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Books books books. 语학子’s TAC 東亜 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4428 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes  Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 177 of 203 17 January 2015 at 12:45pm | IP Logged |
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Japanese:
I read seven articles about as long as the ones posted above. The topics again were really varied (The lack of women engineers, the movie "the interview" being downloaded in North Korea, The Charlie Hebdo front page, and some stuff about the evolution related to Facebook or youtube). I can already start to see some improvement in my reading skills as some words I could understand but not read out loud in one article popped up in my book and the reading came back to me. This being said, I need to keep it going. Yesterday I didn't read anything (neither book nor article) although I definitely had enough time. Regarding that book, I read about 60 pages since tuesday so If I keep this up, maybe really maybe), I might be able to finish it before the end of this month. Listenning wise, I've been watching a few episodes of my asadora and a few animes. No subs Korean: I read 6 small articles mostly about some singers. It is still really hard but some words are starting to sink in. I've also taken out my Korean in Use book and had a look at some structures here and there. Nothing specific but I'll get to it eventually. LIstenning wise, I watched the 3 first episodes of Kill Me Heal Me and the first of Pinnochio. No subs. Mandarin: I wrote my self presentation in Mandarin on the team thread which made me realize my active skills are worst than I thought. I can still get my point accross (it seems) but there are way to many errors. I should probably do some proper grammar study.. On a totally different note, I got an interview for a job in Japan! It'll be next thursday so I ought to get ready for it. If I get it, that'd be so awesome.. But anyway, I've got to continue searching. I probably won't be doing much today and tomorrow as I have a pretty busy weekend but starting Monday I won't have anything planned at all (except the interview) so I'll get into a going rythm waking up early and doing loads everyday! 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4664 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 178 of 203 20 January 2015 at 10:38pm | IP Logged |
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yuhakko, I'm cheering you on for your reading goals! Very ambitious, as always - and for exactly that reason I can't share your comments about what you didn't achieve in 2014 ;)
Even though you might feel like some of your languages fell short of what you planned, more or less continually working on 3 very challenging languages is a lot by itself. Actually, at the language exchange meeting in Seoul I got a little jealous that you could speak that many languages while I was kind of stuck with Korean and English. I don't think comparing our progress in Korean makes much sense, because I focused on one language most of the time. Your Japanese skills and my Korean level would probably make for a more even comparison - and I would venture to say that your Japanese is better than my Korean. Good luck for finding a job in Asia! If that happens I think it will be great for your language goals this year. But even if it doesn't, I'm convinced that you'll be able to learn a lot by focusing on reading and probably have fun while doing so :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Anya Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 5589 days ago 636 posts - 708 votes Speaks: Russian*, FrenchC1, English, Italian, Spanish Studies: German, Japanese, Hungarian, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Turkish, Mandarin Studies: Ancient Greek, Hindi | Message 179 of 203 21 January 2015 at 8:18pm | IP Logged |
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Hi, Yuhakko! Good luck for your interview! and good luck for Murakami's novel reading! I was trying to read "ダン
ス・ダンス・ダンス" but it's difficult for me, so, for the moment, I switched to more easy reading. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4428 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 180 of 203 23 January 2015 at 1:54pm | IP Logged |
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@Druckfehler: Well I don't know if one could say I really studied Mandarin during the last 3-4 months... but yeah, I guess I should be more satisfied, but I can't help
but complain. I'm French after all! It's in my blood. :) Also, For Japanese, I've been studying it for about 7-8 years, lived there for 6 months and lived with a Japanese for another 6 months, so you could say I cheated ^^ And thanks! Good luck for you too, for your first full year coupling job and self studying ;) @Anya: Thanks! I think it went okay but hey, we'll see. It had been a long time without doing an interview so I think I could have done better. Anyway.. ^^ I know the feeling very well. I tried reading 海辺のカフカ but it was too hard at the time. (I should probably try again now..). Luckily, this one is easier. Turns out, I bought it in China without even knowing anything about the book. I just saw 村上 and went for it. I read the sum-up a few days ago in French (totally different name though: "La ballade de l'impossible"), and the questions I was asking myself (such as "wow, there's a lot of erotism in this book") were actually written there. I'm digressing. Anyway, I guess the most important is to find a book that just clicks. What are you reading then? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4428 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 181 of 203 24 January 2015 at 8:11pm | IP Logged |
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Well, yesterday, I read my two articles in Japanese as usual, and also read about 14-15pages from my book which brought me up to page
