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TAC 2012 Team Sputnik: M. Medialis RU JP | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6153 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 25 of 56 01 May 2012 at 10:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Team Tac 2012 - Team Sputnik - Log #5
Wow. During my daily morning coffee ceremony (koohii-taimu!), just in the middle of a philosophical discussion together with my mountain squirrel friend, I suddenly found myself back in my student apartment. I must have been summoned by my great Team Sputnik-companions (thank you guys!), to write another little update of my language learning adventures. So here we go. (lol) ----------------------------------------- So what have I've been doing lately? Actually not too little. I've entered a sweet phase of my Japanese progress where Japanese words are starting to sound like 'real' words to me. They just seem to stick in my memory much more easily, and every time I touch Japanese I seem to automatically catch new words (which means that I should definitely be touching Japanese more than I'm doing right now :). Technical difficulties One month ago, I had once again LRed through all my Japanese materials (and got lots of improvement in my understanding). But now I'm out of materials, so I'm searching for new things to read. On top of that my cellphone headset has stopped working, which killed my podcast listening. I'm planning to buy the new Sony smartphone when it gets released, which has put me in a podcast deadlock since I don't want to buy a new headset for a stone age phone. So when I don't have audio immersion or LR, here's what I do: Kanji Exploration Until now, I have never bothered about the different readings of the kanji (in case you're curious, most Japanese characters have multiple pronunciations which are completely different. The pronunciation depends on which word it appears in, and where it appears in the word - and sometimes it's just plain arbitrary). Recently, I got the inspiration to start some kanji exploration: I pick a kanji that I find interesting and look up all words where it occurs together with their corresponding audio clips. I then listen to the audio clips, write the words out by hand and look at the translations and thereby I can get a feeling for all the different nuances of the kanji character. -I've reached a level where this kind of compound word comparison is very rewarding. :) To me, the kanji characters are a bonus to the Japanese language. Not only do you get the cool language - you also get the awesome writing system that you can spend a lifetime exploring. :) Blog Scriptorium The idea here is simple: I just pick a random Japanese blog that I find interesting and copy the sentences by hand. I love writing Japanese by hand, so it's a fun thing to do for me. If I find a word or a character that I find particularly interesting, I jump into 'example sentence collection'-mode or 'kanji exploration'-mode. This way, I often end up doing very little actual blog scriptorium, but still learn many new words and readings. Another round of the flu I actually got hit by the flu a second time a couple of weeks ago. This time was quite special because I completely lost my sense of smelling during some days (luckily it's fully restored now). It was an interesting experience: I opened a package of coffee beans and took a deep deep breath - and all I could feel was the smell of fresh air. I made some strong spearmint tea - fresh air. Heavy fragranced showering gel - fresh air. Inhaling someone's cigarette smoke at the bus stop - fresh air. Newly baked bread - fresh air. Now when my sense of smelling has returned I can get all sentimental when I feel the aroma of newly made coffee or the lovely smell of soap when I wash my hands (not something you'd usually notice..). And yesterday evening I was totally dreaming away in the smoke of a bonfire. The oldest cliche ever, but it's so true: You don't really appreciate what you have until you lose it.. ..Speaking of which...I haven't touched Japanese (or any other language) for more than a week. I look forward to once again feel the vitalising scent of crazy Japanese tv shows, speeded girl pop bands and anime. I'm back in the race! :) ----------------------------------------- ..Maybe someone is worrying about my squirrel friend who got left alone so unexpectedly. I texted him, and he replied that he found some almond chocolate crackers underneath a drawer in my dojo that he is happily feasting away on. He's one lovely little chap! ----------------------------------------- Team Sputnik - M. Medialis 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 5352 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 26 of 56 06 May 2012 at 3:28am | IP Logged | |||||
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いらっしゃい!! That summoning incantation in the ancient flying squirrel scroll worked after all... :D
It sounds like you're really starting to consolidate all that Japanese vocabulary now and make the language your own. I had a slightly related experience recently whilst watching a German film called "Die Fälscher" (The Counterfeiters). There's a tiny scene where one of the prisoners starts speaking in another language on the train, and I mistakenly thought they were talking in English until I realised shortly afterwards it was actually Russian. It was such a strange sensation to confuse Russian with my native language (even if just for a few seconds)...and I hope this marks the first experience of many. It must also be quite exciting to be at that stage where you can delve deeper into the archaeological treasure catacombs of kanji. I can well imagine you sporting a white gentlemen's suit and sipping macha on some grand polyglot dig or sentence mining expedition, unearthing all kinds of cultural and majestic artefacts that were otherwise previously hidden from gaijin eyes. Just please remember...if you also happen to uncover a kanji reading of the "lost ark" in your travels, whatever you do, don't look at it... ;) Edited by Teango on 06 May 2012 at 3:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Topsy Turvey Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4550 days ago 18 posts - 18 votes Speaks: English* | Message 27 of 56 10 May 2012 at 1:05pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Finding other fun things to do like trying to find kanji trends is a brilliant idea.
