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TAC Team あ: Luai’s Climb to Trilingualism | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5828 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 65 of 68 27 October 2011 at 1:21am | IP Logged |
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Quick update! Not doing as well in class because I keep having to turn in late assignments and sleep deprivation
has reduced my performance during classtime, but I still feel like I'm absorbing the material just fine. Actually, I reviewed the earlier chapters' kanji recently and was surprised how little I'd forgotten! Numbers Vocab cards: 534 Sentence cards: 71 Kanji While overall I'm doing pretty good with kanji, there are a few compounds whose writing I consistently forget- and I mean consistently, over the course of years, no matter how much I review! >.<; Well, it feels that way, anyway. So I've decided to drill them way more. I'm putting my "trouble kanji" on paper flashcards and using them like so: Read the hiragana, write the corresponding kanji in a notebook, flip card to check if I'm right. I just started making the cards today; I'll report on the method next update. I'm also hoping to add RTK back in if I ever manage to get enough of a handle on my schoolwork, but I'm not holding my breath there! Grammar I'm continually frustrated by my textbook and class's approach to grammar. Every chapter, about 3/4 of the "grammar points" are either really just new vocabulary, or new applications of older grammar points (like yet another way to use 〜のように〜 for example), which is good I suppose, but I wish they'd teach us the underlying rules of all these patterns instead of approaching them as though they're all completely unique and unrelated. I'm good at making connections but the other students obviously struggle to follow the logic behind it. I also wish they'd introduce more genuinely new and useful grammar points each chapter instead of spending so much time on speaking and writing style. That said, the sentence deck is really helping me internalize everything I need to. I still need to find more examples for some of the particularly fidly grammar points- like 〜てくる／〜ていく, for example, which I just need more exposure to. I'm hoping to find time for that soon. That's pretty much it for now. I haven't forgotten my series on coping mechanisms, I've simply been too busy trying to keep a handle on classwork to write any more on the subject. I hope I'll be able to do a few short posts for it soon. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5828 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 66 of 68 29 November 2011 at 12:10am | IP Logged |
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Just got off Thanksgiving break and it feels really weird to be doing Japanese again. I didn't study at all over the
last week (I only even did Anki once!) because I was just SO worn down from school. But, I think I have my feet back under me again and it doesn't feel quite so painful to do other languages besides English now. I asked my Sensei recently if it was alright for me to put off my study abroad to Japan for another year. The upshot of that discussion was that I'm not going to Japan until the year after next, and by this time next year I should be at JLPT level 1, and being at such a high level when I go means I'll be able to take some of the really cool classes I would have missed out on otherwise- such as CLASSICAL JAPANESE! Oh, and Japanese Linguistics, taught in Japanese! I'm excited. :) Anyway, it's a long ways off now, so no more about that for a while. I have some updates! Kanji The writing cards are doing me good! Some of them have already sunk in very well. I don't think I'll be forgetting 重い again. Then there are some that I'm beginning to show progress on, but still struggle to recall, or I mix up the order of the radicals, such as 和 where I always put 口 on the left. These ones are going to take me a while I think, but it's starting to work. I just hope the growing size of my deck doesn't deter me too much. Grammar Anki card count: 106 Still haven't gotten around to adding examples of passive constructions, or extras for the tough constructions. The deck is also starting to get big enough to be a little unwieldy. I think I'll start removing sentences for some of the easy stuff soon- things like "〜とおもわれています”. I'm starting to notice my understanding of anime improving again for the first time in a while! I still can't follow really long expositional sentences though. Well, all in due time. I think I'm getting to the point where vocab is more of a problem than grammar yet again. Vocabulary Anki card count: 589 I'm doing a combination of adding words from the Tobira text and words from the JLPT N3 list. I'm also adding a smattering of words that come up in class discussion, readings, etc. that we're not actually expected to learn. But I've been frustrated lately by the lack of depth in my vocabulary- I can talk about lots of things, but in the first five minutes I run out of the ability to say anything in any detail. I can say what kind of food I like but I can't tell you how to make it, what it's history is, or describe how it tastes. I can tell you I like animals and nature but not much else. So, yesterday I finally started to make inroads into that. I love birding! Not birdwatching, mind you- that happens at feeders and in yards- I like to tromp through the woods chasing a rare warbler or flycatcher. And I've been looking forward to adding Japanese birds to my Life