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Japanese from scratch TAC 2015 東亜 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4996 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1665 of 1702 09 August 2015 at 12:07am | IP Logged | |||||
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I finished my accounting class and it's such a relief to be have that distraction out of the way. I passed in
the last assignment on Monday. Of course now I'm focusing on Japanese and my trip this September. It's funny how my boss asked me if I would be coming back and based on my reaction he's all thinking it's possible I won't although I probably will. I will come back but as I've posted here I'm looking to move there and teach English so I think that came across when I answered him hehe. So I thought I would never look at Core 6k/10k again but I am. What happened is that I got this offer from Brainscape to download their new Spanish deck at a discount since I bought the old one already. I didn't buy it but I'm kind of wishing I did but then again I probably won't study it anyway so I shouldn't feel bad. However, one of the selling points of the new deck is that they got a bunch of linguists to help them develop a deck that gave great context for the prompt on side one of the flashcard. Brainscape is a big believer in learning material so that you can produce it rather than passively recognize it. I don't have the example offhand but you an probably find it online via Google. It looked pretty good actually. Of course, when you thinking about it, you hardly need a linguist to develop a deck like that for you. Just put a sentence on side one and there's your context. Closed delete decks do this etc. I never put English sentences on side one however. So I adjusted my Core deck to do an English sentence on side one with the English definition/translation of the target word below in slightly smaller font. I want to make myself look at the sentence to create a context as I go through the deck instead of just seeing the English translation first and not bothering with the sentence. I've only been doing it a day but it's fun. The benefit over closed delete is that it's faster and easier. At least so it seems right now. Of course side two I get the kanjified vocal and Japanese sentence and the native sentence audio. As I mentioned in a previous post, the grammar is generally pretty low level. But the benefit is a pretty good English translation prompt to work with and native audio and it's already made I don't have to make it. I'm pretty happy with it at the moment. I don't know what I'm going to do with the Kanji in Context material I was playing with. I would like to do that too - closed delete. Working off several decks is generally hard for me - I just get into one deck and get through that and feel like I'm done for the day. However, I need to learn all the N2 grammar so my N2 grammar deck is a must. I'm adjusting it to closed delete instead of making myself create a whole sentence however. I think it would work if the vocabulary were all super simple but sometimes the examples from the book use vocabulary that I may know but isn't really tip of the tongue and it makes doing the reps more difficult and I need it to be easy or I'll skip too many days. I let my membership with www.japonin.com or Japanese Online Institute run out. I've taken lessons with them for a couple years now and they've been great. Their 50 minute lessons are designed around teaching you a grammar point and it's small classes 2-5 people. If you're lucky even one on one if nobody else signed up for the lesson. However, it's not like a class where you get tested and have a syllabus and they drill you on stuff from previous lessons. Well some teachers don't do the latter so much but it's still on a test, motivating you to review. So I don't think I learned the grammar so well unless it were something I drilled myself too or just was common enough to come up again and again in my studies. But the lessons are fantastic listening and speaking practice because they don't speak any English. They prepare lesson notes in English for the slides and stuff but they don't speak any English at all. This was invaluable in getting me to a level where I could have a conversation. I may sign up again with them later - they do offer lessons up through N1 level so it's a good resource but I'm going to Japan anyway coming up and I'd rather focus on doing some good self study. I lost a few credits for classes that I had purchased and hadn't gotten a chance to use so that's a shame but can't be helped. I bought too many to begin with I think. I recently got a Mac Book Pro 13''. I actually got one about 5 weeks ago but returned it then got the 15'' top of the line and then returned it and got the 13'' again. I'm really happy with it despite what you may think. When I got it the first time I love it immediately but then got upset that I could barely play Warcraft and figured if I were going to get a new machine I should get one that could at least play an older game on high settings. The 15'' can do that pretty much but it's big. If you look at the measurements it's only 1 lb heavier but carrying it around my apartment felt like I was moving my desktop computer from room to room and going to bed with it etc. Just seemed weird. The 13'' on the other hand isn't too much different than the iPad although it is bigger it feels like a portable device. In the end, having something that I wanted to carry around with me was more important. It also has the benefit of better battery life too by a few hours and is significantly cheaper - although I would be ok paying more for something if I wanted it more. I successfully got kanjitomo going on OS X Yosemite last night which made me really happy. I can now read manga in bed with a powerful OCR dictionary at my fingertips. Right now, the only program I can't use on OS X that I want is subs2srs. I'm reading about VirtualBox and I am pretty sure it works fine with subs2srs from what I've read. My MacMini 2014 can dual boot windows 7 but the new mac book pros 2015 can't - they don't support Windows 7 because it's too old apparently and Apple is on the Microsoft bandwagon making people upgrade. I think VirtualBox could care less however and will let you use any version of Windows you want. I just remembered I signed up for an iTalki session with a new teacher today.. I think. I haven't gotten any reminders. I hope I didn't miss it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4477 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 1666 of 1702 09 August 2015 at 4:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
So are you typing in the example sentences or the exercises from 新完全マスター to create the cloze delete cards or something else? So far I've not found a good way of using Anki to learn grammar and in fact the only thing I've found so far that seems to work is to do the exercises, track what's obviously not sunk in yet, study and then try the same exercises again a few days later. That's all quite time-consuming, as you might imagine! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4996 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1667 of 1702 10 August 2015 at 3:09am | IP Logged | |||||
umm I've played around with a couple methods. I think closed delete is the best . There's an anki grammar deck that's closed delete that seems pretty popular but I don't like it because it doesn't explain the grammar very much. I have to say that the only thing that truly works for me is making myself use the grammar in conversation. So the grammar that's hard to work into conversation I'm bad at.. I was thinking of doing closed deletes with the grammar explanation too on side one of the card. Yes I was copying the grammar explanations into anki. I'm rather liking the English sentences on side 1 to go with vocabulary that I'm doing right now however but it's only been a couple of days. But if I continue liking it then I may make grammar cards with an English translation of the target sentence on side one and the explanation and make myself think of the grammar point and its rules (what verb forms/nouns etc, 接続). I need to get myself doing grammar on anki/flashcards deluxe or I won't do it often enough to make it stick I fear. I'm bad at breaking open text books and doing that but using my computer/smart phone/tablet seems to take less will power. I actually entered ALL the example sentences and exercises from the first 4 chapters of 新完全マスター into anki but then I didn't study it. I since determined that for each grammar point I should just do one or maybe two sentences. The key is to make it easier so I'll actually DO it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 5937 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 1668 of 1702 10 August 2015 at 6:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeah, yeah, yeah, our class we're doing 完全マスター and my textbook is completely thrashed going over these grammar points the last few years. I think by now though, I do seem to be doing a little better. Originally I was learning and forgetting right away, and now I'm learning and maybe forgetting by the next week or so. My new system is at home I read the chapter descriptions of the grammar, and then I do exercises but don't check answers. I go to class, and we do them aloud one by one, and if I screw up, I just screw up and read the wrong answer in front of everyone. For us it's all about the silly "!" type warnings. We go over those, and I don't know -- they're so hard to keep track of really, but there you go.
