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Japanese from scratch TAC 2015 東亜 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4972 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 129 of 1702 20 October 2011 at 10:44pm | IP Logged |
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I'm back to potter. It's going better. Reading the web and all helped some, the more reading the better. I do
look up anything with kanji using rikaichan as my kanji is very weak. But it's going well and with rikaichan and my furigana add on I am reading it so that I "hear" it in my head. This is exactly how I want to be learning a language. I'm also using the feature for rikaichan to make vocab lists for me. It does an awesome job putting tabs begween the kanji, kana, and English for easy uploading to my flashcard app. I've been doing this for two nights and have a couple hundred words already. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sandman Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5196 days ago 168 posts - 389 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese | Message 130 of 1702 23 October 2011 at 6:51am | IP Logged |
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LOL. I hear you about the Spanish ...
I was trying to do a bit of Spanish along with my Japanese, and the Spanish also fell by the wayside. I don't study it at all anymore other than a couple anki vocab that pops up each day. Don't worry too much, just read a few books and watch a couple dozen hours of TV each year and you at least won't lose much. Speaking might be a bit trickier ... but oh well ... Japanese is our lives now ... Something I think I can suggest is to find some anime/j-doramas that you like, reading the English subtitles initially to learn the story. Then you will have something you can come back to later once you feel more comfortable truly listening without any subtitles. Somewhat like the idea behind the L-R method, if you learn the story first, and THEN focus on listening you'll get MUCH more out of it. If you know the story first, and then listen, it can make the listening more useful since you already know the context. It's a bit of a "stepping stone" before hitting hard-core listening only. For me, and I'm glad I did this, I watched every episode of Naruto and Naruto Shippuden (among many others, but this is the one I'm coming back to) which amounts to roughly 450 or so episodes while reading subtitles. I also found a j-drama I really enjoyed called "Hotaru no hikari" which had two seasons and a total of 21 episodes (plenty of "office" type speaking also), which I also fully watched while reading the subtitles. This did not really count as "work" at all, since I really enjoyed them and would have preferred to watch these instead of American TV anyway. I did this while I was in my first year to year and half or so of study. Obviously, it wouldn't matter what you watch specifically, but make sure to eventually find something you enjoy that will stand up later to repeat viewings. What has been very nice is that I now know the stories of TONS of episodes that I can now go back and more comfortably re-watch without subtitles. I've been working my way back through all the episodes (and the drama i've already watched 3x through with no subtitles) and I think the fact of knowing the story has made the process far more useful. On this forum we hear the terms "comprehensible input" all the time, and knowing the story goes a long way toward achieving that, even if much of the vocab and grammar is still out of range. Those shows read with subtitles are just arrows in your quiver to pull out later. After re-watching the ones you really like a few zillion times (which will still be enjoyable anyway, since you will know what's happening), moving onto new shows with no subtitles later on would be a logical next step. I'd recommend shows with a strong comedic element for this as well, as I've noticed these tend to hold up better for repeat viewing than pure action shows. I think in the long-run this might be a more useful, and a less annoying way, of going about things rather than just hopping into watching things that you have no real shot of understanding. That may be too frustrating for most people. Edited by Sandman on 23 October 2011 at 8:19am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Luai_lashire Diglot Senior Member United States luai-lashire.deviant Joined 5616 days ago 384 posts - 560 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto Studies: Japanese, French | Message 131 of 1702 23 October 2011 at 7:16pm | IP Logged |
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I would recommend Hotaru no Hikari too, it's really good. I do something similar to what Sandman said as well,
although I watch TONS of anime and drama, not just a few shows. XD But the really good ones, I rewatch about once a year, and I always notice improvement. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5770 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 132 of 1702 23 October 2011 at 9:15pm | IP Logged |
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I often try the first episode without subs to see how it goes but if I really can't get into it without some assistance I will always switch to subs because otherwise I'll just end up drifting off and not being that involved with the material anyway.