List for a while now. So I decided I want to join a birding club when I go to Japan, and for that purpose, I've begun to read articles about birds and birding in Japanese, looking for vital vocabulary. I'll let the Japanese birders handle introducing me to new species, but I should at least know how to say "sparrow" and "crane" before I get there, let alone "binoculars" and "identification"! All of these are happily living in my Anki deck now. I was so thrilled when I found the Japanese word for "identification marks"! That's going to be vital for learning to distinguish similar birds. I used Rikai for the actual reading of the article, and it was very nice. I understood most of it, with the obstacle of rare vocabulary and tons of kanji removed. It was a good feeling. I think I will ramp up my reading a lot in the summer. Anyway, in short, everyone should try to connect their other hobbies to their languages as much as possible! It really is a wonderfully rewarding feeling, and I find myself looking forward to learning the word for "Passerine" a lot more than I look forward to class or new kanji lessons. In fact, I think I'll go look it up now..... ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5828 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 67 of 68 05 December 2011 at 9:24pm | IP Logged |
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Quick update:
Class is almost over. My project essay's final draft was really good and received a 100%. I'll post it after class is done (before then, and I could lose my good grade for "getting advice from others"). I just took the oral exam today and I think I did well. I was freaked out at first and stumbled a lot, but quickly relaxed and spoke more fluently. I think one of my strong points is that I answer quickly and immediately, even if I have to pause after that to get the next sentence in order. I think I did ok on aidzuchi too. I'm still reading about birds on wikipedia a lot. In fact, I've been re-reading the same article, adding different vocab to anki each time I go through it. This is working really well for me because re-reading it gives me a chance to see the new vocab I've done in anki in a native context again and reinforce it, especially the kanji (which I have trouble recognizing outside anki). I also added another batch of words from the JLPT N3 list. I'm adding 5 or 6 of them a week, in little clumps. Just for diversity really. Anki vocab count: 608 Anki sentence count: 106 (same as before) I'm looking forward to my 3 weeks off between semesters! I plan to start the next lesson of my book right away so I'll be super ready for class. :) And I'm also going to read a lot, add more out-of-class vocabulary, and review tricky grammar like passives. Plus, I hope to find some time for French maintenance. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5828 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 68 of 68 05 January 2012 at 9:25pm | IP Logged |
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Well, the year is over and 2012 has begun so it's high time I wrapped this log up. Long story short, my break
plans did not pan out. I had a huge breakdown later in finals week, which was a total disaster, and failed one of my classes (not Japanese). I needed the time during break to get my feet back under me and just get over how awful I felt about it all. Also, one good thing came out of this: My parents freaked out about the failed class, realized just how delicate I've been, and agreed to let me try out antidepressant/anti-anxiety meds. I've already started them and they're going well so far. It's a little early to say if they're working or not. I finished Japanese 401 with an A-, which I'm happy with. I got around 92% on the oral exam and 80-something on the final because I wrote a crappy essay. Overall, this year was a huge mixed bag. It was crazily all over the place. It was hard just keeping up with all the changes happening. My plans and my methods changed so much and were so disorganized it's a miracle I learned at all. But I did- I learned a LOT. And I feel confident I can keep it up in 2012. I'm already at a level of Japanese that's actually usable and useful to me, which is a wonderful feeling. From here on out, it only gets better! I also learned a lot about what works and doesn't work for me. I like the structure of a class, and I like being pushed. I have to make sure I still have fun with the language or I start to hate it, but that push helps me keep going. I like being able to see my progress- either in the form of a grade, or in the form of a 6WC score that motivates me to beat the next person above me. Participation with others and competition are good ways to keep myself going. I finally got anki working for me, by reducing the amount of new cards I do at once, being more regular in my reviews, and stressing less about reviews piling up. I realized I need to write kanji in order to learn them properly and devised a paper flashcard system for that purpose. I learned that although reading something I'm not interested in is a painful chore, reading something I care about is exciting and fun. These are all extremely valuable realizations that will play a big role in my methods next year. You can continue following me in my journey to fluency in Japanese (and some other stuff) here: Luai's Fully Fluent in 2012: TAC team い Congratulations to the TAC winners and good luck to everyone in 2012! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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