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rewire’s 日本語 (& miscellany) adventures | ||
Tags: Intermediate | Japanese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| rewire Groupie United States learninglane.tumblr.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4337 days ago 82 posts - 90 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 17 of 81 08 August 2012 at 7:02pm | IP Logged |
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Hm, the forum rollback ate a post, heh. Well it ate a couple posts, but it ate my last update for sure, even
though I can't remember what I said in it, so I think it doesn't matter that much. I keep listening to the Brave OST lately and there's a song in (Scottish) Gaelic on it, and it keeps making me want to learn Gaelic. I'm thinking of going Irish Gaelic actually, partly just because I think it's easier to find learning materials for it online, and it would be kind of an excuse to go back to Ireland at some point and see some of the places I missed. So I'm kind of going back and forth on it, because I have somewhat limited time, and have been trying to focus on Japanese to get up to where I think I ought to be in that, and if I add Gaelic to the mix that's yet another "extracurricular" activity I have to balance that I technically don't have time for (I also write code/fiction and draw in my off hours and occasionally try to have a social life). But I was poking around Bitesized Irish Gaelic last night, and even after only the first lesson feel like it's easier to just "pick up" than Japanese ever was despite my supposed "headstart" in Japanese. And even though it's not particularly useful to me in any way, I've always loved the sound/look of (any form of) Gaelic. Thus I'm considering just doing it because language should be fun, and often Japanese (and Mandarin) is like a job I have to do because of family and less like something I just do because I simply enjoy it. I mean I do still like Japanese, and moreso now that I can start to do things like read short stories, but it's somehow aside from the pronunciation and the initial grammar always ended up this major uphill struggle because of the vocabulary barrier and my issues with rote memorization learning, so I have pushed myself to learn it because "I want to be able to have a conversation with my grandmother" or "because I've already put so much effort into it I have to reach fluency or why have I bothered" and less just because when I sit down to learn Japanese I'm excited by the act of learning Japanese. Which I don't know, maybe I will get bored if I reach harder materials in Gaelic, too, but I guess I sort of want to find out how it works when I'm learning a language that's not quite so "backwards" to an English speaker. As far as Japanese goes, I'd had a friend staying at my place for a couple weeks and slacked off a lot on Japanese studies, but I'm going to be trying to pick up the pace again starting this week. I'm halfway through CCS 5, starting to pause a little to look up some words I can't make out from context instead of just saying "got the gist, let's move on" which is both helpful and not, since once I get started looking up words I seem to have a tendency to do it too often. So I need to limit myself somehow to really just key words. Or maybe just write them in a notebook. I would do an SRS, but I'm still working through iKnow and Read the Kanji and fall behind a lot on iKnow (I'm going to try to stick to my 30 minutes a week minimum for real now), and I feel like adding a personal SRS deck at this time would just be something I'd end up feeling guilty over not really utilizing, so I haven't wanted to bother. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| rewire Groupie United States learninglane.tumblr.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4337 days ago 82 posts - 90 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 18 of 81 10 August 2012 at 7:04pm | IP Logged |
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Okay so I did half-start trying to get into Irish and was quite enjoying it, but the more I think on it
I just don't actually have the time to add a second language to my routine until I've really achieved my goals in Japanese. I think partly I just needed a break in my intensity in Japanese, but I've had a couple weeks of doing little-to-nothing, not listening to Pimsleur in the car, not doing lessons with JOI, and only minimally reading (partly because I had company, but partly I was just a bit burnt out and needed a break), and I'm feeling more like I want to jump back in now. I'm sort of just frustrated at what feels like a lack of progress (even knowing I've made considerable progress since the beginning of the year!) in things like iKnow and RTK, where I'm still working through the very basic levels. It's mostly review practice for really making the vocabulary accessible to me in speech/writing without even thinking about it, but it's awkward in my mind that I know I am in some respects a low-intermediate level learner with my grasp on grammar, but in some ways am just a beginner due to my still limited vocabulary. iKnow gives approximations of how long it will take you to finish each set, and it's estimating 8-12 weeks for me to finish set 6 at the current pace I have, which would mean I wouldn't finish Core 1000 in its entirety for another year, which is sort of ridiculous. I did meet my 30 minute goal for this week, but I wonder how realistic I would be if I tried to increase it. I'd love if I managed to get through Core 2000 by the end of December or something, but I don't know if I'd be able to keep up that kind of pace. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| rewire Groupie United States learninglane.tumblr.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4337 days ago 82 posts - 90 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 19 of 81 13 August 2012 at 7:24am | IP Logged |
