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Japanese from scratch TAC 2015 東亜 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5784 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 1657 of 1702 28 June 2015 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have a number of friends who went to teach English in Japan through private companies rather than the JET programme. They all had pretty good experiences. As native English speakers with university degrees they didn't have any problems getting a job. I understand that these companies recruit in the US as well as the UK. So if you really want to do it, go for it!
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| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4986 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1658 of 1702 28 June 2015 at 6:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks G-Bod. I'm glad to hear they had good experiences and I intend to do it.
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| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4986 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1659 of 1702 06 July 2015 at 9:29am | IP Logged | |||||
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I have a current passport now (and a passport card too just for the heck of it) so I'm ready to leave the US whenever.
I'm leaning towards going for JET since I talked to a coworker who did it and she had a lot of good things to say about it over the alternatives. The big thing being that you get paid more and won't get taken advantage of and there's a lot of support. I'd expect support of some kind from whoever hires me regardless - help making sure I get a place to stay and transportation to and from the job etc. But working in a regular school is really appealing over working at a foreign language school. I've been thinking about what best to do to improve my Japanese and shockingly enough I think I need to make myself work through some text books properly. I'm going to go through making SRS flashcards of the exercises from 耳から覚える文法. I'm using the Japanese for iOS flashcard app to learn the vocabulary I don't know or need review from the book. I'm also going to do SRS for Kanji in Context - for the workbooks. I'm putting in vocabulary from the reference book into Japanese for iOS too. I'm actually testing English to Japanese on there. I can switch it up if I want. I'm organizing the lists by chapter. So I can review a chapter as needed and I therefore won't be killed by a million overdue cards. I'm going to organize the SRS in my flashcard app by chapters too so if I get behind too much I can just work on certain chapters and not be overwhelmed although I might just let the SRS program figure it out I'm not sure. I've been bad about working through a textbook on my own although I've consistently studied Japanese on my own and I am making progress it's haphazard. But I definitely am making progress even if it's not the most efficient progress - I can tell when I talk to people and watch anime. It's always getting better. What a good feeling it would be though if I had worked through Kanji in Context and could say, yeah, I did that. Like reading War and Peace haha. Actually, I think that would be easier. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4467 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 1660 of 1702 06 July 2015 at 11:24am | IP Logged | |||||
Good luck!
You can speak and understand: I'm sure the whole reading thing will sort itself later (once you're there!). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4986 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1661 of 1702 08 July 2015 at 5:52am | IP Logged | |||||
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Ok. Just screw it. I can't stand entering any more anki cards from Kanji in Context. It's too tedious. I'm just
going to read through it as the authors' probably originally intended anyway. Side note. the answer key in the back pulls right out. Of course I notice this -after- I decide to just rip the pages out. This is true of all my other Japanese self study books. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4986 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1662 of 1702 11 July 2015 at 11:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I found a pretty good KiC (Kanji in Context) spreadsheet which may work out well. I am a little torn
between doing it this way and just reading the book. Typing it in was driving me insane and was clearly a big time sink and I don't know how much benefit there was. Inputting vocabulary doesn't seem to help me retain all that much. The spreadsheet I got is missing about half the sentences from each chapter I've gone through so far. It's a big spreadsheet though and seems to draw upon all the chapters in both workbooks. Anyway. I have decided to input 新完全マスター文法N2 into anki. Although it does kind of drive me crazy to input it also - it feels like I'm learning the grammar somewhat in the process so it's not a waste. And I can make some really really good flashcards. Here's an example of the example sentences: Side 1: 桜が満開になろ＿＿とき、雪が降った。 Side 2: 桜が満開になろうとしているとき、雪が降っ た。 (explanation)ー＞〜という変化が起こる少し前 ・もうすぐ〜する。『硬い言い方』 接続：（動詞）う・よう形 ＋としている (warning)！瞬間的なことを表す動詞（始まる・ 幕が開く・など）につく。 