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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 4349 days ago 82 posts - 90 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 57 of 81 08 May 2013 at 5:34am | IP Logged |
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So I kind of dropped off here? I haven't stopped studying, it just seems like if I post here regularly I get too wrapped up in logging things and reading other people's threads than I do studying, so I have been doing my personal tracking logs more on tumblr instead. And I was also getting on during breaks at work, and work's been too busy for me to log on at all.
Right now for Japanese I've got the online tutor with JOI and a local tutor I meet with approximately once a week each, still am working through iKnow (midway through core 2000), have been keeping up with the super challenge more or less (I was only doing a half-challenge with conversation only, and I just finished my 50 videos and am almost there with 50 conversations, but I only have almost 7 "books", so I'm not even sure I'm going to meet my personal goal of 25), I'm almost done with the third set of Pimsleur (I keep taking breaks and also doing them repeatedly to try to make my response time instantaneous so it's been taking me a while), and I started actually using Anki for grammar reviews, because I was frustrated that I kept forgetting things I learned with my tutors because I didn't repeat it enough. I've also been doing exercises from this workbook a bit. Originally I was planning on taking the N3 in December, but I'm sort of uncertain about it right now. Problem mostly being that all the locations are pretty far away, so I'd have to buy plane tickets and a hotel. Unless I'm positive I'm going to pass, I feel like it's not really worth it to spend the money. I still have a couple months to think about it, though. I did a recording of me reading a short story in Japanese a couple months ago, if anyone is interested. Sometimes I'm fine reading, and then I either read something incorrectly and have to repeat or I end up slowing down a lot to try to make sure I'm not reading something incorrectly... Reading the onomatopoeic sounds are just really awkward too, ahah, I'm not a very good actor. Just yesterday I found a link to Erin's Challenge which has a bunch of video skits in conversational Japanese with optional Japanese/other language subtitles, which is pretty cool. And I've actually started studying Mandarin kind of for real? I mean, right now all I'm doing is Pimsleur, because I don't want to take too much time away from Japanese, and mostly it's good to just get my mouth used to pronouncing Chinese sounds and tones. It's kind of nice to take a break from Japanese in my car, sometimes, but still keeping my brain active. Tones are ... it seems like I'm okay saying words in isolation, but then when I have to try to say sentences, I start getting confused about when 3rd tone becomes 2nd tone or accidentally say a 4th like a 1st or odd things like that. But I said a few things to my other the other day and she said she can at least understand me, so ... progress. At some point I'm going to add in the Integrated Chinese book, but for right now I'm just not worrying about it, since Japanese is still my primary focus. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4986 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 58 of 81 08 May 2013 at 5:48am | IP Logged |
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Your 'other'? That's cool that you have someone you can use your foreign languages on. Is he Chinese or just a foreign language buff like you? I'll check out your reading Japanese and let you know my uninformed opinion.
(sorry I just assume everyone is a he online since I play so many role playing games and that's usually true lol.) Edited by kraemder on 08 May 2013 at 5:50am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4986 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 59 of 81 08 May 2013 at 6:03am | IP Logged |
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I like your pronunciation. Using rikai-sama I it looks like the translation of the title would be Portrait of a Wife. But maybe yours is better - I wouldn't know. (I have to rely on Rikai-sama after all heh).
I was curious so I googled it and found this youtube.. YouTube of Someone reading the same story. I was thinking that I wouldn't bother with my pronunciation right now because well... it doesn't really improve my enjoyment of the language - just those who have to talk to me lol. But I'm thinking it's worth some time. Anyway, nice post. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| rewire Groupie United States learninglane.tumblr.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4349 days ago 82 posts - 90 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 60 of 81 08 May 2013 at 6:35am | IP Logged |
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Oh, that was supposed to say 'mother' whoops. Not sure how the m disappeared. My mom is Chinese, yes. She speaks some Japanese, too, but not very well.
And thanks! I translated the title pretty literally from the kanji as I understood them without looking it up (絵- picture 姿- form/shape 奥さん-wife) and then just tried to make it make sense with the story, so possibly it is just portrait, ahah. I think pronunciation can improve enjoyment since the easier it is for others to understand you, the easier to have conversations? Though to be honest, I never really particularly worked on pronunciation for Japanese, so unfortunately I don't really have any tips or anything. ETA: Interesting to hear someone else read it, too, thanks for the link. I mean the book comes with a native speaker reading the story, but someone else who's just studying. Edited by rewire on 25 June 2013 at 12:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| rewire Groupie United States learninglane.tumblr.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4349 days ago 82 posts - 90 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 61 of 81 22 August 2013 at 10:51pm | IP Logged |
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Huh, a bit belatedly I realized I've been on this site for over a year (and terribly inactive, unfortunately!), so I thought it would be interesting to do a quick "where I'm at" compared to last year when I started this thread.
