got a chic little tea set whilst in Tokyu Hands in Shinjuku a while back (you know...bowl, little kanji towel, wooden whisk and spatula, etc) and get the very best green stuff from this excellent tea company. Don't forget, if you do this properly, you need to eat some tiny sugar candies afterwards too, just like in a real tea ceremony. Kampai, caravan-san! :)

Edited by Teango on 06 March 2010 at 8:23pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



Teango
Triglot
Winner TAC 2010 & 2012
Senior Member
United States
teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5345 days ago

2210 posts - 3734 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Russian
Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona

 
 Message 50 of 115
16 March 2010 at 12:15pm | IP Logged 
I've just read about a Firefox add-on called FoxReplace in a thread on this forum started by ALS. This is the quick blurb on the website:

"Lets you replace text in web pages. You can define a substitution list and apply it automatically or at your own discretion, or make individual substitutions. You can use this as a filter, or just for fun :)"

It looks interesting. When I saw it, I thought of you and your kanji code-switching. Perhaps it can be used with kanji later on too, that would be so cool!

Edited by Teango on 16 March 2010 at 12:16pm

1 person has voted this message useful



M. Medialis
Diglot
TAC 2010 Winner
Senior Member
Sweden
Joined 6146 days ago

397 posts - 508 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: Russian, Japanese, French

 
 Message 51 of 115
17 March 2010 at 1:06am | IP Logged 
Hmm. That's a great little add-on. I'm trying to think of clever substitutions..

It could be fun to replace English idioms with japanese counterparts. Haha, and extremely confusing to say the least. ;D
1 person has voted this message useful



M. Medialis
Diglot
TAC 2010 Winner
Senior Member
Sweden
Joined 6146 days ago

397 posts - 508 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: Russian, Japanese, French

 
 Message 52 of 115
17 March 2010 at 3:02pm | IP Logged 
TAC Log nr 10/52

Well. I'm about to fall into the toughest study period of my life at the university. I really can't predict how it's going to end, but I'll make my best efforts to do as much as I possibly can to get through it with excellent grades and excellent language progress.

It's funny. The last 1.5 weeks, I've constantly been doing constructive things. But when I did intense work on my degree paper last week, I felt somewhat bad because I didn't do languages; when I played the piano (and made some major progress), I felt bad because I didn't study; and when I did hard-core languages the last two days I felt bad because I didn't devote time to my course work.

Have you experienced the same feeling, when you feel you're procrastinating even when you're not slacking? I suspect the key is to balance the time so that I can do something of everything every day. It sounds easier that it is though.


L-R experiences

The last two days I've done four intensive hours of Tea Ceremony (my way of LR Japanese). And I got a very strange sensation yesterday. After about one hour, I got some sort of "aha"-feeling, where I could follow the written text being completely relaxed. Hard to explain, but I think I'm close to the natural listening stage now.

One of the things that I'd say comes with natural listening is the ability to "just hear a word" and know intuitively how it is pronunced (even catching subtleties such as "mute" vowels etc.) and then store it instantly in your mind without using any fancy mnemonics (it doesn't mean that you're remember everything though).


Kanji count: 1207

Wikipedia coverage: 67.63 %


Actions during the past week

Have started to write out all the kanjis that stack up in my "forgotten cards pile" by hand. It's pretty time consuming, but the characters I write out are beginning to look really neat. Every once in a while, I manage to get them down perfectly and I just sit back and look at the harmony. ;D
(the movie "The last samurai" comes to mind, where everyone in the village is perfecting some kind of art: Be it swordsmanship, writing out kanji on a wooden stick or cooking. That's my kind of 町illage!).

As a little side note: Before, I usually wrote out the kanjis with my index finger on my palm. Well, I noticed the other day that I'm beginning to get calluses on my left hand palm. I think it's hilarious! Well, I'm considering developing a softer "index finger stroke".

I've also been reading some parallell texts without audio, and now I'm slowly beginning to make sense of the words naturally. Heisig+LR must seriously be the most effective way to learn Japanese ever.


Current plan

Finish Botchan and start to read it a second time.

Do scriptorium from "Breaking into Japanese literature" every other day.

Create a plan for managing the upcoming schedule..


-----------------------------------------------------

Team K - M. Medialis

Edited by M. Medialis on 17 March 2010 at 3:04pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



Teango
Triglot
Winner TAC 2010 & 2012
Senior Member
United States
teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5345 days ago

2210 posts - 3734 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Russian
Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona

 
 Message 53 of 115
17 March 2010 at 7:01pm | IP Logged 
Ready the Mjöllnir and Megingjord, and slip into your Járngreipr! The coming weeks will no doubt be tough, but I have every faith in you and your abilities Medialis. Luck doesn't even come into it, may Thor prevail ;)

M. Medialis wrote:
Have you experienced the same feeling, when you feel you're procrastinating even when you're not slacking?