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Yesterday didn't get much done, but today was pretty much entirely doing laundry and studying Japanese while
watching TV (or studying Japanese via watching TV). I'm almost halfway through the CCS manga, and I started rewatching the series, too, without subtitles. I sort of surprise myself with how much I catch. Kind of unsure how much is due to me just already knowing what the episodes are about and thus being able to extrapolate, but I do actually catch the phrases and individual words, and while I had the subs on for the opening theme (which happened to be printing the English instead of romaji), realized I actually could make the connection between the words and the lyrics. Usually songs and song meanings are particularly difficult for me to understand-- I often need to look up lyrics in English as well to really figure out what they say, so I almost never catch what the Japanese lyrics are unless I look them up either. Probably I ought to start working more on production in writing, though at least I'm starting up conversational lessons again this week. I think it's partly still difficult because I find without looking up vocab to express abstract concepts, I tend not to have a lot to say about the concrete subjects I would have words for (unless someone's actively asking me about them I guess), and I'm also just mostly non-expressive at the moment, so I draw a blank whenever I think about writing entries/something in English, let alone Japanese. For a while I was thinking I'd evened out the disparity in where I am at in various skills more, but in reflection I haven't that much? I guess it's just an odd sort of frustration at not being able to sum up myself as something simple like "would be able to pass JLPT 3" even though my listening and grammatical command are probably around there, my vocabulary is trailing behind at JLPT 5-4. I wish I could figure out how to have more time for studying without compromising other things I need to get done, but I'm already sort of cramming it into most of my available off-hours and ending up somewhat frustrated that I have little time left over to simply relax and draw or write or hang out with friends. Ahwell. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| rewire Groupie United States learninglane.tumblr.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4337 days ago 82 posts - 90 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 20 of 81 14 August 2012 at 7:04pm | IP Logged |
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I've been doing nearly an hour a day on iKnow for the past two days, which isn't going
to last, but I'm going to milk my random devotion to it for now as long as possible. I think partly I just want to "catch up" so that where I am in lessons is actually reflective of where I am in general, so I can get a more concrete measurement of how many words I know. Really like that iKnow lets me mark words as "mastered" now after I do a session with them now, so I don't have to continue reviewing words like 何 which I very definitely know and even remember how to write (by hand), still, but don't have to pour over lists beforehand to try to remove words I think fall into that category. My (hand)writing skills have diminished a lot, but I'm not too concerned about that at the moment since I figure if I don't get around to memorizing kanji writing while learning Japanese, I definitely will when I get more into Mandarin (and I learn traditional characters in Mandarin, so most of them are the same), and meanwhile 99% of the time I only need to type them. To be honest, I could probably mark a lot of words as 'mastered' that I'm not doing, because most of them I get through with zero mistakes even on "first" viewing, but I end up reluctant to do so? I don't trust myself to have really "mastered" them sometimes, so I figure I should practice more, which might be a little ridiculous, I'm not sure. Kind of debating whether or not I ought to just mark all those I get through on first viewing as mastered, to try to move into words I really don't know much/at all. Sort of watched 東京物語 last night, but I only was half paying attention, so I feel like I missed a vast majority of the plot. But that's fine, I'm thinking I'm going to watch some of these multiple times, so I'll watch it again later. It's always a bit interesting as a sort of... litmus test, too, to see how much more I get out of it the second or third time. (Second time I want to actually watch it, so I know what's going on, and third time I'd like to watch it without subs.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| rewire Groupie United States learninglane.tumblr.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4337 days ago 82 posts - 90 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 21 of 81 16 August 2012 at 6:25am | IP Logged |
