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Kuji’s Krazy Log II | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5056 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 241 of 706 05 July 2013 at 3:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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Congratulations, parabéns, Kuji! That's what it's all about. It's difficult to put into words the feeling you get when you break out of the frustration and start to experience the confidence of being able to express yourself more clearly and see the jibberish around you turn into something comprehensible. It's a wonderful feeling that empowers you to advance even further, and you put it into words quite well with a well written post.
You are seeing the fruits of synergy with what you are doing now. I love when that happens. I read or hear a word once in one place. I read it again in an article. I hear it on a podcast. I use it in conversation or listen to it spoken to me. Then, that word is mine. I credit you, along with Serpent, with changing my mind on simultaneous multiple language learning. (I still don't think it's such a great idea for complete beginners though, :).) In your case, studying Portuguese appears to have been a major plus in allowing you to progress in your Japanese. I wonder if, given the fact that Portuguese is more closely related to English than Japanese is and therefore easier, somehow maybe studying Portuguese made you see that it would be possible for you to actually learn a second language and encouraged you to give Japanese more effort? Whatever you are doing, keep it up. It seems to be working well! Edited by iguanamon on 05 July 2013 at 3:26pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 4960 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 242 of 706 05 July 2013 at 6:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Congratulations kuji! One day the same will happen to my Chinese, I have to keep dreaming!
I am the one who learns quite many languages at once. I complain about few results, specially with more distant languages such as Chinese, Georgian and Russian. But then the fact is when I get to those languages I reach burn-out easier, like, after one hour of study. So, that is why I alternate from one to another. When I'm done with 45 minutes of Chinese, that means I can't take it much longe,r but that doesn't mean I couldn't start a whole different language such as Russian, which is more like reseting one's brain. So, that's how I deal with the sense of iminent burnout and the need to keep myself working and motivated. A few days ago I figured out that, just like one muscle that you exercise a little at a time through several chains, I may as well come back to Chinese later on the day and take more! So, I've actually started doing that and I have the feeling that it will start paying off. I wouldn't be able to take 1h30 of CHinese straight away early in the morning, I would feel it would take away my time and energy for learning other languages. So, I stick with those 45 minutes and I try to keep on schedule. Later on the day, after I'll have studied AT LEAST the minimal schedule from each language, I can return to Chinese and do more, with an extra source, in a less linear way and no sense of obligation. Through that way of splitting my day I can do more while still keeping myself mentally healthy (at least I hope so). I believe that is what you learned to do when you inserted Portuguese and then Esperanto among your Chinese studies. The feeling of "cracking the code" is the best one! Can't wait to feel it about Chinese, Russian or Georgian. Though I shouldn't be so obsessed about it now...I know it is going to take long, at least one year for one of them (the one at which I put more effort or learn in a better way). At a text I wrote specifically about .cracking the acoustic code, I said it was an epiphany, a rewarding sense of accomplishment. If learning a language is an addiction, this is the substance we learners pursue the most. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4641 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 243 of 706 06 July 2013 at 9:02am | IP Logged | ||
I think that is exactly what is happening, iguanamon. In fact, when I set out to start a "second" second language, I was looking for something "much easier" compared to Japanese, but something I was interested in and fun to study. Portuguese was a good fit. I think that when you are going from B1 to B2, it becomes quite hard to measure your progress, especially with a "difficult" language like Japanese, and especially when you are studying it only one or two hours a day. With Portuguese, I wanted to study in basically the same way that I was with Japanese. It's easier to measure progress when you are going from A0 to A1, and I saw the progress I made with Portuguese. It encouraged me to just keep going with Japanese, try to stay consistent, and the results will come. It's a really long road to B2, and I doubt that I'm close to that level, but now I can see how much progress I've made since my post last year. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4641 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 244 of 706 06 July 2013 at 9:16am | IP Logged | ||
I believe that also. Although I should probably do what you do and make sure I do my minimal amount of Portuguese for the day before doing extra Japanese, instead of taking some Portuguese time to study Japanese. :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6391 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 245 of 706 06 July 2013 at 9:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Yeees Portuguese deserves this honour as it saved your Japanese from another long break! :)
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Lakeseayesno Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico thepolyglotist.com Joined 4128 days ago 280 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 246 of 706 07 July 2013 at 1:28am | IP Logged | ||
Congratulations on the breakthrough, Kuji! When I studied Japanese, reaching this stage felt like nothing short of rapture. Japanese is so different and it puts so many obstacles in one's way that when you finally leave them all behind, all you want to do is keep at it. It makes you want to keep learning more, because the process has become second nature. Don't forget Portuguese, though! It seems to have boosted your Japanese somehow, so at least keep at it out of gratitude. ;p 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4641 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 247 of 706 07 July 2013 at 2:44am | IP Logged | ||
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@Serpent and @Lakeseayesno - You two are right. I really should give Portuguese its rightful respect. It has helped me a lot this past year. I should keep at that as well.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4641 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 248 of 706 09 July 2013 at 6:52am | IP Logged | ||
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KUJI'S WEEK IN REVIEW: 1 July - 7 July 2013
JAPANESE This past week I... * ...worked a bit on Chapter 11 of An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese. Nowadays I'm studying out of IAIJ once a week, and spending the rest of my time working with articles and writing. That has helped me to focus more on vocabulary and a little less on grammar exercises. I think that, where I am now in Japanese, I need to build up my vocabulary. * ...have started, after a couple of weeks of doing single words in Anki, to move to easy sentences and sentence fragments. I'm starting to come across many words in Japanese that seemingly share the same meaning in English. For example, there seem to be many ways to say "understand" in Japanese: 分かる、了解、理解, etc. I think that, to get the nuances of words like that, I need to add at least a sentence fragment. PORTUGUESE This past week I... *...don't remember doing much of DLI Lesson 22 for some reason. Why? I am supposed to do some DLI at least once a week in my Portuguese studies. Ahhh... I know why. I think I instead did some extra studying with the Deutsche Welle futebol radionovela. That's right. Whew. I thought I was starting to lose my memory. *...listened to a PortuguesePod101.com podcast. *...did Anki reviews. ESPERANTO This past week I... *...didn't do much except writing and Anki reviews. Oh, and I kind of flew through the first six lessons of Mi estas komencanto at Lernu.net. This means that I was scanning for new vocabulary while hardly doing any of the written exercises. The grammar is fairly simple for me (so far), so I just want to build up my vocabulary a bit before I start the intermediate course Ana renkontas. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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