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Japanese, Cantonese, etc journal | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6702 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 25 16 December 2007 at 8:13pm | IP Logged |
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So I've had a few weeks of being utterly discouraged with language learning and haven't managed to do much. I'm back into it now and I thought I would start up a language journal to keep myself motivated. I'll probably post in it once a week or something.
Language goals: Japanese - Finish a Japanese textbook USING Japanese for Everyone or Intermediate Japanese. - Become proficient with 2,000 plus kanji USING Kanji Starter 2, Remembering the Kanji, Reviewing the Kanji, a kanji DS game and Anki and jmemorize for reviewing. Cantonese - Gain good basic/intermediate ability USING Teach Yourself Cantonese, FSI Cantonese, Naked Cantonese and Anki for reviewing. I've set a time limit to these goals, I have up until September 2008. A goal I haven't mentioned is just to basically improve my languages. My daily/weekly must-do schedule looks something like this: 20 kanji from Kanji Starter 2 plus reviewing using jmemorize - every day 1 chapter from Japanese for Everyone - once a week 1 chapter from TY Cantonese - spread over a few days As far as Japanese goes, I've been doing all the stuff above plus other stuff. I've been listening to Japanese pod 101 lower-intermediate lessons quite a bit. I listen to them twice but I don't revise any of the vocab (I've got way too much vocab to revise anyhow). I think I might start repeating the words after the speakers to try and remember new vocab, as well as listening to previous lessons to see if I can understand better than before. I've also decided it would a good idea to get exposure (for native speakers) in the languages I'm learning, once a day. So I've been listening to a Japanese children's story podcast ふぁんたん時間. It's really fun actually, really well done, with good voice actors and background music and stuff. I'm also reading a bit of Doraemon manga, it's really good for beginners. Once I've finished that I'll graduate to Furutsu Basuketto. And for Cantonese I've downloaded the SBS program in Cantonese on itunes, which looks good, and also found ... a Cantonese podcast for learning Japanese!!! WTF! I've listened to the podcast and the guy has pretty good pronunciation in Japanese. His Cantonese is really fast but I suppose it's a good idea to get accustomed to the natural speed of a language early. It's really strange though, it's almost like they made the podcast exactly with me in mind... Here's the link As for French, I'm thinking of some sort of website, maybe a social network, in French that I could go to regularly. Just something interesting to read or listen to. Does anyone have any recommendations? Japanese has been in a bit of a slump recently, I haven't been studying/using it that much recently and I feel like I've lost some of my ability in it. But a Japanese friend of mine will be coming over in a few days to spend Christmas here so hopefully that should help improve my speaking skills. I haven't been studying Cantonese much recently either. I've been going to my Cantonese lessons once a week (which, by the way, are great! Our teacher moves so quickly through the basics) but haven't been doing much studying on my own. That's going to change though. I'm feeling a lot more revitalised about Cantonese since the lessons finished for Xmas. I spent about 2 hours looking for a way to type Cantonese on the computer but when I found a program and started making flashcards for Anki ... it was like I'd turned on a light and the whole language was illuminated. Look at this, I'm learning characters in Cantonese! Real, definite proof that I was studying Cantonese! Somehow, my scrappy bits of paper from the lessons didn't count. I haven't been learning how to write the characters, just to recognise them. I don't ever see when I'm going to need to write Cantonese, but being able to read Cantonese is something much more useful. Also, I figured it would probably interfer with learning kanji. Well, I think that's all. I've written more than I intended to, I hope it doesn't put anyone off. This has been really useful for clarifying my thoughts though, so thank you for reading! Also, if you have any tips I could use for improving my study methods, please tell me. Edited by unzum on 15 January 2008 at 5:59pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Asiafeverr Diglot Senior Member Hong Kong Joined 6130 days ago 346 posts - 431 votes 1 sounds Speaks: French*, English Studies: Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, German | Message 2 of 25 17 December 2007 at 2:56pm | IP Logged |
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Writing the characters will help you memorize them quicker.
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| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6702 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 3 of 25 04 January 2008 at 5:16pm | IP Logged |
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A few days after the previous post, I had a Japanese friend over for Christmas. I didn't do any studying to be honest but spent a lot of time talking in Japanese, which I think really helped my motivation, which had been lagging a bit.
