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Kuji’s Krazy Log II | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4641 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 449 of 706 17 February 2014 at 3:37am | IP Logged | ||
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For a while, up until last week Monday, I'd always study Portuguese during my morning commute and study Japanese during my evening commute home. But during the last few months, I found myself not being able to study Japanese or I finish studying Japanese on the way home. I would often fall asleep in my seat.
I get 7 1/2 to 8 hours of sleep a night, so I was wondering why I couldn't study properly on the way home. Too much work at work? Too much stress? Or was Japanese just plain boring or frustrating? Two Fridays ago, I started reading a folk tale I downloaded from Hukumusume. It was interesting, so I was frustrated with myself when I fell asleep after the first paragraph. The following Monday morning, instead of studying Portuguese like usual, I decided to use that time to continue the Japanese folk tale. It had been a really long time since my brain was that active while doing something in Japanese on the train. I was surprised about how much less taxing it was on my brain. Since then I've switched to doing Japanese in the mornings and Portuguese in the evenings, and my Japanese studies have been great since then. And yes, I have fallen asleep twice so far while studying Portuguese. That means I wasn't falling asleep because Japanese was boring. It's because I'm tired after work. I hate to do that to my Portuguese, but Japanese is my priority, so if I'm more alert in the morning, I should use that time for Japanese. Besides, once I become fluent in Japanese, I can dedicate more time to Portuguese anyway. 2 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 450 of 706 17 February 2014 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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I usually do the hardest (or most boring) stuff earlier. So, I start with Anki, get rid
of any SRS asap and I do all the textbook study (Chinese, Georgian, German, Russian) before getting into native materials. If reading is the skill you need to train the most in Japanese, it's not regrettable to use your quality time for that, kuji. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4641 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 451 of 706 18 February 2014 at 2:39am | IP Logged | ||
I do need reading skills, but I also need listening and speaking skills for Japanese. I'm making it a point to search for reading material that comes with audio. Many of the stories I get from Hukumusume come with audio, so I can practice my listening and reading at the same time. As for speaking, I'm having more and more conversations with other, non-English-speaking teachers at my school, as well as people I meet in my condominium building, at the gym, etc. Edited by kujichagulia on 18 February 2014 at 2:40am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4641 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 452 of 706 19 February 2014 at 1:02am | IP Logged | ||
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Now I'm not satisfied with the fact that I'm not always able to study Portuguese during the afternoon commute because I'm too tired or sleepy. So I'm thinking about doing something I used to do up until about more than a year ago. I used to have "language days".
My "Japanese days" were Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and my "Portuguese days" were Tuesdays and Thursdays. I would study one language during both commutes. I quit doing this system because being in "Japanese mode" all of one day, then switching to "Portuguese mode" the next, and so forth, was a "shock to my system." But that was probably just a matter of inconvenience, and not really troubling to my acquiring languages. So I'm going to try that again. At least this way, if I'm too tired during my afternoon commute, it's not too big of a deal because I did some good studying in the same language during my morning commute. I would have some quality time for both my languages every week (other than home time, when I'm more likely to be distracted). And doing Japanese for 3 days, compared with two for Portuguese, puts my priorities in the right place. (I could still do something in both languages every day at home, since my home activity rotation mixes both languages.) If there's anything I've learned during my language journey, it's that things never stay the same, and I have to be ready to adapt and adjust. Relatedly, the beauty of my rotation system is that it is so flexible. It doesn't matter if I have "language days" or if I study one language in the morning and another in the evening, or if I do 10 minutes in one and 10 hours in another... it seems to work, whatever the situation. It is a practical way to get multi-track learning without having truckloads of time every day. Edited by kujichagulia on 19 February 2014 at 1:04am 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 453 of 706 19 February 2014 at 9:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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Why not just rotate the language you'll be studying in the morning commute?