104. One hundred pages in 23 days is not so great but considering the fact that most of the time I read about 10 pages in a row, then for the following days only 1 or 2 (or none) and then again 10, I guess it's alright. Now I just need to make it a become a more regular habit. Anyway, Last night I didn't sleep until 9am so I lost pretty much all of my day today sleeping. However, I found the motivation to finally use one book I had bought in China for the JLPT N1 Listenning part. It is composed of 5 parts and I'll analyze my results here: - First part: simple discussions with the question told beforehand and 4 answers possible. I did perfect on this one (6/6). It felt really easy and even slow I'd say. - Second Part : a bit longer discussions, the question is also told beforehand and there is some time allowed to read the answers before the discussion itself. I got 6/7. The reason I failed was partly because I didn't know the word 肝心 (which is a synonym of 大切 たいせつ btw). Anyway, not so bad. It felt very easy as well. - Third part: Starting now, there isn't anything written down (the answers are said out loud). Those are rather short (but not so much either) but the topics discussed are much harder and the vocabulary as well. Results, I was lost half the time (maybe also partly due to my lack of sleep) and got only 2 out of 6. This part felt the hardest and I'll definitely work on thoses discussions (as I have the transcripts). - Fourth part: The questions in this part are only one person saying something and we have to decide what the other person could reply that would fit. I've always done very well on that but this time I got 5 out of 14. I guess that's N1 for you. It felt no so hard but still I got very bad results. I'll have to analyze the transcripts to see where it all went wrong. - Fifth and last part: Very long discussions without anything written down. And at the end of the discussions the questions are asked followed by the possible answers(Q1&2). For questions 3&4, the answers are written but not the questions. I got 4/4. This part was very easy as the context helped a lot. still the last discussion kinda lost me somewhere but I got back on track and got the right answers. I'll read the transcript but I think this will surely just need maintaining (through movies or such) more than any kind of "real" study. All in all, it was a good experience, I guess I'll have to do it again. I have 10 mock exams in this book and then I have complete JLPT mock exams in another so I've got loads of potential practice. Apart from all that, I REALLY should start putting more time on reading Korean and Chinese. Well, more time, dot. As I'm almost doing nothing with either so.. Edited by yuhakko on 24 January 2015 at 8:12pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| druckfehler Triglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4664 days ago 1181 posts - 1912 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Korean Studies: Persian | Message 182 of 203 25 January 2015 at 10:39pm | IP Logged |
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Very interesting to read about your JLPT practice test experience! Sounds rather familiar... Some of the TOPIK questions that seemingly don't ask that much really are tricky (I hate the "what stance does this speaker have towards the discussion/towards the other person" questions). And then the long discussions/talks that should be very difficult because of less frequent vocabulary are surprisingly easy because there's simply enough context.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Anya Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 5589 days ago 636 posts - 708 votes Speaks: Russian*, FrenchC1, English, Italian, Spanish Studies: German, Japanese, Hungarian, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Turkish, Mandarin Studies: Ancient Greek, Hindi | Message 183 of 203 26 January 2015 at 10:01pm | IP Logged |
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Actually I am reading a book called "Japanese mosaic": this is a book adopted by Ilya Franck method (learning words
from the context without dealing a lot with the grammar), the short stories about Japanese traditions. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| yuhakko Tetraglot Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4428 days ago 414 posts - 582 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishB2, EnglishC2, Spanish, Japanese Studies: Korean, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 184 of 203 04 February 2015 at 11:34pm | IP Logged |
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@druckfehler: wow, never seen any "what stance does the speaker have?" kind of question and am very happy I haven't! I know i'd hate those
for sure. But apart from that, yes it seems your experience with the listening part of TOPIK is similar to mine for the JLPT. Well, it's been more than a week. My schedule was a bit rough for most of this part as I went out quite a bit and applied a lot as well. As a result, bye bye my routine. First of all, Japanese's become again a real pleasure. It seems that proper study doesn't feel like a pain anymore and as a result, I've started again writing some Japanese, copying articles from 新聞で学ぶ日本語. What I do is read one article (they are very very short) without looking at the vocab under. Then I verify if I've understood everything and finally, copy the article. Then the next time, I read again the article done, verify that the unknown vocabulary's been remembered well and start a new one. I've also start a new asadora (yes, I haven't finished the other ones, but I will someday). This is the current one and is about the guy who made the first whisky in Japan. As I am interested in the spirit industry, it's perfect to study while enjoying. I'm at episode 28. I've also written my very first email for an application all in Japanese in very very formal Japanese. Quite the hasle but very helpful as it allowed me to see some structures I hadn't seen in a while. For Korean, I've just been watching Kill Me Heal Me but nothing else. Oh yeah, right, talk to friends as well. But that's not study now is it? For Chinese, I've finally started doing something again! I've decided to work on my basics and went to Growing up with Chinese on CCTV. I've watched about 10-12 episodes (jumping the ones on topics I already know perfectly but I think I'll stop skipping any from now on). It's easy enough to not feel like work but there are some words which I should know or could be useful (for instance: 时差，拖鞋). When I find such words, I write them on a small paper I check here and there during the day. I've also read one article on Chairman Bao (thanks Lorinth for the link!) about Xiaomi. I'll read it again tomorrow and try a new one soon. However, I haven't read so much. I've read only 4 pages of my book in Japanese or so and that's pretty much it. However, today was a day resting and starting tomorrow, I'll organize again better my day and read a lot of Japanese and get back into reading Korean. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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