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日本語 and me the next round TAC 2012 Team い | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5793 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 281 of 333 11 November 2012 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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It seems I caught a mild case of wanderlust and have started flirting with Korean thanks to Kraemder's log. I never thought that would happen - the language has never been on my hitlist and I generally think that considering Japanese has been such a major time consuming project for me, trying to learn something like Korean is going to be the same but much, much worse.
Nevertheless, it's been quite a fun diversion listening to some of the podcasts on Talk To Me in Korean. It was quite interesting to listen to them explain how the use of the Korean words for "yes" and "no" in answer to a question differs to English - because the usage seems to be identical to that in Japanese. Except "yes" in Korean also seems to be a lot more versatile than はい. Talk to me in Korean is an absolutely lovely resource. I desperately wish there was something similar available for Japanese, especially at the intermediate level. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5793 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 282 of 333 13 November 2012 at 9:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Something strange has happened to me since Sunday. I have had the sudden motivation to go back and study some kanji properly. Hello Kanji in Context, I can't say I've missed you, but suddenly I find myself interested once more in your banal example sentences...
Actually, I think I really am interested this time. Now I'm halfway to N2, understanding them is so much easier, and it really does start to become an effective vehicle for learning how to read kanji. I'm also playing around making my own drills for writing kanji as well, but now I'm treating it as a bit of geeky fun rather than some epic exercise in data entry, it's starting to become a lot more meaningful. I think perhaps the most important ingredient for successful language learning might well be attitude. If I have to bully myself into doing something, it's not going to be an effective method, whatever the activity. I'm also really enjoying the drama Sailor Fuku to Kikanjuu. I am totally sold on regularly watching TV drama without subtitles now - as long as I pick the right shows I get so much from them now. Yay for comprehensible input. It's just a shame that the most awesome Tiger and Dragon is still way beyond my level... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5793 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 283 of 333 17 November 2012 at 11:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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I guess I might be a bit slow on the uptake, but subs2srs is about the most amazing thing I've discovered in a long time. I guess I'm totally agnostic on the value of the SRS algorithm itself these days. However, a method to quickly and simply break down my favourite Japanese TV dramas into easily manageable chunks of audio, target language and translation? Quite simply amazing.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5793 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 284 of 333 19 November 2012 at 8:47am | IP Logged | ||
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So far I think this is looking like my most successful 6wc yet. Except I picked the wrong language! I've all but given up on French for now. But my motivation for Japanese is stronger than ever. I'm now aiming for 100 hours overall. Admittedly quite a lot of my time seems to be spent watching TV, but I choose my material carefully and don't use subtitles. It's really helping to keep up my listening skills.
My kanji renaissance is also still going quite well. I'm deliberately holding back a little bit to try to maintain the desire to study them for longer! Experimenting with subs2srs has been great fun this weekend. It's a great way of breaking down the tricky bits of favourite shows. I'm finding it interesting to see the reasons why I can't catch the meaning of certain lines straight away - only around half is because of lack of vocab. The rest is just things like mumbling, contractions, or my brain not processing what I already know quickly enough. Well the answer to that I think is more listening! Unfortunately conversation practice has been limited lately due to technical problems. It makes me wonder if I will eventually reach a limit in what I can do, if I can't get regular speaking practice. I am continuing to take online classes around once a week, which is great, but because the classes are quite heavily structured they are much more useful for drilling a grammar point than general conversation. And I'm still scouring the internet looking for local opportunities, but still nothing comes up. If I spend too much time dwelling on it I start losing motivation - what's the point learning a language I can't use? Well, regardless of limits on speaking skills, I've still got a lot I can work on with listening and reading, so it's far from game over just yet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4608 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 285 of 333 20 November 2012 at 4:40am | IP Logged | ||
I second that! Subs2SRS is a great tool, thanks to its creator. I wish studying for everything else is as much fun as it is for languages. Not that I'm complaining, but when was the last time one took a university class where she gets to choose the material to study? I guess independent study courses, which are not much, lol :) Or even full-time jobs :) I love Tiger and Dragon. Quite simply, awesome. I love anything that has a yakuza theme, like Gokusen, even though this is language I can't really use in real life :) I have to check out some of the titles for JDrama that you mentioned, I have a soft spot for those. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4608 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 286 of 333 20 November 2012 at 5:26am | IP Logged | ||