All the cards have the grammar explanation for the grammar point being tested so I get it drilled into my head nice and good. I've been doing this since earlier this week and I've inputted up to chapter 3 (of 26) so far. I don't really know how long it will take to get through all of it but there's clearly time before the N2. I'd like to get as far ahead as I can though before my trip to Japan. Oh yeah, I have 3 weeks of vacation on my job at work. I signed up for a 3 week language course in Tokyo this September. I think I'm going to do the whole JET program application process and hope it works out. I am looking at other options too but this one seems the best so far. It depends on how patient I am I think. My current job is ok and I know I will earn more money here than when I go to Japan so there's that too. I think I can cut my expenses a lot though by getting a cheaper apartment, not having a car if I don't need it, etc. I'm thinking again about learning to write kanji. I know it would be a totally useless skill to have in the US but in Japan it may be a bit different. If the Japanese class I'm going to take has us write Japanese out by hand then I might as well get some practice in now before I go. I will follow up with them to see if they do. If they don't do too much writing then that'll be a relief but my experience with Japanese classes in the past has been otherwise. Teachers seem to want you to be able to write Japanese. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4986 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1663 of 1702 13 July 2015 at 6:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm almost done with chapter 4 of 新完全マスター文法N2. Inputting that is. I need to get to srs'ing. I really
feel good about this. Before, I struggled with the Japanese explanations in the book but now I read them and they seem crystal clear and it's like where were you all of my life? Putting this whole book into anki is a pain though. But I'm positive about it so I expect to get there eventually. I talked to the school where I'll be studying Japanese. I was concerned that I haven't made myself write Japanese at all in years. I used to flirt with the idea of making myself do it for all of the vocabulary I learned but it slowed me down so much I gave it up. There's a lot of people online saying it's stupid and you should only do it so far as it helps you to learn to recognize the word when you see it. Well, my experience in the classroom is that Japanese teachers teach you to write Japanese. They may be used to students struggling like hell with that but they still push you to do it anyway. I talked to a representative at the school and she said they do teach writing kanji and if you're bad at it then the teacher will likely give you extra kanji writing homework. I can write a small fraction of the words I can read. I can type them fine. I know them when I see them. I had applied for the 中級 level but according to their placement test I could enter the advanced level. I'm pretty confident in my speaking so when I show up there I doubt that my speaking will hold me back at all. But it seems that I need to learn to write kanji. I really would like to go to Japan for a while to live and work too and I know that every time I set foot into a Japanese classroom writing kanji is going to come up and I am sure it would come up outside a classroom too. Sure it will be forgiven if I can't write it but who wants to suck when they can kick ass? I signed up for skritter. I was using it on my iPad and I haven't written kanji in ages so it's no surprise I was having fun with it last night. I think I did it for 2 hours or so. The problem is that their app doesn't like my hooks on my kanji so I have to redo the same stroke many times on occasion. The kanji 小 and 少 are among the hardest kanjis for me to write. This is pretty frustrating and I've written some posts on their forums I hope to get responses and maybe some tips on how to minimize that. If it weren't for that their app would be worth a subscription when compared to the competition and the alternatives. It is more fun to do than anki or flashcards deluxe srs. Except for strokes with hooks. I also am taking a look at the 新完 全マスター漢字N2. I have this book but didn't go through it previously. It seemed irrelevant but the book apparently teaches you to write kanji. It has a CD and you have to listen to sentences and write them down. It sounds pretty good - if you want to learn to write kanji. I never did but I am interested now. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kraemder Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4986 days ago 1497 posts - 1648 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Japanese | Message 1664 of 1702 13 July 2015 at 8:34am | IP Logged | |||||
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I heard back from the guy that sent me the link for the kanji in context spreadsheet. He asks you to send him pics of the books for copyright reasons. I started studying off of it. It's not setup the way I was doing it. I was adding furigana and underlines just like the textbook and it was a pain. They give the sentence and then a column with the hiragana for the target word. It's up to you to figure out what the target word was. You can obviously figure it out but the anki file I was making was really sweet just time consuming. Anyway, the file they gave me was, as I mentioned in a different post, about 50% different than the textbook I have. I didn't know if the people making the spreadsheet got creative or if they just used the old version and in fact entered it faithfully as presented in the textbook. It turns out the latter. I'm a bit relieved as I was questioning that. I am making an SRS deck using it. It's pretty simple to bring it up in google docs spreadsheet which lets you use rikai-sama and then you can use that to make sentence closed delete cards. And just regular reading the kanji cards. I'd be up to doing a project to input the newer version of the text which I think is better if only because it has more examples. But the old one is good material too I'm sure and they already typed it in so I'm gonna go with that.
The sentences are really a lot better than the Core deck. That deck is good up until N3. At that point, the sentences are really just too basic and I think studying off of it is a disservice and you should move onto anything else. It's frustrating because it is good vocabulary and it has native audio. But I'm never going back to core again. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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