Aozora's Log for Japanese and French

[tuckamore]

Hopefully in a few weeks I can report back on how it actually works out for me.

I'd be eager to hear how it goes for you! Good luck.

[Aozora]

French

Reading more on LingQ. I started reading The Linguist; it's challenging but manageable. I'm also reading some news articles from the "Actualité du jour" course. These articles can be pretty dense with new words, but I can still understand them thanks to the pop-up dictionary and google translate for phrases. Today I went back to a course I read about a week ago(?) and it's much easier to read now. I found some animal documentaries to watch on Youtube (here's one of them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUJZp9R037Q).

Japanese

I'm taking advantage of my LingQ subscription and reading Japanese on LingQ too (also signed up for the Japanese 90 day challenge). Unfortunately I can't seem to import texts because of the lack of word spacing (it counted everything between punctuation as one word). The idea of learning words without having to write them down and look them up later manually and SRS them is very nice. I'm also still reading Online!

I want to do my shadowing practice at least every other day, but it's getting pushed aside more and more since I finished the first essay.

[Aozora]

I'm really feeling the difference between learning Japanese and French right now. With French I'm picking up words at a pretty good pace just reading on LingQ, and encountering the words over and over in the texts. I'm about 1/3rd through reading The Linguist. I do understand that the words getting reinforced are very common words and less common words would take more work. But with Japanese, it's like a wall with new words. Nothings moving from unknown to known. I really feel I need to study them intentionally, and not just keep reading. Again, the words I need to learn for Japanese are lower frequency which doesn't help, I'm just disheartened that learning Japanese words takes more effort even though I've been learning it for years. My dream of leaving flashcards behind may be short-lived...

For others learning Japanese, what is your experience learning words through context and exposure? Do you ever find you can learn what you need without deliberate study?

[Sizen]

For others learning Japanese, what is your experience learning words through context and exposure? Do you ever find you can learn what you need without deliberate study?

So I've plateau'ed with Japanese and French many times in the past. I've gotten to a point where I feel that no amount of reading, listening or talking is going to do me any good, and surely enough, I don't seem to be making any gains in any aspect of language learning. What I've noticed about myself, personally, is that this is usually the point at which I've stopped consuming media or conversing with the explicit goal of truly understanding the messages that are trying to be conveyed to me. In other words, when I just start reading for the sake of reading or chatting for the sake of chatting because "you're supposed to be able to learn through 100% osmosis".

I forget who said it, but I seem to remember a quote about the internet, which can be summarized along the lines of, "The internet is a great learning tool, but you have to have clear goals before you log on every day. Otherwise, you can just as easily end up spending the whole day looking at cat pictures or mindlessly watching videos." I think that this can also be said for any form of learning using any tool: you need to know what you want out of it before you start.

Personally, I've recently had a cognitive shift when it comes to learning from "I need to read this text to acquire vocabulary" to "I need to read this text to understand the actual message behind it". This means I have to engage myself, which can also sometimes mean I need to make an effort and actually study an entire text. But the point is that by choosing materials that I'm quite interested in and that I want to understand, and by making some form of effort to understand and enjoy the text beyond simply just looking up the words, I end up remembering a lot of words I didn't initially intend to learn or remember. And sometimes these are words or expressions I didn't even look up.

It's kind of hard to explain since it feels like such a small, psychological change, but it's been making a huge difference for me with Japanese. Like, I've been reading the news in Japanese and sometimes words that I don't even know in English just stick without even trying.

Maybe I'll try to get my thoughts together and write a log update about this at some other point...

[Aozora]

Personally, I've recently had a cognitive shift when it comes to learning from "I need to read this text to acquire vocabulary" to "I need to read this text to understand the actual message behind it". This means I have to engage myself, which can also sometimes mean I need to make an effort and actually study an entire text. But the point is that by choosing materials that I'm quite interested in and that I want to understand, and by making some form of effort to understand and enjoy the text beyond simply just looking up the words, I end up remembering a lot of words I didn't initially intend to learn or remember. And sometimes these are words or expressions I didn't even look up.

Thanks for your reply! When you read this way, is it like intensive reading, looking things up and working out how it fits together? Or is it more like reading a really good book, where you just enjoy the text and want to find out what happens next?


In retrospect I do find when I'm rereading a Japanese book, many of the words I marked as "unknown" but never looked up, I know what they mean the second time around (with my paper books I mark words I want to look up, but sometimes I just finish the book and never look anything up).

[AndyMeg]

Personally, I've recently had a cognitive shift when it comes to learning from "I need to read this text to acquire vocabulary" to "I need to read this text to understand the actual message behind it". This means I have to engage myself, which can also sometimes mean I need to make an effort and actually study an entire text. But the point is that by choosing materials that I'm quite interested in and that I want to understand, and by making some form of effort to understand and enjoy the text beyond simply just looking up the words, I end up remembering a lot of words I didn't initially intend to learn or remember. And sometimes these are words or expressions I didn't even look up.

It's kind of hard to explain since it feels like such a small, psychological change, but it's been making a huge difference for me with Japanese. Like, I've been reading the news in Japanese and sometimes words that I don't even know in English just stick without even trying.

I think that's the power of emotional connection and being engaged in something you enjoy.

Emotion is a very powerful, but often forgotten, memory tool and learning aid. It is easier to remember things with which you have an emotional connection of some kind.