I feel pretty comfortable calling myself intermediate, now, as opposed to last year where I wasn't really sure where I was. It's not easy yet, but I can hold a conversation entirely in Japanese (with people who are patient with my bumbling attempts at explanations when I don't know words or mess up phrasing, ahah), read short stories and news articles like NHK's Easy Web either without a dictionary or with minimal word lookup (on topics I'm familiar with, at least, and still kind of slowly), watch some programs without subtitles and understand mostly what's going on (I've been [re-]watching Digimon Adventure on Netflix and also got into ザ!世界仰天ニュ 2540;ス a bit thanks to a rec from Tumblr). Don't really think I'm going to make the full 50 for books or writing in the Super Challenge, but I might yet make it to my original, unofficial 25 book goal, at the very least, which is kind of cool. Still doing JOI lessons and in-person tutor sessions, though not very regularly, because my job has gotten increasingly more stressful, and often I end up having to cancel sometimes because work's run over or I'm just too tired. I'm on Step 7 of Core 2000 in iKnow, so I think I'll be able to finish Core 2000 this year. I finished Japanese Pimsleur, though now I'm sorely lacking the speaking practice it was providing. Recently I've been listening to the Lower Intermediate level of Japanesepod101.com's podcast, but not doing speaking practice in the car definitely has an impact on my ability to quickly recall words and phrases for output. I just finished listening to the first season, though, so I'm thinking of starting to use those tracks for shadowing practice, which might help. Though I (again) didn't feel confident enough that I wanted to attempt the N3 this year, I've been able to do things like switch my iPod & iPad to Japanese and navigate some websites (online shops, mostly, but a few others) with minimal reliance on Rikai. I seem to have switched Google to Japanese, most of the time? It's weirdly inconsistent, but half the time Google's interfaces are in Japanese, like YouTube is but not Gmail aside from the login page, and I've got Japanese search results showing up with my English results, too. Usually I don't use the Japanese results, because I'm often searching for programming help, and I can't afford to take more than the time it already takes to troubleshoot, or to not understand something crucial. Which is also why my phone and computer OSes are still running in English for now. I'd like to switch them over, though, maybe next year. So overall it's actually going pretty well, albeit a bit slower than I'd originally intended-- I meant to be where I am now by last December, and I'm still not sure if I will really be able to start reading HP by this December or not though that was my goal this year. The slowness normally doesn't bother me anymore as I do see my general progress and that keeps me going, but recently I keep wondering if I'm making the right decision favoring my Japanese over Mandarin. Ultimately I keep choosing to stick with Japanese as the primary focus and just dabble in Mandarin when I need a change of pace (which is why I decided to switch back from doing Mandarin Pimsleur to the jpod101 podcasts), but it's somewhat frustrating thinking that by this time next year, I will certainly have progressed, but probably still not enough to put Japanese into maintenance mode without losing a lot. Maybe I'm wrong about that, too; I don't seem to be very good at predicting my future progress, but it seems more likely than not. There was discussion in my thread previously about whether or not the JLPT is worth it, and yes, honestly I know it is sort of worthless to me in the sense that I'm not really going for a career in Japan or translation anymore, so learning Japanese is more about whether I can read the books/watch the shows & movies/talk to the people I want than an arbitrary test score. But I've had this goal of "I need to at least pass N3" since I got out of college, that I'm never going to be personally satisfied if I don't actually do it sometime. I've kept saying I'm going to and vaguely thinking I could do it "next time", and then realizing I'd be woefully unprepared when that time rolls around, so it'll be a pretty huge personal achievement when I finally feel genuinely ready. (Passing by the skin of my teeth is not going to count as a win for me, I know, even if 95/180 is considered a 'pass'-- I want to feel like I really know this stuff and get at least 130/180. So I keep putting it off if I feel like "maybe, but only if I study really hard and get kind of lucky"-- partly also because I don't have the free time to increase my studying to do something like that anyway.) So that's why I want to take it. Anyway. I always mean to just write a short message and then it turns into a novel, whoops. Edited by rewire on 22 August 2013 at 10:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5784 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 62 of 81 22 August 2013 at 11:14pm | IP Logged |
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I put off and put off and put off going for N3 because I worried I wouldn't make the grade,
but it turned out I had little to worry about. I'll give you the same advice I gave kraemder - get the official practice test, do it under timed conditions and if you get fifty percent or more correct just enter yourself for the exam! And a thought on your desire to pass well rather than scrape by, while trying to do as best you can is laudable, if you are good enough to get a high score on N3 you should probably be aiming for N2 already. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| rewire Groupie United States learninglane.tumblr.Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4349 days ago 82 posts - 90 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Mandarin | Message 63 of 81 22 August 2013 at 11:45pm | IP Logged |
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The thing is that there's still a large gap between N3 and N2 for even vocab alone, and
given how slowly I progress, I'm pretty sure once I pass N3, I'll be another two years or so before I'm ready for N2. So being at relatively certain on N3 doesn't really mean I should just wait until N2. 130 isn't really that high of a score, it's like 73% or something? Plus, the test itself doesn't cost a whole lot, but plane tickets and hotel stays do (it's probably going to be upwards of 500 USD at least), so it's not really worth it unless I'm sure I'm going to pass. I can't spend that kind of money on a maybe. Unless my state happens to get a testing center next year, then yeah, I'd definitely just try it, but it doesn't seem very likely, heh. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5784 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 64 of 81 23 August 2013 at 12:03am | IP Logged |
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I passed N3 with 139 in July 2012. I then took N2 in December 2012 and passed with 100. I
didn't make a massive jump in my ability in the five months between, but there was some improvement, of course. N2 is a tough exam, but it turns out you don't have to be that awesome to pass it. I guess that's what N1 is for. Anyway, get yourself the official practice test and give it a go. You'll then know for sure if it's worth investing 500 dollars in the real deal. I think you might surprise yourself. Edited by g-bod on 23 August 2013 at 12:05am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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