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I was reading your log and came across a post where you were evaluating your
expectations and ambitions. Thank you for such a lovely and touching post. Keep up these long posts, I really enjoy them! Your thoughts made me think about my life and about a lot of other things. Ultimately, languages can be a great tool, and obviously very enjoyable, but life's not all about languages. It's nice to have goals to work towards (isn't this why we have all the 6 week challenges?), but your goals will come. They'll take whatever time they need, but they will come, so there's no sense stressing over them. And I think it's a blessing that you have the opportunity to do what you love, at any age. It doesn't matter whether you're old or young, really. So enjoy the little things in life that make it so special and important, like family. And I know you do. I think, when I look back on my teenage years, that this was a time where I was still growing. Sure, every now and then I think that I was lazy back then and had all the time in the world, but now I really believe that teenagers have issues that are very important to them. They might not be important to me now, but they were back then. Every stage in life comes with it's opportunities and struggles, at least that what I think. I honestly believe you're doing great balancing all of that. So what if you window shop or plan schedules? If it makes you feel better, then do it. I think part of the enjoyment of the journey are all these useless things :) I never stick to a schedule I make, so I make short-term plans, like, really short-term. Think, watch this episode now and loop, or make sure I do this by the end of the day. Of course, we always need long-term goals, but I don't stress about them as much now. If I just focus on the journey and make the most out of it, the long-term goal will eventually materialize. I used to want to be an interpreter and travel the world, but then family advised me to think of a more stable and secure job, and seeing that I loved human health, I chose medicine. I still love it, but became quickly disillusioned by all the bureaucracy in the health care system, and currently I'm seeking for a change. It was a really depressing time for me. I don't want to spend my life in a hospital ward, either, most of the time. I want to be able to live and have a family, that's more important. So life comes with all it's little inconsistencies that make us all grow into who we are. Enjoy where you are right now, I always enjoy following your journey! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5793 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 287 of 333 20 November 2012 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Woodsei, thanks for taking the time to read my epic (or at least epically long) posts and providing such kind feedback.
I think you are right. Maybe the secret of a successful life is just balancing all these important ingredients such as professional development, personal development and social relationships. I remember reading once a definition of forgiveness that went along the lines of "forgiveness is accepting that the past cannot be any different". In this light, I think forgiveness must be such an important thing for mental wellbeing, and something I need to keep in mind when thinking about my own past.
Yes, I totally agree! I think it comes down to the difference between studying for yourself, or studying for somebody else. If everything gets reduced to jumping through academic hoops, only looking at what your teacher thinks is important, and general academic busy work, I guess it all becomes harder to engage with. I'm starting to believe more and more that attitude is at least as important as method when it comes to languages learning. At least as far as my own studies go, my mindset as I am doing a task seems to play such a huge part in how much I learn from it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5793 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 288 of 333 23 November 2012 at 12:35am | IP Logged | ||
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I did an online class today and it was tough. Or more accurately, my Japanese sucked more than normal. everything felt off, from my pronunciation through to forgetting the kind of common vocabulary that should be burned into my brain by now.
Anyway, thanks to the 6WC my twitter feed is currently providing me with the most comprehensive record of my language activities that I will ever keep, so maybe it's time for a little self evaluation to see if there are some possible reasons for my poor performance. First of all, I am tired. I haven't slept well all week. I've been finishing work later than normal this week. I'm trying to watch what I eat (before feasting again at Christmas) so I'm a little hungrier than normal. So overall I'm not in optimum condition, although it's not bad enough to interfere with daily life, but it may be enough to impact my performance. Looking at my language activities, well, as I mentioned before, my speaking practice opportunities have recently been more limited than normal. But more than that, it seems like my log for the last three days has been packed full of #textbook, #kanji, and a little #subs2srs, but not much else. I haven't watched any TV (in any language, actually) since Monday, so I think at least it's obvious there's a big input shaped gap in my recent activities. Actually, since I haven't been sleeping well, I've even skipped listening to a podcast in bed as I (try to) fall asleep. It's not to say that kanji and textbooks don't have an important role in my routine too, but I think I maybe ought to prioritise input a little more and see if it helps. Obviously I'll also try getting more sleep and speaking more, but at least the input thing should be the easiest bit to fix! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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