For others learning Japanese, what is your experience learning words through context and exposure? Do you ever find you can learn what you need without deliberate study?

I've found out I learn a lot by active engagment. I try to use native material I feel really interested in. I end up putting a lot of effort into understanding it, but it doesn't bore me because my interest for the deeper meaning is genuine and makes it easier to maintain my attention focused for longer periods of time.

The best form of learning (as I see it) is when you feel so truly engaged in the material that you don't see it like study time, but more like pure enjoyment time. That's how I made a huge leap with my english, that's the main principle I'm using in my approach to korean, and that's what gave me the best results with japanese (and it is something I'll start to do/use again in my japanese "study" routine).

[Sizen]

Thanks for your reply! When you read this way, is it like intensive reading, looking things up and working out how it fits together? Or is it more like reading a really good book, where you just enjoy the text and want to find out what happens next?

It depends a bit on the text, but it's mostly both. When I'm reading the news, for example, I'm compelled to look up at lot more words in order to fully understand the text, but there'll always be a number of words whose meaning I can easily glean from the context. Those words I can guess are usually the ones that I don't feel a very strong need to study to "acquire". There will be other words that are simply crucial to know if I want to follow a story as it develops, and those ones pop up many times over during the time that the story's being covered. Because of the constant exposure and pivotal role those words play in my understanding, I don't really need to study those either. Don't get me wrong: I'm still looking up a lot of words. Although, it feels less like work because I'm doing it for myself.

For other texts, especially ones with a higher concentration of words I know, I often don't look at the dictionary unless I'm completely stumped. Or sometimes, I'll read through the entire text and after, try to recall the words I wasn't sure about and look them up. I find with these texts I have an easy time guessing what words mean because not only am I concentrated on the story, I'm also appreciating word choice and thinking about the meaning and nuance of words I know and words I don't know. I'm also just enjoying the ride: I want to know what happens next, but I'm not rushing myself to get to the end.

In both cases, I feel like I'm in a state close to "flow" where my mind is completely invested in the text. The bizarre part is that it almost feels like a choice. When I'm in a good mood and not particularly tired (mentally or physically), I can decide before reading a text that I'm going to enjoy it, understand it and learn from it. And then I do.

So yeah, it's both. It may sound like study, but I assure you it doesn't feel that way to me at all, especially since the most review I ever do is writing down random words I can remember when I've got a moment and nothing better to do.

[Aozora]

Thanks for the replies. I've been thinking my source of frustration with Japanese last time came from forcing myself to read texts I wasn't enjoying. Unfortunately I don't like news articles, or nonfiction articles/podcasts about cultural points like holidays, Meishi, Geisha etc. which is mostly what I've been reading on LingQ. I tried to import a text to read, but because Japanese doesn't have spacing, the LingQ system interpreted everything between punctuation marks as one word. There must be a way around that.

Anyway, I've decided to just make sure I'm reading texts I enjoy that are roughly n+1. And of course I need to make sure I read regularly or I won't see new words often enough to build synergy.


Japanese

I finished rereading Online! and I started on Murakami Haruki's novel 色彩を持たない多崎つくると、彼の巡礼の年. I'm only a few pages in but it seems manageable. I also found an audiobook reading of it on Youtube, here's the first recording https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxIe9xSSAKg&t=187s This channel looks like they have other content that might be good for listening.

French

Still reading on LingQ. I bought an e-book of Practice Makes Perfect: Complete French Grammar. Would the best approach just be to go through the explanations and exercises cover to cover? It would be nice to have some writing skills in French. It's all too easy to glaze over the technical details of grammar while reading.

[Aozora]

Japanese

I read 20 more pages 色彩を持たない多崎つくると、彼の巡礼の年, and now I can say it's at a good level for me to read. I'd even say it's easier than Haruhi Suzumiya. I made a bunch of paper flashcards (72 words) for all the new vocab from Online! and this novel so far and drilled them.

[tuckamore]

I'm really feeling the difference between learning Japanese and French right now.

But with Japanese, it's like a wall with new words.

I'm just disheartened that learning Japanese words takes more effort even though I've been learning it for years. My dream of leaving flashcards behind may be short-lived...

These quotes -- freaky. It's as if you've read my thoughts. After studying Japanese for so long, I was/am stunned at how quickly I was able to read books written in French. This progress was bitter sweet -- sweet for French, but bitter for Japanese. "Disheartened" is a good descriptor. I also had 'a dream of leaving flashcards behind' and I did, for years. But, I just went back to them in February. My new approach is to be very selective with the words I'm studying. I'm only incorporating words I come across while reading, but I'm studying them through subs2srs cards. So, only words I'd be more likely hear. For years, my Japanese exposure has almost exclusively been extensive audio-input, and I'm finding it easier to remember words when I hear them in context (not sure if this is the result of all the audio exposure?). In contrast, reading in context doesn't seem to work as well for me with Japanese as it does in French. My cards are formatted with both audio and Japanese subs on the front (I'm using Anki). Although I'm mostly focusing on listening to the sentence, I'm not ignoring the reading. Some weeks in, and I'm already seeing gains in reading and listening. Of course, this approach will not help me with words that are primarily used in writing. But, for the time being, there are enough words found in my subtitles+audio deck to keep me busy.