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Did my first JOI lessons today that I had in a couple weeks, and the first lesson, which
was the Lower Intermediate group lesson, made me feel a bit awkward and unsure of myself, but I find it's often just a lack of vocabulary (well, and a lack of imagination for coming up with sample sentences on the spot). Though I also tend to make a lot more weird grammar mistakes in speaking like forgetting to use the proper tense that I really want to work on more. Somehow. But I suppose for now I'll just try to continue building up my vocabulary and and doing my tutoring sessions-- after this week I'm not going to do flex lessons for a while since I'm trying to cut down on costs a bit, but I'm continuing my private lessons once a week. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4637 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 22 of 81 16 August 2012 at 6:39am | IP Logged |
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Costs always seem to be a problem when learning a language... well, for me, anyway.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6410 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish | Message 23 of 81 17 August 2012 at 5:58pm | IP Logged |
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Regarding iKnow, the new "mastered" feature is great, isn't it? My advice is: If you are uncomfortable checking off a word in the first round even though you know it fairly well, you can always check it off later. Even in later rounds, you are allowed to check off words you already know. That way, you can review a word a couple of times if you feel afraid to just "master" it right away. Then if you think you really do know it well enough, you can check it off after those few rounds and save yourself the time you would have spent reviewing it. I'm now working on the Core 4000, so I've just about run out of words that I know well from before so I don't really have that problem anymore.
It's nice that iKnow gives an estimate of when you will finish. It also says on each individual course how long the average person takes to finish it, but unfortunately, it is given in weeks. Of course, how many weeks it takes to finish depends on how many hours you study each week. I would prefer that they gave it in hours. I've found that the courses I've completed have taken 7-10 hours of study time depending on the level. I'm paid until sometime in July next year, so I hope I can get enough hours in to finish the whole thing by then, but at the moment, it doesn't look very likely. I have a bit of wanderlust too, but I've found that for me, it is best to stick to one language at a time otherwise I never get anywhere and just become frustrated and give up. However, I am thinking of adding a new language next year if I feel I can handle it. I'm hoping my Japanese will be good enough by then that I can enjoy it through books and movies without having to study it too actively. Even so, I think I'll try to add the new language gradually and stop if I find it gets too much. I don't want to give up the progress I've made in Japanese. I know that if I leave it untouched for too long, it will disappear. So it is better to hold on to what I have than to give it up for something new. Eventually, I will have a high enough level that a new language won't get in the way. (I hope.) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| rewire Groupie United States learninglane.tumblr.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4337 days ago 82 posts - 90 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 24 of 81 19 August 2012 at 11:00pm | IP Logged |
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@Kuji It really is difficult. I know there are a lot of free methods out there, and I wish they were more beneficial to
me, but I find without tutoring sessions at all I stagnate a lot. Luckily I can afford to keep some of them going. @Brun Ugle Yes! I noticed that it wasn't a one-time only thing, so I've started using it more on words I'm still feeling okay on after two or three reviews, which is nice. I'm possibly still under-using it, as I'm getting the option on pretty much every word I review at this level, but I'd sort of rather over-practice than under-practice as long as I'm not getting bored with it, I suppose. I think partly it gives the estimate in weeks because it factors in time it takes before reviews become available and is based on how many hours you say you're going to study via the tool. But I agree that it is kind of odd, since I don't always use it for the same amount of time each week. Yeah, I find the same thing, partly also because the other hours of my free time get eaten up by coding or art already, so I just don't really have the time to devote more than a pointless ten minutes a day or something to a second language at the moment. My goal is by the end of next year to be firmly JLPT3 going on JLPT2 in terms of vocabulary (so more Upper Intermediate than the Lower Intermediate I'm at now in general), and possibly adding Mandarin back into the mix at that point, depending on how I'm feeling about Japanese. Mostly I guess I want to reach a point where my maintenance of Japanese is done through reading and chatting with friends/family, so I can devote the hours I'm currently spending on active vocabulary gain to something else. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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