I struggled sometimes when I was talking to her but I think I'd improved from last time I'd seen her, which was several months ago. She commented that she thought my Japanese was really good because she could talk to me entirely in Japanese and I could understand. It was probably an exageration but it was nice to hear anyway. Also, apparently I talked in my sleep in Japanese ... I said 'ikimasenka? ikimasu'(Eng - Shall we go? We're going). *laughs* The only part of the dream that I can remember is that I was on a tour of Japan. It's funny to think that even while I was asleep I was studying Japanese! :) She brought over some kanji DS games for Christmas, which were really fun. 'Taiko no tatsujin DS' (a drumming game) was really fun and we spent a lot of time on that. The really cool part was that you would receive letters every now and then from the game, which is useful for reading comprehension. The drum host that would guide you through the song had a really funny quirk, after each sentence he would say 'don' (badoom, drum sound) and I think I picked up a lot of onomatopeia. I'll certainly be playing it for a while longer. Another thing I bought myself for Christmas was the kanji DS training game 'Nazotte oboeru otona no DS'. I'm finding it really useful, LOADS of exercises and tests. I've started at age 5 and am learning all the readings for level 1 kanji. I struggle with the readings, especially onyomi (so many!) so I think this will be really useful. My friend left a few days before New Year's eve. It was a really good time for everyone I think, and I hope she learned a lot about Christmas traditions in the UK. Apart from that, I've got back into my flashcards, and am determined not to leave them again for so long. It took ages to test myself on all of them! Finished chapter 1 of TY Cantonese and now starting on the kanji compounds in Kanji Starter 2. I'm also trying to use the kanji DS game every two days of so. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6702 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 25 15 January 2008 at 5:58pm | IP Logged |
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So, another week or so.
I've finished chapter 2 of Teach yourself Cantonese and I've run into something puzzling: maai5 maai6 Do those look similar to you? They're the Cantonese words for 'to buy' & 'to sell'. It strange to think that those two words sound almost identical but have distinctly important meanings. I keep wondering where Chinese people mishear the two words in conversation, although, I think it's myself I have to worry about mishearing stuff. As for Japanese, I'm a few days off the end of Kanji Starter 2 and almost at the end of Japanese for Everyone chapter 8. I've just figured out a good method for using this textbook properly as well. Before, I was just reading through the textbook, doing the exercises, but nothing was really sinking in. Now I read through the textbook with my laptop beside me and write down grammar points as I find them. I also make up my own examples to use, which I think helps me figure out to use this grammar stuff in conversations. And of course, I run through the new vocab in jmemorize. A few days ago, when I was a Japanese website I saw the word 楽園。I looked at it for a bit, figured out the meaning, (pleasure - garden), then the reading (raku-en, rakuen, rakuen!) Heaven! How weird, the Japanese word for heaven is made up of the characters pleasure & garden. Previously, I had known what the word for heaven was, I just didn't know what the characters were. (I think rakuen also means 'promised land', please correct me if I'm wrong) Anyway, as my Japanese & Cantonese classes have been cancelled where I live, I'm going to have to make sure to do some serious studying, so I don't lose any of the stuff I've learnt. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6702 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 25 05 February 2008 at 6:34pm | IP Logged |
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I have finished chapter 4 of Teach yourself Cantonese and it's starting to get harder now. It takes a while to work out what long sentences mean, the grammar is different to anything I've studied and I have to keep reminding myself it's not the same as Japanese.
As far as lessons are concerned, I may be getting a private Cantonese tutor soon! A friend of a friend is wanting to learn Cantonese and I suggested we hire a tutor and split the cost, as there aren't any classes anymore. This should help improve my speaking. For Japanese, I've finished Kanji Starter 2 and have started on Remembering the Kanji again. I loaded up the 600 kanji I'd previously learnt on Reviewing the Kanji website and I've been trying to test myself on them. I've run into a bit of a problem with getting the app to work on my computer so I'm going to use the website at my library. I'm hoping to get through Remembering the Kanji as quickly as possible, by September at least. I've managed to keep a good pace of study on the days that I did study, hopefully I will be able to turn this into more regular study sessions. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6702 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 6 of 25 16 February 2008 at 8:16am | IP Logged |
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My study has been going really well recently. I've been working most days for 8 hours or so but I have still been able to keep up with the 2-3 hours of study I do every night. I think work is actually a really good motivator to help you study more; it makes you more aware of the limited time you have. When I wasn't working I seemed to waste whole days watching TV, surfing the internet; anything except studying.