You could as following: Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays JP Morning Commute PT Afternoon Commute Tuesdays and Thursdays PT Morning Commute JP Afternoon Commute 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4641 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 454 of 706 20 February 2014 at 1:06am | IP Logged | ||
I can't believe I didn't think about that! I'll try that. Thank you! 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 455 of 706 20 February 2014 at 1:28am | IP Logged | ||
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I want to post what I do every day, but for one reason or another (busy, lazy, etc.) I don't. No worries... I'll just post when I can. Anyway, here is an update of what I've been doing.
Japanese Recently I've been working through the dialogs in Chapter 14 of An Integrated Approach to Intermediate Japanese. What I do is this: I read through one and look up all the new words and structures. Next, I try reading it aloud while trying to see if I can remember what the new words mean. When I am satisfied with that, I then put on my headphones and listen to the CD while reading. If I can't completely follow along, I repeat. When I can follow along with no problems, then I start listening without the transcript. I repeat until I can understand the audio with no problems. Then I move on to the next dialog. So far that system works, although it does take some time. Hmmm... what else have I done recently... ah, I read a (very) short story from Hukumusume titled 夜の暗いところ (A Place As Dark As Night). The "story" only has seven or eight lines in it, and it reads more like a riddle than a story (and I cannot figure out what the punchline is. I would post the plot, but I don't want to spoil it for anyone that might read it). My approach to studying this was the same as the one I use for IAIJ dialogs. The only other Japanese activities I've done lately, besides Anki, is to watch Japanese TV, including (mostly) the Sochi Winter Olympics. I love the Winter Olympics! But I found that I have a hard time following the Japanese commentators. I can understand 10-20% of what is said. However, I found that when the on-air announcers read letters written to Japanese Olympic athletes by fans in Japan, I can understand a good 70% of those. (It helps that a lot of vocabulary is repeated: "Do your best!" "I was happy to see you compete!" and so forth.) Also, when reporters are interviewing athletes, I can more or less understand the athletes, but not the reporters. I'm not sure about the commentary, but I think the reporters are using very polite Japanese, so that is perhaps one of my biggest weak points. Portuguese I just finished Lesson 32 of Volume 4 of DLI Portuguese Basic Course. The theme of the dialog was a trip taken by two Rio guys to Petropolis, and the grammar concentrated on conditional verbs. I'm not totally sure why, but I was taken aback by a couple of lines in the dialog. While planning the trip, one guy says "You can stop by my house and have a cup of coffee before we go." The other guy says, "I don't want to trouble your wife." Then the first guy says, "In my house, it is the maid that makes coffee." Perhaps it is because I'm currently reading a book called Brazil by Michael Palin, and it talks about how many well-off people in Rio have domestic workers, and a lot of those workers live in favelas. Anyway, it was a strange kind of synergy that is hard to describe in words. I've also been working through an article iguanamon kindly sent me a long time ago called "Angola Highway Corruption." Very interesting. 1 person has 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 456 of 706 20 February 2014 at 7:41pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know when your DLI course was published, but 20, 30 years ago it was pretty
much common to have maids even at low-middle-class income houses. They would even live with their employers, so it was like working full time. Many older apartments have what is called "Dependência Completa de Empregada", shortened to DCE, that is, a tiny room and an even smaller bathroom for the maid. I'm visiting apartments at an old neighborhood and most of them have that DCE. Things changed in the last decades thanks to a large extent to washing machines, microwaves etc. but also to a steady growth of purchasing power of the official minimum wage. Now, instead of maids who live on the job, people have cleaning ladies who go 1, 2 or 3 times a week or even the whole week at wealthier families, though when they are hired permanently, that is, over 3 times a week, they have to be granted full labour rights and so has been the situation most of the times lately. Those cleaning ladies may now work in several houses along the week and earn much above the minimum wage. In a big state capital,they may earn 3x as much as a newly undergrad in Humanities (who will quite often just remain unemployed or work outside of their study field anyway). 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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