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Maria’s Japanese Learning Log (旅立ち) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Hasi Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 5905 days ago 120 posts - 133 votes  Speaks: German*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 1 of 101 15 February 2013 at 4:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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After years of simply lurking this board I have decided to finally start a thread of my own.
I have been meaning to get back on track with my Japanese studies ever since I came back from Japan after a semester abroad, at the end of August last year. What can I say, life happened and I told myself I didn't have "time" to study. Seeing as I am currently on a one month spring break with two more weeks to go I decided to give it another go. After all, it is the first few weeks that are the most important to start a habit of studying. I would consider myself to be lower intermediate as far as grammar is concerned but I am terribly lacking when it comes to both kanji and vocabulary. Therefore, I decided to give RtK another go after I abandoned it a few times less than a hundred kanji. I have studied about 250 kanji in class but I have failed to revise them, which means that I can mostly just recognize them and know their meaning. (if even..*cough*) In order to prevent that from happening again I am currently trying to use RtK in order to first learn how to write the kanji and then once I have finished that start reading native material + use Kanji in context in order to remember their readings and get them to stick. For RTK I am currently using my own deck that is a combination of the Lazy Kanji V2 and deck from JapaneseLevelUp. Despite the fact that I am an English major I have decided to use the German RtK edition, therefore, "rewriting" the stories to German and using the German keywords (and English ones if the German ones get me confused). I have to admit I was a bit worried about using the Lazy Kanji deck because I read a lot of criticism but after three days of using it and 160 kanji down the way, I can say that it seems to work for me. :) I am planning on moving back to Japan once I have graduated so speaking and listing are also very important for me. In order to practice I have been listening to Japanesepod101's Lower Intermediate and Intermediate series. Most of the grammar I have already studied in class but seeing as I wasn't reviewing regularly.... In addition to Japanesepod I am also watching raw Jdramas and Jdramas with Japanese subs. While I know that using subs won't help me much with me listening practice I have noticed that the kanji I have learned seem to stick easier once I have seen them in a drama. As you can probably tell from the text above, my biggest issue with studying is reviewing and the fact that I didn't use to do that. In keeping this log I hope it will be possible for me to finally commit to reviewing. Wish me luck ^^ Edited by Hasi on 16 February 2014 at 11:29pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 newyorkeric Diglot Moderator Singapore Joined 6168 days ago 1598 posts - 2174 votes Speaks: English*, Italian Studies: Mandarin, Malay Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 101 15 February 2013 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck, Maria!
I think you may hold the record for the most days as a forum member before posting a first message! Edited by newyorkeric on 15 February 2013 at 4:50pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Hasi Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 5905 days ago 120 posts - 133 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 3 of 101 16 February 2013 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think so too, and it really is a shame :X In my defense, there was a time when I actually forgot that I signed up
here. But like I said, I am planning on being active now. Better late then never. ^^ My goals are to study 50 new kanji each day because I want to be able to start reading native material really soon. I used to translate a Japanese blog for practice purposes and I noticed that I started to remember quite a few kanji despite the fact not knowing how to write or pronounce them. I have been nursing a cold for the past few days and it seems to have gotten worse. I am planning to watch at least one drama episode today but we will see how that goes. I have developed a fever so I don't really feel like doing anything today really. I did manage to reach frame 220 for RTK though so I feel at least a bit accomplished. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hasi Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 5905 days ago 120 posts - 133 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 4 of 101 19 February 2013 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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Today I passed the 350 Kanji mark. I am happy because I also seem to have obtained a good knowledge of most
of the kanji I have learned so far. One thing I noticed is that failing kanji actually seems to help me remember them easier. I think it might be because I mostly used premade stories from RevTK up until now. That will change though as there aren't really any German stories left. So I have to rely on my book and my own mind. Realizing this now, I realize that 50 kanji a day, for me at least, will only be possible while I am still on break. I don't know if I will be able to study 50 new ones if I have to insert the story for each of them because it takes quite a bit. I know it helps me with remembering though so I am thinking of maybe working "ahead" as far as inputting the stories is concerned. That way I could just go over the kanji again in my book and then start reviewing. I have a bit of time on my hand today, or rather: I am feeling kind of motivated, so I will try this out today. Sometimes I think that my problem is that I am a perfectionist who wants to do all at once. It will work out the first few days but then it will seem to hard and I'd rather quit then doing it as I had planned. That is why I am trying to set me daily goal low so they are accomplishable and have me wanting to do more. Daily Goals 1. Review old and study 20 new kanji per day 2. Read one blog entry by my favorite AKB girl (don't judge :P) outloud, try to grasp the concept and look up unknown words 3. Listen to one episode of the Japanesepod101 Intermediate series and read the accompanying PDF-File 4. Watch one raw episode of a drama I know my goals might not be as difficult to achieve as those of some other people, but I know me. I like being an overachiever, so I think be doing these "fast and easy" things, I might end up studying more than I had intended. And even if I don't I will, hopefully, be able to stick to the plan. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hasi Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 5905 days ago 120 posts - 133 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 5 of 101 22 February 2013 at 11:08am | IP Logged | ||
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So far I have been able to accomplish my goals everyday. Today, I was even able to finish ahead of time because I
had to get up early to drive my boyfriend to the train station. What I have noticed is that I am actually looking forward to doing review in Anki. I even dream about kanji and start writing a few of them out at random times. Looking at the "Kanji Look and Learn" book yesterday gave me a boost too because I am starting to notice that I have encounter a few kanji using Heisig so far that are rather useful. :) Another thing I have noticed is that I can get stuff done if I do them in the morning and/or if I break up the task, i.e. reviews, into small portions throughout the whole day. Having the Anki iPhone app certainly helps and it feels like the 20 euro I spent months ago wasn't wasted like I had initially though. I love to procrastinate but while doing so I like to read about how other people are going about their Japanese studies. In doing so I can motivate myself to actually get stuff done. I also downloaded app called "Growth" that is supposed to keep track of how regularly I do all the tasks mentioned in my previous post. I also found a website just now that seems to show Japanese TV , kind of similar to how KeyHole used to be. It looks very promising, so far. ^_^ 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4454 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 6 of 101 24 February 2013 at 1:02pm | IP Logged | ||
It took me about 5 months to get through RTK. I started slowly and sped up drastically towards the end. Of course that was just learning to recognise and write them, not learning the readings. To actually use them for vocab I've been using the N5 and N4 courses on memrise plus "A Japanese Reader" by Miller. Even then I often come across sentences where I understand each word in isolation but somehow the whole sentence makes little or no sense. "Reading Japanese with a Smile" by Tom Gally, looks like it takes native material and deconstructs it to the nth degreee (all the words, all the verb conjugations explained, cultural notes ...). Both of those were available for pennies plus postage (about £4 each total in the UK). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hasi Diglot Senior Member Austria Joined 5905 days ago 120 posts - 133 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 7 of 101 24 February 2013 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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@dampingwire: thank you so much with the tip for memrise.
I have used the site before but it never really accord to me that I could use it to reinforce the kanji once I am done with RTK. I will also have a look at the books you mentioned, I think I might even have "Reading Japanese with a Smile" lying around here somewhere, so thank you for that :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4636 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 8 of 101 25 February 2013 at 4:11am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not a big AKB48 fan, but I'm curious as to who your favorite AKB girl is? I'm guessing it's Itano.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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