I'm currently working on chapter 6 of TY Cantonese and chapter 11 of JFE. The method I outlined before for JFE seems to be working pretty well, but I've just come across another idea for cementing the grammar points in my head. I'm going to try writing out a little story or script for each chapter of JFE and possibly TY Cantonese; using the grammar points and vocabulary contained in the chapter. This is kind-of an extension of the method I used for JFE, writing out my own examples. Also, I might try showing the stories to Japanese or Cantonese friends, reading it out loud and asking them to correct me. I've also been making use of podcasts a lot. I've been listening to language instruction podcasts (Japanesepod101, Naked Cantonese, Coffee Break Spanish etc) and authentic material podcasts (SBS, Revue de presque, JUNK, The other side journal etc) when I'm working, walking to work and walking around town. I've been managing to get through about 10 podcast episodes a day! Although I'm not making a significant effort to learn of the material (I really don't have enough time!), I think just listening helps to reinforce stuff I've already learned. Coffee Break Spanish is the only one that I'm approaching differently. Because the hosts constantly test you, I've found that just by listening to the podcast once I learn new things. This has become my main Spanish learning resource. And just a few days ago I finally got started on RTK. After 2 weeks of trying to get the unlearnt card pile down from 600 to 0, I gave up and just decided to review it as I learn new kanji. I'm aiming for 20 kanji a day and also to review about 100 expired, failed or new kanji a day. So far, it's been okay, it takes a long time (an hour) but I'm hoping I can reduce the amount of time once the pile of new cards gets down to zero. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6702 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 7 of 25 29 February 2008 at 7:59pm | IP Logged |
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My language learning pace has slowed a bit recently, so I haven't managed to do that much since my last post.
I'm almost finished with chapter 12 of Japanese for Everyone and once I finish I'm going to print out my notes and study them a bit before moving onto the next chapter. I'm up to kanji 760 and finally managed to get the new card pile down to 0, after blitzing through it one free day. I've also been listening to a lot of Japanesepod101 episodes, the intermediate and lower-intermediate levels. As for Cantonese, I'm up to chapter 8 and I've gone ahead and deleted all the Anki flashcards up to that chapter. It was really getting out of hand; 250 flashcards and so much new vocabulary each chapter. So it's a clean slate for chapter 8. Also, I had my first dream in Cantonese, which was a rather confusing one. It involved me visiting a town in China, meeting an old woman and trying to talk to her. I ended up messing up a bit, when she started talking to me, my confused response was 'Cheng3 Man6 ... Nei5 hou3' and forgetting how to say stuff. This is fairly normal for my language dreams though and I think that as my Cantonese improves, so will my Cantonese in my dreams. Spanish is going pretty well too. I've been going to lessons once a week and I'm up to lesson 39 of Coffee Break Spanish. It's been pretty easy so far to pick it up, and I recognise a lot of words from French. I'm trying not to put too much time into learning it though, as it isn't a very big priority and I think I'm reaching saturation levels for how many languages I can take on at once. One day I tried listening to a few episodes of 'Warum Nicht' on my podcast and felt really mentally exhausted after, which I interpreted to be taking on too much at once. (On that day I had listened to 2 episodes of Japanesepod101, 2 episodes of Coffee Break Spanish, 2 episodes of Naked Cantonese, a French news podcast, other authentic material stuff and two German podcasts) I think I might be experiencing burn-out so I'm going to try to take it easy while also not stopping my language study completely; at least while I try and ride this rough patch out. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| rob Diglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5953 days ago 287 posts - 288 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Norwegian, Mandarin | Message 8 of 25 01 March 2008 at 2:21am | IP Logged |
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One thing to be aware of, though you probably already are through the podcasts, is that "Nei hou" is now pronounced "Lei hou".
1 person has voted this message useful |
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