All the time...the key is not to be so hard on yourself, you're doing really well.

M. Medialis wrote:
The last two days I've done four intensive hours of Tea Ceremony (my way of LR Japanese). And I got a very strange sensation yesterday. After about one hour, I got some sort of "aha"-feeling, where I could follow the written text being completely relaxed. Hard to explain, but I think I'm close to the natural listening stage now.

Spot on...that's exactly where I'm at with German right now too. I don't have recourse to any special German brews unfortunately (beers are good here but sadly somewhat counterproductive to quality study), but I am flowing in and out of this strange sensation where I'm drift into a bit of a trance-like state and the voice is more a part of my thoughts than anything else. I'm also tempted to just close my eyes and listen instead sometimes.

I like the new addition of "Wikipedia coverage" to your kanji count by the way. So you understand the basic meaning behind 2/3 of the joyo kanji - you've got to be happy with that. I might have to follow suit and add a percentage each week too (hehe), but I'm just a tad ashamed that my coverage will be really low. Still it should be motivating to see it ascend a little higher over the coming weeks...

I found it hilarious that you're already getting calluses (not for your pain of course). I already pre-empted this and started off holding a small glossy card in my left hand as I found it far too tickly and started laughing when drawing the kanji in the palm of my hand. Then I got fed up of trying to find this blank card (it likes to move about when I'm not looking, no doubt linguagremlins), and so I now just write them in the air like a Taoist priest, and adept of the sword and brush, magnanimously blessing his online kanji congregation (lol). I think it's definitely a good idea to write out those more tricky and forgettable kanjis on paper - thanks for this tip.


Edited by Teango on 17 March 2010 at 7:02pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Teango
Triglot
Winner TAC 2010 & 2012
Senior Member
United States
teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5345 days ago

2210 posts - 3734 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Russian
Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona

 
 Message 54 of 115
19 March 2010 at 1:17pm | IP Logged 
Volte wrote:
The aforementioned program also works perfectly on Linux with wine.

That's how I'm studying LR this lunchtime, with a glass of Spätburgunder pinot noir (lol). Not quite orthodox, I know, but it does seem to be bringing a warm healthy glow to the language learning process ;)

Edited by Teango on 19 March 2010 at 1:19pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Volte
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Switzerland
Joined 6228 days ago

4474 posts - 6726 votes 
Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian
Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 55 of 115
19 March 2010 at 9:27pm | IP Logged 
Teango wrote:
Volte wrote:
The aforementioned program also works perfectly on Linux with wine.

That's how I'm studying LR this lunchtime, with a glass of Spätburgunder pinot noir (lol). Not quite orthodox, I know, but it does seem to be bringing a warm healthy glow to the language learning process ;)


That's another interpretation; I meant a program for running Windows programs under Linux. Nonetheless, enjoy your wine and learning.

1 person has voted this message useful



M. Medialis
Diglot
TAC 2010 Winner
Senior Member
Sweden
Joined 6146 days ago

397 posts - 508 votes 
Speaks: Swedish*, English
Studies: Russian, Japanese, French

 
 Message 56 of 115
23 March 2010 at 11:02pm | IP Logged 
Teango wrote:
and so I now just write them in the air like a Taoist priest, and adept of the sword and brush, magnanimously blessing his online kanji congregation (lol).


I could seriously put this sentence on my wall! LOL


---

On Thursday, I'm off to the Canary Islands for a week with my family (it's my mothers birthday, and they wanted to go to the sun).

So I'll be off the forum for a week. And I can't predict how my language studies are going to be. I'll bring my cell phone with all my language audio, and a few books with parallel texts. And I'll see how often I can do kanji reps. But of course I need to prioritize my family and the beach! ;D


Btw. I'm starting to miss Russian. To not study Russian for a month is like leaving your beloved and grown up bear at the yard. -You simply miss your little buddy. (lol, must be the worst analogy ever....).

On the other hand, I'm afraid to leave this mesmerizing feeling of living solely with Japanese. Going around and see kanjis flash through my inner vision, listen to all those sweet soothing voices, wondering if there is anyone in the world who can actually keep those words apart, and watching anime when I'm too tired to even sit up).

Oh, and she's a great cook too! (ate some yakiniku today. Woah! It's so good it's overwhelming).


So to end this post. I love this TAC so much. Languages are beginning to become not only a passion but also a habit and a lifestyle (and it's sometimes hard to choose course work before kanji reps...argh).

So I just need to remember to actively get back to this sweet way of life when I return next week.


I'll be back....

Edited by M. Medialis on 23 March 2010 at 11:06pm



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