On the other hand, it can be quite nice to run through an episode without subs first, see what you can pick up, and then run through it again with the subs to check your understanding and fill in a few plot holes at the same time. Some shows are definitely easier to get into without subs than others, I guess perhaps the story is somehow more visual. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4972 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 133 of 1702 24 October 2011 at 12:06am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the tips on using anime. Yeah I was watching Avatar last night on my new blu ray player. I think I'm halfway through (not sure). Watched it in Spanish. I'm kind of happy that blu rays come in several languages since now a days I just can't make myself watch stuff in English. (is something wrong with me?). Anyway. I really can understand tons w/o any subtitles and frankly I'm surprised since when I studied Spanish last year it was a lot more of a struggle. I pulled up some old Spanish vocab lists on my ipod from last year and (ahem) I didn't know any of the words lol. So even though I can watch a movie w/o sub titles in Spanish my Spanish has a way to go if I were to go back and study it. I think I will be doing Spanish some if only to watch the latest movies on blu ray (I don't like watching stuff in English these days unless an actor is really good, and since I prefer action flics anyway, the acting usually isn't that good)
If I could get my Japanese up to that level I would be a very very happy man. Watching anime w/o subs is pretty much my goal and the only practical use I have for this language. /sigh When I watched Hiroku no Go I knew I'd come back to this series again. heh I didn't think I'd do so the very next weekend reading the entire manga series in English. It's coming on DVD in the mail so I think I'll try doing what you suggest - watching it w/o subs. I've tried watching anime w/o subs and while I can follow some of the plot visually I obviously miss a lot. It's too frustrating and I haven't been able to keep it up. I haven't actually re-watched anything though. For obvious reasons I like watching new stuff where I don't know what's going to happen next. But I could re-watch naruto. I like that series a lot. However, I did lose heart when Saske turned evil. That was a real downer. I haven't gotten back into the series since then. I checked some plot spoilers online and found out that he stays evil which makes me not want to watch it anymore =/. But it's a great series and I like the characters - I should probably take it up again. Ah back to Potter. I was reading Potter and took a break to come here. Since I have to look stuff up so much the eyelids start to get droopy. And I've only been awake a few hours already... ugh. Potter is the best thing for me atm I think though since rikai won't work with comic book scans and looking up Japanese words in a dictionary is a royal pain in the butt. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4972 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 134 of 1702 24 October 2011 at 7:10am | IP Logged |
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Alright this weekend was a little frustrating. I want to hit up the native materials so much but it's hard. Doing Potter is ok but I think I have to go slow at it and not spend too much time since it will just get frustrating. I tried reading some manga again (The World that Only God knows) and again it was frustrating. All I wanted was to look stuff up in a dictionary but even though I could read the furigana of the text (I think) it only worked some of the time.
We'll see. I'm only 3/4 through book 1/3 of the Japanese in Mangaland series. I'm gonna read that some more. I'll probably reread it too. One word that is driving me nuts is してい. It's always kana. It just gets stuck about 3/4 through a sentence and I don't know what it means. It's in rikai meaning Janitor or doer/performer or many other definitions. At Jisho.org one definition that looks more on the mark is designation/pointing at (suru verb). Ugh. I hope I come across this word in the grammar book as the dictionaries are failing me. But it's not the only word like that which is why I'm wanting to go back to just plugging vocab into my flashcard app and watching anime. Reading = hard. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5770 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 135 of 1702 24 October 2011 at 9:59am | IP Logged |
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Can you post an example of してい being used that is confusing you? Sounds like in most cases its probably a fragment of a word.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lexii Senior Member United States Joined 5010 days ago 162 posts - 194 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese | Message 136 of 1702 24 October 2011 at 6:02pm | IP Logged |
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Kraemder, I'm sure you clarified this earlier in your log but I missed it. Are you reading Potter (and all the other things you're reading) with rikaichan? If so, how? Can you use rikaichan on a Kindle or iPad? I have no e-readers at all. Any reading I do that's not on a website is done via an old-school paper book, so obviously, I can't use rikaichan with that.
Being able to rikaichan while reading would be quite nice (even though I often have questions about the definitions I get from rikaichan). In any event, I echo your sentiment: reading = hard :). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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