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5 years of 日本語 TAC 13 桜/Schnitzel | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5781 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 401 of 436 14 October 2013 at 10:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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みんなの日本語中級I
第１課 文法 I've finished the grammar section in the first chapter and, as expected, no major surprises. I can't get the words ～ていただけないでしょうか out of my mouth quickly enough but I seem to have that problem with all polite expressions. If it ever looks like I might end up in a business Japanese situation I'll have a lot of work to do... ～のような is a really useful expression and I think I've already thoroughly assimilated it. When I first learned how to use similes in Japanese it really started to free up my ability to say stuff. Using ～こと to nominalise a verb is also fairly straightforward. I wouldn't mind a refresher on the differences between ～こと and ～の at some point though. ～を～という was a bit of a revelation for me. Why? Because up until now I've always used ～は～という. My particles definitely need work, which goes together with brushing up on my grammatical accuracy. I also noted that you use ～を知っている. The form N1というN2 is something I've only recently acquired. And いつ…etc ても is one of my favourites. I guess I like hyperbole. どんなに勉強しても日本語が全然できません ！ Edited by g-bod on 14 October 2013 at 10:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4464 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 402 of 436 15 October 2013 at 12:45am | IP Logged | ||
If you find a good explanation, do post please! みんなの日本語初級 doesn't really cover the differences at all. It does give you many sentence patterns for の and there are a few for こと too, but no real comparison of when to use one of the other. The Dictionary of Japanese Grammar (parts of which are on scribd.com) does a better job of pointing out some cases where you must use one of the other but even there it boils down to a rather long list of "this one here and that one there". I'm sure there's a subtle pattern with maybe a few exceptions, but I haven't found it yet. The Japanese textbook way seems to be "here are the 25 basic patterns, memorise these and the unstated subtle differences between them and you should be fine". I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that no single resource is adequate and the only way I'll wrap my head around Japanese is to work through multiple resources. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 5924 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 403 of 436 15 October 2013 at 2:56am | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah, I've been watching Japanese TV, though mostly anime. Really, I've been watching this stuff for years. I first I started out with that alljapaneseallthetime blog back in 2008 or so, and picked up the habit of watching the raws. (Which I do believe totally that English subtitles are toxic.)
I've been picking away at suzumiyaharui, though I figured out about 10 episodes in that I completely missed what's going on. This is pretty hard for me. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4983 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 404 of 436 15 October 2013 at 7:22am | IP Logged | ||
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On the difference between の and こと as nominalizers.. From my 102 course which was the first Japanese
course I'd taken, の is used for something that's more personal to the speaker and こと for a more general statement. But there's gray area and you really don't go wrong with either one when speaking. Unfortunately that's all I remember and can't go into examples. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5781 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 405 of 436 21 October 2013 at 7:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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It was a tough week last week for maintaining motivation. I was coming home from work later than usual, more tired than usual, and more ready to make excuses and procrastinate than usual. Well, sometimes real life just interferes with your flow. I at least managed to pick up my kanji book yesterday and do a few exercises. My language exchange also went surprisingly well. I spent a few minutes prior to the session thinking about what I wanted to talk about, but didn't do any intensive preparation. I think the impact of being able to speak Japanese twice a week again is finally starting to take hold and I can express myself a little more fluently again.
I don't think it is a question of recovering what I lost after neglecting the language for a couple of months though. What I have now is somehow shaped a little different. It feels like I have gained a little comprehension but in return I've lost a little fluency. Maybe the improvements in comprehension mean that I'm just more aware of some of the ridiculous things that fall out of my mouth. This week I'll try to get a bit more textbook work done, but I don't want it to interfere with my main priorities of speaking, reading and watching TV. It's tough to get the balance right. Textbooks are so chunky and feel so demanding (of time rather than effort), I can't open one without feeling the weight of having to complete it as quickly as possible. No wonder I procrastinate! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5781 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 406 of 436 23 October 2013 at 10:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Twitter is a dangerous thing as far as wanderlust is concerned. Someone I was following retweeted something from DW, which led me to follow a couple of accounts related to learning German which are now dishing up regular amounts of semi-comprehensible input in teeny tiny bite sized portions...
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5781 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 407 of 436 04 November 2013 at 9:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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So it's been nearly two weeks since my last little update. I got rid of the German accounts from my Twitter, the temptation was too strong. Plus I find if there are too many languages in Roman script on my Twitter feed I lose patience with Japanese script too quickly.
My opportunities to speak Japanese in November have been curtailed a little. I've had some work commitments which have meant I couldn't guarantee time to do lessons with my tutor. Finding time for the lessons isn't so much the problem as being certain I could find the time to prepare for them adequately. We've been working through a book of short stories which has been really useful, but it takes me a few hours to look up everything I need to in advance, in order to focus the lessons on the stuff that I can't just get from a dictionary. I've also had some social commitments at the weekend which meant I couldn't do my language exchange either. To tell the truth it's been kind of nice having a break from production. I've been making up for it by watching some TV drama (currently half way through フリーター家を買う which is a lot more heavy going than I expected) and listening to a lot of Japanese radio. Tunein Radio has a sleep timer setting, which means I can put it on for 20-30 minutes when I go to bed, fall asleep listening to Japanese, but not then be disturbed by it in the middle of the night. It's brilliant. For the first time ever I actually managed to make use of my French and German in my job, although only my passive skills, after I was tasked with doing some research that went beyond the borders of my small island. The best thing was that my current level in both languages was just enough to get the information I needed and I had no regrets about the extent to which I'd studied either language. I've been doing a fair bit of self reflection over the last few days about what I'm doing, where I'm going, what I want. More of the usual I suppose, but I seem to have developed a bit more insight and I feel a lot more comfortable about continuing to focus on Japanese for the time being. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5781 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 408 of 436 18 November 2013 at 12:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Life seems to be doing a good job of getting in the way right now. I have had a cold for the last few days so, while still functional, I've been rather tired and grumpy by the time I got home every night.
Work has also been a bit crazy lately. Some positive crazy and some negative crazy, but either way it has been distracting me from Japanese somewhat. I've realised that there are some things I should be doing to help my career move in the kind of direction that I want it to go and unfortunately that direction doesn't require advancing my Japanese. I don't need to talk too much about that kind of stuff in my language log, but it will probably be taking up a bit more of my spare thinking time outside of working hours over the coming weeks. I'm sure I'll still find time for watching Japanese TV (that's not really thinking time after all) but I'm not planning to do any serious textbook work for a little while. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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