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Baobab’s Japanese | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Baobab Tetraglot Newbie Netherlands Joined 4519 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: German*, English, Dutch, French Studies: Italian, Japanese | Message 1 of 3 21 October 2012 at 12:54pm | IP Logged |
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After years of passively reading on this forum, I thought it was finally time for me to start participating actively.
So here it is, my first post! The goal of this journal is to keep track of my progress in Japanese. After almost four years of studying this language in an on and off manner, I feel like I still don't have much to show for my effort. In part, I blame that on the "on and off" aspect of my studies. At times I completely throw myself into Japanese, but phases like that often are followed by long hiatuses, where I completely forget about the language. So that is another goal that I want to achieve with this language log: stay more committed. While Japanese is not known as a particularly easy language to learn for your average Westerner, the good thing is that there's tons of extremely good learning materials out there. Even for the intermediate stage, where for many smaller language it can be difficult to find good materials, for Japanese there are some great books/programs available. At the moment, I'm focussing on two sources in particular: The first one is Chūkyū kara manabu Nihongo「中級から学ぶ日本語」by Kenkyusha, an intermediate level textbook/workbook that has lots of very well-written texts and dialogues. The book is Japanese-only, which means that I have to look up a lot of vocab, especially for the longer texts in the textbook. It also means that I'm not always 100% sure if I get the meaning of a sentence right. Yet, I don't feel that's much of a problem overall. What I particularly love about this book is the voice acting. It's something that always bugged me when I was still using Assimil Japanese: in general I value the Assimil series very highly, but the speakers from the Japanese edition speak so slowly and monotonously that the texts simply never seemed to stick in my mind and it almost made me believe that I didn't like the sound of Japanese. I'm happy that this first impression didn't turn out to be true, and that now I know better. The other resource I'm working with is the two books of the Read Real Japanese series by Kodansha. One contains short stories, the other essays. The texts include furigana, phrase-by-phrase translations and grammar notes. They also come with audio recordings. It's still a very challenging read for me, but I feel like I've already learned a lot from those books. It's a great way to pick up new vocabulary, and it also provides a first introduction literary-style Japanese (which can be quite different from what you usually get to see in most textbooks). I think that's it for my introduction. In the future I want to keep posting here about my progress in Japanese. I appreciate all comments/tips/suggestions! :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Baobab Tetraglot Newbie Netherlands Joined 4519 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: German*, English, Dutch, French Studies: Italian, Japanese | Message 2 of 3 23 October 2012 at 11:30am | IP Logged |
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The last couple of days have not been all that productive. I have midterms coming up, and on top of that I also
caught a cold... yet, I'm trying to get some exposure to Japanese every day, even if it's just a little. I've been watching a few episodes of an anime, "Polar Bear Café" or「しろくまカフェ」. The show's main characters include a polar bear who runs a café (duh) and a panda who has a part-time job at the zoo as a... panda! It's pretty absurd and a lot of fun, so I'm happy to have come across that show (as normally I can't find too many animes that I like). Also, I'm happy that I can follow big parts of the dialog (I'm still watching it with subtitles, though). I also ordered some new learning materials from Amazon, including the Japanese version of The Little Prince. There's also an audio version available from Fantajikan, which I've already listened to a few times. The only problem with the book is that it hardly uses any kanji. Still, reading it might help me increase my hiragana reading fluency, and it might also help me learn words more quickly when I come across them in other contexts, in their kanji version. So for now I'm really hoping that my cold goes away quickly, and that I still can fit in some Japanese practice during my midterm exams! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Baobab Tetraglot Newbie Netherlands Joined 4519 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: German*, English, Dutch, French Studies: Italian, Japanese | Message 3 of 3 07 November 2012 at 9:02pm | IP Logged |
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My midterms are finally over and I should try to get back to more regular study habits now.
At the moment I'm reviewing lessons from the 中級から学ぶ日本語 workbook. Once again, I noticed how unusual their lessons are. For example this one dialog I reviewed is about a journalist who rings the doorbell at a house where only a little boy is at home. The journalist then asks the boy a couple of questions about his father, who apparently had died in a plane crash (which the boy doesn't know). While the journalist is trying to take pictures of the boy, the boy's mom comes home and chases the journalist away, saying that she doesn't want to talk about her deceased husband. It's actually pretty creepy and dramatic and it reminds me more of a movie than the usual bland (or Assimil-like joking style) textbook dialogs that you find in most language learning materials. This is a rather extreme example, but the whole book has more of a serious tone. It's maybe not for everyone, but I actually find it pretty captivating. It definitely helps to make things stick to your memory. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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