Sometimes it's good when you can't do some of your normal techniques just so that you can find new ways of doing things and keeping language learning fresh. Overall though, your level in Japanese is just amazing. You are so inspirational M.Mediallis. I hope you are feeling better now and good luck with your thesis :D 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4593 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 28 of 56 12 May 2012 at 4:43am | IP Logged | |||||
I had a bout of wanderlust with French, about a week ago, and decided to listen to some French radio. Apparently they were speaking about something to do with a Japanese story or novel, and suddenly, native Japanese started flowing out. It took me a few seconds to register that it was Japanese and not French, and then not English. I thought, "what is this gorgeous-sounding language that I feel I can understand?" I realized it was Japanese I was listening to, and not my native language :) It's a great feeling to make a language your own :) Great experiments with the kanji, M.Medialis! I was working along the same lines, but with songs and proverbs/idioms. Yep, I love sayings and songs :) It's great fun, and I really love kanji, with all its complexities. I know we're doing well, because it takes natives years to go through it. Keep up the good work, and great to see you back on the team summoning :D 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6153 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 29 of 56 12 May 2012 at 10:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
@Topsey Turvey: Thanks! And it's a good point, it's refreshing to fiddle around with new techniques once in a while. I think new methods can give a huge learning boost even if they aren't 'maximally effective'. :)
Hahaha. These cracked me up!! ;D @Teango and @Woodsei It's so cool when the language becomes second nature like that. When I was in the Russian zone before, I sometimes started thinking things like: "there is essentially no difference between Swedish and Russian. Just a slightly different vocabulary.".. ..and just some years/months ago the whole language was a total mystery, clouded by an unreadable script, an arbitrary word order and a crazy fast blur of beautiful syllables. We're progressing comrades! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6153 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 30 of 56 20 May 2012 at 1:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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Gaah. I've made some comeback attempts but I haven't been able to find my Inspiration (this should be pronounced in the Japanese way: 'Inspireeshyon'. Am I the only one who is a huge fan of the English loan-words in Japanese? :).
Anyway. This is not really a dry spell. It's just that my attention has been directed to some other interesting things lately. I'm sure I'll soon find my way back to the language learning realm! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5022 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 31 of 56 21 May 2012 at 2:30am | IP Logged | |||||
That always makes words seem doubly difficult for me because I must look them up 'somewhere else' (my brain's "English drawer") and then distort them (don't you just love that?) -- to make them sound 'right'! The first part feels hard (and bad!) enough but then, on top of it, I feel like I'm undoing something it took inordinate amounts of time and effort to get right -- I hate them hate them hate them... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4593 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 32 of 56 18 June 2012 at 7:46am | IP Logged | |||||
I second that :) It's funny, how we are supposed to distort the English pronunciation towards saying the Japanese way so that it could sound "right"! :D Needless to say, I love saying them too :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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