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| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4996 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1669 of 1702 10 August 2015 at 8:45am | IP Logged | |||||
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Just made myself do some of the reviews of the super 新完全マスター 文法 deck that I made and it's really
nice. I just have to make myself do it. I'm not taking accounting anymore so I have some more time. I don't think I'll ever stop studying vocabulary - it's the most important thing right now for speaking and understanding anime. The grammar is more for the N2. And because I kinda want to know it too just not as much. Studying vocabulary is like taking a college course unto itself. Likewise grammar. And writing kanji. Sure, when you take a Japanese course they mix it all together but you can totally separate them out. When you look at the course I took at the community college it was strong on grammar but weak on kanji and vocabulary. Because one college course wasn't really enough for all of that. It makes all the sense in the world to forget about writing kanji for a while except I'm going to Japan and they value it enough to include it in their course =/. I dunno. I suspect I'm going to focus on vocabulary and grammar even though I'll get embarrassed with my kanji writing later. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| cathrynm Senior Member United States junglevision.co Joined 5937 days ago 910 posts - 1232 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Finnish | Message 1670 of 1702 10 August 2015 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yeah, for me as long as I do anything at all, I figure that's good. Kanji, grammar, vocabulary, it's all good.
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| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4996 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1671 of 1702 15 August 2015 at 8:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It's not too often I find a good anime that's really different from the rest. I'm watching エリン on
Crunchyroll. I think it came out in 2011 about or so and it's 720p (nice step up from 480p so I'm thankful for that). The artwork feels older however which is very much in line with the fantasy theme - it takes place in a medieval setting with fantasy creatures although I don't think I've seen any 'magic' by people. Just a few animals, well one, the オオジョウ (I might be spelling that wrong) seem a bit magical to me. What I love about this anime is that it's fantasy - it doesn't take place in a real world and the characters ring incredibly true. It's amazing. But it's also a bit of a weird anime. When you watch the first few shows it's just like a kids anime. The main character is a 10 year old girl (maybe younger?). She and her friends. And then this -terrible- tragedy occurs. It's unbelievable. I'm 30 episodes in and she's now a teenager or young adult but it took a while for that to happen. Anyway - if you think you might like it I recommend it. I personally didn't cry but it's sad and per the comments other people have. I'm very concerned right now that I'll watch all 50 episodes or whatever it is and it'll be a big tragedy in the end. I was up until 4:30 am last night watching it O.o.. I turned on the subs because I don't want to miss -any- of the plot but a lot of the Japanese isn't too hard. Except when it is hard (probably because they're using older/non used vocabulary some to go with the setting). I could totally just watch without subs and then rewind if I missed something important. I guess that's on me. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4996 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1672 of 1702 23 August 2015 at 12:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I finished エリン. It was a great ending that didn't disappoint. I may rewatch it again especially if I can find
the subs somewhere but I'm not in a big hurry. My big goal for Japanese now is to read as much as I can. I would go nuts on how to study flashcards to learn vocabulary, because, well, my goal has always been to better understand anime and kanji are a pain and they don't really come into that. If you study to read - i.e. recognition flashcards then you may not see such great progress in your ability to understand TV shows and to speak. But if you study production, to remember the Japanese, then I think you'll see faster results with anime. That was my experience but the production flashcards were hard and so it was a big dilemma. I'm now pushing to read. I am going to neglect any flashcards that aren't oriented with that goal in mind. I'm reading a light novel on a website right now. It takes place in the world of Elder Tale so it's a fantasy story. That's pretty much my favorite genre so it's a bit of a pain but if I get through the hard parts and used to the new genre specific vocabulary it'll open up some doors for me. I'm confident that heavy reading is going to help the rest of my Japanese too. It's probably the only way to get to an advanced level where you really understand spoken Japanese well. My trip to Japan is coming up. I'm pretty excited but it's a bit surreal. I have Japanese money, my phone will work in Japan, and I have no idea what else to do to get ready. Edited by kraemder on 23 August 2015 at 9:25pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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