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5 years of 日本語 TAC 13 桜/Schnitzel

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dampingwire
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 Message 425 of 436
15 December 2013 at 11:36am | IP Logged 
My own cold is now past its peak, but I know how you feel. Hope you get better soon.

I've used 日本人の知らない日本語 to fill the gaps when perhaps I would have been working
through a grammar book or hitting Anki. It does seem to be easier to watch something that
you can occasionally allow to wash over you until you pick up the plot again rather than
having to concentrate 100% with grammar or memorisation.


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g-bod
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 Message 426 of 436
15 December 2013 at 11:38pm | IP Logged 
Thanks dampingwire. I'm feeling a lot better today, although still somewhat sleep deprived. Glad you're recovering too.

What do you think of 日本人の知らない日本語? I found it hard to get into.

I definitely think that reaching the TV stage is an important milestone in language learning. It makes further improvements to listening comprehension so effortless compared to what you have to go through as a beginner.

Edited by g-bod on 15 December 2013 at 11:38pm

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kujichagulia
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 Message 427 of 436
16 December 2013 at 1:53pm | IP Logged 
I could never get into 日本人の知らない日本語. I'm not a big Naka Riisa fan, first of all.
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dampingwire
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 Message 428 of 436
16 December 2013 at 11:31pm | IP Logged 
g-bod wrote:
at do you think of 日本人の知らない日本語? I found it hard to get into.


They do ham it up quite a bit don't they? I found it interesting enough to keep me
going. I'm not sure I would have watched the equivalent series in English, but then I'm
at the stage where I'm trying to understand the language, and until I do that I can't
decide whether I'll enjoy it for its own merits or not. Perhaps that'll be how I'll
know "I've arrived": when I can't stand watching something that I wouldn't have watched
in English or Italian!

g-bod wrote:
I definitely think that reaching the TV stage is an important milestone in
language learning. It makes further improvements to listening comprehension so
effortless compared to what you have to go through as a beginner.


Either I'm a beginner or this is a new and unusual use of "effortless" with which I was
not previously familiar :-) (Apologies to Douglas Adams).

My listening comprehension is better than it was, whether it's good enough for N3 is
something that I'll probably find out during TAC 2014. I don't think there will ever be
a magic moment when I can listen to something new and suddenly understand it with
unexpected clarity. I'll just keep plodding along and wake up one morning and realise
that I can understand Japanese radio reasonably well. (At which point I'll really have
to get started on Spanish or German or Russian ... !)

As well as reading NHK EasyNews, I'm going to listen to a few of the articles too. I'm
hoping that once I can read it reasonably easily, I'll then start to understand the
spoken form a little better too. At that point I'll try the "grown up" version of the
text articles and that will hopefully provide me with the required vocabulary to make
some sense of the radio news programs I can listen to at work.

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g-bod
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 Message 429 of 436
19 December 2013 at 8:01pm | IP Logged 
dampingwire wrote:

Either I'm a beginner or this is a new and unusual use of "effortless" with which I was
not previously familiar :-) (Apologies to Douglas Adams).


But all you have to do is point your face towards the screen and listen. I'd say that's pretty effortless...
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dampingwire
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 Message 430 of 436
20 December 2013 at 7:36pm | IP Logged 
g-bod wrote:
But all you have to do is point your face towards the screen and listen.
I'd say that's pretty effortless...


So true :-) but I want to understand it and I don't seem to be able to do that if I just
watch. I have to follow intently (or pause frequently or both) and that's quite tiring.
It is certainly helpful and that sort of work has (I think) improved my listening
comprehension. It just seems to require some effort from me for me to feel that I've got
something out of it.

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g-bod
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 Message 431 of 436
21 December 2013 at 3:23pm | IP Logged 
After an enforced study break it's been quite hard to get back in the groove for German. I
don't think I'll meet my December goals after all.

But that's not bad news. Instead of textbooks I've started messing around with Duolingo which
I've been pleasantly surprised with. And last night I watched the movie Krabat (with EN subs
of course) I thought it was pretty dark but rather good.

I've really upped my exposure to French over the last couple of weeks and have experienced
some surprisingly rapid gains in listening comprehension.

Which leads me to a little dilemma where I don't know what to prioritise out of French or
German. With a few months intensive work I think I could get my French to B2 (and could sit
the exam in summer in my city, thereby incurring nothing more than the exam fee). Or I could
spend the time working intensively on German and getting it to a level where I can start
reading real books and watching TV.

Long term I want to do both. The question is which to tackle first.
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g-bod
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 Message 432 of 436
21 December 2013 at 6:49pm | IP Logged 
I've started looking at an intermediate level French textbook. It's kind of difficult to work out where to start when you're not so much a false beginner as a false intermediate. However, the textbook starts off quite nicely with a self evaluation test at A2 level. Although the last two sections are speaking and writing, it's obviously quite limiting the extent to which that can be a self evaluation. Interestingly, after all the exercises they then give you a checklist of competencies for A2, which I found surprisingly easy to work through having done the other exercises first.

Basically, I am pretty confident my comprehension and speaking ability is at A2 (if not slightly higher in the case of comprehension, but that went untested today). My accuracy when it comes to grammar and vocabulary is not as good as my comprehension and I am less confident writing than speaking (if I could go back in time and tell this to myself at 18 years old, I wouldn't have believed that were possible). I'm still reasonably confident I could drag my writing through a proper A2 assessment, especially with a little practice on the correct way to start and end a personal email and a bit more attention to orthography, it is just clearly weaker than my other skills.

I'm pretty sure now that if I do want to do some textbook work to complement exposure to native materials, I should definitely be looking at B1 level material.


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